note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h.zip) a son of the middle border by hamlin garland * * * * * [illustration] january twenty-second. dear mrs. lecron: in the spring of , after finishing my life of ulysses s. grant, i began to plan to go into the klondike over the telegraph trail. one day in showing the maps of my route to william dean howells, i said, "i shall go in here and come out there," a trail of nearly twelve hundred miles through an almost unknown country. as i uttered this i suddenly realized that i was starting on a path holding many perils and that i might not come back. with this in mind, i began to dictate the story of my career up to that time. it was put in the third person but it was my story and the story of my people, the garlands and the mcclintocks. this manuscript, crude and hasty as it was, became the basis of a son of the middle border. it was the beginning of a four-volume autobiography which it has taken me fifteen years to write. as a typical mid-west settler i felt that the history of my family would be, in a sense, the chronicle of the era of settlement lying between and . i designedly kept it intimate and personal, the joys and sorrows of a group of migrating families. of the four books, volume one, the trail makers, is based upon my memory of the talk around a pioneer fireside. the other three volumes are as true as my own memory can make them. hamlin garland * * * * * a son of the middle border by hamlin garland [illustration] grosset & dunlap publishers by arrangement with the macmillan company printed in the united states of america copyright, and by p. f. collier & son copyright, by hamlin garland set up and electrotyped. published august, . reprinted march, , december, . reissued, january, , february, . contents chapter page i. home from the war ii. the mcclintocks iii. the home in the coulee iv. father sells the farm v. the last threshing in the coulee vi. david and his violin vii. winnesheik "woods and prairie lands" viii. we move again ix. our first winter on the prairie x. the homestead on the knoll xi. school life xii. chores and almanacs xiii. boy life on the prairie xiv. wheat and the harvest xv. harriet goes away xvi. we move to town xvii. a taste of village life xviii. back to the farm xix. end of school days xx. the land of the dakotas xxi. the grasshopper and the ant xxii. we discover new england xxiii. coasting down mt. washington xxiv. tramping, new york, washington, and chicago xxv. the land of the straddle-bug xxvi. on to boston xxvii. enter a friend xxviii. a visit to the west xxix. i join the anti-poverty brigade xxx. my mother is stricken xxxi. main travelled roads xxxii. the spirit of revolt xxxiii. the end of the sunset trail xxxiv. we go to california xxxv. the homestead in the valley a son of the middle border [illustration] a son of the middle border chapter i home from the war all of this universe known to me in the year was bounded by the wooded hills of a little wisconsin coulee, and its center was the cottage in which my mother was living alone--my father was in the war. as i project myself back into that mystical age, half lights cover most of the valley. the road before our doorstone begins and ends in vague obscurity--and granma green's house at the fork of the trail stands on the very edge of the world in a sinister region peopled with bears and other menacing creatures. beyond this point all is darkness and terror. it is sunday afternoon and my mother and her three children, frank, harriet and i (all in our best dresses) are visiting the widow green, our nearest neighbor, a plump, jolly woman whom we greatly love. the house swarms with stalwart men and buxom women and we are all sitting around the table heaped with the remains of a harvest feast. the women are "telling fortunes" by means of tea-grounds. mrs. green is the seeress. after shaking the cup with the grounds at the bottom, she turns it bottom side up in a saucer. then whirling it three times to the right and three times to the left, she lifts it and silently studies the position of the leaves which cling to the sides of the cup, what time we all wait in breathless suspense for her first word. "a soldier is coming to you!" she says to my mother. "see," and she points into the cup. we all crowd near, and i perceive a leaf with a stem sticking up from its body like a bayonet over a man's shoulder. "he is almost home," the widow goes on. then with sudden dramatic turn she waves her hand toward the road, "heavens and earth!" she cries. "there's richard now!" we all turn and look toward the road, and there, indeed, is a soldier with a musket on his back, wearily plodding his way up the low hill just north of the gate. he is too far away for mother to call, and besides i think she must have been a little uncertain, for he did not so much as turn his head toward the house. trembling with excitement she hurries little frank into his wagon and telling hattie to bring me, sets off up the road as fast as she can draw the baby's cart. it all seems a dream to me and i move dumbly, almost stupidly like one in a mist.... we did not overtake the soldier, that is evident, for my next vision is that of a blue-coated figure leaning upon the fence, studying with intent gaze our empty cottage. i cannot, even now, precisely divine why he stood thus, sadly contemplating his silent home,--but so it was. his knapsack lay at his feet, his musket was propped against a post on whose top a cat was dreaming, unmindful of the warrior and his folded hands. he did not hear us until we were close upon him, and even after he turned, my mother hesitated, so thin, so hollow-eyed, so changed was he. "richard, is that you?" she quaveringly asked. his worn face lighted up. his arms rose. "yes, belle! here i am," he answered. nevertheless though he took my mother in his arms, i could not relate him to the father i had heard so much about. to me he was only a strange man with big eyes and care-worn face. i did not recognize in him anything i had ever known, but my sister, who was two years older than i, went to his bosom of her own motion. she knew him, whilst i submitted to his caresses rather for the reason that my mother urged me forward than because of any affection i felt for him. frank, however, would not even permit a kiss. the gaunt and grizzled stranger terrified him. "come here, my little man," my father said.--"_my little man!_" across the space of half-a-century i can still hear the sad reproach in his voice. "won't you come and see your poor old father when he comes home from the war?" "my little man!" how significant that phrase seems to me now! the war had in very truth come between this patriot and his sons. i had forgotten him--the baby had never known him. frank crept beneath the rail fence and stood there, well out of reach, like a cautious kitten warily surveying an alien dog. at last the soldier stooped and drawing from his knapsack a big red apple, held it toward the staring babe, confidently calling, "now, i guess he'll come to his poor old pap home from the war." the mother apologized. "he doesn't know you, dick. how could he? he was only nine months old when you went away. he'll go to you by and by." the babe crept slowly toward the shining lure. my father caught him despite his kicking, and hugged him close. "now i've got you," he exulted. then we all went into the little front room and the soldier laid off his heavy army shoes. my mother brought a pillow to put under his head, and so at last he stretched out on the floor the better to rest his tired, aching bones, and there i joined him. "oh, belle!" he said, in tones of utter content. "this is what i've dreamed about a million times." frank and i grew each moment more friendly and soon began to tumble over him while mother hastened to cook something for him to eat. he asked for "hot biscuits and honey and plenty of coffee." that was a mystic hour--and yet how little i can recover of it! the afternoon glides into evening while the soldier talks, and at last we all go out to the barn to watch mother milk the cow. i hear him ask about the crops, the neighbors.--the sunlight passes. mother leads the way back to the house. my father follows carrying little frank in his arms. he is a "strange man" no longer. each moment his voice sinks deeper into my remembrance. he is my father--that i feel ringing through the dim halls of my consciousness. harriet clings to his hand in perfect knowledge and confidence. we eat our bread and milk, the trundle-bed is pulled out, we children clamber in, and i go to sleep to the music of his resonant voice recounting the story of the battles he had seen, and the marches he had made. the emergence of an individual consciousness from the void is, after all, the most amazing fact of human life and i should like to spend much of this first chapter in groping about in the luminous shadow of my infant world because, deeply considered, childish impressions are the fundamentals upon which an author's fictional out-put is based; but to linger might weary my reader at the outset, although i count myself most fortunate in the fact that my boyhood was spent in the midst of a charming landscape and during a certain heroic era of western settlement. the men and women of that far time loom large in my thinking for they possessed not only the spirit of adventurers but the courage of warriors. aside from the natural distortion of a boy's imagination i am quite sure that the pioneers of still retained something broad and fine in their action, something a boy might honorably imitate. the earliest dim scene in my memory is that of a soft warm evening. i am cradled in the lap of my sister harriet who is sitting on the door-step beneath a low roof. it is mid-summer and at our feet lies a mat of dark-green grass from which a frog is croaking. the stars are out, and above the high hills to the east a mysterious glow is glorifying the sky. the cry of the small animal at last conveys to my sister's mind a notion of distress, and rising she peers closely along the path. starting back with a cry of alarm, she calls and my mother hurries out. she, too, examines the ground, and at last points out to me a long striped snake with a poor, shrieking little tree-toad in its mouth. the horror of this scene fixes it in my mind. my mother beats the serpent with a stick. the mangled victim hastens away, and the curtain falls. i must have been about four years old at this time, although there is nothing to determine the precise date. our house, a small frame cabin, stood on the eastern slope of a long ridge and faced across a valley which seemed very wide to me then, and in the middle of it lay a marsh filled with monsters, from which the water people sang night by night. beyond was a wooded mountain. this doorstone must have been a favorite evening seat for my sister, for i remember many other delicious gloamings. bats whirl and squeak in the odorous dusk. night hawks whiz and boom, and over the dark forest wall a prodigious moon miraculously rolls. fire-flies dart through the grass, and in a lone tree just outside the fence, a whippoorwill sounds his plaintive note. sweet, very sweet, and wonderful are all these! the marsh across the lane was a sinister menacing place even by day for there (so my sister harriet warned me) serpents swarmed, eager to bite runaway boys. "and if you step in the mud between the tufts of grass," she said, "you will surely sink out of sight."--at night this teeming bog became a place of dank and horrid mystery. bears and wolves and wildcats were reported as ruling the dark woods just beyond--only the door yard and the road seemed safe for little men--and even there i wished my mother to be within immediate call. my father who had bought his farm "on time," just before the war, could not enlist among the first volunteers, though he was deeply moved to do so, till his land was paid for--but at last in on the very day that he made the last payment on the mortgage, he put his name down on the roll and went back to his wife, a soldier. i have heard my mother say that this was one of the darkest moments of her life and if you think about it you will understand the reason why. my sister was only five years old, i was three and frank was a babe in the cradle. broken hearted at the thought of the long separation, and scared by visions of battle my mother begged the soldier not to go; but he was of the stern stuff which makes patriots--and besides his name was already on the roll, therefore he went away to join grant's army at vicksburg. "what sacrifice! what folly!" said his pacifist neighbors--"to leave your wife and children for an idea, a mere sentiment; to put your life in peril for a striped silken rag." but he went. for thirteen dollars a month he marched and fought while his plow rusted in the shed and his cattle called to him from their stalls. my conscious memory holds nothing of my mother's agony of waiting, nothing of the dark days when the baby was ill and the doctor far away--but into my subconscious ear her voice sank, and the words _grant_, _lincoln_, _sherman_, "_furlough_," "_mustered out_," ring like bells, deep-toned and vibrant. i shared dimly in every emotional utterance of the neighbors who came to call and a large part of what i am is due to the impressions of these deeply passionate and poetic years. dim pictures come to me. i see my mother at the spinning wheel, i help her fill the candle molds. i hold in my hands the queer carding combs with their crinkly teeth, but my first definite connected recollection is the scene of my father's return at the close of the war. i was not quite five years old, and the events of that day are so commingled with later impressions,--experiences which came long after--that i cannot be quite sure which are true and which imagined, but the picture as a whole is very vivid and very complete. thus it happened that my first impressions of life were martial, and my training military, for my father brought back from his two years' campaigning under sherman and thomas the temper and the habit of a soldier. he became naturally the dominant figure in my horizon, and his scheme of discipline impressed itself almost at once upon his children. i suspect that we had fallen into rather free and easy habits under mother's government, for she was too jolly, too tender-hearted, to engender fear in us even when she threatened us with a switch or a shingle. we soon learned, however, that the soldier's promise of punishment was swift and precise in its fulfillment. we seldom presumed a second time on his forgetfulness or tolerance. we knew he loved us, for he often took us to his knees of an evening and told us stories of marches and battles, or chanted war-songs for us, but the moments of his tenderness were few and his fondling did not prevent him from almost instant use of the rod if he thought either of us needed it. his own boyhood had been both hard and short. born of farmer folk in oxford county, maine, his early life had been spent on the soil in and about lock's mills with small chance of schooling. later, as a teamster, and finally as shipping clerk for amos lawrence, he had enjoyed three mightily improving years in boston. he loved to tell of his life there, and it is indicative of his character to say that he dwelt with special joy and pride on the actors and orators he had heard. he could describe some of the great scenes and repeat a few of the heroic lines of shakespeare, and the roll of his deep voice as he declaimed, "now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of york," thrilled us--filled us with desire of something far off and wonderful. but best of all we loved to hear him tell of "logan at peach tree creek," and "kilpatrick on the granny white turnpike." he was a vivid and concise story-teller and his words brought to us (sometimes all too clearly), the tragic happenings of the battlefields of atlanta and nashville. to him grant, lincoln, sherman and sheridan were among the noblest men of the world, and he would not tolerate any criticism of them. next to his stories of the war i think we loved best to have him picture "the pineries" of wisconsin, for during his first years in the state he had been both lumberman and raftsman, and his memory held delightful tales of wolves and bears and indians. he often imitated the howls and growls and actions of the wild animals with startling realism, and his river narratives were full of unforgettable phrases like "the jinny bull falls," "old moosinee" and "running the rapids." he also told us how his father and mother came west by way of the erie canal, and in a steamer on the great lakes, of how they landed in milwaukee with susan, their twelve-year-old daughter, sick with the smallpox; of how a farmer from monticello carried them in his big farm wagon over the long road to their future home in green county and it was with deep emotion that he described the bitter reception they encountered in the village. it appears that some of the citizens in a panic of dread were all for driving the garlands out of town--then up rose old hugh mcclintock, big and gray as a grizzly bear, and put himself between the leader of the mob and its victims, and said, "you shall not lay hands upon them. shame on ye!" and such was the power of his mighty arm and such the menace of his flashing eyes that no one went further with the plan of casting the new comers into the wilderness. old hugh established them in a lonely cabin on the edge of the village, and thereafter took care of them, nursing grandfather with his own hands until he was well. "and that's the way the mcclintocks and the garlands first joined forces," my father often said in ending the tale. "but the name of the man who carried your aunt susan in his wagon from milwaukee to monticello i never knew." i cannot understand why that sick girl did not die on that long journey over the rough roads of wisconsin, and what it all must have seemed to my gentle new england grandmother i grieve to think about. beautiful as the land undoubtedly was, such an experience should have shaken her faith in western men and western hospitality. but apparently it did not, for i never heard her allude to this experience with bitterness. in addition to his military character, dick garland also carried with him the odor of the pine forest and exhibited the skill and training of a forester, for in those early days even at the time when i began to remember the neighborhood talk, nearly every young man who could get away from the farm or the village went north, in november, into the pine woods which covered the entire upper part of the state, and my father, who had been a raftsman and timber cruiser and pilot ever since his coming west, was deeply skilled with axe and steering oars. the lumberman's life at that time was rough but not vicious, for the men were nearly all of native american stock, and my father was none the worse for his winters in camp. his field of action as lumberman was for several years, in and around big bull falls (as it was then called), near the present town of wausau, and during that time he had charge of a crew of loggers in winter and in summer piloted rafts of lumber down to dubuque and other points where saw mills were located. he was called at this time, "yankee dick, the pilot." as a result of all these experiences in the woods, he was almost as much woodsman as soldier in his talk, and the heroic life he had led made him very wonderful in my eyes. according to his account (and i have no reason to doubt it) he had been exceedingly expert in running a raft and could ride a canoe like a chippewa. i remember hearing him very forcefully remark, "god forgot to make the man i could not follow." he was deft with an axe, keen of perception, sure of hand and foot, and entirely capable of holding his own with any man of his weight. amid much drinking he remained temperate, and strange to say never used tobacco in any form. while not a large man he was nearly six feet in height, deep-chested and sinewy, and of dauntless courage. the quality which defended him from attack was the spirit which flamed from his eagle-gray eyes. terrifying eyes they were, at times, as i had many occasions to note. as he gathered us all around his knee at night before the fire, he loved to tell us of riding the whirlpools of big bull falls, or of how he lived for weeks on a raft with the water up to his knees (sleeping at night in his wet working clothes), sustained by the blood of youth and the spirit of adventure. his endurance even after his return from the war, was marvellous, although he walked a little bent and with a peculiar measured swinging stride--the stride of sherman's veterans. as i was born in the first smoke of the great conflict, so all of my early memories of green's coulee are permeated with the haze of the passing war-cloud. my soldier dad taught me the manual of arms, and for a year harriet and i carried broom-sticks, flourished lath sabers, and hammered on dishpans in imitation of officers and drummers. canteens made excellent water-bottles for the men in the harvest fields, and the long blue overcoats which the soldiers brought back with them from the south lent many a vivid spot of color to that far-off landscape. all the children of our valley inhaled with every breath this mingled air of romance and sorrow, history and song, and through those epic days runs a deep-laid consciousness of maternal pain. my mother's side of those long months of waiting was never fully delineated, for she was natively reticent and shy of expression. but piece by piece in later years i drew from her the tale of her long vigil, and obtained some hint of the bitter anguish of her suspense after each great battle. it is very strange, but i cannot define her face as i peer back into those childish times, though i can feel her strong arms about me. she seemed large and quite middle-aged to me, although she was in fact a handsome girl of twenty-three. only by reference to a rare daguerreotype of the time am i able to correct this childish impression. our farm lay well up in what is called green's coulee, in a little valley just over the road which runs along the lacrosse river in western wisconsin. it contained one hundred and sixty acres of land which crumpled against the wooded hills on the east and lay well upon a ridge to the west. only two families lived above us, and over the height to the north was the land of the red people, and small bands of their hunters used occasionally to come trailing down across our meadow on their way to and from lacrosse, which was their immemorial trading point. sometimes they walked into our house, always without knocking--but then we understood their ways. no one knocks at the wigwam of a red neighbor, and we were not afraid of them, for they were friendly, and our mother often gave them bread and meat which they took (always without thanks) and ate with much relish while sitting beside our fire. all this seemed very curious to us, but as they were accustomed to share their food and lodging with one another so they accepted my mother's bounty in the same matter-of-fact fashion. once two old fellows, while sitting by the fire, watched frank and me bringing in wood for the kitchen stove, and smiled and muttered between themselves thereat. at last one of them patted my brother on the head and called out admiringly, "small pappoose, heap work--good!" and we were very proud of the old man's praise. chapter ii the mcclintocks the members of my mother's family must have been often at our home during my father's military service in the south, but i have no mental pictures of them till after my father's homecoming in ' . their names were familiar--were, indeed, like bits of old-fashioned song. "richard" was a fine and tender word in my ear, but "david" and "luke," "deborah" and "samantha," and especially "hugh," suggested something alien as well as poetic. they all lived somewhere beyond the hills which walled our coulee on the east, in a place called salem, and i was eager to visit them, for in that direction my universe died away in a luminous mist of unexplored distance. i had some notion of its near-by loveliness for i had once viewed it from the top of the tall bluff which stood like a warder at the gate of our valley, and when one bright morning my father said, "belle, get ready, and we'll drive over to grandad's," we all became greatly excited. in those days people did not "call," they went "visitin'." the women took their knitting and stayed all the afternoon and sometimes all night. no one owned a carriage. each family journeyed in a heavy farm wagon with the father and mother riding high on the wooden spring seat while the children jounced up and down on the hay in the bottom of the box or clung desperately to the side-boards to keep from being jolted out. in such wise we started on our trip to the mcclintocks'. the road ran to the south and east around the base of sugar loaf bluff, thence across a lovely valley and over a high wooded ridge which was so steep that at times we rode above the tree tops. as father stopped the horses to let them rest, we children gazed about us with wondering eyes. far behind us lay the lacrosse valley through which a slender river ran, while before us towered wind-worn cliffs of stone. it was an exploring expedition for us. the top of the divide gave a grand view of wooded hills to the northeast, but father did not wait for us to enjoy that. he started the team on the perilous downward road without regard to our wishes, and so we bumped and clattered to the bottom, all joy of the scenery swallowed up in fear of being thrown from the wagon. the roar of a rapid, the gleam of a long curving stream, a sharp turn through a pair of bars, and we found ourselves approaching a low unpainted house which stood on a level bench overlooking a river and its meadows. "there it is. that's grandad's house," said mother, and peering over her shoulder i perceived a group of people standing about the open door, and heard their shouts of welcome. my father laughed. "looks as if the whole mcclintock clan was on parade," he said. it was sunday and all my aunts and uncles were in holiday dress and a merry, hearty, handsome group they were. one of the men helped my mother out and another, a roguish young fellow with a pock-marked face, snatched me from the wagon and carried me under his arm to the threshold where a short, gray-haired smiling woman was standing. "mother, here's another grandson for you," he said as he put me at her feet. she greeted me kindly and led me into the house, in which a huge old man with a shock of perfectly white hair was sitting with a bible on his knee. he had a rugged face framed in a circle of gray beard and his glance was absent-minded and remote. "father," said my grandmother, "belle has come. here is one of her boys." closing his book on his glasses to mark the place of his reading he turned to greet my mother who entered at this moment. his way of speech was as strange as his look and for a few moments i studied him with childish intentness. his face was rough-hewn as a rock but it was kindly, and though he soon turned from his guests and resumed his reading no one seemed to resent it. young as i was i vaguely understood his mood. he was glad to see us but he was absorbed in something else, something of more importance, at the moment, than the chatter of the family. my uncles who came in a few moments later drew my attention and the white-haired dreamer fades from this scene. the room swarmed with mcclintocks. there was william, a black-bearded, genial, quick-stepping giant who seized me by the collar with one hand and lifted me off the floor as if i were a puppy just to see how much i weighed; and david, a tall young man with handsome dark eyes and a droop at the outer corner of his eyelids which gave him in repose a look of melancholy distinction. he called me and i went to him readily for i loved him at once. his voice pleased me and i could see that my mother loved him too. from his knee i became acquainted with the girls of the family. rachel, a demure and sweet-faced young woman, and samantha, the beauty of the family, won my instant admiration, but deb, as everybody called her, repelled me by her teasing ways. they were all gay as larks and their hearty clamor, so far removed from the quiet gravity of my grandmother garland's house, pleased me. i had an immediate sense of being perfectly at home. there was an especial reason why this meeting should have been, as it was, a joyous hour. it was, in fact, a family reunion after the war. the dark days of sixty-five were over. the nation was at peace and its warriors mustered out. true, some of those who had gone "down south" had not returned. luke and walter and hugh were sleeping in the wilderness, but frank and richard were safely at home and father was once more the clarion-voiced and tireless young man he had been when he went away to fight. so they all rejoiced, with only a passing tender word for those whose bodies filled a soldier's nameless grave. there were some boys of about my own age, william's sons, and as they at once led me away down into the grove, i can say little of what went on in the house after that. it must have been still in the warm september weather for we climbed the slender leafy trees and swayed and swung on their tip-tops like bobolinks. perhaps i did not go so very high after all but i had the feeling of being very close to the sky. the blast of a bugle called us to dinner and we all went scrambling up the bank and into the "front room" like a swarm of hungry shotes responding to the call of the feeder. aunt deb, however shooed us out into the kitchen. "you can't stay here," she said. "mother'll feed you in the kitchen." grandmother was waiting for us and our places were ready, so what did it matter? we had chicken and mashed potato and nice hot biscuit and honey--just as good as the grown people had and could eat all we wanted without our mothers to bother us. i am quite certain about the honey for i found a bee in one of the cells of my piece of comb, and when i pushed my plate away in dismay grandmother laughed and said, "that is only a little baby bee. you see this is wild honey. william got it out of a tree and didn't have time to pick all the bees out of it." at this point my memories of this day fuse and flow into another visit to the mcclintock homestead which must have taken place the next year, for it is my final record of my grandmother. i do not recall a single word that she said, but she again waited on us in the kitchen, beaming upon us with love and understanding. i see her also smiling in the midst of the joyous tumult which her children and grandchildren always produced when they met. she seemed content to listen and to serve. she was the mother of seven sons, each a splendid type of sturdy manhood, and six daughters almost equally gifted in physical beauty. four of the sons stood over six feet in height and were of unusual strength. all of them--men and women alike--were musicians by inheritance, and i never think of them without hearing the sound of singing or the voice of the violin. each of them could play some instrument and some of them could play any instrument. david, as you shall learn, was the finest fiddler of them all. grandad himself was able to play the violin but he no longer did so. "'tis the devil's instrument," he said, but i noticed that he always kept time to it. grandmother had very little learning. she could read and write of course, and she made frequent pathetic attempts to open her bible or glance at a newspaper--all to little purpose, for her days were filled from dawn to dark with household duties. i know little of her family history. beyond the fact that she was born in maryland and had been always on the border, i have little to record. she was in truth overshadowed by the picturesque figure of her husband who was of scotch-irish descent and a most singular and interesting character. he was a mystic as well as a minstrel. he was an "adventist"--that is to say a believer in the second coming of christ, and a constant student of the bible, especially of those parts which predicted the heavens rolling together as a scroll, and the destruction of the earth. notwithstanding his lack of education and his rude exterior, he was a man of marked dignity and sobriety of manner. indeed he was both grave and remote in his intercourse with his neighbors. he was like ezekiel, a dreamer of dreams. he loved the old testament, particularly those books which consisted of thunderous prophecies and passionate lamentations. the poetry of _isaiah_, the visions of _the apocalypse_, formed his emotional outlet, his escape into the world of imaginative literature. the songs he loved best were those which described chariots of flaming clouds, the sound of the resurrection trump--or the fields of amaranth blooming "on the other side of jordan." as i close my eyes and peer back into my obscure childish world i can see him sitting in his straight-backed cane-bottomed chair, drumming on the rungs with his fingers, keeping time to some inaudible tune--or chanting with faintly-moving lips the wondrous words of _john_ or _daniel_. he must have been at this time about seventy years of age, but he seemed to me as old as a snow-covered mountain. my belief is that grandmother did not fully share her husband's faith in the second coming but upon her fell the larger share of the burden of entertainment when grandad made "the travelling brother" welcome. his was an open house to all who came along the road, and the fervid chantings, the impassioned prayers of these meetings lent a singular air of unreality to the business of cooking or plowing in the fields. i think he loved his wife and children, and yet i never heard him speak an affectionate word to them. he was kind, he was just, but he was not tender. with eyes turned inward, with a mind filled with visions of angel messengers with trumpets at their lips announcing "the day of wrath," how could he concern himself with the ordinary affairs of human life? too old to bind grain in the harvest field, he was occasionally intrusted with the task of driving the reaper or the mower--and generally forgot to oil the bearings. his absent-mindedness was a source of laughter among his sons and sons-in-law. i've heard frank say: "dad would stop in the midst of a swath to announce the end of the world." he seldom remembered to put on a hat even in the blazing sun of july and his daughters had to keep an eye on him to be sure he had his vest on right-side out. grandmother was cheerful in the midst of her toil and discomfort, for what other mother had such a family of noble boys and handsome girls? they all loved her, that she knew, and she was perfectly willing to sacrifice her comfort to promote theirs. occasionally samantha or rachel remonstrated with her for working so hard, but she only put their protests aside and sent them back to their callers, for when the mcclintock girls were at home, the horses of their suitors tied before the gate would have mounted a small troop of cavalry. it was well that this pioneer wife was rich in children, for she had little else. i do not suppose she ever knew what it was to have a comfortable well-aired bedroom, even in childbirth. she was practical and a good manager, and she needed to be, for her husband was as weirdly unworldly as a farmer could be. he was indeed a sad husbandman. only the splendid abundance of the soil and the manual skill of his sons, united to the good management of his wife, kept his family fed and clothed. "what is the use of laying up a store of goods against the early destruction of the world?" he argued. he was bitterly opposed to secret societies, for some reason which i never fully understood, and the only fury i ever knew him to express was directed against these "dens of iniquity." nearly all his neighbors, like those in our coulee, were native american as their names indicated. the dudleys, elwells, and griswolds came from connecticut, the mcildowneys and mckinleys from new york and ohio, the baileys and garlands from maine. buoyant, vital, confident, these sons of the border bent to the work of breaking sod and building fence quite in the spirit of sportsmen. they were always racing in those days, rejoicing in their abounding vigor. with them reaping was a game, husking corn a test of endurance and skill, threshing a "bee." it was a dudley against a mcclintock, a gilfillan against a garland, and my father's laughing descriptions of the barn-raisings, harvestings and railsplittings of the valley filled my mind with vivid pictures of manly deeds. every phase of farm work was carried on by hand. strength and skill counted high and i had good reason for my idolatry of david and william. with the hearts of woodsmen and fists of sailors they were precisely the type to appeal to the imagination of a boy. hunters, athletes, skilled horsemen--everything they did was to me heroic. frank, smallest of all these sons of hugh, was not what an observer would call puny. he weighed nearly one hundred and eighty pounds and never met his match except in his brothers. william could outlift him, david could out-run him and outleap him, but he was more agile than either--was indeed a skilled acrobat. his muscles were prodigious. the calves of his legs would not go into his top boots, and i have heard my father say that once when the "tumbling" in the little country "show" seemed not to his liking, frank sprang over the ropes into the arena and went around the ring in a series of professional flip-flaps, to the unrestrained delight of the spectators. i did not witness this performance, i am sorry to say, but i have seen him do somersaults and turn cart-wheels in the door-yard just from the pure joy of living. he could have been a professional acrobat--and he came near to being a professional ball-player. he was always smiling, but his temper was fickle. anybody could get a fight out of frank mcclintock at any time, simply by expressing a desire for it. to call him a liar was equivalent to contracting a doctor's bill. he loved hunting, as did all his brothers, but was too excitable to be a highly successful shot--whereas william and david were veritable leather-stockings in their mastery of the heavy, old-fashioned rifle. david was especially dreaded at the turkey shoots of the county. william was over six feet in height, weighed two hundred and forty pounds, and stood "straight as an injun." he was one of the most formidable men of the valley--even at fifty as i first recollect him, he walked with a quick lift of his foot like that of a young chippewa. to me he was a huge gentle black bear, but i firmly believed he could whip any man in the world--even uncle david--if he wanted to. i never expected to see him fight, for i could not imagine anybody foolish enough to invite his wrath. such a man did develop, but not until william was over sixty, gray-haired and ill, and even then it took two strong men to engage him fully, and when it was all over (the contest filled but a few seconds), one assailant could not be found, and the other had to call in a doctor to piece him together again. william did not have a mark--his troubles began when he went home to his quaint little old wife. in some strange way she divined that he had been fighting, and soon drew the story from him. "william mcclintock," said she severely, "hain't you old enough to keep your temper and not go brawling around like that and at a school meeting too!" william hung his head. "well, i dunno!--i suppose my dyspepsy has made me kind o' irritable," he said by way of apology. my father was the historian of most of these exploits on the part of his brothers-in-law, for he loved to exalt their physical prowess at the same time that he deplored their lack of enterprise and system. certain of their traits he understood well. others he was never able to comprehend, and i am not sure that they ever quite understood themselves. a deep vein of poetry, of sub-conscious celtic sadness, ran through them all. it was associated with their love of music and was wordless. only hints of this endowment came out now and again, and to the day of his death my father continued to express perplexity, and a kind of irritation at the curious combination of bitterness and sweetness, sloth and tremendous energy, slovenliness and exaltation which made hugh mcclintock and his sons the jest and the admiration of those who knew them best. undoubtedly to the elwells and dudleys, as to most of their definite, practical, orderly and successful new england neighbors, my uncles were merely a good-natured, easy-going lot of "fiddlers," but to me as i grew old enough to understand them, they became a group of potential poets, bards and dreamers, inarticulate and moody. they fell easily into somber silence. even frank, the most boisterous and outspoken of them all, could be thrown into sudden melancholy by a melody, a line of poetry or a beautiful landscape. the reason for this praise of their quality, if the reason needs to be stated, lies in my feeling of definite indebtedness to them. they furnished much of the charm and poetic suggestion of my childhood. most of what i have in the way of feeling for music, for rhythm, i derive from my mother's side of the house, for it was almost entirely celt in every characteristic. she herself was a wordless poet, a sensitive singer of sad romantic songs. father was by nature an orator and a lover of the drama. so far as i am aware, he never read a poem if he could help it, and yet he responded instantly to music, and was instinctively courtly in manner. his mind was clear, positive and definite, and his utterances fluent. orderly, resolute and thorough in all that he did, he despised william mcclintock's easy-going habits of husbandry, and found david's lack of "push," of business enterprise, deeply irritating. and yet he loved them both and respected my mother for defending them. to me, in those days, the shortcomings of the mcclintocks did not appear particularly heinous. all our neighbors were living in log houses and frame shanties built beside the brooks, or set close against the hillsides, and william's small unpainted dwelling seemed a natural feature of the landscape, but as the years passed and other and more enterprising settlers built big barns, and shining white houses, the gray and leaning stables, sagging gates and roofs of my uncle's farm, became a reproach even in my eyes, so that when i visited it for the last time just before our removal to iowa, i, too, was a little ashamed of it. its disorder did not diminish my regard for the owner, but i wished he would clean out the stable and prop up the wagon-shed. my grandmother's death came soon after our second visit to the homestead. i have no personal memory of the event, but i heard uncle david describe it. the setting of the final scene in the drama was humble. the girls were washing clothes in the yard and the silent old mother was getting the mid-day meal. david, as he came in from the field, stopped for a moment with his sisters and in their talk samantha said: "mother isn't at all well today." david, looking toward the kitchen, said, "isn't there some way to keep her from working?" "you know how she is," explained deborah. "she's worked so long she don't know how to rest. we tried to get her to lie down for an hour but she wouldn't." david was troubled. "she'll have to stop sometime," he said, and then they passed to other things, hearing meanwhile the tread of their mother's busy feet. suddenly she appeared at the door, a frightened look on her face. "why, mother!--what is the matter?" asked her daughter. she pointed to her mouth and shook her head, to indicate that she could not speak. david leaped toward her, but she dropped before he could reach her. lifting her in his strong arms he laid her on her bed and hastened for the doctor. all in vain! she sank into unconsciousness and died without a word of farewell. she fell like a soldier in the ranks. having served uncomplainingly up to the very edge of her evening bivouac, she passed to her final sleep in silent dignity. chapter iii the home in the coulee our postoffice was in the village of onalaska, situated at the mouth of the black river, which came down out of the wide forest lands of the north. it was called a "boom town" for the reason that "booms" or yards for holding pine logs laced the quiet bayou and supplied several large mills with timber. busy saws clamored from the islands and great rafts of planks and lath and shingles were made up and floated down into the mississippi and on to southern markets. it was a rude, rough little camp filled with raftsmen, loggers, mill-hands and boomsmen. saloons abounded and deeds of violence were common, but to me it was a poem. from its position on a high plateau it commanded a lovely southern expanse of shimmering water bounded by purple bluffs. the spires of lacrosse rose from the smoky distance, and steamships' hoarsely giving voice suggested illimitable reaches of travel. some day i hoped my father would take me to that shining market-place whereto he carried all our grain. in this village of onalaska, lived my grandfather and grandmother garland, and their daughter susan, whose husband, richard bailey, a quiet, kind man, was held in deep affection by us all. of course he could not quite measure up to the high standards of david and william, even though he kept a store and sold candy, for he could neither kill a bear, nor play the fiddle, nor shoot a gun--much less turn hand-springs or tame a wild horse, but we liked him notwithstanding his limitations and were always glad when he came to visit us. even at this time i recognized the wide differences which separated the mcclintocks from the garlands. the fact that my father's people lived to the west and in a town helped to emphasize the divergence. all the mcclintocks were farmers, but grandfather garland was a carpenter by trade, and a leader in his church which was to him a club, a forum and a commercial exchange. he was a native of maine and proud of the fact. his eyes were keen and gray, his teeth fine and white, and his expression stern. his speech was neat and nipping. as a workman he was exact and his tools were always in perfect order. in brief he was a yankee, as concentrated a bit of new england as was ever transplanted to the border. hopelessly "sot" in all his eastern ways, he remained the doubter, the critic, all his life. we always spoke of him with formal precision as grandfather garland, never as "grandad" or "granpap" as we did in alluding to hugh mcclintock, and his long prayers (pieces of elaborate oratory) wearied us, while those of grandad, which had the extravagance, the lyrical abandon of poetry, profoundly pleased us. grandfather's church was a small white building in the edge of the village, grandad's place of worship was a vision, a cloud-built temple, a house not made with hands. the contrast between my grandmothers was equally wide. harriet garland was tall and thin, with a dark and serious face. she was an invalid, and confined to a chair, which stood in the corner of her room. on the walls within reach of her hand hung many small pockets, so ordered that she could obtain her sewing materials without rising. she was always at work when i called, but it was her habit to pause and discover in some one of her receptacles a piece of candy or a stick of "lickerish root" which she gave to me "as a reward for being a good boy." she was always making needle rolls and thimble boxes and no doubt her skill helped to keep the family fed and clothed. notwithstanding all divergence in the characters of grandmother garland and grandmother mcclintock, we held them both in almost equal affection. serene, patient, bookish, grandmother garland brought to us, as to her neighbors in this rude river port, some of the best qualities of intellectual boston, and from her lips we acquired many of the precepts and proverbs of our pilgrim forbears. her influence upon us was distinctly literary. she gloried in new england traditions, and taught us to love the poems of whittier and longfellow. it was she who called us to her knee and told us sadly yet benignly of the death of lincoln, expressing only pity for the misguided assassin. she was a constant advocate of charity, piety, and learning. always poor, and for many years a cripple, i never heard her complain, and no one, i think, ever saw her face clouded with a frown. our neighbors in green's coulee were all native american. the first and nearest, al randal and his wife and son, we saw often and on the whole liked, but the whitwells who lived on the farm above us were a constant source of comedy to my father. old port, as he was called, was a mild-mannered man who would have made very little impression on the community, but for his wife, a large and rather unkempt person, who assumed such man-like freedom of speech that my father was never without an amusing story of her doings. she swore in vigorous pioneer fashion, and dominated her husband by force of lung power as well as by a certain painful candor. "port, you're an old fool," she often said to him in our presence. it was her habit to apologize to her guests, as they took their seats at her abundant table, "wal, now, folks, i'm sorry, but there ain't a blank thing in this house fit for a dawg to eat--" expecting of course to have everyone cry out, "oh, mrs. whitwell, this is a splendid dinner!" which they generally did. but once my father took her completely aback by rising resignedly from the table--"come, belle," said he to my mother, "let's go home. i'm not going to eat food not fit for a dog." the rough old woman staggered under this blow, but quickly recovered. "dick garland, you blank fool. sit down, or i'll fetch you a swipe with the broom." in spite of her profanity and ignorance she was a good neighbor and in time of trouble no one was readier to relieve any distress in the coulee. however, it was upon mrs. randal and the widow green that my mother called for aid, and i do not think mrs. whitwell was ever quite welcome even at our quilting bees, for her loud voice silenced every other, and my mother did not enjoy her vulgar stories.--yes, i can remember several quilting bees, and i recall molding candles, and that our "company light" was a large kerosene lamp, in the glass globe of which a strip of red flannel was coiled. probably this was merely a device to lengthen out the wick, but it made a memorable spot of color in the room--just as the watch-spring gong in the clock gave off a sound of fairy music to my ear. i don't know why the ring of that coil had such a wondrous appeal, but i often climbed upon a chair to rake its spirals with a nail in order that i might float away on its "dying fall." life was primitive in all the homes of the coulee. money was hard to get. we always had plenty to eat, but little in the way of luxuries. we had few toys except those we fashioned for ourselves, and our garments were mostly home-made. i have heard my father say, "belle could go to town with me, buy the calico for a dress and be wearing it for supper"--but i fear that even this did not happen very often. her "dress up" gowns, according to certain precious old tintypes, indicate that clothing was for her only a sort of uniform,--and yet i will not say this made her unhappy. her face was always smiling. she knit all our socks, made all our shirts and suits. she even carded and spun wool, in addition to her housekeeping, and found time to help on our kites and bows and arrows. * * * * * month by month the universe in which i lived lightened and widened. in my visits to onalaska, i discovered the great mississippi river, and the minnesota bluffs. the light of knowledge grew stronger. i began to perceive forms and faces which had been hidden in the dusk of babyhood. i heard more and more of lacrosse, and out of the mist filled lower valley the booming roar of steamboats suggested to me distant countries and the sea. my father believed in service. at seven years of age, i had regular duties. i brought firewood to the kitchen and broke nubbins for the calves and shelled corn for the chickens. i have a dim memory of helping him (and grandfather) split oak-blocks into rafting pins in the kitchen. this seems incredible to me now, and yet it must have been so. in summer harriet and i drove the cows to pasture, and carried "switchel" to the men in the hay-fields by means of a jug hung in the middle of a long stick. haying was a delightful season to us, for the scythes of the men occasionally tossed up clusters of beautiful strawberries, which we joyfully gathered. i remember with especial pleasure the delicious shortcakes which my mother made of the wild fruit which we picked in the warm odorous grass along the edge of the meadow. harvest time also brought a pleasing excitement (something unwonted, something like entertaining visitors) which compensated for the extra work demanded of us. the neighbors usually came in to help and life was a feast. there was, however, an ever-present menace in our lives, the snake! during mid-summer months blue racers and rattlesnakes swarmed and the terror of them often chilled our childish hearts. once harriet and i, with little frank in his cart, came suddenly upon a monster diamond-back rattler sleeping by the roadside. in our mad efforts to escape, the cart was overturned and the baby scattered in the dust almost within reach of the snake. as soon as she realized what had happened, harriet ran back bravely, caught up the child and brought him safely away. another day, as i was riding on the load of wheat-sheaves, one of the men, in pitching the grain to the wagon lifted a rattlesnake with his fork. i saw it writhing in the bottom of the sheaf, and screamed out, "a snake, a snake!" it fell across the man's arm but slid harmlessly to the ground, and he put a tine through it. as it chanced to be just dinner time he took it with him to the house and fastened it down near the door of a coop in which an old hen and her brood of chickens were confined. i don't know why he did this but it threw the mother hen into such paroxysms of fear that she dashed herself again and again upon the slats of her house. it appeared that she comprehended to the full the terrible power of the writhing monster. perhaps it was this same year that one of the men discovered another enormous yellow-back in the barnyard, one of the largest ever seen on the farm--and killed it just as it was moving across an old barrel. i cannot now understand why it tried to cross the barrel, but i distinctly visualize the brown and yellow band it made as it lay for an instant just before the bludgeon fell upon it, crushing it and the barrel together. he was thicker than my leg and glistened in the sun with sinister splendor. as he hung limp over the fence, a warning to his fellows, it was hard for me to realize that death still lay in his square jaws and poisonous fangs. innumerable garter-snakes infested the marsh, and black snakes inhabited the edges of the woodlands, but we were not so much afraid of them. we accepted them as unavoidable companions in the wild. they would run from us. bears and wildcats we held in real terror, though they were considered denizens of the darkness and hence not likely to be met with if one kept to the daylight. the "hoop snake" was quite as authentic to us as the blue racer, although no one had actually seen one. den green's cousin's uncle had killed one in michigan, and a man over the ridge had once been stung by one that came rolling down the hill with his tail in his mouth. but den's cousin's uncle, when he saw the one coming toward him, had stepped aside quick as lightning, and the serpent's sharp fangs had buried themselves so deep in the bark of a tree, that he could not escape. various other of the myths common to american boyhood, were held in perfect faith by den and ellis and ed, myths which made every woodland path an ambush and every marshy spot a place of evil. horsehairs would turn to snakes if left in the spring, and a serpent's tail would not die till sundown. once on the high hillside, i started a stone rolling, which as it went plunging into a hazel thicket, thrust out a deer, whose flight seemed fairly miraculous to me. he appeared to drift along the hillside like a bunch of thistle-down, and i took a singular delight in watching him disappear. once my little brother and i, belated in our search for the cows, were far away on the hills when night suddenly came upon us. i could not have been more than eight years old and frank was five. this incident reveals the fearless use our father made of us. true, we were hardly a mile from the house, but there were many serpents on the hillsides and wildcats in the cliffs, and eight is pretty young for such a task. we were following the cows through the tall grass and bushes, in the dark, when father came to our rescue, and i do not recall being sent on a similar expedition thereafter. i think mother protested against the danger of it. her notions of our training were less rigorous. i never hear a cow-bell of a certain timbre that i do not relive in some degree the terror and despair of that hour on the mountain, when it seemed that my world had suddenly slipped away from me. winter succeeds summer abruptly in my memory. behind our house rose a sharp ridge down which we used to coast. over this hill, fierce winds blew the snow, and wonderful, diamonded drifts covered the yard, and sometimes father was obliged to dig deep trenches in order to reach the barn. on winter evenings he shelled corn by drawing the ears across a spade resting on a wash tub, and we children built houses of the cobs, while mother sewed carpet rags or knit our mittens. quilting bees of an afternoon were still recognized social functions and the spread quilt on its frame made a gorgeous tent under which my brother and i camped on our way to "colorado." lath swords and tin-pan drums remained a part of our equipment for a year or two. one stormy winter day, edwin randal, riding home in a sleigh behind his uncle, saw me in the yard and, picking an apple from an open barrel beside which he was standing, threw it at me. it was a very large apple, and as it struck the drift it disappeared leaving a round deep hole. delving there i recovered it, and as i brushed the rime from its scarlet skin it seemed the most beautiful thing in this world. from this vividly remembered delight, i deduce the fact that apples were not very plentiful in our home. my favorite place in winter time was directly under the kitchen stove. it was one of the old-fashioned high-stepping breed, with long hind legs and an arching belly, and as the oven was on top, the space beneath the arch offered a delightful den for a cat, a dog or small boy, and i was usually to be found there, lying on my stomach, spelling out the "continued" stories which came to us in the county paper, for i was born with a hunger for print. we had few books in our house. aside from the bible i remember only one other, a thick, black volume filled with gaudy pictures of cherries and plums, and portraits of ideally fat and prosperous sheep, pigs and cows. it must have been a _farmer's annual_ or state agricultural report, but it contained in the midst of its dry prose, occasional poems like "_i remember, i remember_," "_the old armchair_" and other pieces of a domestic or rural nature. i was especially moved by the old armchair, and although some of the words and expressions were beyond my comprehension, i fully understood the defiant tenderness of the lines: i love it, i love it, and who shall dare to chide me for loving the old armchair? i fear the horticultural side of this volume did not interest me, but this sweetly-sad poem tinged even the gaudy pictures of prodigious plums and shining apples with a literary glamor. the preposterously plump cattle probably affected me as only another form of romantic fiction. the volume also had a pleasant smell, not so fine an odor as the bible, but so delectable that i loved to bury my nose in its opened pages. what caused this odor i cannot tell--perhaps it had been used to press flowers or sprigs of sweet fern. harriet's devotion to literature, like my own, was a nuisance. if my mother wanted a pan of chips she had to wrench one of us from a book, or tear us from a paper. if she pasted up a section of _harper's weekly_ behind the washstand in the kitchen, i immediately discovered a special interest in that number, and likely enough forgot to wash myself. when mother saw this (as of course she very soon did), she turned the paper upside down, and thereafter accused me, with some justice, of standing on my head in order to continue my tale. "in fact," she often said, "it is easier for me to do my errands myself than to get either of you young ones to move." the first school which we attended was held in a neighboring farm-house, and there is very little to tell concerning it, but at seven i began to go to the public school in onalaska and memory becomes definite, for the wide river which came silently out of the unknown north, carrying endless millions of pine logs, and the clamor of saws in the island mills, and especially the men walking the rolling logs with pike-poles in their hands filled me with a wordless joy. to be one of these brave and graceful "drivers" seemed almost as great an honor as to be a captain in the army. some of the boys of my acquaintance were sons of these hardy boomsmen, and related wonderful stories of their fathers' exploits--stories which we gladly believed. we all intended to be rivermen when we grew up. the quiet water below the booms harbored enormous fish at that time, and some of the male citizens who were too lazy to work in the mills got an easy living by capturing cat-fish, and when in liquor joined the rivermen in their drunken frays. my father's tales of the exploits of some of these redoubtable villains filled my mind with mingled admiration and terror. no one used the pistol, however, and very few the knife. physical strength counted. foot and fist were the weapons which ended each contest and no one was actually slain in these meetings of rival crews. in the midst of this tumult, surrounded by this coarse, unthinking life, my grandmother garland's home stood, a serene small sanctuary of lofty womanhood, a temple of new england virtue. from her and from my great aunt bridges who lived in st. louis, i received my first literary instruction, a partial offset to the vulgar yet heroic influence of the raftsmen and mill hands. the school-house, a wooden two story building, occupied an unkempt lot some distance back from the river and near a group of high sand dunes which possessed a sinister allurement to me. they had a mysterious desert quality, a flavor as of camels and arabs. once you got over behind them it seemed as if you were in another world, a far-off arid land where no water ran and only sear, sharp-edged grasses grew. some of these mounds were miniature peaks of clear sand, so steep and dry that you could slide all the way down from top to bottom, and do no harm to your sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. on rainy days you could dig caves in their sides. but the mills and the log booms were after all much more dramatic and we never failed to hurry away to the river if we had half an hour to spare. the "drivers," so brave and skilled, so graceful, held us in breathless admiration as they leaped from one rolling log to another, or walked the narrow wooden bridges above the deep and silently sweeping waters. the piles of slabs, the mounds of sawdust, the intermittent, ferocious snarl of the saws, the slap of falling lumber, the never ending fires eating up the refuse--all these sights and sounds made a return to school difficult. even the life around the threshing machine seemed a little tame in comparison with the life of the booms. we were much at the greens', our second-door neighbors to the south, and the doings of the men-folks fill large space in my memory. ed, the oldest of the boys, a man of twenty-three or four, was as prodigious in his way as my uncle david. he was mighty with the axe. his deeds as a railsplitter rivaled those of lincoln. the number of cords of wood he could split in a single day was beyond belief. it was either seven or eleven, i forget which--i am perfectly certain of the number of buckwheat pancakes he could eat for i kept count on several occasions. once he ate nine the size of a dinner plate together with a suitable number of sausages--but what would you expect of a man who could whirl a six pound axe all day in a desperate attack on the forest, without once looking at the sun or pausing for breath? however, he fell short of my hero in other ways. he looked like a fat man and his fiddling was only middling, therefore, notwithstanding his prowess with the axe and the maul, he remained subordinate to david, and though they never came to a test of strength we were perfectly sure that david was the finer man. his supple grace and his unconquerable pride made him altogether admirable. den, the youngest of the greens, was a boy about three years my senior, and a most attractive lad. i met him some years ago in california, a successful doctor, and we talked of the days when i was his slave and humbly carried his powder horn and game bag. ellis usher, who lived in sand lake and often hunted with den, is an editor in milwaukee and one of the political leaders of his state. in those days he had a small opinion of me. no doubt i _was_ a nuisance. the road which led from our farm to the village school crossed a sandy ridge and often in june our path became so hot that it burned the soles of our feet. if we went out of the road there were sand-burrs and we lost a great deal of time picking needles from our toes. how we hated those sand-burrs!--however, on these sand barrens many luscious strawberries grew. they were not large, but they gave off a delicious odor, and it sometimes took us a long time to reach home. there was a recognized element of danger in this road. wildcats were plentiful around the limestone cliffs, and bears had been seen under the oak trees. in fact a place on the hillside was often pointed out with awe as "the place where al randal killed the bear." our way led past the village cemetery also, and there was to me something vaguely awesome in that silent bivouac of the dead. among the other village boys in the school were two lads named gallagher, one of whom, whose name was matt, became my daily terror. he was two years older than i and had all of a city gamin's cunning and self-command. at every intermission he sidled close to me, walking round me, feeling my arms, and making much of my muscle. sometimes he came behind and lifted me to see how heavy i was, or called attention to my strong hands and wrists, insisting with the most terrifying candor of conviction, "i'm sure you can lick me." we never quite came to combat, and finally he gave up this baiting for a still more exquisite method of torment. my sister and i possessed a dog named rover, a meek little yellow, bow-legged cur of mongrel character, but with the frankest, gentlest and sweetest face, it seemed to us, in all the world. he was not allowed to accompany us to school and scarcely ever left the yard, but matt gallagher in some way discovered my deep affection for this pet and thereafter played upon my fears with a malevolence which knew no mercy. one day he said, "me and brother dan are going over to your place to get a calf that's in your pasture. we're going to get excused fifteen minutes early. we'll get there before you do and we'll fix that dog of yours!--there won't be nothin' left of him but a grease spot when we are done with him." these words, spoken probably in jest, instantly filled my heart with an agony of fear. i saw in imagination just how my little playmate would come running out to meet his cruel foes, his brown eyes beaming with love and trust,--i saw them hiding sharp stones behind their backs while snapping their left-hand fingers to lure him within reach, and then i saw them drive their murdering weapons at his head. i could think of nothing else. i could not study, i could only sit and stare out of the window with tears running down my cheeks, until at last, the teacher observing my distress, inquired, "what is the matter?" and i, not knowing how to enter upon so terrible a tale, whined out, "i'm sick, i want to go home." "you may go," said the teacher kindly. snatching my cap from beneath the desk where i had concealed it at recess, i hurried out and away over the sand-lot on the shortest way home. no stopping now for burrs!--i ran like one pursued. i shall never forget as long as i live, the pain, the panic, the frenzy of that race against time. the hot sand burned my feet, my side ached, my mouth was dry, and yet i ran on and on and on, looking back from moment to moment, seeing pursuers in every moving object. at last i came in sight of home, and rover frisked out to meet me just as i had expected him to do, his tail wagging, his gentle eyes smiling up at me. gasping, unable to utter a word, i frantically dragged the dog into the house and shut the door. "what is the matter?" asked my mother. i could not at the moment explain even to her what had threatened me, but her calm sweet words at last gave my story vent. out it came in torrential flow. "why, you poor child!" she said. "they were only fooling--they wouldn't dare to hurt your dog!" this was probably true. matt had spoken without any clear idea of the torture he was inflicting. it is often said, "how little is required to give a child joy," but men--and women too--sometimes forget how little it takes to give a child pain. chapter iv father sells the farm green's coulee was a delightful place for boys. it offered hunting and coasting and many other engrossing sports, but my father, as the seasons went by, became thoroughly dissatisfied with its disadvantages. more and more he resented the stumps and ridges which interrupted his plow. much of his quarter-section remained unbroken. there were ditches to be dug in the marsh and young oaks to be uprooted from the forest, and he was obliged to toil with unremitting severity. there were times, of course, when field duties did not press, but never a day came when the necessity for twelve hours' labor did not exist. furthermore, as he grubbed or reaped he remembered the glorious prairies he had crossed on his exploring trip into minnesota before the war, and the oftener he thought of them the more bitterly he resented his up-tilted, horse-killing fields, and his complaining words sank so deep into the minds of his sons that for years thereafter they were unable to look upon any rise of ground as an object to be admired. it irked him beyond measure to force his reaper along a steep slope, and he loathed the irregular little patches running up the ravines behind the timbered knolls, and so at last like many another of his neighbors he began to look away to the west as a fairer field for conquest. he no more thought of going east than a liberated eagle dreams of returning to its narrow cage. he loved to talk of boston, to boast of its splendor, but to live there, to earn his bread there, was unthinkable. beneath the sunset lay the enchanted land of opportunity and his liberation came unexpectedly. sometime in the spring of , a merchant from lacrosse, a plump man who brought us candy and was very cordial and condescending, began negotiations for our farm, and in the discussion of plans which followed, my conception of the universe expanded. i began to understand that "minnesota" was not a bluff but a wide land of romance, a prairie, peopled with red men, which lay far beyond the big river. and then, one day, i heard my father read to my mother a paragraph from the county paper which ran like this, "it is reported that richard garland has sold his farm in green's coulee to our popular grocer, mr. speer. mr. speer intends to make of it a model dairy farm." this intention seemed somehow to reflect a ray of glory upon us, though i fear it did not solace my mother, as she contemplated the loss of home and kindred. she was not by nature an emigrant,--few women are. she was content with the pleasant slopes, the kindly neighbors of green's coulee. furthermore, most of her brothers and sisters still lived just across the ridge in the valley of the neshonoc, and the thought of leaving them for a wild and unknown region was not pleasant. to my father, on the contrary, change was alluring. iowa was now the place of the rainbow, and the pot of gold. he was eager to push on toward it, confident of the outcome. his spirit was reflected in one of the songs which we children particularly enjoyed hearing our mother sing, a ballad which consisted of a dialogue between a husband and wife on this very subject of emigration. the words as well as its wailing melody still stir me deeply, for they lay hold of my sub-conscious memory--embodying admirably the debate which went on in our home as well as in the homes of other farmers in the valley,--only, alas! our mothers did not prevail. it begins with a statement of unrest on the part of the husband who confesses that he is about to give up his plow and his cart-- away to colorado a journey i'll go, for to double my fortune as other men do, _while here i must labor each day in the field and the winter consumes all the summer doth yield_. to this the wife replies: dear husband, i've noticed with a sorrowful heart that you long have neglected your plow and your cart, your horses, sheep, cattle at random do run, and your new sunday jacket goes every day on. _oh, stay on your farm and you'll suffer no loss, for the stone that keeps rolling will gather no moss._ but the husband insists: oh, wife, let us go; oh, don't let us wait; i long to be there, and i long to be great, while you some fair lady and who knows but i may be some rich governor long 'fore i die, _whilst here i must labor each day in the field, and the winter consumes all the summer doth yield_. but wife shrewdly retorts: dear husband, remember those lands are so dear they will cost you the labor of many a year. your horses, sheep, cattle will all be to buy, you will hardly get settled before you must die. oh, stay on the farm,--etc. the husband then argues that as in that country the lands are all cleared to the plow, and horses and cattle not very dear, they would soon be rich. indeed, "we will feast on fat venison one-half of the year." thereupon the wife brings in her final argument: oh, husband, remember those lands of delight are surrounded by indians who murder by night. your house will be plundered and burnt to the ground while your wife and your children lie mangled around. this fetches the husband up with a round turn: oh, wife, you've convinced me, i'll argue no more, i never once thought of your dying before. i love my dear children although they are small and you, my dear wife, i love greatest of all. refrain (both together) we'll stay on the farm and we'll suffer no loss for the stone that keeps rolling will gather no moss. this song was not an especial favorite of my father. its minor strains and its expressions of womanly doubts and fears were antipathetic to his sanguine, buoyant, self-confident nature. he was inclined to ridicule the conclusions of its last verse and to say that the man was a molly-coddle--or whatever the word of contempt was in those days. as an antidote he usually called for "o'er the hills in legions, boys," which exactly expressed his love of exploration and adventure. this ballad which dates back to the conquest of the allegheny mountains opens with a fine uplifting note, cheer up, brothers, as we go o'er the mountains, westward ho, where herds of deer and buffalo furnish the fare. and the refrain is at once a bugle call and a vision: then o'er the hills in legions, boys, fair freedom's star points to the sunset regions, boys, ha, ha, ha-ha! and when my mother's clear voice rose on the notes of that exultant chorus, our hearts responded with a surge of emotion akin to that which sent the followers of daniel boone across the blue ridge, and lined the trails of kentucky and ohio with the canvas-covered wagons of the pioneers. a little farther on in the song came these words, when we've wood and prairie land, won by our toil, we'll reign like kings in fairy land, lords of the soil! which always produced in my mind the picture of a noble farm-house in a park-like valley, just as the line, "well have our rifles ready, boys," expressed the boldness and self-reliance of an armed horseman. the significance of this song in the lives of the mcclintocks and the garlands cannot be measured. it was the marching song of my grandfather's generation and undoubtedly profoundly influenced my father and my uncles in all that they did. it suggested shining mountains, and grassy vales, swarming with bear and elk. it called to green savannahs and endless flowery glades. it voiced as no other song did, the pioneer impulse throbbing deep in my father's blood. that its words will not bear close inspection today takes little from its power. unquestionably it was a directing force in the lives of at least three generations of my pioneering race. its strains will be found running through this book from first to last, for its pictures continued to allure my father on and on toward "the sunset regions," and its splendid faith carried him through many a dark vale of discontent. our home was a place of song, notwithstanding the severe toil which was demanded of every hand, for often of an evening, especially in winter time, father took his seat beside the fire, invited us to his knees, and called on mother to sing. these moods were very sweet to us and we usually insisted upon his singing for us. true, he hardly knew one tune from another, but he had a hearty resounding chant which delighted us, and one of the ballads which we especially like to hear him repeat was called _down the ohio_. only one verse survives in my memory: the river is up, the channel is deep, the winds blow high and strong. the flash of the oars, the stroke we keep, as we row the old boat along, down the o-h-i-o. mother, on the contrary, was gifted with a voice of great range and sweetness, and from her we always demanded _nettie wildwood_, _lily dale_, _lorena_ or some of root's stirring war songs. we loved her noble, musical tone, and yet we always enjoyed our father's tuneless roar. there was something dramatic and moving in each of his ballads. he made the words mean so much. it is a curious fact that nearly all of the ballads which the mcclintocks and other of these powerful young sons of the border loved to sing were sad. _nellie wildwood_, _minnie minturn_, _belle mahone_, _lily dale_ were all concerned with dead or dying maidens or with mocking birds still singing o'er their graves. weeping willows and funeral urns ornamented the cover of each mournful ballad. not one smiling face peered forth from the pages of _the home diadem_. lonely like a withered tree, what is all the world to me? light and life were all in thee, sweet belle mahone, wailed stalwart david and buxom deborah, and ready tears moistened my tanned plump cheeks. perhaps it was partly by way of contrast that the jocund song of _freedom's star_ always meant so much to me, but however it came about, i am perfectly certain that it was an immense subconscious force in the life of my father as it had been in the westward marching of the mcclintocks. in my own thinking it became at once a vision and a lure. the only humorous songs which my uncles knew were negro ditties, like _camp town racetrack_ and _jordan am a hard road to trabbel_ but in addition to the sad ballads i have quoted, they joined my mother in _the pirate's serenade_, _erin's green shore_, _bird of the wilderness_, and the memory of their mellow voices creates a golden dusk between me and that far-off cottage. during the summer of my eighth year, i took a part in haying and harvest, and i have a painful recollection of raking hay after the wagons, for i wore no shoes and the stubble was very sharp. i used to slip my feet along close to the ground, thus bending the stubble away from me before throwing my weight on it, otherwise walking was painful. if i were sent across the field on an errand i always sought out the path left by the broad wheels of the mowing machine and walked therein with a most delicious sense of safety. it cannot be that i was required to work very hard or very steadily, but it seemed to me then, and afterward, as if i had been made one of the regular hands and that i toiled the whole day through. i rode old josh for the hired man to plow corn, and also guided the lead horse on the old mccormick reaper, my short legs sticking out at right angles from my body, and i carried water to the field. it appears that the blackbirds were very thick that year and threatened, in august, to destroy the corn. they came in gleeful clouds, settling with multitudinous clamor upon the stalks so that it became the duty of den green to scare them away by shooting at them, and i was permitted to follow and pick up the dead birds and carry them as "game." there was joy and keen excitement in this warfare. sometimes when den fired into a flock, a dozen or more came fluttering down. at other times vast swarms rose at the sound of the gun with a rush of wings which sounded like a distant storm. once den let me fire the gun, and i took great pride in this until i came upon several of the shining little creatures bleeding, dying in the grass. then my heart was troubled and i repented of my cruelty. mrs. green put the birds into potpies but my mother would not do so. "i don't believe in such game," she said. "it's bad enough to shoot the poor things without eating them." once we came upon a huge mountain rattlesnake and den killed it with a shot of his gun. how we escaped being bitten is a mystery, for we explored every path of the hills and meadows in our bare feet, our trousers rolled to the knee. we hunted plums and picked blackberries and hazelnuts with very little fear of snakes, and yet we must have always been on guard. we loved our valley, and while occasionally we yielded to the lure of "freedom's star," we were really content with green's coulee and its surrounding hills. chapter v the last threshing in the coulee life on a wisconsin farm, even for the women, had its compensations. there were times when the daily routine of lonely and monotonous housework gave place to an agreeable bustle, and human intercourse lightened the toil. in the midst of the slow progress of the fall's plowing, the gathering of the threshing crew was a most dramatic event to my mother, as to us, for it not only brought unwonted clamor, it fetched her brothers william and david and frank, who owned and ran a threshing machine, and their coming gave the house an air of festivity which offset the burden of extra work which fell upon us all. in those days the grain, after being brought in and stacked around the barn, was allowed to remain until october or november when all the other work was finished. of course some men got the machine earlier, for all could not thresh at the same time, and a good part of every man's fall activities consisted in "changing works" with his neighbors, thus laying up a stock of unpaid labor against the home job. day after day, therefore, father or the hired man shouldered a fork and went to help thresh, and all through the autumn months, the ceaseless ringing hum and the _bow-ouw, ouw-woo, boo-oo-oom_ of the great balance wheels on the separator and the deep bass purr of its cylinder could be heard in every valley like the droning song of some sullen and gigantic autumnal insect. i recall with especial clearness the events of that last threshing in the coulee.--i was eight, my brother was six. for days we had looked forward to the coming of "the threshers," listening with the greatest eagerness to father's report of the crew. at last he said, "well, belle, get ready. the machine will be here tomorrow." all day we hung on the gate, gazing down the road, watching, waiting for the crew, and even after supper, we stood at the windows still hoping to hear the rattle of the ponderous separator. father explained that the men usually worked all day at one farm and moved after dark, and we were just starting to "climb the wooden hill" when we heard a far-off faint halloo. "there they are," shouted father, catching up his old square tin lantern and hurriedly lighting the candle within it. "that's frank's voice." the night air was sharp, and as we had taken off our boots we could only stand at the window and watch father as he piloted the teamsters through the gate. the light threw fantastic shadows here and there, now lighting up a face, now bringing out the separator which seemed a weary and sullen monster awaiting its den. the men's voices sounded loud in the still night, causing the roused turkeys in the oaks to peer about on their perches, uneasy silhouettes against the sky. we would gladly have stayed awake to greet our beloved uncles, but mother said, "you must go to sleep in order to be up early in the morning," and reluctantly we turned away. lying thus in our cot under the sloping raftered roof we could hear the squawk of the hens, as father wrung their innocent necks, and the crash of the "sweeps" being unloaded sounded loud and clear and strange. we longed to be out there, but at last the dance of lights and shadows on the plastered wall died away, and we fell into childish dreamless sleep. we were awakened at dawn by the ringing beat of the iron mauls as frank and david drove the stakes to hold the "power" to the ground. the rattle of trace chains, the clash of iron rods, the clang of steel bars, intermixed with the laughter of the men, came sharply through the frosty air, and the smell of sizzling sausage from the kitchen warned us that our busy mother was hurrying the breakfast forward. knowing that it was time to get up, although it was not yet light, i had a sense of being awakened into a romantic new world, a world of heroic action. as we stumbled down the stairs, we found the lamp-lit kitchen empty of the men. they had finished their coffee and were out in the stack-yard oiling the machine and hitching the horses to the power. shivering yet entranced by the beauty of the frosty dawn we crept out to stand and watch the play. the frost lay white on every surface, the frozen ground rang like iron under the steel-shod feet of the horses, and the breath of the men rose up in little white puffs of steam. uncle david on the feeder's stand was impatiently awaiting the coming of the fifth team. the pitchers were climbing the stacks like blackbirds, and the straw-stackers were scuffling about the stable door.--finally, just as the east began to bloom, and long streamers of red began to unroll along the vast gray dome of sky uncle frank, the driver, lifted his voice in a "chippewa war-whoop." on a still morning like this his signal could be heard for miles. long drawn and musical, it sped away over the fields, announcing to all the world that the mcclintocks were ready for the day's race. answers came back faintly from the frosty fields where dim figures of laggard hands could be seen hurrying over the plowed ground, the last team came clattering in and was hooked into its place, david called "all right!" and the cylinder began to hum. in those days the machine was either a "j. i. case" or a "buffalo pitts," and was moved by five pairs of horses attached to a "power" staked to the ground, round which they travelled pulling at the ends of long levers or sweeps, and to me the force seemed tremendous. "tumbling rods" with "knuckle joints" carried the motion to the cylinder, and the driver who stood upon a square platform above the huge, greasy cog-wheels (round which the horses moved) was a grand figure in my eyes. driving, to us, looked like a pleasant job, but uncle frank thought it very tiresome, and i can now see that it was. to stand on that small platform all through the long hours of a cold november day, when the cutting wind roared down the valley sweeping the dust and leaves along the road, was work. even i perceived that it was far pleasanter to sit on the south side of the stack and watch the horses go round. it was necessary that the "driver" should be a man of judgment, for the horses had to be kept at just the right speed, and to do this he must gauge the motion of the cylinder by the pitch of its deep bass song. the three men in command of the machine were set apart as "the threshers."--william and david alternately "fed" or "tended," that is, one of them "fed" the grain into the howling cylinder while the other, oil-can in hand, watched the sieves, felt of the pinions and so kept the machine in good order. the feeder's position was the high place to which all boys aspired, and on this day i stood in silent admiration of uncle david's easy powerful attitudes as he caught each bundle in the crook of his arm and spread it out into a broad, smooth band of yellow straw on which the whirling teeth caught and tore with monstrous fury. he was the ideal man in my eyes, grander in some ways than my father, and to be able to stand where he stood was the highest honor in the world. it was all poetry for us and we wished every day were threshing day. the wind blew cold, the clouds went flying across the bright blue sky, and the straw glistened in the sun. with jarring snarl the circling zone of cogs dipped into the sturdy greasy wheels, and the single-trees and pulley-chains chirped clear and sweet as crickets. the dust flew, the whip cracked, and the men working swiftly to get the sheaves to the feeder or to take the straw away from the tail-end of the machine, were like warriors, urged to desperate action by battle cries. the stackers wallowing to their waists in the fluffy straw-pile seemed gnomes acting for our amusement. the straw-pile! what delight we had in that! what joy it was to go up to the top where the men were stationed, one behind the other, and to have them toss huge forkfuls of the light fragrant stalks upon us, laughing to see us emerge from our golden cover. we were especially impressed by the bravery of ed green who stood in the midst of the thick dust and flying chaff close to the tail of the stacker. his teeth shone like a negro's out of his dust-blackened face and his shirt was wet with sweat, but he motioned for "more straw" and david, accepting the challenge, signalled for more speed. frank swung his lash and yelled at the straining horses, the sleepy growl of the cylinder rose to a howl and the wheat came pulsing out at the spout in such a stream that the carriers were forced to trot on their path to and from the granary in order to keep the grain from piling up around the measurer.--there was a kind of splendid rivalry in this backbreaking toil--for each sack weighed ninety pounds. we got tired of wallowing in the straw at last, and went down to help rover catch the rats which were being uncovered by the pitchers as they reached the stack bottom.--the horses, with their straining, out-stretched necks, the loud and cheery shouts, the whistling of the driver, the roar and hum of the great wheel, the flourishing of the forks, the supple movement of brawny arms, the shouts of the men, all blended with the wild sound of the wind in the creaking branches of the oaks, forming a glorious poem in our unforgetting minds. at last the call for dinner sounded. the driver began to call, "whoa there, boys! steady, tom," and to hold his long whip before the eyes of the more spirited of the teams in order to convince them that he really meant "stop." the pitchers stuck their forks upright in the stack and leaped to the ground. randal, the band-cutter, drew from his wrist the looped string of his big knife, the stackers slid down from the straw-pile, and a race began among the teamsters to see whose span would be first unhitched and at the watering trough. what joyous rivalry it seemed to us!-- mother and mrs. randal, wife of our neighbor, who was "changing works," stood ready to serve the food as soon as the men were seated.--the table had been lengthened to its utmost and pieced out with boards, and planks had been laid on stout wooden chairs at either side. the men came in with a rush, and took seats wherever they could find them, and their attack on the boiled potatoes and chicken should have been appalling to the women, but it was not. they enjoyed seeing them eat. ed green was prodigious. one cut at a big potato, followed by two stabbing motions, and it was gone.--two bites laid a leg of chicken as bare as a slate pencil. to us standing in the corner waiting our turn, it seemed that every "smitch" of the dinner was in danger, for the others were not far behind ed and dan. at last even the gauntest of them filled up and left the room and we were free to sit at "the second table" and eat, while the men rested outside. david and william, however, generally had a belt to sew or a bent tooth to take out of the "concave." this seemed of grave dignity to us and we respected their self-sacrificing labor. nooning was brief. as soon as the horses had finished their oats, the roar and hum of the machine began again and continued steadily all the afternoon, till by and by the sun grew big and red, the night began to fall, and the wind died out. this was the most impressive hour of a marvellous day. through the falling dusk, the machine boomed steadily with a new sound, a solemn roar, rising at intervals to a rattling impatient yell as the cylinder ran momentarily empty. the men moved now in silence, looming dim and gigantic in the half-light. the straw-pile mountain high, the pitchers in the chaff, the feeder on his platform, and especially the driver on his power, seemed almost superhuman to my childish eyes. gray dust covered the handsome face of david, changing it into something both sad and stern, but frank's cheery voice rang out musically as he called to the weary horses, "come on, tom! hup there, dan!" the track in which they walked had been worn into two deep circles and they all moved mechanically round and round, like parts of a machine, dull-eyed and covered with sweat. at last william raised the welcome cry, "all done!"--the men threw down their forks. uncle frank began to call in a gentle, soothing voice, "_whoa_, lads! _steady_, boys! whoa, there!" but the horses had been going so long and so steadily that they could not at once check their speed. they kept moving, though slowly, on and on till their owners slid from the stacks and seizing the ends of the sweeps, held them. even then, after the power was still, the cylinder kept its hum, till david throwing a last sheaf into its open maw, choked it into silence. now came the sound of dropping chains, the clang of iron rods, and the thud of hoofs as the horses walked with laggard gait and weary down-falling heads to the barn. the men, more subdued than at dinner, washed with greater care, and combed the chaff from their beards. the air was still and cool, and the sky a deep cloudless blue starred with faint fire. supper though quiet was more dramatic than dinner had been. the table lighted with kerosene lamps, the clean white linen, the fragrant dishes, the women flying about with steaming platters, all seemed very cheery and very beautiful, and the men who came into the light and warmth of the kitchen with aching muscles and empty stomachs, seemed gentler and finer than at noon. they were nearly all from neighboring farms, and my mother treated even the few hired men like visitors, and the talk was all hearty and good tempered though a little subdued. one by one the men rose and slipped away, and father withdrew to milk the cows and bed down the horses, leaving the women and the youngsters to eat what was left and "do up the dishes." after we had eaten our fill frank and i also went out to the barn (all wonderfully changed now to our minds by the great stack of straw), there to listen to david and father chatting as they rubbed their tired horses.--the lantern threw a dim red light on the harness and on the rumps of the cattle, but left mysterious shadows in the corners. i could hear the mice rustling in the straw of the roof, and from the farther end of the dimly-lighted shed came the regular _strim-stram_ of the streams of milk falling into the bottom of a tin pail as the hired hand milked the big roan cow. all this was very momentous to me as i sat on the oat box, shivering in the cold air, listening with all my ears, and when we finally went toward the house, the stars were big and sparkling. the frost had already begun to glisten on the fences and well-curb, and high in the air, dark against the sky, the turkeys were roosting uneasily, as if disturbed by premonitions of approaching thanksgiving. rover pattered along by my side on the crisp grass and my brother clung to my hand. how bright and warm it was in the kitchen with mother putting things to rights while father and my uncles leaned their chairs against the wall and talked of the west and of moving. "i can't get away till after new year's," father said. "but i'm going. i'll never put in another crop on these hills." with speechless content i listened to uncle william's stories of bears and indians, and other episodes of frontier life, until at last we were ordered to bed and the glorious day was done. oh, those blessed days, those entrancing nights! how fine they were then, and how mellow they are now, for the slow-paced years have dropped nearly fifty other golden mists upon that far-off valley. from this distance i cannot understand how my father brought himself to leave that lovely farm and those good and noble friends. chapter vi david and his violin most of the events of our last autumn in green's coulee have slipped into the fathomless gulf, but the experiences of thanksgiving day, which followed closely on our threshing day, are in my treasure house. like a canvas by rembrandt only one side of the figures therein is defined, the other side melts away into shadow--a luminous shadow, through which faint light pulses, luring my wistful gaze on and on, back into the vanished world where the springs of my life lie hidden. it is a raw november evening. frank and harriet and i are riding into a strange land in a clattering farm wagon. father and mother are seated before us on the spring seat. the ground is frozen and the floor of the carriage pounds and jars. we cling to the iron-lined sides of the box to soften the blows. it is growing dark. before us (in a similar vehicle) my uncle david is leading the way. i catch momentary glimpses of him outlined against the pale yellow sky. he stands erect, holding the reins of his swiftly-moving horses in his powerful left hand. occasionally he shouts back to my father, whose chin is buried in a thick buffalo-skin coat. mother is only a vague mass, a figure wrapped in shawls. the wind is keen, the world gray and cheerless. my sister is close beside me in the straw. frank is asleep. i am on my knees looking ahead. suddenly with rush of wind and clatter of hoofs, we enter the gloom of a forest and the road begins to climb. i see the hills on the right. i catch the sound of wheels on a bridge. i am cold. i snuggle down under the robes and the gurgle of ice-bound water is fused with my dreams. i am roused at last by uncle david's pleasant voice, "wake up, boys, and pay y'r lodging!" i look out and perceive him standing beside the wheel. i see a house and i hear the sound of deborah's voice from the warmly-lighted open door. i climb down, heavy with cold and sleep. as i stand there my uncle reaches up his arms to take my mother down. not knowing that she has a rheumatic elbow, he squeezes her playfully. she gives a sharp scream, and his team starts away on a swift run around the curve of the road toward the gate. dropping my mother, he dashes across the yard to intercept the runaways. we all stand in silence, watching the flying horses and the wonderful race he is making toward the gate. he runs with magnificent action, his head thrown high. as the team dashes through the gate his outflung left hand catches the end-board of the wagon,--he leaps into the box, and so passes from our sight. we go into the cottage. it is a small building with four rooms and a kitchen on the ground floor, but in the sitting room we come upon an open fireplace,--the first i had ever seen, and in the light of it sits grandfather mcclintock, the glory of the flaming logs gilding the edges of his cloud of bushy white hair. he does not rise to greet us, but smiles and calls out, "come in! come in! draw a cheer. sit ye down." a clamor of welcome fills the place. harriet and i are put to warm before the blaze. grandad takes frank upon his knee and the cutting wind of the gray outside world is forgotten. this house in which the mcclintocks were living at this time, belonged to a rented farm. grandad had sold the original homestead on the lacrosse river, and david who had lately married a charming young canadian girl, was the head of the family. deborah, it seems, was also living with him and frank was there--as a visitor probably. the room in which we sat was small and bare but to me it was very beautiful, because of the fire, and by reason of the merry voices which filled my ears with music. aunt rebecca brought to us a handful of crackers and told us that we were to have oyster soup for supper. this gave us great pleasure even in anticipation, for oysters were a delicious treat in those days. "well, dick," grandad began, "so ye're plannin' to go west, air ye?" "yes, as soon as i get all my grain and hogs marketed i'm going to pull out for my new farm over in iowa." "ye'd better stick to the old coulee," warned my grandfather, a touch of sadness in his voice. "ye'll find none better." my father was disposed to resent this. "that's all very well for the few who have the level land in the middle of the valley," he retorted, "but how about those of us who are crowded against the hills? you should see the farm i have in winnesheik!! not a hill on it big enough for a boy to coast on. it's right on the edge of looking glass prairie, and i have a spring of water, and a fine grove of trees just where i want them, not where they have to be grubbed out." "but ye belong here," repeated grandfather. "you were married here, your children were born here. ye'll find no such friends in the west as you have here in neshonoc. and belle will miss the family." my father laughed. "oh, you'll all come along. dave has the fever already. even william is likely to catch it." old hugh sighed deeply. "i hope ye're wrong," he said. "i'd like to spend me last days here with me sons and daughters around me, sich as are left to me," here his voice became sterner. "it's the curse of our country,--this constant moving, moving. i'd have been better off had i stayed in ohio, though this valley seemed very beautiful to me the first time i saw it." at this point david came in, and everybody shouted, "did you stop them?" referring of course to the runaway team. "i did," he replied with a smile. "but how about the oysters. i'm holler as a beech log." the fragrance of the soup thoroughly awakened even little frank, and when we drew around the table, each face shone with the light of peace and plenty, and all our elders tried to forget that this was the last thanksgiving festival which the mcclintocks and garlands would be able to enjoy in the old valley. how good those oysters were! they made up the entire meal,--excepting mince pie which came as a closing sweet. slowly, one by one, the men drew back and returned to the sitting room, leaving the women to wash up the dishes and put the kitchen to rights. david seized the opportunity to ask my father to tell once again of the trip he had made, of the lands he had seen, and the farm he had purchased, for his young heart was also fired with desire of exploration. the level lands toward the sunset allured him. in his visions the wild meadows were filled with game, and the free lands needed only to be tickled with a hoe to laugh into harvest. he said, "as soon as dad and frank are settled on a farm here, i'm going west also. i'm as tired of climbing these hills as you are. i want a place of my own--and besides, from all you say of that wheat country out there, a threshing machine would pay wonderfully well." as the women came in, my father called out, "come, belle, sing 'o'er the hills in legions boys!'--dave get out your fiddle--and tune us all up." david tuned up his fiddle and while he twanged on the strings mother lifted her voice in our fine old marching song. cheer up, brothers, as we go, o'er the mountains, westward ho-- and we all joined in the jubilant chorus-- then o'er the hills in legions, boys, fair freedom's star points to the sunset regions, boys, ha, ha, ha-ha!-- my father's face shone with the light of the explorer, the pioneer. the words of this song appealed to him as the finest poetry. it meant all that was fine and hopeful and buoyant in american life, to him--but on my mother's sweet face a wistful expression deepened and in her fine eyes a reflective shadow lay. to her this song meant not so much the acquisition of a new home as the loss of all her friends and relatives. she sang it submissively, not exultantly, and i think the other women were of the same mood though their faces were less expressive to me. to all of the pioneer wives of the past that song had meant deprivation, suffering, loneliness, heart-ache. from this they passed to other of my father's favorite songs, and it is highly significant to note that even in this choice of songs he generally had his way. he was the dominating force. "sing 'nellie wildwood,'" he said, and they sang it.--this power of getting his will respected was due partly to his military training but more to a distinctive trait in him. he was a man of power, of decision, a natural commander of men. they sang "minnie minturn" to his request, and the refrain,-- i have heard the angels warning, i have seen the golden shore-- meant much to me. so did the line, but i only hear the drummers as the armies march away. aunt deb was also a soul of decision. she called out, "no more of these sad tones," and struck up "the year of jubilo," and we all shouted till the walls shook with the exultant words: ol' massa run--ha-ha! de darkies stay,--ho-ho! it must be now is the kingdom a-comin' in the year of jubilo. at this point the fire suggested an old english ballad which i loved, and so i piped up, "mother, sing, 'pile the wood on higher!'" and she complied with pleasure, for this was a song of home, of the unbroken fireside circle. oh, the winds howl mad outdoors the snow clouds hurry past, the giant trees sway to and fro beneath the sweeping blast. and we children joined in the chorus: then we'll gather round the fire and we'll pile the wood on higher, let the song and jest go round; what care we for the storm, when the fireside is so warm, and pleasure here is found? never before did this song mean so much to me as at this moment when the winds were actually howling outdoors, and uncle frank was in very truth piling the logs higher. it seemed as though my stuffed bosom could not receive anything deeper and finer, but it did, for father was saying, "well, dave, now for some _tunes_." this was the best part of david to me. he could make any room mystical with the magic of his bow. true, his pieces were mainly venerable dance tunes, cotillions, hornpipes,--melodies which had passed from fiddler to fiddler until they had become veritable folk-songs,--pieces like "money musk," "honest john," "haste to the wedding," and many others whose names i have forgotten, but with a gift of putting into even the simplest song an emotion which subdued us and silenced us, he played on, absorbed and intent. from these familiar pieces he passed to others for which he had no names, melodies strangely sweet and sad, full of longing cries, voicing something which i dimly felt but could not understand. at the moment he was the somber scotch highlander, the true celt, and as he bent above his instrument his black eyes glowing, his fine head drooping low, my heart bowed down in worship of his skill. he was my hero, the handsomest, most romantic figure in all my world. he played, "maggie, air ye sleepin," and the wind outside went to my soul. voices wailed to me out of the illimitable hill-land forests, voices that pleaded: oh, let me in, for loud the linn goes roarin' o'er the moorland craggy. he appeared to forget us, even his young wife. his eyes looked away into gray storms. vague longing ached in his throat. life was a struggle, love a torment. he stopped abruptly, and put the violin into its box, fumbling with the catch to hide his emotion and my father broke the tense silence with a prosaic word. "well, well! look here, it's time you youngsters were asleep. beckie, where are you going to put these children?" aunt rebecca, a trim little woman with brown eyes, looked at us reflectively, "well, now, i don't know. i guess we'll have to make a bed for them on the floor." this was done, and for the first time in my life, i slept before an open fire. as i snuggled into my blankets with my face turned to the blaze, the darkness of the night and the denizens of the pineland wilderness to the north had no terrors for me. * * * * * i was awakened in the early light by uncle david building the fire, and then came my father's call, and the hurly burly of jovial greeting from old and young. the tumult lasted till breakfast was called, and everybody who could find place sat around the table and attacked the venison and potatoes which formed the meal. i do not remember our leave-taking or the ride homeward. i bring to mind only the desolate cold of our own kitchen into which we tramped late in the afternoon, sitting in our wraps until the fire began to roar within its iron cage. oh, winds of the winter night! oh, firelight and the shine of tender eyes! how far away you seem tonight! so faint and far, each dear face shineth as a star. oh, you by the western sea, and you of the south beyond the reach of christmas snow, do not your hearts hunger, like mine tonight for that thanksgiving day among the trees? for the glance of eyes undimmed of tears, for the hair untouched with gray? it all lies in the unchanging realm of the past--this land of my childhood. its charm, its strange dominion cannot return save in the poet's reminiscent dream. no money, no railway train can take us back to it. it did not in truth exist--it was a magical world, born of the vibrant union of youth and firelight, of music and the voice of moaning winds--a union which can never come again to you or me, father, uncle, brother, till the coulee meadows bloom again unscarred of spade or plow. chapter vii winnesheik "woods and prairie lands" our last winter in the coulee was given over to preparations for our removal but it made very little impression on my mind which was deeply engaged on my school work. as it was out of the question for us to attend the village school the elders arranged for a neighborhood school at the home of john roche, who had an unusually large living room. john is but a shadowy figure in this chronicle but his daughter indiana, whom we called "ingie," stands out as the big girl of my class. books were scarce in this house as well as in our own. i remember piles of newspapers but no bound volumes other than the bible and certain small sunday school books. all the homes of the valley were equally barren. my sister and i jointly possessed a very limp and soiled cloth edition of "mother goose." our stories all came to us by way of the conversation of our elders. no one but grandmother garland ever deliberately told us a tale--except the hired girls, and their romances were of such dark and gruesome texture that we often went to bed shivering with fear of the dark. suddenly, unexpectedly, miraculously, i came into possession of two books, one called _beauty and the beast_, and the other _aladdin and his wonderful lamp_. these volumes mark a distinct epoch in my life. the grace of the lovely lady as she stood above the cringing beast gave me my first clear notion of feminine dignity and charm. on the magic flying carpet i rose into the wide air of oriental romance. i attended the building of towered cities and the laying of gorgeous feasts. i carried in my hand the shell from which, at the word of command, the cool clear water gushed. my feet were shod with winged boots, and on my head was the cap of invisibility. my body was captive in our snowbound little cabin but my mind ranged the golden palaces of persia--so much i know. where the wonder-working romances came from i cannot now tell but i think they were christmas presents, for christmas came this year with unusual splendor. the sale of the farm had put into my father's hands a considerable sum of money and i assume that some small part of this went to make our holiday glorious. in one of my stockings was a noble red and blue tin horse with a flowing mane and tail, and in the other was a monkey who could be made to climb a stick. harriet had a new china doll and frank a horn and china dog, and all the corners of our stockings were stuffed with nuts and candies. i hope mother got something beside the potatoes and onions which i remember seeing her pull out and unwrap with delightful humor--an old and rather pathetic joke but new to us. the snow fell deep in january and i have many glorious pictures of the whirling flakes outlined against the darkly wooded hills across the marsh. father was busy with his team drawing off wheat and hogs and hay, and often came into the house at night, white with the storms through which he had passed. my trips to school were often interrupted by the cold, and the path which my sister and i trod was along the ever-deepening furrows made by the bob-sleighs of the farmers. often when we met a team or were overtaken by one, we were forced out of the road into the drifts, and i can feel to this moment, the wedge of snow which caught in the tops of my tall boots and slowly melted into my gray socks. we were not afraid of the drifts, however. on the contrary mother had to fight to keep us from wallowing beyond our depth. i had now a sled which was my inseparable companion. i could not feed the hens or bring in a pan of chips without taking it with me. my heart swelled with pride and joy whenever i regarded it, and yet it was but a sober-colored thing, a frame of hickory built by the village blacksmith in exchange for a cord of wood--delivered. i took it to school one day, but ed roche abused it, took it up and threw it into the deep snow among the weeds.--had i been large enough, i would have killed that boy with pleasure, but being small and fat and numb with cold i merely rescued my treasure as quickly as i could and hurried home to pour my indignant story into my mother's sympathetic ears. i seldom spoke of my defeats to my father for he had once said, "fight your own battles, my son. if i hear of your being licked by a boy of anything like your own size, i'll give you another when you get home." he didn't believe in molly-coddling, you will perceive. his was a stern school, the school of self-reliance and resolution. neighbors came in now and again to talk of our migration, and yet in spite of all that, in spite of our song, in spite of my father's preparation i had no definite premonition of coming change, and when the day of departure actually dawned, i was as surprised, as unprepared as though it had all happened without the slightest warning. so long as the kettle sang on the hearth and the clock ticked on its shelf, the idea of "moving" was pleasantly diverting, but when one raw winter day i saw the faithful clock stuffed with rags and laid on its back in a box, and the chairs and dishes being loaded into a big sleigh, i began to experience something very disturbing and very uncomfortable. "o'er the hills in legions, boys," did not sound so inspiring to me then. "the woods and prairie lands" of iowa became of less account to me than the little cabin in which i had lived all my short life. harriet and i wandered around, whining and shivering, our own misery augmented by the worried look on mother's face. it was february, and she very properly resented leaving her home for a long, cold ride into an unknown world, but as a dutiful wife she worked hard and silently in packing away her treasures, and clothing her children for the journey. at last the great sleigh-load of bedding and furniture stood ready at the door, the stove, still warm with cheerful service, was lifted in, and the time for saying good-bye to our coulee home had come. "forward march!" shouted father and led the way with the big bob-sled, followed by cousin jim and our little herd of kine, while mother and the children brought up the rear in a "pung" drawn by old josh, a flea-bit gray.--it is probable that at the moment the master himself was slightly regretful. a couple of hours' march brought us to lacrosse, the great city whose wonders i had longed to confront. it stood on the bank of a wide river and had all the value of a sea-port to me for in summertime great hoarsely bellowing steamboats came and went from its quay, and all about it rose high wooded hills. halting there, we overlooked a wide expanse of snow-covered ice in the midst of which a dark, swift, threatening current of open water ran. across this chasm stretching from one ice-field to another lay a flexible narrow bridge over which my father led the way toward hills of the western shore. there was something especially terrifying in the boiling heave of that black flood, and i shivered with terror as i passed it, having vividly in my mind certain grim stories of men whose teams had broken through and been swept beneath the ice never to reappear. it was a long ride to my mother, for she too was in terror of the ice, but at last the minnesota bank was reached, la crescent was passed, and our guide entering a narrow valley began to climb the snowy hills. all that was familiar was put behind; all that was strange and dark, all that was wonderful and unknown, spread out before us, and as we crawled along that slippery, slanting road, it seemed that we were entering on a new and marvellous world. we lodged that night in hokah, a little town in a deep valley. the tavern stood near a river which flowed over its dam with resounding roar and to its sound i slept. next day at noon we reached caledonia, a town high on the snowy prairie. caledonia! for years that word was a poem in my ear, part of a marvellous and epic march. actually it consisted of a few frame houses and a grocery store. but no matter. its name shall ring like a peal of bells in this book. it grew colder as we rose, and that night, the night of the second day, we reached hesper and entered a long stretch of woods, and at last turned in towards a friendly light shining from a low house beneath a splendid oak. as we drew near my father raised a signal shout, "hallo-o-o the house!" and a man in a long gray coat came out. "is that thee, friend richard?" he called, and my father replied, "yea, neighbor barley, here we are!" i do not know how this stranger whose manner of speech was so peculiar, came to be there, but he was and in answer to my question, father replied, "barley is a quaker," an answer which explained nothing at that time. being too sleepy to pursue the matter, or to remark upon anything connected with the exterior, i dumbly followed harriet into the kitchen which was still in possession of good mrs. barley. having filled our stomachs with warm food mother put us to bed, and when we awoke late the next day the barleys were gone, our own stove was in its place, and our faithful clock was ticking calmly on the shelf. so far as we knew, mother was again at home and entirely content. this farm, which was situated two miles west of the village of hesper, immediately won our love. it was a glorious place for boys. broad-armed white oaks stood about the yard, and to the east and north a deep forest invited to exploration. the house was of logs and for that reason was much more attractive to us than to our mother. it was, i suspect, both dark and cold. i know the roof was poor, for one morning i awoke to find a miniature peak of snow on the floor at my bedside. it was only a rude little frontier cabin, but it was perfectly satisfactory to me. harriet and i learned much in the way of woodcraft during the months which followed. night by night the rabbits, in countless numbers printed their tell-tale records in the snow, and quail and partridges nested beneath the down-drooping branches of the red oaks. squirrels ran from tree to tree and we were soon able to distinguish and name most of the tracks made by the birds and small animals, and we took a never-failing delight in this study of the wild. in most of my excursions my sister was my companion. my brother was too small. all my memories of this farm are of the fiber of poetry. the silence of the snowy aisles of the forest, the whirring flight of partridges, the impudent bark of squirrels, the quavering voices of owls and coons, the music of the winds in the high trees,--all these impressions unite in my mind like parts of a woodland symphony. i soon learned to distinguish the raccoon's mournful call from the quavering cry of the owl, and i joined the hired man in hunting rabbits from under the piles of brush in the clearing. once or twice some ferocious, larger animal, possibly a panther, hungrily yowled in the impenetrable thickets to the north, but this only lent a still more enthralling interest to the forest. to the east, an hour's walk through the timber, stood the village, built and named by the "friends" who had a meeting house not far away, and though i saw much of them, i never attended their services. our closest neighbor was a gruff loud-voiced old norwegian and from his children (our playmates) we learned many curious facts. all norwegians, it appeared, ate from wooden plates or wooden bowls. their food was soup which they called "bean swaagen" and they were all yellow haired and blue-eyed. harriet and i and one lars peterson gave a great deal of time to an attempt to train a yoke of yearling calves to draw our handsled. i call it an attempt, for we hardly got beyond a struggle to overcome the stubborn resentment of the stupid beasts, who very naturally objected to being forced into service before their time. harriet was ten, i was not quite nine, and lars was only twelve, hence we spent long hours in yoking and unyoking our unruly span. i believe we did actually haul several loads of firewood to the kitchen door, but at last buck and brin "turned the yoke" and broke it, and that ended our teaming. the man from whom we acquired our farm had in some way domesticated a flock of wild geese, and though they must have been a part of the farm-yard during the winter, they made no deep impression on my mind till in the spring when as the migratory instinct stirred in their blood they all rose on the surface of the water in a little pool near the barn and with beating wings lifted their voices in brazen clamor calling to their fellows driving by high overhead. at times their cries halted the flocks in their arrowy flight and brought them down to mix indistinguishably with the captive birds. the wings of these had been clipped but as the weeks went on their pinions grew again and one morning when i went out to see what had happened to them, i found the pool empty and silent. we all missed their fine voices and yet we could not blame them for a reassertion of their freeborn nature. they had gone back to their summer camping grounds on the lakes of the far north. early in april my father hired a couple of raw norwegians to assist in clearing the land, and although neither of these immigrants could speak a word of english, i was greatly interested in them. they slept in the granary but this did not prevent them from communicating to our house-maid a virulent case of smallpox. several days passed before my mother realized what ailed the girl. the discovery must have horrified her, for she had been through an epidemic of this dread disease in wisconsin, and knew its danger. it was a fearsome plague in those days, much more fatal than now, and my mother with three unvaccinated children, a helpless handmaid to be nursed, was in despair when father developed the disease and took to his bed. surely it must have seemed to her as though the lord had visited upon her more punishment than belonged to her, for to add the final touch, in the midst of all her other afflictions she was expecting the birth of another child. i do not know what we would have done had not a noble woman of the neighborhood volunteered to come in and help us. she was not a friend, hardly an acquaintance, and yet she served us like an angel of mercy. whether she still lives or not i cannot say, but i wish to acknowledge here the splendid heroism which brought mary briggs, a stranger, into our stricken home at a time when all our other neighbors beat their horses into a mad gallop whenever forced to pass our gate. young as i was i realized something of the burden which had fallen upon my mother, and when one night i was awakened from deep sleep by hearing her calling out in pain, begging piteously for help, i shuddered in my bed, realizing with childish, intuitive knowledge that she was passing through a cruel convulsion which could not be softened or put aside. i went to sleep again at last, and when i woke, i had a little sister. harriet and i having been vaccinated, escaped with what was called the "verylide" but father was ill for several weeks. fortunately he was spared, as we all were, the "pitting" which usually follows this dreaded disease, and in a week or two we children had forgotten all about it. spring was upon us and the world was waiting to be explored. one of the noblest features of this farm was a large spring which boiled forth from the limestone rock about eighty rods north of the house, and this was a wonder-spot to us. there was something magical in this never-failing fountain, and we loved to play beside its waters. one of our delightful tasks was riding the horses to water at this spring, and i took many lessons in horsemanship on these trips. as the seeding time came on, enormous flocks of pigeons, in clouds which almost filled the sky, made it necessary for some one to sentinel the new-sown grain, and although i was but nine years of age, my father put a double-barrelled shotgun into my hands, and sent me out to defend the fields. this commission filled me with the spirit of the soldier. proudly walking my rounds i menaced the flocks as they circled warily over my head, taking shot at them now and again as they came near enough, feeling as duty bound and as martial as any roman sentry standing guard over a city. up to this time i had not been allowed to carry arms, although i had been the companion of den green and ellis usher on their hunting expeditions in the coulee--now with entire discretion over my weapon, i loaded it, capped it and fired it, marching with sedate and manly tread, while little frank at my heels, served as subordinate in his turn. the pigeons passed after a few days, but my warlike duties continued, for the ground-squirrels, called "gophers" by the settlers, were almost as destructive of the seed corn as the pigeons had been of the wheat. day after day i patrolled the edge of the field listening to the saucy whistle of the striped little rascals, tracking them to their burrows and shooting them as they lifted their heads above the ground. i had moments of being sorry for them, but the sight of one digging up the seed, silenced my complaining conscience and i continued to slay. the school-house of this district stood out upon the prairie to the west a mile distant, and during may we trudged our way over a pleasant road, each carrying a small tin pail filled with luncheon. here i came in contact with the norwegian boys from the colony to the north, and a bitter feud arose (or existed) between the "yankees," as they called us, and "the norskies," as we called them. often when we met on the road, showers of sticks and stones filled the air, and our hearts burned with the heat of savage conflict. war usually broke out at the moment of parting. often after a fairly amicable half-mile together we suddenly split into hostile ranks, and warred with true tribal frenzy as long as we could find a stone or a clod to serve as missile. i had no personal animosity in this, i was merely a pict willing to destroy my angle enemies. as i look back upon my life on that woodland farm, it all seems very colorful and sweet. i am re-living days when the warm sun, falling on radiant slopes of grass, lit the meadow phlox and tall tiger lilies into flaming torches of color. i think of blackberry thickets and odorous grapevines and cherry trees and the delicious nuts which grew in profusion throughout the forest to the north. this forest which seemed endless and was of enchanted solemnity served as our wilderness. we explored it at every opportunity. we loved every day for the color it brought, each season for the wealth of its experience, and we welcomed the thought of spending all our years in this beautiful home where the wood and the prairie of our song did actually meet and mingle. chapter viii we move again one day there came into our home a strange man who spoke in a fashion new to me. he was a middle-aged rather formal individual, dressed in a rough gray suit, and father alluded to him privately as "that english duke." i didn't know exactly what he meant by this, but our visitor's talk gave me a vague notion of "the old country." "my home," he said, "is near manchester. i have come to try farming in the american wilderness." he was kindly, and did his best to be democratic, but we children stood away from him, wondering what he was doing in our house. my mother disliked him from the start for as he took his seat at our dinner table, he drew from his pocket a case in which he carried a silver fork and spoon and a silver-handled knife. our cutlery was not good enough for him! every family that we knew at that time used three-tined steel forks and my mother naturally resented the implied criticism of her table ware. i heard her say to my father, "if our ways don't suit your english friend he'd better go somewhere else for his meals." this fastidious pioneer also carried a revolver, for he believed that having penetrated far into a dangerous country, he was in danger, and i am not at all sure but that he was right, for the minnesota woods at this time were filled with horse-thieves and counterfeiters, and it was known that many of these landhunting englishmen carried large sums of gold on their persons. we resented our guest still more when we found that he was trying to buy our lovely farm and that father was already half-persuaded. we loved this farm. we loved the log house, and the oaks which sheltered it, and we especially valued the glorious spring and the plum trees which stood near it, but father was still dreaming of the free lands of the farther west, and early in march he sold to the englishman and moved us all to a rented place some six miles directly west, in the township of burr oak. this was but a temporary lodging, a kind of camping place, for no sooner were his fields seeded than he set forth once again with a covered wagon, eager to explore the open country to the north and west of us. the wood and prairie land of winnesheik county did not satisfy him, although it seemed to me then, as it does now, the fulfillment of his vision, the realization of our song. for several weeks he travelled through southern minnesota and northern iowa, always in search of the perfect farm, and when he returned, just before harvest, he was able to report that he had purchased a quarter section of "the best land in mitchell county" and that after harvest we would all move again. if my mother resented this third removal she made no comment which i can now recall. i suspect that she went rather willingly this time, for her brother david wrote that he had also located in mitchell county, not two miles from the place my father had decided upon for our future home, and samantha, her younger sister, had settled in minnesota. the circle in neshonoc seemed about to break up. a mighty spreading and shifting was going on all over the west, and no doubt my mother accepted her part in it without especial protest. our life in burr oak township that summer was joyous for us children. it seems to have been almost all sunshine and play. as i reflect upon it i relive many delightful excursions into the northern woods. it appears that harriet and i were in continual harvest of nuts and berries. our walks to school were explorations and we spent nearly every saturday and sunday in minute study of the country-side, devouring everything which was remotely edible. we gorged upon may-apples until we were ill, and munched black cherries until we were dizzy with their fumes. we clambered high trees to collect baskets of wild grapes which our mother could not use, and we garnered nuts with the insatiable greed of squirrels. we ate oak-shoots, fern-roots, leaves, bark, seed-balls,--everything!--not because we were hungry but because we loved to experiment, and we came home, only when hungry or worn out or in awe of the darkness. it was a delightful season, full of the most satisfying companionship and yet of the names of my playmates i can seize upon only two--the others have faded from the tablets of my memory. i remember ned who permitted me to hold his plow, and perry who taught me how to tame the half-wild colts that filled his father's pasture. together we spent long days lassoing--or rather snaring--the feet of these horses and subduing them to the halter. we had many fierce struggles but came out of them all without a serious injury. late in august my father again loaded our household goods into wagons, and with our small herd of cattle following, set out toward the west, bound once again to overtake the actual line of the middle border. this journey has an unforgettable epic charm as i look back upon it. each mile took us farther and farther into the unsettled prairie until in the afternoon of the second day, we came to a meadow so wide that its western rim touched the sky without revealing a sign of man's habitation other than the road in which we travelled. the plain was covered with grass tall as ripe wheat and when my father stopped his team and came back to us and said, "well, children, here we are on the big prairie," we looked about us with awe, so endless seemed this spread of wild oats and waving blue-joint. far away dim clumps of trees showed, but no chimney was in sight, and no living thing moved save our own cattle and the hawks lazily wheeling in the air. my heart filled with awe as well as wonder. the majesty of this primeval world exalted me. i felt for the first time the poetry of the unplowed spaces. it seemed that the "herds of deer and buffalo" of our song might, at any moment, present themselves,--but they did not, and my father took no account even of the marsh fowl. "forward march!" he shouted, and on we went. hour after hour he pushed into the west, the heads of his tired horses hanging ever lower, and on my mother's face the shadow deepened, but her chieftain's voice cheerily urging his team lost nothing of its clarion resolution. he was in his element. he loved this shelterless sweep of prairie. this westward march entranced him, i think he would have gladly kept on until the snowy wall of the rocky mountains met his eyes, for he was a natural explorer. sunset came at last, but still he drove steadily on through the sparse settlements. just at nightfall we came to a beautiful little stream, and stopped to let the horses drink. i heard its rippling, reassuring song on the pebbles. thereafter all is dim and vague to me until my mother called out sharply, "wake up, children! here we are!" struggling to my feet i looked about me. nothing could be seen but the dim form of a small house.--on every side the land melted into blackness, silent and without boundary. driving into the yard, father hastily unloaded one of the wagons and taking mother and harriet and jessie drove away to spend the night with uncle david who had preceded us, as i now learned, and was living on a farm not far away. my brother and i were left to camp as best we could with the hired man. spreading a rude bed on the floor, he told us to "hop in" and in ten minutes we were all fast asleep. * * * * * the sound of a clattering poker awakened me next morning and when i opened my sleepy eyes and looked out a new world displayed itself before me. the cabin faced a level plain with no tree in sight. a mile away to the west stood a low stone house and immediately in front of us opened a half-section of unfenced sod. to the north, as far as i could see, the land billowed like a russet ocean, with scarcely a roof to fleck its lonely spread.--i cannot say that i liked or disliked it. i merely marvelled at it, and while i wandered about the yard, the hired man scorched some cornmeal mush in a skillet and this with some butter and gingerbread, made up my first breakfast in mitchell county. an hour or two later father and mother and the girls returned and the work of setting up the stove and getting the furniture in place began. in a very short time the experienced clock was voicing its contentment on a new shelf, and the kettle was singing busily on its familiar stove. once more and for the sixth time since her marriage, belle garland adjusted herself to a pioneer environment, comforted no doubt by the knowledge that david and deborah were near and that her father was coming soon. no doubt she also congratulated herself on the fact that she had not been carried beyond the missouri river--and that her house was not "surrounded by indians who murder by night." a few hours later, while my brother and i were on the roof of the house with intent to peer "over the edge of the prairie" something grandly significant happened. upon a low hill to the west a herd of horses suddenly appeared running swiftly, led by a beautiful sorrel pony with shining white mane. on they came, like a platoon of cavalry rushing down across the open sod which lay before our door. the leader moved with lofty and graceful action, easily out-stretching all his fellows. forward they swept, their long tails floating in the wind like banners,--on in a great curve as if scenting danger in the smoke of our fire. the thunder of their feet filled me with delight. surely, next to a herd of buffalo this squadron of wild horses was the most satisfactory evidence of the wilderness into which we had been thrust. riding as if to intercept the leader, a solitary herder now appeared, mounted upon a horse which very evidently was the mate of the leader. he rode magnificently, and under him the lithe mare strove resolutely to overtake and head off the leader.--all to no purpose! the halterless steeds of the prairie snorted derisively at their former companion, bridled and saddled, and carrying the weight of a master. swiftly they thundered across the sod, dropped into a ravine, and disappeared in a cloud of dust. silently we watched the rider turn and ride slowly homeward. the plain had become our new domain, the horseman our ideal. chapter ix our first winter on the prairie for a few days my brother and i had little to do other than to keep the cattle from straying, and we used our leisure in becoming acquainted with the region round about. it burned deep into our memories, this wide, sunny, windy country. the sky so big, and the horizon line so low and so far away, made this new world of the plain more majestic than the world of the coulee.--the grasses and many of the flowers were also new to us. on the uplands the herbage was short and dry and the plants stiff and woody, but in the swales the wild oat shook its quivers of barbed and twisted arrows, and the crow's foot, tall and sere, bowed softly under the feet of the wind, while everywhere, in the lowlands as well as on the ridges, the bleaching white antlers of by-gone herbivora lay scattered, testifying to "the herds of deer and buffalo" which once fed there. we were just a few years too late to see them. to the south the sections were nearly all settled upon, for in that direction lay the county town, but to the north and on into minnesota rolled the unplowed sod, the feeding ground of the cattle, the home of foxes and wolves, and to the west, just beyond the highest ridges, we loved to think the bison might still be seen. the cabin on this rented farm was a mere shanty, a shell of pine boards, which needed re-enforcing to make it habitable and one day my father said, "well, hamlin, i guess you'll have to run the plow-team this fall. i must help neighbor button wall up the house and i can't afford to hire another man." this seemed a fine commission for a lad of ten, and i drove my horses into the field that first morning with a manly pride which added an inch to my stature. i took my initial "round" at a "land" which stretched from one side of the quarter section to the other, in confident mood. i was grown up! but alas! my sense of elation did not last long. to guide a team for a few minutes as an experiment was one thing--to plow all day like a hired hand was another. it was not a chore, it was a job. it meant moving to and fro hour after hour, day after day, with no one to talk to but the horses. it meant trudging eight or nine miles in the forenoon and as many more in the afternoon, with less than an hour off at noon. it meant dragging the heavy implement around the corners, and it meant also many ship-wrecks, for the thick, wet stubble matted with wild buckwheat often rolled up between the coulter and the standard and threw the share completely out of the ground, making it necessary for me to halt the team and jerk the heavy plow backward for a new start. although strong and active i was rather short, even for a ten-year-old, and to reach the plow handles i was obliged to lift my hands above my shoulders; and so with the guiding lines crossed over my back and my worn straw hat bobbing just above the cross-brace i must have made a comical figure. at any rate nothing like it had been seen in the neighborhood and the people on the road to town looking across the field, laughed and called to me, and neighbor button said to my father in my hearing, "that chap's too young to run a plow," a judgment which pleased and flattered me greatly. harriet cheered me by running out occasionally to meet me as i turned the nearest corner, and sometimes frank consented to go all the way around, chatting breathlessly as he trotted along behind. at other times he was prevailed upon to bring to me a cookie and a glass of milk, a deed which helped to shorten the forenoon. and yet, notwithstanding all these ameliorations, plowing became tedious. the flies were savage, especially in the middle of the day, and the horses, tortured by their lances, drove badly, twisting and turning in their despairing rage. their tails were continually getting over the lines, and in stopping to kick their tormentors from their bellies they often got astride the traces, and in other ways made trouble for me. only in the early morning or when the sun sank low at night were they able to move quietly along their ways. the soil was the kind my father had been seeking, a smooth dark sandy loam, which made it possible for a lad to do the work of a man. often the share would go the entire "round" without striking a root or a pebble as big as a walnut, the steel running steadily with a crisp craunching ripping sound which i rather liked to hear. in truth work would have been quite tolerable had it not been so long drawn out. ten hours of it even on a fine day made about twice too many for a boy. meanwhile i cheered myself in every imaginable way. i whistled. i sang. i studied the clouds. i gnawed the beautiful red skin from the seed vessels which hung upon the wild rose bushes, and i counted the prairie chickens as they began to come together in winter flocks running through the stubble in search of food. i stopped now and again to examine the lizards unhoused by the share, tormenting them to make them sweat their milky drops (they were curiously repulsive to me), and i measured the little granaries of wheat which the mice and gophers had deposited deep under the ground, storehouses which the plow had violated. my eyes dwelt enviously upon the sailing hawk, and on the passing of ducks. the occasional shadowy figure of a prairie wolf made me wish for uncle david and his rifle. on certain days nothing could cheer me. when the bitter wind blew from the north, and the sky was filled with wild geese racing southward, with swiftly-hurrying clouds, winter seemed about to spring upon me. the horses' tails streamed in the wind. flurries of snow covered me with clinging flakes, and the mud "gummed" my boots and trouser legs, clogging my steps. at such times i suffered from cold and loneliness--all sense of being a man evaporated. i was just a little boy, longing for the leisure of boyhood. day after day, through the month of october and deep into november, i followed that team, turning over two acres of stubble each day. i would not believe this without proof, but it is true! at last it grew so cold that in the early morning everything was white with frost and i was obliged to put one hand in my pocket to keep it warm, while holding the plow with the other, but i didn't mind this so much, for it hinted at the close of autumn. i've no doubt facing the wind in this way was excellent discipline, but i didn't think it necessary then and my heart was sometimes bitter and rebellious. the soldier did not intend to be severe. as he had always been an early riser and a busy toiler it seemed perfectly natural and good discipline, that his sons should also plow and husk corn at ten years of age. he often told of beginning life as a "bound boy" at nine, and these stories helped me to perform my own tasks without whining. i feared to voice my weakness. at last there came a morning when by striking my heel upon the ground i convinced my boss that the soil was frozen too deep for the mold-board to break. "all right," he said, "you may lay off this forenoon." oh, those beautiful hours of respite! with time to play or read i usually read, devouring anything i could lay my hands upon. newspapers, whether old or new, or pasted on the wall or piled up in the attic,--anything in print was wonderful to me. one enthralling book, borrowed from neighbor button, was _the female spy_, a tale of the rebellion. another treasure was a story called _cast ashore_, but this volume unfortunately was badly torn and fifty pages were missing so that i never knew, and do not know to this day, how those indomitable shipwrecked seamen reached their english homes. i dimly recall that one man carried a pet monkey on his back and that they all lived on "bustards." finally the day came when the ground rang like iron under the feet of the horses, and a bitter wind, raw and gusty, swept out of the northwest, bearing gray veils of sleet. winter had come! work in the furrow had ended. the plow was brought in, cleaned and greased to prevent its rusting, and while the horses munched their hay in well-earned holiday, father and i helped farmer button husk the last of his corn. osman button, a quaint and interesting man of middle age, was a native of york state and retained many of the traditions of his old home strangely blent with a store of vivid memories of colorado, utah and california, for he had been one of the gold-seekers of the early fifties. he loved to spin yarns of "when i was in gold camps," and he spun them well. he was short and bent and spoke in a low voice with a curious nervous sniff, but his diction was notably precise and clear. he was a man of judgment, and a citizen of weight and influence. from o. button i got my first definite notion of bret harte's country, and of the long journey which they of the ox team had made in search of eldorado. his family "mostly boys and girls" was large, yet they all lived in a low limestone house which he had built (he said) to serve as a granary till he should find time to erect a suitable dwelling. in order to make the point dramatic, i will say that he was still living in the "granary" when last i called on him thirty years later! a warm friendship sprang up between him and my father, and he was often at our house but his gaunt and silent wife seldom accompanied him. she was kindly and hospitable, but a great sufferer. she never laughed, and seldom smiled, and so remains a pathetic figure in all my memories of the household. the younger button children, eva and cyrus, became our companions in certain of our activities, but as they were both very sedate and slow of motion, they seldom joined us in our livelier sports. they were both much older than their years. cyrus at this time was almost as venerable as his father, although his years were, i suppose, about seventeen. albert and lavinia, we heard, were much given to dancing and parties. one night as we were all seated around the kerosene lamp my father said, "well, belle, i suppose we'll have to take these young ones down to town and fit 'em out for school." these words so calmly uttered filled our minds with visions of new boots, new caps and new books, and though we went obediently to bed we hardly slept, so excited were we, and at breakfast next morning not one of us could think of food. all our desires converged upon the wondrous expedition--our first visit to town. our only carriage was still the lumber wagon but it had now two spring seats, one for father, mother and jessie, and one for harriet, frank and myself. no one else had anything better, hence we had no sense of being poorly outfitted. we drove away across the frosty prairie toward osage--moderately comfortable and perfectly happy. osage was only a little town, a village of perhaps twelve hundred inhabitants, but to me as we drove down its main street, it was almost as impressive as lacrosse had been. frank clung close to father, and mother led jessie, leaving harriet and me to stumble over nail-kegs and dodge whiffle trees what time our eyes absorbed jars of pink and white candy, and sought out boots and buckskin mittens. whenever harriet spoke she whispered, and we pointed at each shining object with cautious care.--oh! the marvellous exotic smells! odors of salt codfish and spices, calico and kerosene, apples and ginger-snaps mingle in my mind as i write. each of us soon carried a candy marble in his or her cheek (as a chipmunk carries a nut) and frank and i stood like sturdy hitching posts whilst the storekeeper with heavy hands screwed cotton-plush caps upon our heads,--but the most exciting moment, the crowning joy of the day, came with the buying of our new boots.--if only father had not insisted on our taking those which were a size too large for us! they were real boots. no one but a congressman wore "gaiters" in those days. war fashions still dominated the shoe-shops, and high-topped cavalry boots were all but universal. they were kept in boxes under the counter or ranged in rows on a shelf and were of all weights and degrees of fineness. the ones i selected had red tops with a golden moon in the center but my brother's taste ran to blue tops decorated with a golden flag. oh! that deliciously oily _new_ smell! my heart glowed every time i looked at mine. i was especially pleased because they did _not_ have copper toes. copper toes belonged to little boys. a youth who had plowed seventy acres of land could not reasonably be expected to dress like a child.--how smooth and delightfully stiff they felt on my feet. then came our new books, a mcguffey reader, a mitchell geography, a ray's arithmetic, and a slate. the books had a delightful new smell also, and there was singular charm in the smooth surface of the unmarked slates. i was eager to carve my name in the frame. at last with our treasures under the seat (so near that we could feel them), with our slates and books in our laps we jolted home, dreaming of school and snow. to wade in the drifts with our fine high-topped boots was now our desire. it is strange but i cannot recall how my mother looked on this trip. even my father's image is faint and vague (i remember only his keen eagle-gray terrifying eyes), but i can see every acre of that rented farm. i can tell you exactly how the house looked. it was an unpainted square cottage and stood bare on the sod at the edge of dry run ravine. it had a small lean-to on the eastern side and a sitting room and bedroom below. overhead was a low unplastered chamber in which we children slept. as it grew too cold to use the summer kitchen we cooked, ate and lived in the square room which occupied the entire front of the two story upright, and which was, i suppose, sixteen feet square. as our attic was warmed only by the stove-pipe, we older children of a frosty morning made extremely simple and hurried toilets. on very cold days we hurried down stairs to dress beside the kitchen fire. our furniture was of the rudest sort. i cannot recall a single piece in our house or in our neighbors' houses that had either beauty or distinction. it was all cheap and worn, for this was the middle border, and nearly all our neighbors had moved as we had done in covered wagons. farms were new, houses were mere shanties, and money was scarce. "war times" and "war prices" were only just beginning to change. our clothing was all cheap and ill fitting. the women and children wore home-made "cotton flannel" underclothing for the most part, and the men wore rough, ready-made suits over which they drew brown denim blouses or overalls to keep them clean. father owned a fine buffalo overcoat (so much of his song's promise was redeemed) and we possessed two buffalo robes for use in our winter sleigh, but mother had only a sad coat and a woolen shawl. how she kept warm i cannot now understand--i think she stayed at home on cold days. all of the boys wore long trousers, and even my eight year old brother looked like a miniature man with his full-length overalls, high-topped boots and real suspenders. as for me i carried a bandanna in my hip pocket and walked with determined masculine stride. my mother, like all her brothers and sisters, was musical and played the violin--or fiddle, as we called it,--and i have many dear remembrances of her playing. _napoleon's march_, _money musk_, _the devil's dream_ and half-a-dozen other simple tunes made up her repertoire. it was very crude music of course but it added to the love and admiration in which her children always held her. also in some way we had fallen heir to a prince melodeon--one that had belonged to the mcclintocks, but only my sister played on that. once at a dance in neighbor button's house, mother took the "dare" of the fiddler and with shy smile played _the fisher's hornpipe_ or some other simple melody and was mightily cheered at the close of it, a brief performance which she refused to repeat. afterward she and my father danced and this seemed a very wonderful performance, for to us they were "old"--far past such frolicking, although he was but forty and she thirty-one! at this dance i heard, for the first time, the local professional fiddler, old daddy fairbanks, as quaint a character as ever entered fiction, for he was not only butcher and horse doctor but a renowned musician as well. tall, gaunt and sandy, with enormous nose and sparse projecting teeth, he was to me the most enthralling figure at this dance and his queer "calls" and his "york state" accent filled us all with delight. "_ally_ man left," "chassay _by_ your pardners," "dozy-do" were some of the phrases he used as he played _honest john_ and _haste to the wedding_. at times he sang his calls in high nasal chant, "_first_ lady lead to the _right_, deedle, deedle dum-dum-- _gent_ foller after--dally-deedle-do-do--_three_ hands round"--and everybody laughed with frank enjoyment of his words and action. it was a joy to watch him "start the set." with fiddle under his chin he took his seat in a big chair on the kitchen table in order to command the floor. "farm on, farm on!" he called disgustedly. "lively now!" and then, when all the couples were in position, with one mighty no. boot uplifted, with bow laid to strings he snarled, "already--gelang!" and with a thundering crash his foot came down, "honors tew your pardners--right and left four!" and the dance was on! i suspect his fiddlin' was not even "middlin'," but he beat time fairly well and kept the dancers somewhere near to rhythm, and so when his ragged old cap went round he often got a handful of quarters for his toil. he always ate two suppers, one at the beginning of the party and another at the end. he had a high respect for the skill of my uncle david and was grateful to him and other better musicians for their non-interference with his professional engagements. the school-house which was to be the center of our social life stood on the bare prairie about a mile to the southwest and like thousands of other similar buildings in the west, had not a leaf to shade it in summer nor a branch to break the winds of savage winter. "there's been a good deal of talk about setting out a wind-break," neighbor button explained to us, "but nothing has as yet been done." it was merely a square pine box painted a glaring white on the outside and a desolate drab within; at least drab was the original color, but the benches were mainly so greasy and hacked that original intentions were obscured. it had two doors on the eastern end and three windows on each side. a long square stove (standing on slender legs in a puddle of bricks), a wooden chair, and a rude table in one corner, for the use of the teacher, completed the movable furniture. the walls were roughly plastered and the windows had no curtains. it was a barren temple of the arts even to the residents of dry run, and harriet and i, stealing across the prairie one sunday morning to look in, came away vaguely depressed. we were fond of school and never missed a day if we could help it, but this neighborhood center seemed small and bleak and poor. with what fear, what excitement we approached the door on that first day, i can only faintly indicate. all the scholars were strange to me except albert and cyrus button, and i was prepared for rough treatment. however, the experience was not so harsh as i had feared. true, rangely field did throw me down and wash my face in snow, and jack sweet tripped me up once or twice, but i bore these indignities with such grace and could command, and soon made a place for myself among the boys. burton babcock was my seat-mate, and at once became my chum. you will hear much of him in this chronicle. he was two years older than i and though pale and slim was unusually swift and strong for his age. he was a silent lad, curiously timid in his classes and not at ease with his teachers. i cannot recover much of that first winter of school. it was not an experience to remember for its charm. not one line of grace, not one touch of color relieved the room's bare walls or softened its harsh windows. perhaps this very barrenness gave to the poetry in our readers an appeal that seems magical, certainly it threw over the faces of frances babcock and mary abbie gammons a lovelier halo.--they were "the big girls" of the school, that is to say, they were seventeen or eighteen years old,--and frances was the special terror of the teacher, a pale and studious pigeon-toed young man who was preparing for college. in spite of the cold, the boys played open air games all winter. "dog and deer," "dare gool" and "fox and geese" were our favorite diversions, and the wonder is that we did not all die of pneumonia, for we battled so furiously during each recess that we often came in wet with perspiration and coughing so hard that for several minutes recitations were quite impossible.--but we were a hardy lot and none of us seemed the worse for our colds. there was not much chivalry in the school--quite the contrary, for it was dominated by two or three big rough boys and the rest of us took our tone from them. to protect a girl, to shield her from remark or indignity required a good deal of bravery and few of us were strong enough to do it. girls were foolish, ridiculous creatures, set apart to be laughed at or preyed upon at will. to shame them was a great joke.--how far i shared in these barbarities i cannot say but that i did share in them i know, for i had very little to do with my sister harriet after crossing the school-house yard. she kept to her tribe as i to mine. this winter was made memorable also by a "revival" which came over the district with sudden fury. it began late in the winter--fortunately, for it ended all dancing and merry-making for the time. it silenced daddy fairbanks' fiddle and subdued my mother's glorious voice to a wail. a cloud of puritanical gloom settled upon almost every household. youth and love became furtive and hypocritic. the evangelist, one of the old-fashioned shouting, hysterical, ungrammatical, gasping sort, took charge of the services, and in his exhortations phrases descriptive of lakes of burning brimstone and ages of endless torment abounded. some of the figures of speech and violent gestures of the man still linger in my mind, but i will not set them down on paper. they are too dreadful to perpetuate. at times he roared with such power that he could have been heard for half a mile. and yet we went, night by night, mother, father, jessie, all of us. it was our theater. some of the roughest characters in the neighborhood rose and professed repentance, for a season, even old barton, the profanest man in the township, experienced a "change of heart." we all enjoyed the singing, and joined most lustily in the tunes. even little jessie learned to sing _heavenly wings_, _there is a fountain filled with blood_, and _old hundred_. as i peer back into that crowded little schoolroom, smothering hot and reeking with lamp smoke, and recall the half-lit, familiar faces of the congregation, it all has the quality of a vision, something experienced in another world. the preacher, leaping, sweating, roaring till the windows rattle, the mothers with sleeping babes in their arms, the sweet, strained faces of the girls, the immobile wondering men, are spectral shadows, figures encountered in the phantasmagoria of disordered sleep. chapter x the homestead on the knoll spring came to us that year with such sudden beauty, such sweet significance after our long and depressing winter, that it seemed a release from prison, and when at the close of a warm day in march we heard, pulsing down through the golden haze of sunset, the mellow _boom, boom, boom_ of the prairie cock our hearts quickened, for this, we were told, was the certain sign of spring. day by day the call of this gay herald of spring was taken up by others until at last the whole horizon was ringing with a sunrise symphony of exultant song. "_boom, boom, boom!_" called the roosters; "_cutta, cutta, wha-whoop-squaw, squawk!_" answered the hens as they fluttered and danced on the ridges--and mingled with their jocund hymn we heard at last the slender, wistful piping of the prairie lark. with the coming of spring my duties as a teamster returned. my father put me in charge of a harrow, and with old doll and queen--quiet and faithful span--i drove upon the field which i had plowed the previous october, there to plod to and fro behind my drag, while in the sky above my head and around me on the mellowing soil the life of the season, thickened. aided by my team i was able to study at close range the prairie roosters as they assembled for their parade. they had regular "stamping grounds" on certain ridges, where the soil was beaten smooth by the pressure of their restless feet. i often passed within a few yards of them.--i can see them now, the cocks leaping and strutting, with trailing wings and down-thrust heads, displaying their bulbous orange-colored neck ornaments while the hens flutter and squawk in silly delight. all the charm and mystery of that prairie world comes back to me, and i ache with an illogical desire to recover it and hold it, and preserve it in some form for my children.--it seems an injustice that they should miss it, and yet it is probable that they are getting an equal joy of life, an equal exaltation from the opening flowers of the single lilac bush in our city back-yard or from an occasional visit to the lake in central park. dragging is even more wearisome than plowing, in some respects, for you have no handles to assist you and your heels sinking deep into the soft loam bring such unwonted strain upon the tendons of your legs that you can scarcely limp home to supper, and it seems that you cannot possibly go on another day,--but you do--at least i did. there was something relentless as the weather in the way my soldier father ruled his sons, and yet he was neither hard-hearted nor unsympathetic. the fact is easily explained. his own boyhood had been task-filled and he saw nothing unnatural in the regular employment of his children. having had little play-time himself, he considered that we were having a very comfortable boyhood. furthermore the country was new and labor scarce. every hand and foot must count under such conditions. there are certain ameliorations to child-labor on a farm. air and sunshine and food are plentiful. i never lacked for meat or clothing, and mingled with my records of toil are exquisite memories of the joy i took in following the changes in the landscape, in the notes of birds, and in the play of small animals on the sunny soil. there were no pigeons on the prairie but enormous flocks of ducks came sweeping northward, alighting at sunset to feed in the fields of stubble. they came in countless myriads and often when they settled to earth they covered acres of meadow like some prodigious cataract from the sky. when alarmed they rose with a sound like the rumbling of thunder. at times the lines of their cloud-like flocks were so unending that those in the front rank were lost in the northern sky, while those in the rear were but dim bands beneath the southern sun.--i tried many times to shoot some of them, but never succeeded, so wary were they. brant and geese in formal flocks followed and to watch these noble birds pushing their arrowy lines straight into the north always gave me special joy. on fine days they flew high--so high they were but faint lines against the shining clouds. i learned to imitate their cries, and often caused the leaders to turn, to waver in their course as i uttered my resounding call. the sand-hill crane came last of all, loitering north in lonely easeful flight. often of a warm day, i heard his sovereign cry falling from the azure dome, so high, so far his form could not be seen, so close to the sun that my eyes could not detect his solitary, majestic circling sweep. he came after the geese. he was the herald of summer. his brazen, reverberating call will forever remain associated in my mind with mellow, pulsating earth, springing grass and cloudless glorious may-time skies. as my team moved to and fro over the field, ground sparrows rose in countless thousands, flinging themselves against the sky like grains of wheat from out a sower's hand, and their chatter fell upon me like the voices of fairy sprites, invisible and multitudinous. long swift narrow flocks of a bird we called "the prairie-pigeon" swooped over the swells on sounding wing, winding so close to the ground, they seemed at times like slender air-borne serpents,--and always the brown lark whistled as if to cheer my lonely task. back and forth across the wide field i drove, while the sun crawled slowly up the sky. it was tedious work and i was always hungry by nine, and famished at ten. thereafter the sun appeared to stand still. my chest caved in and my knees trembled with weakness, but when at last the white flag fluttering from a chamber window summoned to the mid-day meal, i started with strength miraculously renewed and called, "_dinner!_" to the hired hand. unhitching my team, with eager haste i climbed upon old queen, and rode at ease toward the barn. oh, it was good to enter the kitchen, odorous with fresh biscuit and hot coffee! we all ate like dragons, devouring potatoes and salt pork without end, till mother mildly remarked, "boys, boys! don't 'founder' yourselves!" from such a meal i withdrew torpid as a gorged snake, but luckily i had half an hour in which to get my courage back,--and besides, there was always the stirring power of father's clarion call. his energy appeared superhuman to me. i was in awe of him. he kept track of everything, seemed hardly to sleep and never complained of weariness. long before the nooning was up, (or so it seemed to me) he began to shout: "time's up, boys. grab a root!" and so, lame, stiff and sore, with the sinews of my legs shortened, so that my knees were bent like an old man's, i hobbled away to the barn and took charge of my team. once in the field, i felt better. a subtle change, a mellower charm came over the afternoon earth. the ground was warmer, the sky more genial, the wind more amiable, and before i had finished my second "round" my joints were moderately pliable and my sinews relaxed. nevertheless the temptation to sit on the corner of the harrow and dream the moments away was very great, and sometimes as i laid my tired body down on the tawny, sunlit grass at the edge of the field, and gazed up at the beautiful clouds sailing by, i wished for leisure to explore their purple valleys.--the wind whispered in the tall weeds, and sighed in the hazel bushes. the dried blades touching one another in the passing winds, spoke to me, and the gophers, glad of escape from their dark, underground prisons, chirped a cheery greeting. such respites were strangely sweet. so day by day, as i walked my monotonous round upon the ever mellowing soil, the prairie spring unrolled its beauties before me. i saw the last goose pass on to the north, and watched the green grass creeping up the sunny slopes. i answered the splendid challenge of the loitering crane, and studied the ground sparrow building her grassy nest. the prairie hens began to seek seclusion in the swales, and the pocket gopher, busily mining the sod, threw up his purple-brown mounds of cool fresh earth. larks, blue-birds and king-birds followed the robins, and at last the full tide of may covered the world with luscious green. harriet and frank returned to school but i was too valuable to be spared. the unbroken land of our new farm demanded the plow and no sooner was the planting on our rented place finished than my father began the work of fencing and breaking the sod of the homestead which lay a mile to the south, glowing like a garden under the summer sun. one day late in may my uncle david (who had taken a farm not far away), drove over with four horses hitched to a big breaking plow and together with my father set to work overturning the primeval sward whereon we were to be "lords of the soil." i confess that as i saw the tender plants and shining flowers bow beneath the remorseless beam, civilization seemed a sad business, and yet there was something epic, something large-gestured and splendid in the "breaking" season. smooth, glossy, almost unwrinkled the thick ribbon of jet-black sod rose upon the share and rolled away from the mold-board's glistening curve to tuck itself upside down into the furrow behind the horse's heels, and the picture which my uncle made, gave me pleasure in spite of the sad changes he was making. the land was not all clear prairie and every ounce of david's great strength was required to guide that eighteen-inch plow as it went ripping and snarling through the matted roots of the hazel thickets, and sometimes my father came and sat on the beam in order to hold the coulter to its work, while the giant driver braced himself to the shock and the four horses strained desperately at their traces. these contests had the quality of a wrestling match but the men always won. my own job was to rake and burn the brush which my father mowed with a heavy scythe.--later we dug postholes and built fences but each day was spent on the new land. around us, on the swells, gray gophers whistled, and the nesting plover quaveringly called. blackbirds clucked in the furrow and squat badgers watched with jealous eye the plow's inexorable progress toward their dens. the weather was perfect june. fleecy clouds sailed like snowy galleons from west to east, the wind was strong but kind, and we worked in a glow of satisfied ownership. many rattlesnakes ("massasaugas" mr. button called them), inhabited the moist spots and father and i killed several as we cleared the ground. prairie wolves lurked in the groves and swales, but as foot by foot and rod by rod, the steady steel rolled the grass and the hazel brush under, all of these wild things died or hurried away, never to return. some part of this tragedy i was able even then to understand and regret. at last the wide "quarter section" lay upturned, black to the sun and the garden that had bloomed and fruited for millions of years, waiting for man, lay torn and ravaged. the tender plants, the sweet flowers, the fragrant fruits, the busy insects, all the swarming lives which had been native here for untold centuries were utterly destroyed. it was sad and yet it was not all loss, even to my thinking, for i realized that over this desolation the green wheat would wave and the corn silks shed their pollen. it was not precisely the romantic valley of our song, but it was a rich and promiseful plot and my father seemed entirely content. meanwhile, on a little rise of ground near the road, neighbor gammons and john bowers were building our next home. it did not in the least resemble the foundation of an everlasting family seat, but it deeply excited us all. it was of pine and had the usual three rooms below and a long garret above and as it stood on a plain, bare to the winds, my father took the precaution of lining it with brick to hold it down. it was as good as most of the dwellings round about us but it stood naked on the sod, devoid of grace as a dry goods box. its walls were rough plaster, its floor of white pine, its furniture poor, scanty and worn. there was a little picture on the face of the clock, a chromo on the wall, and a printed portrait of general grant--nothing more. it was home by reason of my mother's brave and cheery presence, and the prattle of jessie's clear voice filled it with music. dear child,--with her it was always spring! chapter xi school life our new house was completed during july but we did not move into it till in september. there was much to be done in way of building sheds, granaries and corn-cribs and in this work father was both carpenter and stone-mason. an amusing incident comes to my mind in connection with the digging of our well. uncle david and i were "tending mason," and father was down in the well laying or trying to lay the curbing. it was a tedious and difficult job and he was about to give it up in despair when one of our neighbors, a quaint old englishman named barker, came driving along. he was one of these men who take a minute inquisitive interest in the affairs of others; therefore he pulled his team to a halt and came in. peering into the well he drawled out, "hello, garland. w'at ye doin' down there?" "tryin' to lay a curb," replied my father lifting a gloomy face, "and i guess it's too complicated for me." "nothin' easier," retorted the old man with a wink at my uncle, "jest putt two a-top o' one and one a-toppo two--and the big eend out,"--and with a broad grin on his red face he went back to his team and drove away. my father afterwards said, "i saw the whole process in a flash of light. he had given me all the rule i needed. i laid the rest of that wall without a particle of trouble." many times after this barker stopped to offer advice but he never quite equalled the startling success of his rule for masonry. the events of this harvest, even the process of moving into the new house, are obscured in my mind by the clouds of smoke which rose from calamitous fires all over the west. it was an unprecedentedly dry season so that not merely the prairie, but many weedy cornfields burned. i had a good deal of time to meditate upon this for i was again the plow-boy. every day i drove away from the rented farm to the new land where i was cross-cutting the breaking, and the thickening haze through which the sun shone with a hellish red glare, produced in me a growing uneasiness which became terror when the news came to us that chicago was on fire. it seemed to me then that the earth was about to go up in a flaming cloud just as my grandad had so often prophesied. this general sense of impending disaster was made keenly personal by the destruction of uncle david's stable with all his horses. this building like most of the barns of the region was not only roofed with straw but banked with straw, and it burned so swiftly that david was trapped in a stall while trying to save one of his teams. he saved himself by burrowing like a gigantic mole through the side of the shed, and so, hatless, covered with dust and chaff, emerged as if from a fiery burial after he had been given up for dead. this incident combined with others so filled my childish mind that i lived in apprehension of similar disaster. i feared the hot wind which roared up from the south, and i never entered our own stable in the middle of the day without a sense of danger. then came the rains--the blessed rains--and put an end to my fears. in a week we had forgotten all the "conflagrations" except that in chicago. there was something grandiose and unforgettable in the tales which told of the madly fleeing crowds in the narrow streets. these accounts pushed back the walls of my universe till its far edge included the ruined metropolis whose rebuilding was of the highest importance to us, for it was not only the source of all our supplies, but the great central market to which we sent our corn and hogs and wheat. my world was splendidly romantic. it was bounded on the west by the plains with their indians and buffalo; on the north by the great woods, filled with thieves and counterfeiters; on the south by osage and chicago; and on the east by hesper, onalaska and boston. a luminous trail ran from dry run prairie to neshonoc--all else was "chaos and black night." for seventy days i walked behind my plow on the new farm while my father finished the harvest on the rented farm and moved to the house on the knoll. it was lonely work for a boy of eleven but there were frequent breaks in the monotony and i did not greatly suffer. i disliked cross-cutting for the reason that the unrotted sods would often pile up in front of the coulter and make me a great deal of trouble. there is a certain pathos in the sight of that small boy tugging and kicking at the stubborn turf in the effort to free his plow. such misfortunes loom large in a lad's horizon. one of the interludes, and a lovely one, was given over to gathering the hay from one of the wild meadows to the north of us. another was the threshing from the shock on the rented farm. this was the first time we had seen this done and it interested us keenly. a great many teams were necessary and the crew of men was correspondingly large. uncle david was again the thresher with a fine new separator, and i would have enjoyed the season with almost perfect contentment had it not been for the fact that i was detailed to hold sacks for daddy fairbanks who was the measurer. our first winter had been without much wind but our second taught us the meaning of the word "blizzard" which we had just begun to hear about. the winds of wisconsin were "gentle zephyrs" compared to the blasts which now swept down over the plain to hammer upon our desolate little cabin and pile the drifts around our sheds and granaries, and even my pioneer father was forced to admit that the hills of green's coulee had their uses after all. one such storm which leaped upon us at the close of a warm and beautiful day in february lasted for two days and three nights, making life on the open prairie impossible even to the strongest man. the thermometer fell to thirty degrees below zero and the snow-laden air moving at a rate of eighty miles an hour pressed upon the walls of our house with giant power. the sky of noon was darkened, so that we moved in a pallid half-light, and the windows thick with frost shut us in as if with gray shrouds. hour after hour those winds and snows in furious battle, howled and roared and whistled around our frail shelter, slashing at the windows and piping on the chimney, till it seemed as if the lord sun had been wholly blotted out and that the world would never again be warm. twice each day my father made a desperate sally toward the stable to feed the imprisoned cows and horses or to replenish our fuel--for the remainder of the long pallid day he sat beside the fire with gloomy face. even his indomitable spirit was awed by the fury of that storm. so long and so continuously did those immitigable winds howl in our ears that their tumult persisted, in imagination, when on the third morning, we thawed holes in the thickened rime of the window panes and looked forth on a world silent as a marble sea and flaming with sunlight. my own relief was mingled with surprise--surprise to find the landscape so unchanged. true, the yard was piled high with drifts and the barns were almost lost to view but the far fields and the dark lines of burr oak grove remained unchanged. we met our school-mates that day, like survivors of shipwreck, and for many days we listened to gruesome stories of disaster, tales of stages frozen deep in snow with all their passengers sitting in their seats, and of herders with their silent flocks around them, lying stark as granite among the hazel bushes in which they had sought shelter. it was long before we shook off the awe with which this tempest filled our hearts. the school-house which stood at the corner of our new farm was less than half a mile away, and yet on many of the winter days which followed, we found it quite far enough. hattie was now thirteen, frank nine and i a little past eleven but nothing, except a blizzard such as i have described, could keep us away from school. facing the cutting wind, wallowing through the drifts, battling like small intrepid animals, we often arrived at the door moaning with pain yet unsubdued, our ears frosted, our toes numb in our boots, to meet others in similar case around the roaring hot stove. often after we reached the school-house another form of suffering overtook us in the "thawing out" process. our fingers and toes, swollen with blood, ached and itched, and our ears burned. nearly all of us carried sloughing ears and scaling noses. some of the pupils came two miles against these winds. the natural result of all this exposure was of course, chilblains! every foot in the school was more or less touched with this disease to which our elders alluded as if it were an amusing trifle, but to us it was no joke. after getting thoroughly warmed up, along about the middle of the forenoon, there came into our feet a most intense itching and burning and aching, a sensation so acute that keeping still was impossible, and all over the room an uneasy shuffling and drumming arose as we pounded our throbbing heels against the floor or scraped our itching toes against the edge of our benches. the teacher understood and was kind enough to overlook this disorder. the wonder is that any of us lived through that winter, for at recess, no matter what the weather might be we flung ourselves out of doors to play "fox and geese" or "dare goal," until, damp with perspiration, we responded to the teacher's bell, and came pouring back into the entry ways to lay aside our wraps for another hour's study. our readers were almost the only counterchecks to the current of vulgarity and baseness which ran through the talk of the older boys, and i wish to acknowledge my deep obligation to professor mcguffey, whoever he may have been, for the dignity and literary grace of his selections. from the pages of his readers i learned to know and love the poems of scott, byron, southey, wordsworth and a long line of the english masters. i got my first taste of shakespeare from the selected scenes which i read in these books. with terror as well as delight i rose to read _lochiel's warning_, _the battle of waterloo_ or _the roman captive_. marco bozzaris and william tell were alike glorious to me. i soon knew not only my own reader, the fourth, but all the selections in the fifth and sixth as well. i could follow almost word for word the recitations of the older pupils and at such times i forgot my squat little body and my mop of hair, and became imaginatively a page in the train of ivanhoe, or a bowman in the army of richard the lion heart battling the saracen in the holy land. with a high ideal of the way in which these grand selections should be read, i was scared almost voiceless when it came my turn to read them before the class. "strike for your altars and your fires. strike for the green graves of your sires--god and your native land," always reduced me to a trembling breathlessness. the sight of the emphatic print was a call to the best that was in me and yet i could not meet the test. excess of desire to do it just right often brought a ludicrous gasp and i often fell back into my seat in disgrace, the titter of the girls adding to my pain. then there was the famous passage, "did ye not hear it?" and the careless answer, "no, it was but the wind or the car rattling o'er the stony street."--i knew exactly how those opposing emotions should be expressed but to do it after i rose to my feet was impossible. burton was even more terrified than i. stricken blind as well as dumb he usually ended by helplessly staring at the words which, i conceive, had suddenly become a blur to him. no matter, we were taught to feel the force of these poems and to reverence the genius that produced them, and that was worth while. falstaff and prince hal, henry and his wooing of kate, wolsey and his downfall, shylock and his pound of flesh all became a part of our thinking and helped us to measure the large figures of our own literature, for whittier, bryant and longfellow also had place in these volumes. it is probable that professor mcguffey, being a southern man, did not value new england writers as highly as my grandmother did, nevertheless _thanatopsis_ was there and _the village blacksmith_, and extracts from _the deer slayer_ and _the pilot_ gave us a notion that in cooper we had a novelist of weight and importance, one to put beside scott and dickens. a by-product of my acquaintance with one of the older boys was a stack of copies of the _new york weekly_, a paper filled with stories of noble life in england and hair-breadth escapes on the plain, a shrewd mixture, designed to meet the needs of the entire membership of a prairie household. the pleasure i took in these tales should fill me with shame, but it doesn't--i rejoice in the memory of it. i soon began, also, to purchase and trade "beadle's dime novels" and, to tell the truth, i took an exquisite delight in _old sleuth_ and _jack harkaway_. my taste was catholic. i ranged from _lady gwendolin_ to _buckskin bill_ and so far as i can now distinguish one was quite as enthralling as the other. it is impossible for any print to be as magical to any boy these days as those weeklies were to me in . one day a singular test was made of us all. through some agency now lost to me my father was brought to subscribe for _the hearth and home_ or some such paper for the farmer, and in this i read my first chronicle of everyday life. in the midst of my dreams of lords and ladies, queens and dukes, i found myself deeply concerned with backwoods farming, spelling schools, protracted meetings and the like familiar homely scenes. this serial (which involved my sister and myself in many a spat as to who should read it first) was _the hoosier schoolmaster_, by edward eggleston, and a perfectly successful attempt to interest western readers in a story of the middle border. to us "mandy" and "bud means," "ralph hartsook," the teacher, "little shocky" and sweet patient "hannah," were as real as cyrus button and daddy fairbanks. we could hardly wait for the next number of the paper, so concerned were we about "hannah" and "ralph." we quoted old lady means and we made bets on "bud" in his fight with the villainous drover. i hardly knew where indiana was in those days, but eggleston's characters were near neighbors. the illustrations were dreadful, even in my eyes, but the artist contrived to give a slight virginal charm to hannah and a certain childish sweetness to shocky, so that we accepted the more than mortal ugliness of old man means and his daughter mirandy (who simpered over her book at us as she did at ralph), as a just interpretation of their worthlessness. this book is a milestone in my literary progress as it is in the development of distinctive western fiction, and years afterward i was glad to say so to the aged author who lived a long and honored life as a teacher and writer of fiction. it was always too hot or too cold in our schoolroom and on certain days when a savage wind beat and clamored at the loose windows, the girls, humped and shivering, sat upon their feet to keep them warm, and the younger children with shawls over their shoulders sought permission to gather close about the stove. our dinner pails (stored in the entry way) were often frozen solid and it was necessary to thaw out our mince pie as well as our bread and butter by putting it on the stove. i recall, vividly, gnawing, dog-like, at the mollified outside of a doughnut while still its frosty heart made my teeth ache. happily all days were not like this. there were afternoons when the sun streamed warmly into the room, when long icicles formed on the eaves, adding a touch of grace to the desolate building, moments when the jingling bells of passing wood-sleighs expressed the natural cheer and buoyancy of our youthful hearts. chapter xii chores and almanacs our farm-yard would have been uninhabitable during this winter had it not been for the long ricks of straw which we had piled up as a shield against the prairie winds. our horse-barn, roofed with hay and banked with chaff, formed the west wall of the cowpen, and a long low shed gave shelter to the north. in this triangular space, in the lee of shed and straw-rick, the cattle passed a dolorous winter. mostly they burrowed in the chaff, or stood about humped and shivering--only on sunny days did their arching backs subside. naturally each animal grew a thick coat of long hair, and succeeded in coming through to grass again, but the cows of some of our neighbors were less fortunate. some of them got so weak that they had to be "tailed" up as it was called. this meant that they were dying of hunger and the sight of them crawling about filled me with indignant wrath. i could not understand how a man, otherwise kind, could let his stock suffer for lack of hay when wild grass was plentiful. one of my duties, and one that i dreaded, was pumping water for our herd. this was no light job, especially on a stinging windy morning, for the cows, having only dry fodder, required an enormous amount of liquid, and as they could only drink while the water was fresh from the well, some one must work the handle till the last calf had absorbed his fill--and this had to be done when the thermometer was thirty below, just the same as at any other time. and this brings up an almost forgotten phase of bovine psychology. the order in which the cows drank as well as that in which they entered the stable was carefully determined and rigidly observed. there was always one old dowager who took precedence, all the others gave way before her. then came the second in rank who feared the leader but insisted on ruling all the others, and so on down to the heifer. this order, once established, was seldom broken (at least by the females of the herd, the males were more unstable) even when the leader grew old and almost helpless. we took advantage of this loyalty when putting them into the barn. the stall furthest from the door belonged to "old spot," the second to "daisy" and so on, hence all i had to do was to open the door and let them in--for if any rash young thing got out of her proper place she was set right, very quickly, by her superiors. some farms had ponds or streams to which their flocks were driven for water but this to me was a melancholy winter function, and sometimes as i joined burt or cyrus in driving the poor humped and shivering beasts down over the snowy plain to a hole chopped in the ice, and watched them lay their aching teeth to the frigid draught, trying a dozen times to temper their mouths to the chill i suffered with them. as they streamed along homeward, heavy with their sloshing load, they seemed the personification of a desolate and abused race. winter mornings were a time of trial for us all. it required stern military command to get us out of bed before daylight, in a chamber warmed only by the stove-pipe, to draw on icy socks and frosty boots and go to the milking of cows and the currying of horses. other boys did not rise by candle-light but i did, not because i was eager to make a record but for the very good reason that my commander believed in early rising. i groaned and whined but i rose--and always i found mother in the kitchen before me, putting the kettle on. it ought not to surprise the reader when i say that my morning toilet was hasty--something less than "a lick and a promise." i couldn't (or didn't) stop to wash my face or comb my hair; such refinements seem useless in an attic bedchamber at five in the morning of a december day--i put them off till breakfast time. getting up at five a. m. even in june was a hardship, in winter it was a punishment. our discomforts had their compensations! as we came back to the house at six, the kitchen was always cheery with the smell of browning flapjacks, sizzling sausages and steaming coffee, and mother had plenty of hot water on the stove so that in "half a jiffy," with shining faces and sleek hair we sat down to a noble feast. by this time also the eastern sky was gorgeous with light, and two misty "sun dogs" dimly loomed, watching at the gate of the new day. now that i think of it, father was the one who took the brunt of our "revellee." he always built the fire in the kitchen stove before calling the family. mother, silent, sleepy, came second. sometimes she was just combing her hair as i passed through the kitchen, at other times she would be at the biscuit dough or stirring the pancake batter--but she was always there! "what did you gain by this disagreeable habit of early rising?"--this is a question i have often asked myself since. was it only a useless obsession on the part of my pioneer dad? why couldn't we have slept till six, or even seven? why rise before the sun? i cannot answer this, i only know such was our habit summer and winter, and that most of our neighbors conformed to the same rigorous tradition. none of us got rich, and as i look back on the situation, i cannot recall that those "sluggards" who rose an hour or two later were any poorer than we. i am inclined to think it was all a convention of the border, a custom which might very well have been broken by us all. my mother would have found these winter days very long had it not been for baby jessie, for father was busily hauling wood from the cedar river some six or seven miles away, and the almost incessant, mournful piping of the wind in the chimney was dispiriting. occasionally mrs. button, mrs. gammons or some other of the neighbors would drop in for a visit, but generally mother and jessie were alone till harriet and frank and i came home from school at half-past four. our evenings were more cheerful. my sister hattie was able to play a few simple tunes on the melodeon and cyrus and eva or mary abbie and john occasionally came in to sing. in this my mother often took part. in church her clear soprano rose above all the others like the voice of some serene great bird. of this gift my father often expressed his open admiration. there was very little dancing during our second winter but fred jewett started a singing school which brought the young folks together once a week. we boys amused ourselves with "dare gool" and "dog and deer." cold had little terror for us, provided the air was still. often we played "hi spy" around the barn with the thermometer twenty below zero, and not infrequently we took long walks to visit burton and other of our boy friends or to borrow something to read. i was always on the trail of a book. harriet joined me in my search for stories and nothing in the neighborhood homes escaped us. anything in print received our most respectful consideration. jane porter's _scottish chiefs_ brought to us both anguish and delight. _tempest and sunshine_ was another discovery. i cannot tell to whom i was indebted for _ivanhoe_ but i read and re-read it with the most intense pleasure. at the same time or near it i borrowed a huge bundle of _the new york saturday night_ and _the new york ledger_ and from them i derived an almost equal enjoyment. "old sleuth" and "buckskin bill" were as admirable in their way as "cedric the saxon." at this time _godey's ladies book_ and _peterson's magazine_ were the only high-class periodicals known to us. _the toledo blade_ and _the new york tribune_ were still my father's political advisers and horace greeley and "petroleum v. nasby" were equally corporeal in my mind. almanacs figured largely in my reading at this time, and were a source of frequent quotation by my father. they were nothing but small, badly-printed, patent medicine pamphlets, each with a loop of string at the corner so that they might be hung on a nail behind the stove, and of a crude green or yellow or blue. each of them made much of a calm-featured man who seemed unaware of the fact that his internal organs were opened to the light of day. lines radiated from his middle to the signs of the zodiac. i never knew what all this meant, but it gave me a sense of something esoteric and remote. just what "aries" and "pisces" had to do with healing or the weather is still a mystery. these advertising bulletins could be seen in heaps on the counter at the drug store especially in the spring months when "healey's bitters" and "allen's cherry pectoral" were most needed to "purify the blood." they were given out freely, but the price of the marvellous mixtures they celebrated was always one dollar a bottle, and many a broad coin went for a "bitter" which should have gone to buy a new dress for an overworked wife. these little books contained, also, concise aphorisms and weighty words of advice like "after dinner rest awhile; after supper run a mile," and "be vigilant, be truthful and your life will never be ruthful." "take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves" (which needed a little translating to us) probably came down a long line of english copy books. no doubt they were all stolen from _poor richard_. incidentally they called attention to the aches and pains of humankind, and each page presented the face, signature and address of some far-off person who had been miraculously relieved by the particular "balsam" or "bitter" which that pamphlet presented. hollow-cheeked folk were shown "before taking," and the same individuals plump and hearty "after taking," followed by very realistic accounts of the diseases from which they had been relieved gave encouragement to others suffering from the same "complaints." generally the almanac which presented the claims of a "pectoral" also had a "salve" that was "sovereign for burns" and some of them humanely took into account the ills of farm animals and presented a cure for bots or a liniment for spavins. i spent a great deal of time with these publications and to them a large part of my education is due. it is impossible that printed matter of any kind should possess for any child of today the enchantment which came to me, from a grimy, half-dismembered copy of scott or cooper. _the life of p. t. barnum_, franklin's _autobiography_ we owned and they were also wellsprings of joy to me. sometimes i hold with the lacedemonians that "hunger is the best sauce" for the mind as well as for the palate. certainly we made the most of all that came our way. naturally the school-house continued to be the center of our interest by day and the scene of our occasional neighborhood recreation by night. in its small way it was our forum as well as our academy and my memories of it are mostly pleasant. early one bright winter day charles babcock and albert button, two of our big boys, suddenly appeared at the school-house door with their best teams hitched to great bob-sleds, and amid much shouting and laughter, the entire school (including the teacher) piled in on the straw which softened the bottom of the box, and away we raced with jangling bells, along the bright winter roads with intent to "surprise" the burr oak teacher and his flock. i particularly enjoyed this expedition for the burr oak school was larger than ours and stood on the edge of a forest and was protected by noble trees. a deep ravine near it furnished a mild form of coasting. the schoolroom had fine new desks with iron legs and the teacher's desk occupied a deep recess at the front. altogether it possessed something of the dignity of a church. to go there was almost like going to town, for at the corners where the three roads met, four or five houses stood and in one of these was a postoffice. that day is memorable to me for the reason that i first saw bettie and hattie and agnes, the prettiest girls in the township. hattie and bettie were both fair-haired and blue-eyed but agnes was dark with great velvety black eyes. neither of them was over sixteen, but they had all taken on the airs of young ladies and looked with amused contempt on lads of my age. nevertheless, i had the right to admire them in secret for they added the final touch of poetry to this visit to "the grove school house." often, thereafter, on a clear night when the thermometer stood twenty below zero, burton and i would trot away toward the grove to join in some meeting or to coast with the boys on the banks of the creek. i feel again the iron clutch of my frozen boots. the tippet around my neck is solid ice before my lips. my ears sting. low-hung, blazing, the stars light the sky, and over the diamond-dusted snow-crust the moonbeams splinter. though sensing the glory of such nights as these i was careful about referring to it. restraint in such matters was the rule. if you said, "it is a fine day," or "the night is as clear as a bell," you had gone quite as far as the proprieties permitted. love was also a forbidden word. you might say, "i love pie," but to say "i love bettie," was mawkish if not actually improper. caresses or terms of endearment even between parents and their children were very seldom used. people who said "daddy dear," or "jim dear," were under suspicion. "they fight like cats and dogs when no one else is around" was the universal comment on a family whose members were very free of their terms of affection. we were a spartan lot. we did not believe in letting our wives and children know that they were an important part of our contentment. social changes were in progress. we held no more quilting bees or barn-raisings. women visited less than in wisconsin. the work on the new farms was never ending, and all teams were in constant use during week days. the young people got together on one excuse or another, but their elders met only at public meetings. singing, even among the young people was almost entirely confined to hymn-tunes. the new moody and sankey song book was in every home. _tell me the old old story_ did not refer to courtship but to salvation, and _hold the fort for i am coming_ was no longer a signal from sherman, but a message from jesus. we often spent a joyous evening singing _o, bear me away on your snowy wings_, although we had no real desire to be taken "to our immortal home." father no longer asked for _minnie minturn_ and _nellie wildwood_,--but his love for smith's _grand march_ persisted and my sister harriet was often called upon to play it for him while he explained its meaning. the war was passing into the mellow, reminiscent haze of memory and he loved the splendid pictures which this descriptive piece of martial music recalled to mind. so far as we then knew his pursuit of the sunset was at an end. chapter xiii boy life on the prairie the snows fell deep in february and when at last the warm march winds began to blow, lakes developed with magical swiftness in the fields, and streams filled every swale, transforming the landscape into something unexpected and enchanting. at night these waters froze, bringing fields of ice almost to our door. we forgot all our other interests in the joy of the games which we played thereon at every respite from school, or from the wood-pile, for splitting firewood was our first spring task. from time to time as the weather permitted, father had been cutting and hauling maple and hickory logs from the forests of the cedar river, and these logs must now be made into stove-wood and piled for summer use. even before the school term ended we began to take a hand at this work, after four o'clock and on saturdays. while the hired man and father ran the cross-cut saw, whose pleasant song had much of the seed-time suggestion which vibrated in the _caw-caw_ of the hens as they burrowed in the dust of the chip-yard, i split the easy blocks and my brother helped to pile the finished product. the place where the wood-pile lay was slightly higher than the barnyard and was the first dry ground to appear in the almost universal slush and mud. delightful memories are associated with this sunny spot and with a pond which appeared as if by some conjury, on the very field where i had husked the down-row so painfully in november. from the wood-pile i was often permitted to go skating and burton was my constant companion in these excursions. however, my joy in his companionship was not unmixed with bitterness, for i deeply envied him the skates which he wore. they were trimmed with brass and their runners came up over his toes in beautiful curves and ended in brass acorns which transfigured their wearer. to own a pair of such skates seemed to me the summit of all earthly glory. my own wooden "contraptions" went on with straps and i could not make the runners stay in the middle of my soles where they belonged, hence my ankles not only tipped in awkwardly but the stiff outer edges of my boot counters dug holes in my skin so that my outing was a kind of torture after all. nevertheless, i persisted and, while burton circled and swooped like a hawk, i sprawled with flapping arms in a mist of ignoble rage. that i learned to skate fairly well even under these disadvantages argues a high degree of enthusiasm. father was always willing to release us from labor at times when the ice was fine, and at night we were free to explore the whole country round about, finding new places for our games. sometimes the girls joined us, and we built fires on the edges of the swales and played "gool" and a kind of "shinny" till hunger drove us home. we held to this sport to the last--till the ice with prodigious booming and cracking fell away in the swales and broke through the icy drifts (which lay like dams along the fences) and vanished, leaving the corn-rows littered with huge blocks of ice. often we came in from the pond, wet to the middle, our boots completely soaked with water. they often grew hard as iron during the night, and we experienced the greatest trouble in getting them on again. greasing them with hot tallow was a regular morning job. then came the fanning mill. the seed grain had to be fanned up, and that was a dark and dusty "trick" which we did not like anything near as well as we did skating or even piling wood. the hired man turned the mill, i dipped the wheat into the hopper, franklin held sacks and father scooped the grain in. i don't suppose we gave up many hours to this work, but it seems to me that we spent weeks at it. probably we took spells at the mill in the midst of the work on the chip pile. meanwhile, above our heads the wild ducks again pursued their northward flight, and the far honking of the geese fell to our ears from the solemn deeps of the windless night. on the first dry warm ridges the prairie cocks began to boom, and then at last came the day when father's imperious voice rang high in familiar command. "out with the drags, boys! we start seeding tomorrow." again we went forth on the land, this time to wrestle with the tough, unrotted sod of the new breaking, while all around us the larks and plover called and the gray badgers stared with disapproving bitterness from their ravaged hills. maledictions on that tough northwest forty! how many times i harrowed and cross-harrowed it i cannot say, but i well remember the maddening persistency with which the masses of hazel roots clogged the teeth of the drag, making it necessary for me to raise the corner of it--a million times a day! this had to be done while the team was in motion, and you can see i did not lack for exercise. it was necessary also to "lap-half" and this requirement made careful driving needful for father could not be fooled. he saw every "balk." as the ground dried off the dust arose from under the teeth of the harrow and flew so thickly that my face was not only coated with it but tears of rebellious rage stained my cheeks with comic lines. at such times it seemed unprofitable to be the twelve-year-old son of a western farmer. one day, just as the early sown wheat was beginning to throw a tinge of green over the brown earth, a tremendous wind arose from the southwest and blew with such devastating fury that the soil, caught up from the field, formed a cloud, hundreds of feet high,--a cloud which darkened the sky, turning noon into dusk and sending us all to shelter. all the forenoon this blizzard of loam raged, filling the house with dust, almost smothering the cattle in the stable. work was impossible, even for the men. the growing grain, its roots exposed to the air, withered and died. many of the smaller plants were carried bodily away. as the day wore on father fell into dumb, despairing rage. his rigid face and smoldering eyes, his grim lips, terrified us all. it seemed to him (as to us), that the entire farm was about to take flight and the bitterest part of the tragic circumstance lay in the reflection that our loss (which was much greater than any of our neighbors) was due to the extra care with which we had pulverized the ground. "if only i hadn't gone over it that last time," i heard him groan in reference to the "smooch" with which i had crushed all the lumps making every acre friable as a garden. "look at woodring's!" sure enough. the cloud was thinner over on woodring's side of the line fence. his rough clods were hardly touched. my father's bitter revolt, his impotent fury appalled me, for it seemed to me (as to him), that nature was, at the moment, an enemy. more than seventy acres of this land had to be resown. most authors in writing of "the merry merry farmer" leave out experiences like this--they omit the mud and the dust and the grime, they forget the army worm, the flies, the heat, as well as the smells and drudgery of the barns. milking the cows is spoken of in the traditional fashion as a lovely pastoral recreation, when as a matter of fact it is a tedious job. we all hated it. we saw no poetry in it. we hated it in summer when the mosquitoes bit and the cows slashed us with their tails, and we hated it still more in the winter time when they stood in crowded malodorous stalls. in summer when the flies were particularly savage we had a way of jamming our heads into the cows' flanks to prevent them from kicking into the pail, and sometimes we tied their tails to their legs so that they could not lash our ears. humboldt bunn tied a heifer's tail to his boot straps once--and regretted it almost instantly.--no, no, it won't do to talk to me of "the sweet breath of kine." i know them too well--and calves are not "the lovely, fawn-like creatures" they are supposed to be. to the boy who is teaching them to drink out of a pail they are nasty brutes--quite unlike fawns. they have a way of filling their nostrils with milk and blowing it all over their nurse. they are greedy, noisy, ill-smelling and stupid. they look well when running with their mothers in the pasture, but as soon as they are weaned they lose all their charm--for me. attendance on swine was less humiliating for the reason that we could keep them at arm's length, but we didn't enjoy that. we liked teaming and pitching hay and harvesting and making fence, and we did not greatly resent plowing or husking corn but we did hate the smell, the filth of the cow-yard. even hostling had its "outs," especially in spring when the horses were shedding their hair. i never fully enjoyed the taste of equine dandruff, and the eternal smell of manure irked me, especially at the table. clearing out from behind the animals was one of our never ending jobs, and hauling the compost out on the fields was one of the tasks which, as my father grimly said, "we always put off till it rains so hard we can't work out doors." this was no joke to us, for not only did we work out doors, we worked while standing ankle deep in the slime of the yard, getting full benefit of the drizzle. our new land did not need the fertilizer, but we were forced to haul it away or move the barn. some folks moved the barn. but then my father was an idealist. life was not all currying or muck-raking for burt or for me. herding the cows came in to relieve the monotony of farm-work. wide tracts of unbroken sod still lay open to the north and west, and these were the common grazing grounds for the community. every farmer kept from twenty-five to a hundred head of cattle and half as many colts, and no sooner did the green begin to show on the fire-blackened sod in april than the winter-worn beasts left the straw-piles under whose lee they had fed during the cold months, and crawled out to nip the first tender spears of grass in the sheltered swales. they were still "free commoners" in the eyes of the law. the colts were a fuzzy, ungraceful lot at this season. even the best of them had big bellies and carried dirty and tangled manes, but as the grazing improved, as the warmth and plenty of may filled their veins with new blood, they sloughed off their mangy coats and lifted their wide-blown nostrils to the western wind in exultant return to freedom. many of them had never felt the weight of a man's hand, and even those that had wintered in and around the barn-yard soon lost all trace of domesticity. it was not unusual to find that the wildest and wariest of all the leaders bore a collar mark or some other ineffaceable badge of previous servitude. they were for the most part morgan grades or "canuck," with a strain of broncho to give them fire. it was curious, it was glorious to see how deeply-buried instincts broke out in these halterless herds. in a few days, after many trials of speed and power the bands of all the region united into one drove, and a leader, the swiftest and most tireless of them all, appeared from the ranks and led them at will. often without apparent cause, merely for the joy of it, they left their feeding grounds to wheel and charge and race for hours over the swells, across the creeks and through the hazel thickets. sometimes their movements arose from the stinging of gadflies, sometimes from a battle between two jealous leaders, sometimes from the passing of a wolf--often from no cause at all other than that of abounding vitality. in much the same fashion, but less rapidly, the cattle went forth upon the plain and as each herd not only contained the growing steers, but the family cows, it became the duty of one boy from each farm to mount a horse at five o'clock every afternoon and "hunt the cattle," a task seldom shirked. my brother and i took turn and turn about at this delightful task, and soon learned to ride like comanches. in fact we lived in the saddle, when freed from duty in the field. burton often met us on the feeding grounds, and at such times the prairie seemed an excellent place for boys. as we galloped along together it was easy to imagine ourselves wild bill and buckskin joe in pursuit of indians or buffalo. we became, by force of unconscious observation, deeply learned in the language and the psychology of kine as well as colts. we watched the big bull-necked stags as they challenged one another, pawing the dust or kneeling to tear the sod with their horns. we possessed perfect understanding of their battle signs. their boastful, defiant cries were as intelligible to us as those of men. every note, every motion had a perfectly definite meaning. the foolish, inquisitive young heifers, the staid self-absorbed dowagers wearing their bells with dignity, the frisky two-year-olds and the lithe-bodied wide-horned, truculent three-year-olds all came in for interpretation. sometimes a lone steer ranging the sod came suddenly upon a trace of blood. like a hound he paused, snuffling the earth. then with wide mouth and outthrust, curling tongue, uttered voice. wild as the tiger's food-sick cry, his warning roar burst forth, ending in a strange, upward explosive whine. instantly every head in the herd was lifted, even the old cows heavy with milk stood as if suddenly renewing their youth, alert and watchful. again it came, that prehistoric bawling cry, and with one mind the herd began to center, rushing with menacing swiftness, like warriors answering their chieftain's call for aid. with awkward lope or jolting trot, snorting with fury they hastened to the rescue, only to meet in blind bewildered mass, swirling to and fro in search of an imaginary cause of some ancestral danger. at such moments we were glad of our swift ponies. from our saddles we could study these outbreaks of atavistic rage with serene enjoyment. in herding the cattle we came to know all the open country round about and found it very beautiful. on the uplands a short, light-green, hairlike grass grew, intermixed with various resinous weeds, while in the lowland feeding grounds luxuriant patches of blue-joint, wild oats, and other tall forage plants waved in the wind. along the streams and in the "sloos" cat-tails and tiger-lilies nodded above thick mats of wide-bladed marsh grass. almost without realizing it, i came to know the character of every weed, every flower, every living thing big enough to be seen from the back of a horse. nothing could be more generous, more joyous, than these natural meadows in summer. the flash and ripple and glimmer of the tall sunflowers, the myriad voices of gleeful bobolinks, the chirp and gurgle of red-winged blackbirds swaying on the willows, the meadow-larks piping from grassy bogs, the peep of the prairie chick and the wailing call of plover on the flowery green slopes of the uplands made it all an ecstatic world to me. it was a wide world with a big, big sky which gave alluring hint of the still more glorious unknown wilderness beyond. sometimes of a sunday afternoon, harriet and i wandered away to the meadows along dry run, gathering bouquets of pinks, sweet-williams, tiger-lilies and lady slippers, thus attaining a vague perception of another and sweeter side of life. the sun flamed across the splendid serial waves of the grasses and the perfumes of a hundred spicy plants rose in the shimmering mid-day air. at such times the mere joy of living filled our young hearts with wordless satisfaction. nor were the upland ridges less interesting, for huge antlers lying bleached and bare in countless numbers on the slopes told of the herds of elk and bison that had once fed in these splendid savannahs, living and dying in the days when the tall sioux were the only hunters. the gray hermit, the badger, still clung to his deep den on the rocky unplowed ridges, and on sunny april days the mother fox lay out with her young, on southward-sloping swells. often we met the prairie wolf or startled him from his sleep in hazel copse, finding in him the spirit of the wilderness. to us it seemed that just over the next long swell toward the sunset the shaggy brown bulls still fed in myriads, and in our hearts was a longing to ride away into the "sunset regions" of our song. all the boys i knew talked of colorado, never of new england. we dreamed of the plains, of the black hills, discussing cattle raising and mining and hunting. "we'll have our rifles ready, boys, ha, ha, ha-ha!" was still our favorite chorus, "newbrasky" and wyoming our far-off wonderlands, buffalo bill our hero. david, my hunter uncle who lived near us, still retained his long old-fashioned, muzzle-loading rifle, and one day offered it to me, but as i could not hold it at arm's length, i sorrowfully returned it. we owned a shotgun, however, and this i used with all the confidence of a man. i was able to kill a few ducks with it and i also hunted gophers during may when the sprouting corn was in most danger. later i became quite expert in catching chickens on the wing. on a long ridge to the north and west, the soil, too wet and cold to cultivate easily, remained unplowed for several years and scattered over these clay lands stood small groves of popple trees which we called "tow-heads." they were usually only two or three hundred feet in diameter, but they stood out like islands in the waving seas of grasses. against these dark-green masses, breakers of blue-joint radiantly rolled.--to the east some four miles ran the little cedar river, and plum trees and crab-apples and haws bloomed along its banks. in june immense crops of strawberries offered from many meadows. their delicious odor rose to us as we rode our way, tempting us to dismount and gather and eat. over these uplands, through these thickets of hazel brush, and around these coverts of popple, burton and i careered, hunting the cows, chasing rabbits, killing rattlesnakes, watching the battles of bulls, racing the half-wild colts and pursuing the prowling wolves. it was an alluring life, and harriet, who rode with us occasionally, seemed to enjoy it quite as much as any boy. she could ride almost as well as burton, and we were all expert horse-tamers. we all rode like cavalrymen,--that is to say, while holding the reins in our left hands we guided our horses by the pressure of the strap across the neck, rather than by pulling at the bit. our ponies were never allowed to trot. we taught them a peculiar gait which we called "the lope," which was an easy canter in front and a trot behind (a very good gait for long distances), and we drilled them to keep this pace steadily and to fall at command into a swift walk without any jolting intervening trot.--we learned to ride like circus performers standing on our saddles, and practised other of the tricks we had seen, and through it all my mother remained unalarmed. to her a boy on a horse was as natural as a babe in the cradle. the chances we took of getting killed were so numerous that she could not afford to worry. burton continued to be my almost inseparable companion at school and whenever we could get together, and while to others he seemed only a shy, dull boy, to me he was something more. his strength and skill were remarkable and his self-command amazing. although a lad of instant, white-hot, dangerous temper, he suddenly, at fifteen years of age, took himself in hand in a fashion miraculous to me. he decided (i never knew just why or how)--that he would never again use an obscene or profane word. he kept his vow. i knew him for over thirty years and i never heard him raise his voice in anger or utter a word a woman would have shrunk from,--and yet he became one of the most fearless and indomitable mountaineers i ever knew. this change in him profoundly influenced me and though i said nothing about it, i resolved to do as well. i never quite succeeded, although i discouraged as well as i could the stories which some of the men and boys were so fond of telling, but alas! when the old cow kicked over my pail of milk, i fell from grace and told her just what i thought of her in phrases that burton would have repressed. still, i manfully tried to follow his good trail. * * * * * corn-planting, which followed wheat-seeding, was done by hand, for a year or two, and this was a joyous task.--we "changed works" with neighbor button, and in return cyrus and eva came to help us. harriet and eva and i worked side by side, "dropping" the corn, while cyrus and the hired man followed with the hoes to cover it. little frank skittered about, planting with desultory action such pumpkin seeds as he did not eat. the presence of our young friends gave the job something of the nature of a party and we were sorry when it was over. after the planting a fortnight of less strenuous labor came on, a period which had almost the character of a holiday. the wheat needed no cultivation and the corn was not high enough to plow. this was a time for building fence and fixing up things generally. this, too, was the season of the circus. each year one came along from the east, trailing clouds of glorified dust and filling our minds with the color of romance. from the time the "advance man" flung his highly colored posters over the fence till the coming of the glorious day we thought of little else. it was india and arabia and the jungle to us. history and the magic and pomp of chivalry mingled in the parade of the morning, and the crowds, the clanging band, the haughty and alien beauty of the women, the gold embroidered housings, the stark majesty of the acrobats subdued us into silent worship. i here pay tribute to the men who brought these marvels to my eyes. to rob me of my memories of the circus would leave me as poor as those to whom life was a drab and hopeless round of toil. it was our brief season of imaginative life. in one day--in a part of one day--we gained a thousand new conceptions of the world and of human nature. it was an embodiment of all that was skillful and beautiful in manly action. it was a compendium of biologic research but more important still, it brought to our ears the latest band pieces and taught us the most popular songs. it furnished us with jokes. it relieved our dullness. it gave us something to talk about. we always went home wearied with excitement, and dusty and fretful--but content. we had seen it. we had grasped as much of it as anybody and could remember it as well as the best. next day as we resumed work in the field the memory of its splendors went with us like a golden cloud. * * * * * most of the duties of the farmer's life require the lapse of years to seem beautiful in my eyes, but haying was a season of well-defined charm. in iowa, summer was at its most exuberant stage of vitality during the last days of june, and it was not strange that the faculties of even the toiling hay-maker, dulled and deadened with never ending drudgery, caught something of the superabundant glow and throb of nature's life. as i write i am back in that marvellous time.--the cornfield, dark-green and sweetly cool, is beginning to ripple in the wind with multitudinous stir of shining, swirling leaf. waves of dusk and green and gold, circle across the ripening barley, and long leaves upthrust, at intervals, like spears. the trees are in heaviest foliage, insect life is at its height, and the shimmering air is filled with buzzing, dancing forms, and the clover is gay with the sheen of innumerable gauzy wings. the west wind comes to me laden with ecstatic voices. the bobolinks sail and tinkle in the sensuous hush, now sinking, now rising, their exquisite notes filling the air as with the sound of fairy bells. the king-bird, alert, aggressive, cries out sharply as he launches from the top of a poplar tree upon some buzzing insect, and the plover makes the prairie sad with his wailing call. vast purple-and-white clouds move like stately ships before the breeze, dark with rain, which they drop momentarily in trailing garments upon the earth, and so pass in majesty amidst a roll of thunder. the grasshoppers move in clouds with snap and buzz, and out of the luxurious stagnant marshes comes the ever-thickening chorus of the toads, while above them the kildees and the snipe shuttle to and fro in sounding flight. the blackbirds on the cat-tails sway and swing, uttering through lifted throats their liquid gurgle, mad with delight of the sun and the season--and over all, and laving all, moves the slow wind, heavy with the breath of the far-off blooms of other lands, a wind which covers the sunset plain with a golden entrancing haze. at such times it seemed to me that we had reached the "sunset region" of our song, and that we were indeed "lords of the soil." i am not so sure that haying brought to our mothers anything like this rapture, for the men added to our crew made the duties of the kitchens just that much heavier. i doubt if the women--any of them--got out into the fields or meadows long enough to enjoy the birds and the breezes. even on sunday as they rode away to church, they were too tired and too worried to re-act to the beauties of the landscape. i now began to dimly perceive that my mother was not well. although large and seemingly strong, her increasing weight made her long days of housework a torture. she grew very tired and her sweet face was often knotted with physical pain. she still made most of our garments as well as her own. she tailored father's shirts and underclothing, sewed carpet rags, pieced quilts and made butter for market,--and yet, in the midst of it all, found time to put covers on our baseball, and to do up all our burns and bruises. being a farmer's wife in those days, meant laboring outside any regulation of the hours of toil. i recall hearing one of the tired house-wives say, "seems like i never get a day off, not even on sunday," a protest which my mother thoroughly understood and sympathized with, notwithstanding its seeming inhospitality. no history of this time would be complete without a reference to the doctor. we were a vigorous and on the whole a healthy tribe but accidents sometimes happened and "go for the doctor!" was the first command when the band-cutter slashed the hand of the thresher or one of the children fell from the hay-rick. one night as i lay buried in deep sleep close to the garret eaves i heard my mother call me--and something in her voice pierced me, roused me. a poignant note of alarm was in it. "hamlin," she called, "get up--at once. you must go for the doctor. your father is very sick. _hurry!_" i sprang from my bed, dizzy with sleep, yet understanding her appeal. "i hear you, i'm coming," i called down to her as i started to dress. "call hattie. i need her too." the rain was pattering on the roof, and as i dressed i had a disturbing vision of the long cold ride which lay before me. i hoped the case was not so bad as mother thought. with limbs still numb and weak i stumbled down the stairs to the sitting room where a faint light shone. mother met me with white, strained face. "your father is suffering terribly. go for the doctor at once." i could hear the sufferer groan even as i moved about the kitchen, putting on my coat and lighting the lantern. it was about one o'clock of the morning, and the wind was cold as i picked my way through the mud to the barn. the thought of the long miles to town made me shiver but as the son of a soldier i could not falter in my duty. in their warm stalls the horses were resting in dreamful doze. dan and dick, the big plow team, stood near the door. jule and dolly came next. wild frank, a fleet but treacherous morgan, stood fifth and for a moment i considered taking him. he was strong and of wonderful staying powers but so savage and unreliable that i dared not risk an accident. i passed on to bay kittie whose bright eyes seemed to inquire, "what is the matter?" flinging the blanket over her and smoothing it carefully, i tossed the light saddle to her back and cinched it tight, so tight that she grunted. "i can't take any chances of a spill," i explained to her, and she accepted the bit willingly. she was always ready for action and fully dependable. blowing out my lantern i hung it on a peg, led kit from her stall out into the night, and swung to the saddle. she made off with a spattering rush through the yard, out into the road. it was dark as pitch but i was fully awake now. the dash of the rain in my face had cleared my brain but i trusted to the keener senses of the mare to find the road which showed only in the strips of water which filled the wagon tracks. we made way slowly for a few minutes until my eyes expanded to take in the faint lines of light along the lane. the road at last became a river of ink running between faint gray banks of sward, and my heart rose in confidence. i took on dignity. i was a courier riding through the night to save a city, a messenger on whose courage and skill thousands of lives depended. "get out o' this!" i shouted to kit, and she leaped away like a wolf, at a tearing gallop. she knew her rider. we had herded the cattle many days on the prairie, and in races with the wild colts i had tested her speed. snorting with vigor at every leap she seemed to say, "my heart is brave, my limbs are strong. call on me." out of the darkness john martin's carlo barked. a half-mile had passed. old marsh's fox hound clamored next. two miles were gone. from here the road ran diagonally across the prairie, a velvet-black band on the dim sod. the ground was firmer but there were swales full of water. through these kittie dashed with unhesitating confidence, the water flying from her drumming hooves. once she went to her knees and almost unseated me, but i regained my saddle and shouted, "go on, kit." the fourth mile was in the mud, but the fifth brought us to the village turnpike and the mare was as glad of it as i. her breath was labored now. she snorted no more in exultation and confident strength. she began to wonder--to doubt, and i, who knew her ways as well as i knew those of a human being, realized that she was beginning to flag. the mud had begun to tell on her. it hurt me to urge her on, but the memory of my mother's agonized face and the sound of my father's groan of pain steeled my heart. i set lash to her side and so kept her to her highest speed. at last a gleam of light! someone in the village was awake. i passed another lighted window. then the green and red lamps of the drug store cheered me with their promise of aid, for the doctor lived next door. there too a dim ray shone. slipping from my weary horse i tied her to the rail and hurried up the walk toward the doctor's bell. i remembered just where the knob rested. twice i pulled sharply, strongly, putting into it some part of the anxiety and impatience i felt. i could hear its imperative jingle as it died away in the silent house. at last the door opened and the doctor, a big blonde handsome man in a long night gown, confronted me with impassive face. "what is it, my boy?" he asked kindly. as i told him he looked down at my water-soaked form and wild-eyed countenance with gentle patience. then he peered out over my head into the dismal night. he was a man of resolution but he hesitated for a moment. "your father is suffering sharply, is he?" "yes, sir. i could hear him groan.--please hurry." he mused a moment. "he is a soldier. he would not complain of a little thing--i will come." turning in relief, i ran down the walk and climbed upon my shivering mare. she wheeled sharply, eager to be off on her homeward way. her spirit was not broken, but she was content to take a slower pace. she seemed to know that our errand was accomplished and that the warm shelter of the stall was to be her reward. holding her down to a slow trot i turned often to see if i could detect the lights of the doctor's buggy which was a familiar sight on our road. i had heard that he kept one of his teams harnessed ready for calls like this, and i confidently expected him to overtake me. "it's a terrible night to go out, but he said he would come," i repeated as i rode. at last the lights of a carriage, crazily rocking, came into view and pulling kit to a walk i twisted in my saddle, ready to shout with admiration of the speed of his team. "he's driving the 'clay-banks,'" i called in great excitement. the clay-banks were famous throughout the county as the doctor's swiftest and wildest team, a span of bronchos whose savage spirits no journey could entirely subdue, a team he did not spare, a team that scorned petting and pity, bony, sinewy, big-headed. they never walked and had little care of mud or snow. they came rushing now with splashing feet and foaming, half-open jaws, the big doctor, calm, iron-handed, masterful, sitting in the swaying top of his light buggy, his feet against the dash board, keeping his furious span in hand as easily as if they were a pair of shetland ponies. the nigh horse was running, the off horse pacing, and the splatter of their feet, the slash of the wheels and the roaring of their heavy breathing, made my boyish heart leap. i could hardly repress a yell of delight. as i drew aside to let him pass the doctor called out with mellow cheer, "take your time, boy, take your time!" before i could even think of an answer, he was gone and i was alone with kit and the night. my anxiety vanished with him. i had done all that could humanly be done, i had fetched the doctor. whatever happened i was guiltless. i knew also that in a few minutes a sweet relief would come to my tortured mother, and with full faith and loving confidence in the man of science, i jogged along homeward, wet to the bone but triumphant. chapter xiv wheat and the harvest the early seventies were years of swift change on the middle border. day by day the settlement thickened. section by section the prairie was blackened by the plow. month by month the sweet wild meadows were fenced and pastured and so at last the colts and cows all came into captivity, and our horseback riding ceased, cut short as if by some imperial decree. lanes of barbed wire replaced the winding wagon trails, our saddles gathered dust in the grain-sheds, and groves of lombardy poplar and european larch replaced the tow-heads of aspen and hazel through which we had pursued the wolf and fox. i will not say that this produced in me any keen sense of sorrow at the time, for though i missed our horse-herds and the charm of the open spaces, i turned to tamer sports with the resilient adaptability of youth. if i could not ride i could at least play baseball, and the swimming hole in the little cedar remained untouched. the coming in of numerous eastern settlers brought added charm to neighborhood life. picnics, conventions, fourth of july celebrations--all intensified our interest, and in their increasing drama we were compensated, in some degree at least, for the delights which were passing with the prairie. our school-house did not change--except for the worse. no one thought of adding a tree or a vine to its ugly yard. sun-smit, bare as a nose it stood at the cross-roads, receiving us through its drab door-way as it had done from the first. its benches, hideously hacked and thick with grime, were as hard and uncomfortable as when i first saw them, and the windows remained unshaded and unwashed. most of the farm-houses in the region remained equally unadorned, but deacon gammons had added an "ell" and established a "parlor," and anson burtch had painted his barn. the plain began to take on a comfortable look, for some of the trees of the wind-breaks had risen above the roofs, and growing maples softened the effect of the bleak expanse. my mother, like most of her neighbors, still cooked and served meals in our one living room during the winter but moved into a "summer kitchen" in april. this change always gave us a sense of luxury--which is pathetic, if you look at it that way. our front room became suddenly and happily a parlor, and was so treated. mother at once got down the rag carpet and gave orders for us to shake out and bring in some clean straw to put under it, and when we had tacked it down and re-arranged the furniture, it was no longer a place for muddy boots and shirt-sleeved shiftlessness, it had an air of being in perpetual sabbath leisure. the garlands were not so poor as all this would seem to imply, for we were now farming over three hundred acres of land and caring for a herd of cattle and many swine. it merely meant that my father did not feel the need of a "best room" and mother and harriet were not yet able to change his mind. harriet wanted an organ like mary abby gammons, mother longed for a real "in-grain" carpet and we all clamored for a spring wagon. we got the wagon first. that bleak little house is clearly defined in my mind at this moment. the low lean-to kitchen, the rag-carpeted sitting room with its two chromos of _wide awake_ and _fast asleep_--its steel engraving of general grant, and its tiny melodeon in the corner--all these come back to me. there are very few books or magazines in the scene, but there are piles of newspapers, for my father was an omnivorous reader of all things political. it was not a hovel, it was a pioneer cabin persisting into a settled community, that was all. during these years the whole middle border was menaced by bands of horse-thieves operating under a secret well-organized system. horses disappeared night by night and were never recovered, till at last the farmers, in despair of the local authorities, organized a horse thief protective association which undertook to pursue and punish the robbers and to pay for such animals as were not returned. our county had an association of this sort and shortly after we opened our new farm my father became a member. my first knowledge of this fact came when he nailed on our barn-door the white cloth poster which proclaimed in bold black letters a warning and a threat signed by "the committee."--i was always a little in doubt as to whether the horse-thieves or ourselves were to be protected, for the notice was fair warning to them as well as an assurance to us. anyhow very few horses were stolen from barns thus protected. the campaign against the thieves gave rise to many stirring stories which lost nothing in my father's telling of them. jim mccarty was agent for our association and its effectiveness was largely due to his swift and fearless action. we all had a pleasant sense of the mystery of the night riding which went on during this period and no man could pass with a led horse without being under suspicion of being either a thief or a deputy. then, too, the thieves were supposed to have in every community a spy who gave information as to the best horses, and informed the gang as to the membership of the protective society. one of our neighbors fell under suspicion at this time and never got clear of it. i hope we did him no injustice in this for never after could i bring myself to enter his house, and he was clearly ostracized by all the neighbors. * * * * * as i look back over my life on that iowa farm the song of the reaper fills large place in my mind. we were all worshippers of wheat in those days. the men thought and talked of little else between seeding and harvest, and you will not wonder at this if you have known and bowed down before such abundance as we then enjoyed. deep as the breast of a man, wide as the sea, heavy-headed, supple-stocked, many-voiced, full of multitudinous, secret, whispered colloquies,--a meeting place of winds and of sunlight,--our fields ran to the world's end. we trembled when the storm lay hard upon the wheat, we exulted as the lilac shadows of noon-day drifted over it! we went out into it at noon when all was still--so still we could hear the pulse of the transforming sap as it crept from cool root to swaying plume. we stood before it at evening when the setting sun flooded it with crimson, the bearded heads lazily swirling under the wings of the wind, the mousing hawk dipping into its green deeps like the eagle into the sea, and our hearts expanded with the beauty and the mystery of it,--and back of all this was the knowledge that its abundance meant a new carriage, an addition to the house or a new suit of clothes. haying was over, and day by day we boys watched with deepening interest while the hot sun transformed the juices of the soil into those stately stalks. i loved to go out into the fairy forest of it, and lying there, silent in its swaying deeps, hear the wild chickens peep and the wind sing its subtle song over our heads. day by day i studied the barley as it turned yellow, first at the root and then at the neck (while the middle joints, rank and sappy, retained their blue-green sheen), until at last the lower leaves began to wither and the stems to stiffen in order to uphold the daily increasing weight of the milky berries, and then almost in an hour--lo! the edge of the field became a banded ribbon of green and yellow, languidly waving in and out with every rush of the breeze. now we got out the reaper, put the sickles in order, and father laid in a store of provisions. extra hands were hired, and at last, early on a hot july morning, the boss mounted to his seat on the self-rake "mccormick" and drove into the field. frank rode the lead horse, four stalwart hands and myself took "stations" behind the reaper and the battle was on! reaping generally came about the th of july, the hottest and dryest part of the summer, and was the most pressing work of the year. it demanded early rising for the men, and it meant an all day broiling over the kitchen stove for the women. stern, incessant toil went on inside and out from dawn till sunset, no matter how the thermometer sizzled. on many days the mercury mounted to ninety-five in the shade, but with wide fields all yellowing at the same moment, no one thought of laying off. a storm might sweep it flat, or if neglected too long, it might "crinkle." our reaper in was a new model of the mccormick self-rake,--the marsh harvester was not yet in general use. the woods dropper, the seymour and morgan hand-rake "contraptions" seemed a long way in the past. true the mccormick required four horses to drag it but it was effective. it was hard to believe that anything more cunning would ever come to claim the farmer's money. weird tales of a machine on which two men rode and bound twelve acres of wheat in ten hours came to us, but we did not potently believe these reports--on the contrary we accepted the self-rake as quite the final word in harvesting machinery and cheerily bent to the binding of sheaves with their own straw in the good old time-honored way. no task save that of "cradling" surpassed in severity "binding on a station." it was a full-grown man's job, but every boy was ambitious to try his hand, and when at fourteen years of age i was promoted from "bundle boy" to be one of the five hands to bind after the reaper, i went to my corner with joy and confidence. for two years i had been serving as binder on the corners, (to keep the grain out of the way of the horses) and i knew my job. i was short and broad-shouldered with large strong hands admirably adapted for this work, and for the first two hours, easily held my own with the rest of the crew, but as the morning wore on and the sun grew hotter, my enthusiasm waned. a painful void developed in my chest. my breakfast had been ample, but no mere stomachful of food could carry a growing boy through five hours of desperate toil. along about a quarter to ten, i began to scan the field with anxious eye, longing to see harriet and the promised luncheon basket. just when it seemed that i could endure the strain no longer she came bearing a jug of cool milk, some cheese and some deliciously fresh fried-cakes. with keen joy i set a couple of tall sheaves together like a tent and flung myself down flat on my back in their shadow to devour my lunch. tired as i was, my dim eyes apprehended something of the splendor of the shining clouds which rolled like storms of snow through the deep-blue spaces of sky and so, resting silently as a clod i could hear the chirp of the crickets, the buzzing wings of flies and the faint, fairylike tread of smaller unseen insects hurrying their way just beneath my ear in the stubble. strange green worms, grasshoppers and shining beetles crept over me as i dozed. this delicious, dreamful respite was broken by the far-off approaching purr of the sickle, flicked by the faint snap of the driver's whip, and out of the low rustle of the everstirring lilliputian forest came the wailing cry of a baby wild chicken lost from its mother--a falling, thrilling, piteous little pipe. such momentary communion with nature seemed all the sweeter for the work which had preceded it, as well as that which was to follow it. it took resolution to rise and go back to my work, but i did it, sustained by a kind of soldierly pride. at noon we hurried to the house, surrounded the kitchen table and fell upon our boiled beef and potatoes with such ferocity that in fifteen minutes our meal was over. there was no ceremony and very little talking till the hid wolf was appeased. then came a heavenly half-hour of rest on the cool grass in the shade of the trees, a siesta as luxurious as that of a spanish monarch--but alas!--this "nooning," as we called it, was always cut short by father's word of sharp command, "roll out, boys!" and again the big white jugs were filled at the well, the horses, lazy with food, led the way back to the field, and the stern contest began again. all nature at this hour seemed to invite to repose rather than to labor, and as the heat increased i longed with wordless fervor for the green woods of the cedar river. at times the gentle wind hardly moved the bended heads of the barley, and the hawks hung in the air like trout sleeping in deep pools. the sunlight was a golden, silent, scorching cataract--yet each of us must strain his tired muscles and bend his aching back to the harvest. supper came at five, another delicious interval--and then at six we all went out again for another hour or two in the cool of the sunset.--however, the pace was more leisurely now for the end of the day was near. i always enjoyed this period, for the shadows lengthening across the stubble, and the fiery sun, veiled by the gray clouds of the west, had wondrous charm. the air began to moisten and grow cool. the voices of the men pulsed powerfully and cheerfully across the narrowing field of unreaped grain, the prairie hens led forth their broods to feed, and at last, father's long-drawn and musical cry, "turn out! all hands turn out!" rang with restful significance through the dusk. then, slowly, with low-hung heads the freed horses moved toward the barn, walking with lagging steps like weary warriors going into camp. in all the toil of the harvest field, the water jug filled a large place. it was a source of anxiety as well as comfort. to keep it cool, to keep it well filled was a part of my job. no man passed it at the "home corner" of the field. it is a delightful part of my recollections of the harvest. o cool gray jug that touched the lips in kiss that softly closed and clung, no spanish wine the tippler sips, no port the poet's praise has sung-- such pure, untainted sweetness yields as cool gray jug in harvest fields. i see it now!--a clover leaf out-spread upon its sweating side!-- as from the sheltering sheaf i pluck and swing it high, the wide field glows with noon-day heat, the winds are tangled in the wheat. the swarming crickets blithely cheep, across the stir of waving grain i see the burnished reaper creep-- the lunch-boy comes, and once again the jug its crystal coolness yields-- o cool gray jug in harvest fields! my father did not believe in serving strong liquor to his men, and seldom treated them to even beer. while not a teetotaler he was strongly opposed to all that intemperance represented. he furnished the best of food, and tea and coffee, but no liquor, and the men respected him for it. the reaping on our farm that year lasted about four weeks. barley came first, wheat followed, the oats came last of all. no sooner was the final swath cut than the barley was ready to be put under cover, and "stacking," a new and less exacting phase of the harvest, began. this job required less men than reaping, hence a part of our hands were paid off, only the more responsible ones were retained. the rush, the strain of the reaping gave place to a leisurely, steady, day-by-day garnering of the thoroughly seasoned shocks into great conical piles, four in a place in the midst of the stubble, which was already growing green with swiftly-springing weeds. a full crew consisted of a stacker, a boy to pass bundles, two drivers for the heavy wagon-racks, and a pitcher in the field who lifted the sheaves from the shock with a three-tined fork and threw them to the man on the load. at the age of ten i had been taught to "handle bundles" on the stack, but now at fourteen i took my father's place as stacker, whilst he passed the sheaves and told me how to lay them. this exalted me at the same time that it increased my responsibility. it made a man of me--not only in my own estimation, but in the eyes of my boy companions to whom i discoursed loftily on the value of "bulges" and the advantages of the stack over the rick. no sooner was the stacking ended than the dreaded task of plowing began for burton and john and me. every morning while our fathers and the hired men shouldered their forks and went away to help some neighbor thrash--("changing works") we drove our teams into the field, there to plod round and round in solitary course. here i acquired the feeling which i afterward put into verse-- a lonely task it is to plow! all day the black and shining soil rolls like a ribbon from the mold-board's glistening curve. all day the horses toil, battling with savage flies, and strain their creaking single-trees. all day the crickets peer from wind-blown stacks of grain. franklin's job was almost as lonely. he was set to herd the cattle on the harvested stubble and keep them out of the corn field. a little later, in october, when i was called to take my place as corn-husker, he was promoted to the plow. our only respite during the months of october and november was the occasional cold rain which permitted us to read or play cards in the kitchen. cards! i never look at a certain type of playing card without experiencing a return of the wonder and the guilty joy with which i bought of metellus kirby my first "deck," and slipped it into my pocket. there was an alluring oriental imaginative quality in the drawing on the face cards. they brought to me vague hints of mad monarchs, desperate stakes, and huge sudden rewards. all that i had heard or read of mississippi gamblers came back to make those gaudy bits of pasteboard marvellous. my father did not play cards, hence, although i had no reason to think he would forbid them to me, i took a fearsome joy in assuming his bitter opposition. for a time my brother and i played in secret, and then one day, one cold bleak day as we were seated on the floor of the granary playing on an upturned half-bushel measure, shivering with the chill, our fingers numb and blue, the door opened and father looked in. we waited, while his round, eagle-gray eyes took in the situation and it seemed a long, terrifying interval, then at last he mildly said, "i guess you'd better go in and play by the stove. this isn't very comfortable." stunned by this unexpected concession, i gathered up the cards, and as i took my way to the house, i thought deeply. the meaning of that quiet voice, that friendly invitation was not lost on me. the soldier rose to grand heights by that single act, and when i showed the cards to mother and told her that father had consented to our playing, she looked grave but made no objection to our use of the kitchen table. as a matter of fact they both soon after joined our game. "if you are going to play," they said, "we'd rather you played right here with us." thereafter rainy days were less dreary, and the evenings shorter. everybody played authors at this time also, and to this day i cannot entirely rid myself of the estimations which our pack of cards fixed in my mind. _prue and i_ and _the blithedale romance_ were on an equal footing, so far as our game went, and howells, bret harte and dickens were all of far-off romantic horizon. writers were singular, exalted beings found only in the east--in splendid cities. they were not folks, they were demigods, men and women living aloof and looking down benignantly on toiling common creatures like us. it never entered my mind that anyone i knew could ever by any chance meet an author, or even hear one lecture--although it was said that they did sometimes come west on altruistic educational journeys and that they sometimes reached our county town. i am told--i do not know that it is true--that i am one of the names on a present-day deck of author cards. if so, i wish i could call in that small plow-boy of and let him play a game with this particular pack! the crops on our farms in those first years were enormous and prices were good, and yet the homes of the neighborhood were slow in taking on grace or comfort. i don't know why this was so, unless it was that the men were continually buying more land and more machinery. our own stables were still straw-roofed sheds, but the trees which we had planted had grown swiftly into a grove, and a garden, tended at odd moments by all hands, brought small fruits and vegetables in season. although a constantly improving collection of farm machinery lightened the burdens of the husbandman, the drudgery of the house-wife's dish-washing and cooking did not correspondingly lessen. i fear it increased, for with the widening of the fields came the doubling of the harvest hands, and my mother continued to do most of the housework herself--cooking, sewing, washing, churning, and nursing the sick from time to time. no one in trouble ever sent for isabelle garland in vain, and i have many recollections of neighbors riding up in the night and calling for her with agitated voices. of course i did not realize, and i am sure my father did not realize, the heavy burden, the endless grind of her toil. harriet helped, of course, and frank and i churned and carried wood and brought water; but even with such aid, the round of mother's duties must have been as relentless as a tread-mill. even on sunday, when we were free for a part of the day, she was required to furnish forth three meals, and to help frank and jessie dress for church.--she sang less and less, and the songs we loved were seldom referred to.--if i could only go back for one little hour and take her in my arms, and tell her how much i owe her for those grinding days! meanwhile we were all growing away from our life in the old wisconsin coulee. we heard from william but seldom, and david, who had bought a farm of his own some ten miles to the south of us, came over to see us only at long intervals. he still owned his long-barrelled rifle but it hung unused on a peg in the kitchen. swiftly the world of the hunter was receding, never to return. prairie chickens, rabbits, ducks, and other small game still abounded but they did not call for the bullet, and turkey shoots were events of the receding past. almost in a year the ideals of the country-side changed. david was in truth a survival of a more heroic age, a time which he loved to lament with my father who was almost as great a lover of the wilderness as he. none of us sang "o'er the hills in legions, boys." our share in the conquest of the west seemed complete. threshing time, which was becoming each year less of a "bee" and more of a job (many of the men were mere hired hands), was made distinctive by david who came over from orchard with his machine--the last time as it turned out--and stayed to the end. as i cut bands beside him in the dust and thunder of the cylinder i regained something of my boyish worship of his strength and skill. the tireless easy swing of his great frame was wonderful to me and when, in my weariness, i failed to slash a band he smiled and tore the sheaf apart--thus deepening my love for him. i looked up at him at such times as a sailor regards his captain on the bridge. his handsome immobile bearded face, his air of command, his large gestures as he rolled the broad sheaves into the howling maw of the machine made of him a chieftain.--the touch of melancholy which even then had begun to develop, added to his manly charm. one day in late september as i was plowing in the field at the back of the farm, i encountered a particularly troublesome thicket of weeds and vines in the stubble, and decided to burn the way before the coulter. we had been doing this ever since the frost had killed the vegetation but always on lands after they had been safeguarded by strips of plowing. on this particular land no fire had been set for the reason that four large stacks of wheat still stood waiting the thresher. in my irritation and self-confidence i decided to clear away the matted stubble on the same strip though at some distance from the stacks. this seemed safe enough at the time for the wind was blowing gently from the opposite direction. it was a lovely golden day and as i stood watching the friendly flame clearing the ground for me, i was filled with satisfaction. suddenly i observed that the line of red was moving steadily against the wind and _toward_ the stacks. my satisfaction changed to alarm. the matted weeds furnished a thick bed of fuel, and against the progress of the flame i had nothing to offer. i could only hope that the thinning stubble would permit me to trample it out. i tore at the ground in desperation, hoping to make a bare spot which the flame could not leap. i trampled the fire with my bare feet. i beat at it with my hat. i screamed for help.--too late i thought of my team and the plow with which i might have drawn a furrow around the stacks. the flame touched the high-piled sheaves. it ran lightly, beautifully up the sides--and as i stood watching it, i thought, "it is all a dream. it can't be true." but it was. in less than twenty minutes the towering piles had melted into four glowing heaps of ashes. four hundred dollars had gone up in that blaze. slowly, painfully i hobbled to the plow and drove my team to the house. although badly burned, my mental suffering was so much greater that i felt only part of it.--leaving the horses at the well i hobbled into the house to my mother. she, i knew, would sympathize with me and shield me from the just wrath of my father who was away, but was due to return in an hour or two. mother received me in silence, bandaged my feet and put me to bed where i lay in shame and terror. at last i heard father come in. he questioned, mother's voice replied. he remained ominously silent. she went on quietly but with an eloquence unusual in her. what she said to him i never knew, but when he came up the stairs and stood looking down at me his anger had cooled. he merely asked me how i felt, uncovered my burned feet, examined them, put the sheet back, and went away, without a word either of reproof or consolation. none of us except little jessie, ever alluded to this tragic matter again; she was accustomed to tell my story as she remembered it,--"an 'nen the moon changed--the fire ran up the stacks and burned 'em all down--" when i think of the myriads of opportunities for committing mistakes of this sort, i wonder that we had so few accidents. the truth is our captain taught us to think before we acted at all times, and we had little of the heedlessness which less experienced children often show. we were in effect small soldiers and carried some of the responsibilities of soldiers into all that we did. while still i was hobbling about, suffering from my wounds my uncles william and frank mcclintock drove over from neshonoc bringing with them a cloud of strangely-moving revived memories of the hills and woods of our old wisconsin home. i was peculiarly delighted by this visit, for while the story of my folly was told, it was not dwelt upon. they soon forgot me and fell naturally into discussion of ancient neighbors and far-away events. to me it was like peering back into a dim, dawn-lit world wherein all forms were distorted or wondrously aggrandized. william, big, black-bearded and smiling, had lost little of his romantic appeal. frank, still the wag, was able to turn hand-springs and somersaults almost as well as ever, and the talk which followed formed an absorbing review of early days in wisconsin. it brought up and defined many of the events of our life in the coulee, pictures which were becoming a little vague, a little blurred. al randal and ed green, who were already almost mythical, were spoken of as living creatures and thus the far was brought near. comparisons between the old and the new methods of seeding and harvest also gave me a sense of change, a perception which troubled me a little, especially as a wistful note had crept into the voices of these giants of the middle border. they all loved the wilderness too well not to be a little saddened by the clearing away of bosky coverts and the drying up of rippling streams. we sent for uncle david who came over on sunday to spend a night with his brothers and in the argument which followed, i began to sense in him a spirit of restlessness, a growing discontent which covered his handsome face with a deepening shadow. he disliked being tied down to the dull life of the farm, and his horse-power threshing machine no longer paid him enough to compensate for the loss of time and care on the other phases of his industry. his voice was still glorious and he played the violin when strongly urged, though with a sense of dissatisfaction. he and mother and aunt deborah sang _nellie wildwood_ and _lily dale_ and _minnie minturn_ just as they used to do in the coulee, and i forgot my disgrace and the pain of my blistered feet in the rapture of that exquisite hour of blended melody and memory. the world they represented was passing and though i did not fully realize this, i sensed in some degree the transitory nature of this reunion. in truth it never came again. never again did these three brothers meet, and when they said good-bye to us next morning, i wondered why it was, we must be so widely separated from those we loved the best. chapter xv harriet goes away girls on the border came to womanhood early. at fifteen my sister harriet considered herself a young lady and began to go out to dances with cyrus and albert and frances. she was small, moody and silent, and as all her interests became feminine i lost that sense of comradeship with which we used to ride after the cattle and i turned back to my brother who was growing into a hollow-chested lanky lad--and in our little sister jessie we took increasing interest. she was a joyous child, always singing like a canary. she was never a "trial." though delicate and fair and pretty, she manifested a singular indifference to the usual games of girls. contemptuous of dolls, she never played house so far as i know. she took no interest in sewing, or cooking, but had a whole yard full of "horses," that is to say, sticks of varying sizes and shapes. each pole had its name and its "stall" and she endlessly repeated the chores of leading them to water and feeding them hay. she loved to go with me to the field and was never so happy as when riding on old jule.--dear little sister, i fear i neglected you at times, turning away from your sweet face and pleading smile to lose myself in some worthless book. i am comforted to remember that i did sometimes lift you to the back of a real horse and permit you to ride "a round," chattering like a sparrow as we plodded back and forth across the field. frank cared little for books but he could take a hand at games although he was not strong. burton who at sixteen was almost as tall as his father was the last to surrender his saddle to the ash-bin. he often rode his high-headed horse past our house on his way to town, and i especially recall one day, when as frank and i were walking to town (one fourth of july) burt came galloping along with five dollars in his pocket.--we could not see the five dollars but we did get the full force and dignity of his cavalier approach, and his word was sufficient proof of the cash he had to spend. as he rode on we, in crushed humility, resumed our silent plodding in the dust of his horse's hooves. his round of labor, like my own, was well established. in spring he drove team and drag. in haying he served as stacker. in harvest he bound his station. in stacking he pitched bundles. after stacking he plowed or went out "changing works" and ended the season's work by husking corn--a job that increased in severity from year to year, as the fields grew larger. in ' it lasted well into november. beginning in the warm and golden september we kept at it (off and on) until sleety rains coated the ears with ice and the wet soil loaded our boots with huge balls of clay and grass--till the snow came whirling by on the wings of the north wind and the last flock of belated geese went sprawling sidewise down the ragged sky. grim business this! at times our wet gloves froze on our hands. how primitive all our notions were! few of the boys owned overcoats and the same suit served each of us for summer and winter alike. in lieu of ulsters most of us wore long, gay-colored woolen scarfs wound about our heads and necks--scarfs which our mothers, sisters or sweethearts had knitted for us. our footwear continued to be boots of the tall cavalry model with pointed toes and high heels. our collars were either home-made ginghams or "boughten" ones of paper at fifteen cents per box. some men went so far as to wear "dickies," that is to say, false shirt fronts made of paper, but this was considered a silly cheat. no one in our neighborhood ever saw a tailor-made suit, and nothing that we wore fitted,--our clothes merely enclosed us. harriet, like the other women, made her own dresses, assisted by my mother, and her best gowns in summer were white muslin tied at the waist with ribbons. all the girls dressed in this simple fashion, but as i write, recalling the glowing cheeks and shining eyes of hattie and agnes and bess, i feel again the thrill of admiration which ran through my blood as they came down the aisle at church, or when at dancing parties they balanced or "sashayed" in _honest john_ or _money musk_.--to me they were perfectly clothed and divinely fair. the contrast between the mcclintocks, my hunter uncles, and addison garland, my father's brother who came to visit us at about this time was strikingly significant even to me. tall, thoughtful, humorous and of frail and bloodless body, "a. garland" as he signed himself, was of the yankee merchant type. a general store in wisconsin was slowly making him a citizen of substance and his quiet comment brought to me an entirely new conception of the middle west and its future. he was a philosopher. he peered into the years that were to come and paid little heed to the passing glories of the plain. he predicted astounding inventions and great cities, and advised my father to go into dairying and diversified crops. "this is a natural butter country," said he. he was an invalid, and it was through him that we first learned of graham flour. during his stay (and for some time after) we suffered an infliction of sticky "gems" and dark soggy bread. we all resented this displacement of our usual salt-rising loaf and delicious saleratus biscuits but we ate the hot gems, liberally splashed with butter, just as we would have eaten dog-biscuit or hardtack had it been put before us. one of the sayings of my uncle will fix his character in the mind of the reader. one day, apropos of some public event which displeased him, he said, "men can be infinitely more foolish in their collective capacity than on their own individual account." his quiet utterance of these words and especially the phrase "collective capacity" made a deep impression on me. the underlying truth of the saying came to me only later in my life. he was full of "_citrus-belt_" enthusiasm and told us that he was about to sell out and move to santa barbara. he did not urge my father to accompany him, and if he had, it would have made no difference. a winterless climate and the raising of fruit did not appeal to my commander. he loved the prairie and the raising of wheat and cattle, and gave little heed to anything else, but to me addison's talk of "the citrus belt" had the value of a romance, and the occasional spanish phrases which he used afforded me an indefinable delight. it was unthinkable that i should ever see an _arroyo_ but i permitted myself to dream of it while he talked. i think he must have encouraged my sister in her growing desire for an education, for in the autumn after his visit she entered the cedar valley seminary at osage and her going produced in me a desire to accompany her. i said nothing of it at the time, for my father gave but reluctant consent to harriet's plan. a district school education seemed to him ample for any farmer's needs. many of our social affairs were now connected with "the grange." during these years on the new farm while we were busied with breaking and fencing and raising wheat, there had been growing up among the farmers of the west a social organization officially known as the patrons of husbandry. the places of meeting were called "granges" and very naturally the members were at once called "grangers." my father was an early and enthusiastic member of the order, and during the early seventies its meetings became very important dates on our calendar. in winter "oyster suppers," with debates, songs and essays, drew us all to the burr oak grove school-house, and each spring, on the twelfth of june, the grange picnic was a grand "turn-out." it was almost as well attended as the circus. we all looked forward to it for weeks and every young man who owned a top-buggy got it out and washed and polished it for the use of his best girl, and those who were not so fortunate as to own "a rig" paid high tribute to the livery stable of the nearest town. others, less able or less extravagant, doubled teams with a comrade and built a "bowery wagon" out of a wagon-box, and with hampers heaped with food rode away in state, drawn by a four or six-horse team. it seemed a splendid and daring thing to do, and some day i hoped to drive a six-horse bowery wagon myself. the central place of meeting was usually in some grove along the big cedar to the west and south of us, and early on the appointed day the various lodges of our region came together one by one at convenient places, each one moving in procession and led by great banners on which the women had blazoned the motto of their home lodge. some of the columns had bands and came preceded by far faint strains of music, with marshals in red sashes galloping to and fro in fine assumption of military command. it was grand, it was inspiring--to us, to see those long lines of carriages winding down the lanes, joining one to another at the cross roads till at last all the granges from the northern end of the county were united in one mighty column advancing on the picnic ground, where orators awaited our approach with calm dignity and high resolve. nothing more picturesque, more delightful, more helpful has ever risen out of american rural life. each of these assemblies was a most grateful relief from the sordid loneliness of the farm. our winter amusements were also in process of change. we held no more singing schools--the "lyceum" had taken its place. revival meetings were given up, although few of the church folk classed them among the amusements. the county fair on the contrary was becoming each year more important as farming diversified. it was even more glorious than the grange picnic, was indeed second only to the fourth of july, and we looked forward to it all through the autumn. it came late in september and always lasted three days. we all went on the second day, (which was considered the best day) and mother, by cooking all the afternoon before our outing, provided us a dinner of cold chicken and cake and pie which we ate while sitting on the grass beside our wagon just off the racetrack while the horses munched hay and oats from the box. all around us other families were grouped, picnicking in the same fashion, and a cordial interchange of jellies and pies made the meal a delightful function. however, we boys never lingered over it,--we were afraid of missing something of the program. our interest in the races was especially keen, for one of the citizens of our town owned a fine little trotting horse called "huckleberry" whose honest friendly striving made him a general favorite. our survey of fat sheep, broad-backed bulls and shining colts was a duty, but to cheer huckleberry at the home stretch was a privilege. to us from the farm the crowds were the most absorbing show of all. we met our chums and their sisters with a curious sense of strangeness, of discovery. our playmates seemed alien somehow--especially the girls in their best dresses walking about two and two, impersonal and haughty of glance. cyrus and walter were there in their top-buggies with harriet and bettie but they seemed to be having a dull time, for while they sat holding their horses we were dodging about in freedom--now at the contest of draft horses, now at the sledge-hammer throwing, now at the candy-booth. we were comical figures, with our long trousers, thick gray coats and faded hats, but we didn't know it and were happy. one day as burton and i were wandering about on the fair grounds we came upon a patent medicine cart from which a faker, a handsome fellow with long black hair and an immense white hat, was addressing the crowd while a young and beautiful girl with a guitar in her lap sat in weary relaxation at his feet. a third member of the "troupe," a short and very plump man of commonplace type, was handing out bottles. it was "doctor" lightner, vending his "magic oil." at first i perceived only the doctor whose splendid gray suit and spotless linen made the men in the crowd rustic and graceless, but as i studied the woman i began to read into her face a sadness, a weariness, which appealed to my imagination. who was she? why was she there? i had never seen a girl with such an expression. she saw no one, was interested in nothing before her--and when her master, or husband, spoke to her in a low voice, she raised her guitar and joined in the song which he had started, all with the same air of weary disgust. her voice, a childishly sweet soprano, mingled with the robust baritone of the doctor and the shouting tenor of the fat man, like a thread of silver in a skein of brass. i forgot my dusty clothes, my rough shoes,--i forgot that i was a boy. absorbed and dreaming i listened to these strange new songs and studied the singular faces of these alien songsters. even the shouting tenor had a far-away gleam in the yellow light of his cat-like eyes. the leader's skill, the woman's grace and the perfect blending of their voices made an ineffaceable impression on my sensitive, farm-bred brain. the songs which they sang were not in themselves of a character to warrant this ecstasy in me. one of them ran as follows: o mary had a little lamb, its fleece was black as jet, in the little old log cabin in the lane; and everywhere that mary went, the lamb went too, you bet. in the little old log cabin in the lane. in the little old log cabin o! the little old log cabin o! the little old log cabin in the lane, they're hangin' men and women now for singing songs like this in the little old log cabin in the lane. nevertheless i listened without a smile. it was art to me. it gave me something i had never known. the large, white, graceful hand of the doctor sweeping the strings, the clear ringing shout of the tenor and the chiming, bird-like voice of the girl lent to the absurd words of this ballad a singular dignity. they made all other persons and events of the day of no account. in the intervals between the songs the doctor talked of catarrh and its cure, and offered his medicines for sale, and in this dull part of the program the tenor assisted, but the girl, sinking back in her seat, resumed her impersonal and weary air. that was forty years ago, and i can still sing those songs and imitate the whoop of the shouting tenor, but i have never been able to put that woman into verse or fiction although i have tried. in a story called _love or the law_ i once made a laborious attempt to account for her, but i did not succeed, and the manuscript remains in the bottom of my desk. no doubt the doctor has gone to his long account and the girl is a gray old woman of sixty-five but in this book they shall be forever young, forever beautiful, noble with the grace of art. the medicine they peddled was of doubtful service, but the songs they sang, the story they suggested were of priceless value to us who came from the monotony of the farm, and went back to it like bees laden with the pollen of new intoxicating blooms. * * * * * sorrowfully we left huckleberry's unfinished race, reluctantly we climbed into the farm wagon, sticky with candy, dusty, tired, some of us suffering with sick-headache, and rolled away homeward to milk the cows, feed the pigs and bed down the horses. as i look at a tintype of myself taken at about this time, i can hardly detect the physical relationship between that mop-headed, long-lipped lad, and the gray-haired man of today. but the coat, the tie, the little stick-pin on the lapel of my coat all unite to bring back to me with painful stir, the curious debates, the boyish delights, the dawning desires which led me to these material expressions of manly pride. there is a kind of pathos too, in the memory of the keen pleasure i took in that absurd ornament--and yet my joy was genuine, my satisfaction complete. harriet came home from school each friday night but we saw little of her, for she was always engaged for dances or socials by the neighbors' sons, and had only a young lady's interest in her cub brothers. i resented this and was openly hostile to her admirers. she seldom rode with us to spelling schools or "soshybles." there was always some youth with a cutter, or some noisy group in a big bob-sleigh to carry her away, and on monday morning father drove her back to the county town with growing pride in her improving manners. her course at the seminary was cut short in early spring by a cough which came from a long ride in the keen wind. she was very ill with a wasting fever, yet for a time refused to go to bed. she could not resign herself to the loss of her school-life. the lack of room in our house is brought painfully to my mind as i recall that she lay for a week or two in a corner of our living room with all the noise and bustle of the family going on around her. her own attic chamber was unwarmed (like those of all her girl friends), and so she was forced to lie near the kitchen stove. she grew rapidly worse all through the opening days of april and as we were necessarily out in the fields at work, and mother was busied with her household affairs, the lonely sufferer was glad to have her bed in the living room--and there she lay, her bright eyes following mother at her work, growing whiter and whiter until one beautiful, tragic morning in early may, my father called me in to say good-bye to her. she was very weak, but her mind was perfectly clear, and as she kissed me farewell with a soft word about being a good boy, i turned away blinded with tears and fled to the barnyard, there to hide like a wounded animal, appalled by the weight of despair and sorrow which her transfigured face had suddenly thrust upon me. all about me the young cattle called, the spring sun shone and the gay fowls sang, but they could not mitigate my grief, my dismay, my sense of loss. my sister was passing from me--that was the agonizing fact which benumbed me. she who had been my playmate, my comrade, was about to vanish into air and earth! this was my first close contact with death, and it filled me with awe. human life suddenly seemed fleeting and of a part with the impermanency and change of the westward moving border line.--like the wild flowers she had gathered, harriet was now a fragrant memory. her dust mingled with the soil of the little burial ground just beyond the village bounds. * * * * * my mother's heart was long in recovering from the pain of this loss, but at last jessie's sweet face, which had in it the light of the sky and the color of a flower, won back her smiles. the child's acceptance of the funeral as a mere incident of her busy little life, in some way enabled us all to take up and carry forward the routine of our shadowed home. those years on the plain, from ' to ' , held much that was alluring, much that was splendid. i did not live an exceptional life in any way. my duties and my pleasures were those of the boys around me. in all essentials my life was typical of the time and place. my father was counted a good and successful farmer. our neighbors all lived in the same restricted fashion as ourselves, in barren little houses of wood or stone, owning few books, reading only weekly papers. it was a pure democracy wherein my father was a leader and my mother beloved by all who knew her. if anybody looked down upon us we didn't know it, and in all the social affairs of the township we fully shared. nature was our compensation. as i look back upon it, i perceive transcendent sunsets, and a mighty sweep of golden grain beneath a sea of crimson clouds. the light and song and motion of the prairie return to me. i hear again the shrill, myriad-voiced choir of leaping insects whose wings flash fire amid the glorified stubble. the wind wanders by, lifting my torn hat-rim. the locusts rise in clouds before my weary feet. the prairie hen soars out of the unreaped barley and drops into the sheltering deeps of the tangled oats, green as emerald. the lone quail pipes in the hazel thicket, and far up the road the cow-bell's steady clang tells of the homecoming herd. even in our hours of toil, and through the sultry skies, the sacred light of beauty broke; worn and grimed as we were, we still could fall a-dream before the marvel of a golden earth beneath a crimson sky. chapter xvi we move to town one day, soon after the death of my sister harriet, my father came home from a meeting of the grange with a message which shook our home with the force of an earth-quake. the officers of the order had asked him to become the official grain-buyer for the county, and he had agreed to do it. "i am to take charge of the new elevator which is just being completed in osage," he said. the effect of this announcement was far-reaching. first of all it put an end not merely to our further pioneering but, (as the plan developed) promised to translate us from the farm to a new and shining world, a town world where circuses, baseball games and county fairs were events of almost daily occurrence. it awed while it delighted us for we felt vaguely our father's perturbation. for the first time since leaving boston, some thirty years before, dick garland began to dream of making a living at something less backbreaking than tilling the soil. it was to him a most abrupt and startling departure from the fixed plan of his life, and i dimly understood even then that he came to this decision only after long and troubled reflection. mother as usual sat in silence. if she showed exultation, i do not recall the fashion of it. father assumed his new duties in june and during all that summer and autumn, drove away immediately after breakfast each morning, to the elevator some six miles away, leaving me in full charge of the farm and its tools. all his orders to the hired men were executed through me. on me fell the supervision of their action, always with an eye to his general oversight. i never forgot that fact. he possessed the eye of an eagle. his uncanny powers of observation kept me terrified. he could detect at a glance the slightest blunder or wrong doing in my day's activities. every afternoon, about sunset he came whirling into the yard, his team flecked with foam, his big gray eyes flashing from side to side, and if any tool was out of place or broken, he discovered it at once, and his reproof was never a cause of laughter to me or my brother. as harvest came on he took command in the field, for most of the harvest help that year were rough, hardy wanderers from the south, nomads who had followed the line of ripening wheat from missouri northward, and were not the most profitable companions for boys of fifteen. they reached our neighborhood in july, arriving like a flight of alien unclean birds, and vanished into the north in september as mysteriously as they had appeared. a few of them had been soldiers, others were the errant sons of the poor farmers and rough mechanics of older states, migrating for the adventure of it. one of them gave his name as "harry lee," others were known by such names as "big ed" or "shorty." some carried valises, others had nothing but small bundles containing a clean shirt and a few socks. they all had the most appalling yet darkly romantic conception of women. a "girl" was the most desired thing in the world, a prize to be worked for, sought for and enjoyed without remorse. she had no soul. the maid who yielded to temptation deserved no pity, no consideration, no aid. her sufferings were amusing, her diseases a joke, her future of no account. from these men burton and i acquired a desolating fund of information concerning south clark street in chicago, and the river front in st. louis. their talk did not allure, it mostly shocked and horrified us. we had not known that such cruelty, such baseness was in the world and it stood away in such violent opposition to the teaching of our fathers and uncles that it did not corrupt us. that man, the stronger animal, owed chivalry and care to woman, had been deeply grounded in our concept of life, and we shrank from these vile stories as from something disloyal to our mothers and sisters. to those who think of the farm as a sweetly ideal place in which to bring up a boy, all this may be disturbing--but the truth is, low-minded men are low-minded everywhere, and farm hands are often creatures with enormous appetites and small remorse, men on whom the beauty of nature has very little effect. to most of our harvest hands that year saturday night meant a visit to town and a drunken spree, and they did not hesitate to say so in the presence of burton and myself. some of them did not hesitate to say anything in our presence. after a hard week's work we all felt that a trip to town was only a fair reward. saturday night in town! how it all comes back to me! i am a timid visitor in the little frontier village. it is sunset. a whiskey-crazed farmhand is walking bare footed up and down the middle of the road defying the world.--from a corner of the street i watch with tense interest another lithe, pock-marked bully menacing with cat-like action, a cowering young farmer in a long linen coat. the crowd jeers at him for his cowardice--a burst of shouting is heard. a trampling follows and forth from the door of a saloon bulges a throng of drunken, steaming, reeling, cursing ruffians followed by brave jim mccarty, the city marshal, with an offender under each hand.--the scene changes to the middle of the street. i am one of a throng surrounding a smooth-handed faker who is selling prize boxes of soap and giving away dollars.--"now, gentlemen," he says, "if you will hand me a dollar i will give you a sample package of soap to examine, afterwards if you don't want the soap, return it to me, and i'll return your dollar." he repeats this several times, returning the dollars faithfully, then slightly varies his invitation by saying, "so that i can return your dollars." no one appears to observe this significant change, and as he has hitherto returned the dollars precisely according to promise, he now proceeds to his harvest. having all his boxes out he abruptly closes the lid of his box and calmly remarks, "i said, 'so that i _can_ return your dollars,' i didn't say i would.--gentlemen, i have the dollars and _you_ have the experience." he drops into his seat and takes up the reins to drive away. a tall man who has been standing silently beside the wheel of the carriage, snatches the whip from its socket, and lashes the swindler across the face. red streaks appear on his cheek.--the crowd surges forward. up from behind leaps a furious little scotchman who snatches off his right boot and beats the stranger over the head with such fury that he falls from his carriage to the ground.--i rejoice in his punishment, and admire the tall man who led the assault.--the marshal comes, the man is led away, and the crowd smilingly scatters.-- we are on the way home. only two of my crew are with me. the others are roaring from one drinking place to another, having a "good time." the air is soothingly clean and sweet after the tumult and the reek of the town. appalled, yet fascinated, i listen to the oft repeated tales of just how jim mccarty sprang into the saloon and cleaned out the brawling mob. i feel very young, very defenceless, and very sleepy as i listen.-- on sunday, burton usually came to visit me or i went over to his house and together we rode or walked to service at the grove school-house. he was now the owner of a razor, and i was secretly planning to buy one. the question of dress had begun to trouble us both acutely. our best suits were not only made from woolen cloth, they were of blizzard weight, and as on week days (in summer) our entire outfit consisted of a straw hat, a hickory shirt and a pair of brown denim overalls you may imagine what tortures we endured when fully encased in our "sunday best," with starched shirts and paper collars. no one, so far as i knew, at that time possessed an extra, light-weight suit for hot-weather wear, although a long, yellow, linen robe called a "duster" was in fashion among the smart dressers. john gammons, who was somewhat of a dandy in matters of toilet, was among the first of my circle to purchase one of these very ultra garments, and burton soon followed his lead, and then my own discontent began. i, too, desired a duster. unfortunately my father did not see me as i saw myself. to him i was still a boy and subject to his will in matters of dress as in other affairs, and the notion that i needed a linen coat was absurd. "if you are too warm, take your coat off," he said, and i not only went without the duster, but suffered the shame of appearing in a flat-crown black hat while burton and all the other fellows were wearing light brown ones, of a conical shape. i was furious. after a period of bitter brooding i rebelled, and took the matter up with the commander-in-chief. i argued, "as i am not only doing a man's work on a boy's pay but actually superintending the stock and tools, i am entitled to certain individual rights in the choice of a hat." the soldier listened in silence but his glance was stern. when i had ended he said, "you'll wear the hat i provide." for the first time in my life i defied him. "i will not," i said. "and you can't make me." he seized me by the arm and for a moment we faced each other in silent clash of wills. i was desperate now. "don't you strike me," i warned. "you can't do that any more." his face changed. his eyes softened. he perceived in my attitude something new, something unconquerable. he dropped my arm and turned away. after a silent struggle with himself he took two dollars from his pocket and extended them to me. "get your own hat," he said, and walked away. this victory forms the most important event of my fifteenth year. indeed the chief's recession gave me a greater shock than any punishment could have done. having forced him to admit the claims of my growing personality as well as the value of my services, i retired in a panic. the fact that he, the inexorable old soldier, had surrendered to my furious demands awed me, making me very careful not to go too fast or too far in my assumption of the privileges of manhood. another of the milestones on my road to manhood was my first employment of the town barber. up to this time my hair had been trimmed by mother or mangled by one of the hired men,--whereas both john and burton enjoyed regular hair-cuts and came to sunday school with the backs of their necks neatly shaved. i wanted to look like that, and so at last, shortly after my victory concerning the hat, i plucked up courage to ask my father for a quarter and got it! with my money tightly clutched in my hand i timidly entered the tonsorial parlor of ed mills and took my seat in his marvellous chair--thus touching another high point on the road to self-respecting manhood. my pleasure, however, was mixed with ignoble childish terror, for not only did the barber seem determined to force upon me a shampoo (which was ten cents extra), but i was in unremitting fear lest i should lose my quarter, the only one i possessed, and find myself accused as a swindler. nevertheless i came safely away, a neater, older and graver person, walking with a manlier stride, and when i confronted my classmates at the grove school-house on sunday, i gave evidence of an accession of self-confidence. the fact that my back hair was now in fashionable order was of greatest comfort to me. if only my trousers had not continued their distressing habit of climbing up my boot-tops i would have been almost at ease but every time i rose from my seat it became necessary to make each instep smooth the leg of the other pantaloon, and even then they kept their shameful wrinkles, and a knowledge of my exposed ankles humbled me. burton, although better dressed than i, was quite as confused and wordless in the presence of girls, but john gammons was not only confident, he was irritatingly facile. furthermore, as son of the director of the sunday school he had almost too much distinction. i bitterly resented his linen collars, his neat suit and his smiling assurance, for while we professed to despise everything connected with church, we were keenly aware of the bright eyes of bettie and noted that they rested often on john's curly head. he could sing, too, and sometimes, with sublime audacity, held the hymn book with her. the sweetness of those girlish faces held us captive through many a long sermon, but there were times when not even their beauty availed. three or four of us occasionally slipped away into the glorious forest to pick berries or nuts, or to loaf in the odorous shade of the elms along the creek. the cool aisles of the oaks seemed more sweetly sanctifying (after a week of sun-smit soil on the open plain) than the crowded little church with its droning preacher, and there was something mystical in the melody of the little brook and in the flecking of light and shade across the silent woodland path. to drink of the little ice-cold spring beneath the maple tree in frazer's pasture was almost as delight-giving as the plate of ice-cream which we sometimes permitted ourselves to buy in the village on saturday, and often we wandered on and on, till the sinking sun warned us of duties at home and sent us hurrying to the open. it was always hard to go back to the farm after one of these days of leisure--back to greasy overalls and milk-bespattered boots, back to the society of fly-bedevilled cows and steaming, salty horses, back to the curry-comb and swill bucket,--but it was particularly hard during this our last summer on the prairie. but we did it with a feeling that we were nearing the end of it. "next year we'll be living in town!" i said to the boys exultantly. "no more cow-milking for me!" i never rebelled at hard, clean work, like haying or harvest, but the slavery of being nurse to calves and scrub-boy to horses cankered my spirits more and more, and the thought of living in town filled me with an incredulous anticipatory delight. a life of leisure, of intellectual activity seemed about to open up to me, and i met my chums in a restrained exaltation which must have been trying to their souls. "i'm sorry to leave you," i jeered, "but so it goes. some are chosen, others are left. some rise to glory, others remain plodders--" such was my airy attitude. i wonder that they did not roll me in the dust. though my own joy and that of my brother was keen and outspoken, i have no recollection that my mother uttered a single word of pleasure. she must have been as deeply excited, and as pleased as we, for it meant more to her than to us, it meant escape from the drudgery of the farm, from the pain of early rising, and yet i cannot be sure of her feeling. so far as she knew this move was final. her life as a farmer's wife was about to end after twenty years of early rising and never ending labor, and i think she must have palpitated with joy of her approaching freedom from it all. as we were not to move till the following march, and as winter came on we went to school as usual in the bleak little shack at the corner of our farm and took part in all the neighborhood festivals. i have beautiful memories of trotting away across the plain to spelling schools and "lyceums" through the sparkling winter nights with franklin by my side, while the low-hung sky blazed with stars, and great white owls went flapping silently away before us.--i am riding in a long sleigh to the north beneath a wondrous moon to witness a performance of _lord dundreary_ at the barker school-house.--i am a neglected onlooker at a christmas tree at burr oak. i am spelled down at the shehan school--and through all these scenes runs a belief that i am leaving the district never to return to it, a conviction which lends to every experience a peculiar poignancy of appeal. though but a shaggy colt in those days, i acknowledged a keen longing to join in the parties and dances of the grown-up boys and girls. i was not content to be merely the unnoticed cub in the corner. a place in the family bob-sled no longer satisfied me, and when at the "sociable" i stood in the corner with tousled hair and clumsy ill-fitting garments i was in my desire, a confident, graceful squire of dames. the dancing was a revelation to me of the beauty and grace latent in the awkward girls and hulking men of the farms. it amazed and delighted me to see how gloriously madeleine white swayed and tip-toed through the figures of the "cotillion," and the sweet aloofness of agnes farwell's face filled me with worship. i envied edwin blackler his supple grace, his fine sense of rhythm, and especially the calm audacity of his manner with his partners. bill, joe, all the great lunking farm hands seemed somehow uplifted, carried out of their everyday selves, ennobled by some deep-seated emotion, and i was eager for a chance to show that i, too, could balance and bow and pay court to women, but--alas, i never did, i kept to my corner even though stelle gilbert came to drag me out. occasionally a half-dozen of these audacious young people would turn a church social or donation party into a dance, much to the scandal of the deacons. i recall one such performance which ended most dramatically. it was a "shower" for the minister whose salary was too small to be even an honorarium, and the place of meeting was at the durrells', two well-to-do farmers, brothers who lived on opposite sides of the road just south of the grove school-house. mother put up a basket of food, father cast a quarter of beef into the back-part of the sleigh, and we were off early of a cold winter night in order to be on hand for the supper. my brother and i were mere passengers on the straw behind, along with the slab of beef, but we gave no outward sign of discontent. it was a clear, keen, marvellous twilight, with the stars coming out over the woodlands to the east. on every road the sound of bells and the voices of happy young people came to our ears. occasionally some fellow with a fast horse and a gay cutter came slashing up behind us and called out "clear the track!" father gave the road, and the youth and his best girl went whirling by with a gay word of thanks. watch-dogs guarding the davis farm-house, barked in savage warning as we passed and mother said, "everybody's gone. i hope we won't be late." we were, indeed, a little behind the others for when we stumbled into the ellis durrell house we found a crowd of merry folks clustered about the kitchen stove. mrs. ellis flattered me by saying, "the young people are expecting you over at joe's." here she laughed, "i'm afraid they are going to dance." as soon as i was sufficiently thawed out i went across the road to the other house which gave forth the sound of singing and the rhythmic tread of dancing feet. it was filled to overflowing with the youth of the neighborhood, and agnes farwell, joe's niece, the queenliest of them all, was leading the dance, her dark face aglow, her deep brown eyes alight. the dance was "the weevilly wheat" and ed blackler was her partner. against the wall stood marsh belford, a tall, crude, fierce young savage with eyes fixed on agnes. he was one of her suitors and mad with jealousy of blackler to whom she was said to be engaged. he was a singular youth, at once bashful and baleful. he could not dance, and for that reason keenly resented ed's supple grace and easy manners with the girls. crossing to where burton stood, i heard belford say as he replied to some remark by his companions, "i'll roll him one o' these days." he laughed in a constrained way, and that his mood was dangerous was evident. in deep excitement burton and i awaited the outcome. the dancing was of the harmless "donation" sort. as musical instruments were forbidden, the rhythm was furnished by a song in which we all joined with clapping hands. come hither, my love, and trip together in the morning early, give to you the parting hand although i love you dearly. i won't have none of your weevilly wheat i won't have none of your barley, i'll have some flour in half an hour to bake a cake for charley.-- oh, charley, he is a fine young man, charley he is a dandy, charley he is a fine young man for he buys the girls some candy. the figures were like those in the old time "money musk" and as agnes bowed and swung and gave hands down the line i thought her the loveliest creature in the world, and so did marsh, only that which gladdened me, maddened him. i acknowledged edwin's superior claim,--marsh did not. burton, who understood the situation, drew me aside and said, "marsh has been drinking. there's going to be war." as soon as the song ceased and the dancers paused, marsh, white with resolution, went up to agnes, and said something to her. she smiled, but shook her head and turned away. marsh came back to where his brother joe was standing and his face was tense with fury. "i'll make her wish she hadn't," he muttered. edwin, as floor manager, now called out a new "set" and as the dancers began to "form on," joe belford hunched his brother. "go after him now," he said. with deadly slowness of action, marsh sauntered up to blackler and said something in a low voice. "you're a liar!" retorted edwin sharply. belford struck out with a swing of his open hand, and a moment later they were rolling on the floor in a deadly grapple. the girls screamed and fled, but the boys formed a joyous ring around the contestants and cheered them on to keener strife while joe belford, tearing off his coat, stood above his brother, warning others to keep out of it. "this is to be a fair fight," he said. "the best man wins!" he was a redoubtable warrior and the ring widened. no one thought of interfering, in fact we were all delighted by this sudden outbreak of the heroic spirit. ed threw off his antagonist and rose, bleeding but undaunted. "you devil," he said, "i'll smash your face." marsh again struck him a staggering blow, and they were facing each other in watchful fury as agnes forced her way through the crowd and, laying her hand on belford's arm, calmly said, "marsh belford, what are you doing?" her dignity, her beauty, her air of command, awed the bully and silenced every voice in the room. she was our hostess and as such assumed the right to enforce decorum. fixing her glance upon joe whom she recognized as the chief disturber, she said, "you'd better go home. this is no place for either you or marsh." sobered, shamed, the belfords fell back and slipped out while agnes turned to edwin and wiped the blood from his face with self-contained tenderness. * * * * * this date may be taken as fairly ending my boyhood, for i was rapidly taking on the manners of men. true, i did not smoke or chew tobacco and i was not greatly given to profanity, but i was able to shoulder a two bushel sack of wheat and could hold my own with most of the harvesters. although short and heavy, i was deft with my hands, as one or two of the neighborhood bullies had reason to know and in many ways i was counted a man. i read during this year nearly one hundred dime novels, little paper-bound volumes filled with stories of indians and wild horsemen and dukes and duchesses and men in iron masks, and sewing girls who turned out to be daughters of nobility, and marvellous detectives who bore charmed lives and always trapped the villains at the end of the story-- of all these tales, those of the border naturally had most allurement. there was the _quaker sleuth_, for instance, and _mad matt the trailer_, and _buckskin joe_ who rode disdainfully alone (like lochinvar), rescuing maidens from treacherous apaches, cutting long rows of death notches on the stock of his carbine. one of these narratives contained a phantom troop of skeleton horsemen, a grisly squadron, which came like an icy wind out of the darkness, striking terror to the hearts of the renegades and savages, only to vanish with clatter of bones, and click of hoofs. in addition to these delight-giving volumes, i traded stock with other boys of the neighborhood. from jack sheet i derived a bundle of _saturday nights_ in exchange for my _new york weeklys_ and from one of our harvest hands, a near-sighted old german, i borrowed some twenty-five or thirty numbers of _the sea side library_. these also cost a dime when new, but you could return them and get a nickel in credit for another,--provided your own was in good condition. it is a question whether the reading of all this exciting fiction had an ill effect on my mind or not. apparently it had very little effect of any sort other than to make the borderland a great deal more exciting than the farm, and yet so far as i can discover, i had no keen desire to go west and fight indians and i showed no disposition to rob or murder in the manner of my heroes. i devoured _jack harkaway_ and _the quaker sleuth_ precisely as i played ball--to pass the time and because i enjoyed the game. deacon garland was highly indignant with my father for permitting such reading, and argued against it furiously, but no one paid much attention to his protests--especially after we caught the old gentleman sitting with a very lurid example of "the damnable lies" open in his hand. "i was only looking into it to see how bad it was," he explained. father was so tickled at the old man's downfall that he said, "stick to it till you find how it turns out." grandsire, we all perceived, was human after all. i think we liked him rather better after this sign of weakness. it would not be fair to say that we read nothing else but these easy-going tales. as a matter of fact, i read everything within reach, even the copy of _paradise lost_ which my mother presented to me on my fifteenth birthday. milton i admit was hard work, but i got considerable joy out of his cursing passages. the battle scenes also interested me and i went about spouting the extraordinary harangues of satan with such vigor that my team one day took fright of me, and ran away with the plow, leaving an erratic furrow to be explained. however, my father was glad to see me taking on the voice of the orator. the five years of life on this farm had brought swift changes into my world. nearly all the open land had been fenced and plowed, and all the cattle and horses had been brought into pasture, and around most of the buildings, groves of maples were beginning to make the homesteads a little less barren and ugly. and yet with all these growing signs of prosperity i realized that something sweet and splendid was dying out of the prairie. the whistling pigeons, the wailing plover, the migrating ducks and geese, the soaring cranes, the shadowy wolves, the wary foxes, all the untamed things were passing, vanishing with the blue-joint grass, the dainty wild rose and the tiger-lily's flaming torch. settlement was complete. chapter xvii a taste of village life the change from farm to village life, though delightful, was not so complete as we had anticipated, for we not only carried with us several cows and a span of horses, but the house which we had rented stood at the edge of town and possessed a large plot; therefore we not only continued to milk cows and curry horses, but set to work at once planting potatoes and other vegetables almost as if still upon the farm. the soil had been poorly cultivated for several years, and the weeds sprang up like dragons' teeth. work, it seemed, was not to be escaped even in the city. though a little resentful of this labor and somewhat disappointed in our dwelling, we were vastly excited by certain phases of our new surroundings. to be within a few minutes' walk of the postoffice, and to be able to go to the store at any moment, were conditions quite as satisfactory as we had any right to expect. also we slept later, for my father was less disposed to get us out of bed at dawn and this in itself was an enormous gain, especially to my mother. osage, a small town, hardly more than a village, was situated on the edge of a belt of hardwood timber through which the cedar river ran, and was quite commonplace to most people but to me it was both mysterious and dangerous, for it was the home of an alien tribe, hostile and pitiless--"the town boys." up to this time i had both hated and feared them, knowing that they hated and despised me, and now, suddenly i was thrust among them and put on my own defenses. for a few weeks i felt like a young rooster in a strange barn-yard,--knowing that i would be called upon to prove my quality. in fact it took but a week or two to establish my place in the tribe for one of the leaders of the gang was mitchell scott, a powerful lad of about my own age, and to his friendship i owe a large part of my freedom from persecution. uncle david came to see us several times during the spring and his talk was all about "going west." he was restless under the conditions of his life on a farm. i don't know why this was so, but a growing bitterness clouded his voice. once i heard him say, "i don't know what use i am in the world. i am a failure." this was the first note of doubt, of discouragement that i had heard from any member of my family and it made a deep impression on me. disillusionment had begun. during the early part of the summer my brother and i worked in the garden with frequent days off for fishing, swimming and berrying, and we were entirely content with life. no doubts assailed us. we swam in the pond at rice's mill and we cast our hooks in the sunny ripples below it. we saw the circus come to town and go into camp on a vacant lot, and we attended every movement of it with a delicious sense of leisure. we could go at night with no long ride to take after it was over.--the fourth of july came to seek us this year and we had but to step across the way to see a ball-game. we were at last in the center of our world. in june my father called me to help in the elevator and this turned out to be a most informing experience. "the street," as it was called, was merely a wagon road which ran along in front of a row of wheat ware-houses of various shapes and sizes, from which the buyers emerged to meet the farmers as they drove into town. two or three or more of the men would clamber upon the load, open the sacks, sample the grain and bid for it. if one man wanted the load badly, or if he chanced to be in a bad temper, the farmer was the gainer. hence very few of them, even the members of the grange, were content to drive up to my father's elevator and take the honest market price. they were all hoping to get a little more than the market price. this vexed and embittered my father who often spoke of it to me. "it only shows," he said, "how hard it will be to work out any reform among the farmers. they will never stand together. these other buyers will force me off the market and then there will be no one here to represent the farmers' interest." these merchants interested me greatly. humorous, self-contained, remorseless in trade, they were most delightful companions when off duty. they liked my father in his private capacity, but as a factor of the grange he was an enemy. their kind was new to me and i loved to linger about and listen to their banter when there was nothing else to do. one of them by reason of his tailor-made suit and a large ring on his little finger, was especially attractive to me. he was a handsome man of a sinister type, and i regarded his expressionless face as that of a gambler. i didn't know that he was a poker player but it amused me to think so. another buyer was a choleric cornishman whom the other men sometimes goaded into paying five or six cents more than the market admitted, by shrewdly playing on his hot temper. a third was a tall gaunt old man of new england type, obstinate, honest, but of sanguine temperament. he was always on the bull side of the market and a loud debater.--the fourth, a quiet little man of smooth address, acted as peacemaker. among these men my father moved as an equal, notwithstanding the fact of his country training and prejudices, and it was through the man morley that we got our first outlook upon the bleak world of agnosticism, for during the summer a series of lectures by robert ingersoll was reported in one of the chicago papers and the west rang with the controversy. on monday as soon as the paper came to town it was the habit of the grain-buyers to gather at their little central office, and while morley, the man with the seal ring, read the lecture aloud, the others listened and commented on the heresies. not all were sympathizers with the great iconoclast, and the arguments which followed were often heated and sometimes fiercely personal. after they had quite finished with the paper, i sometimes secured it for myself, and hurrying back to my office in the elevator pored over it with intense zeal. undoubtedly my father as well as i was profoundly influenced by "the mistakes of moses." the faith in which we had been reared had already grown dim, and under the light of ingersoll's remorseless humor most of our superstitions vanished. i do not think my father's essential christianity was in any degree diminished, he merely lost his respect for certain outworn traditions and empty creeds. my work consisted in receiving the grain and keeping the elevator going and as i weighed the sacks, made out checks for the payment and kept the books--in all ways taking a man's place,--i lost all sense of being a boy. the motive power of our hoisting machinery was a blind horse, a handsome fellow weighing some fifteen hundred pounds, and it was not long before he filled a large space in my thoughts. there was something appealing in his sightless eyes, and i never watched him (as he patiently went his rounds in the dusty shed) without pity. he had a habit of kicking the wall with his right hind foot at a certain precise point as he circled, and a deep hollow in the sill attested his accuracy. he seemed to do this purposely--to keep count, as i imagined, of his dreary circling through sunless days. a part of my duty was to watch the fanning mill (in the high cupola) in order that the sieves should not clog. three flights of stairs led to the mill and these had to be mounted many times each day. i always ran up the steps when the mill required my attention, but in coming down i usually swung from beam to beam, dropping from footway to footway like a monkey from a tall tree. my mother in seeing me do this called out in terror, but i assured her that there was not the slightest danger--and this was true, for i was both sure-footed and sure-handed in those days. this was a golden summer for us all. my mother found time to read. my father enjoyed companionship with the leading citizens of the town, while franklin, as first assistant in a candy store, professed himself to be entirely content. my own holidays were spent in fishing or in roving the woods with mitchell and george, but on sundays the entire family dressed for church as for a solemn social function, fully alive to the dignity of banker brush, and the grandeur of congressman deering who came to service regularly--but on foot, so intense was the spirit of democracy among us. theoretically there were no social distinctions in osage, but after all a large house and a two seated carriage counted, and my mother's visitors were never from the few pretentious homes of the town but from the farms. however, i do not think she worried over her social position and i know she welcomed callers from dry run and burr oak with cordial hospitality. she was never envious or bitter. in spite of my busy life, i read more than ever before, and everything i saw or heard made a deep and lasting record on my mind. i recall with a sense of gratitude a sermon by the preacher in the methodist church which profoundly educated me. it was the first time i had ever heard the power of art and the value of its mission to man insisted upon. what was right and what was wrong had been pointed out to me, but things of beauty were seldom mentioned. with most eloquent gestures, with a face glowing with enthusiasm, the young orator enumerated the beautiful phases of nature. he painted the starry sky, the sunset clouds, and the purple hills in words of prismatic hue and his rapturous eloquence held us rigid. "we have been taught," he said in effect, "that beauty is a snare of the evil one; that it is a lure to destroy, but i assert that god desires loveliness and hates ugliness. he loves the shimmering of dawn, the silver light on the lake and the purple and snow of every summer cloud. he honors bright colors, for has he not set the rainbow in the heavens and made water to reflect the moon? he prefers joy and pleasure to hate and despair. he is not a god of pain, of darkness and ugliness, he is a god of beauty, of delight, of consolation." in some such strain he continued, and as his voice rose in fervent chant and his words throbbed with poetry, the sunlight falling through the window-pane gave out a more intense radiance, and over the faces of the girls, a more entrancing color fell. he opened my eyes to a new world, the world of art. i recognized in this man not only a moving orator but a scholar and i went out from that little church vaguely resolved to be a student also, a student of the beautiful. my father was almost equally moved and we all went again and again to hear our young evangel speak but never again did he touch my heart. that one discourse was his contribution to my education and i am grateful to him for it. in after life i had the pleasure of telling him how much he had suggested to me in that sermon. there was much to allure a farmer boy in the decorum of well-dressed men and the grace of daintily clad women as well as in the music and the dim interior of the church (which seemed to me of great dignity and charm) and i usually went both morning and evening to watch the regal daughters of the county aristocracy go up the aisle. i even joined a sunday school class because charming miss culver was the teacher. outwardly a stocky, ungraceful youth, i was inwardly a bold squire of romance, needing only a steed and a shield to fight for my lady love. no one could be more essentially romantic than i was at this time--but fortunately no one knew it! mingling as i did with young people who had been students at the seminary, i naturally developed a new ambition. i decided to enter for the autumn term, and to that end gained from my father a leave of absence during august and hired myself out to bind grain in the harvest field. i demanded full wages and when one blazing hot day i rode on a shining new marsh harvester into a field of wheat just south of the fair ground, i felt myself a man, and entering upon a course which put me nearer the clothing and the education i desired. binding on a harvester was desperately hard work for a sixteen-year-old boy for it called for endurance of heat and hunger as well as for unusual celerity and precision of action. but as i considered myself full-grown physically, i could not allow myself a word of complaint. i kept my place beside my partner hour after hour, taking care of my half of ten acres of grain each day. my fingers, raw and bleeding with the briars and smarting with the rust on the grain, were a torture but i persisted to the end of harvest. in this way i earned enough money to buy myself a sunday suit, some new boots and the necessary books for the seminary term which began in september. up to this time i had never owned an overcoat nor a suit that fitted me. my shirts had always been made by my mother and had no real cuffs. i now purchased two boxes of paper cuffs and a real necktie. my intense satisfaction in these garments made mother smile with pleasure and understanding humor. in spite of my store suit and my high-heeled calf-skin boots i felt very humble as i left our lowly roof that first day and started for the chapel. to me the brick building standing in the center of its ample yard was as imposing as i imagine the harper memorial library must be to the youngster of today as he enters the university of chicago. to enter the chapel meant running the gauntlet of a hundred citified young men and women, fairly entitled to laugh at a clod-jumper like myself, and i would have balked completely had not david pointer, a neighbor's son, volunteered to lead the way. gratefully i accepted his offer, and so passed for the first time into the little hall which came to mean so much to me in after years. it was a large room swarming with merry young people and the corinthian columns painted on the walls, the pipe organ, the stately professors on the platform, the self-confident choir, were all of such majesty that i was reduced to hare-like humility. what right had i to share in this splendor? sliding hurriedly into a seat i took refuge in the obscurity which my youth and short stature guaranteed to me. soon professor bush, the principal of the school, gentle, blue-eyed, white-haired, with a sweet and mellow voice, rose to greet the old pupils and welcome the new ones, and his manner so won my confidence that at the close of the service i went to him and told him who i was. fortunately he remembered my sister harriet, and politely said, "i am glad to see you, hamlin," and from that moment i considered him a friend, and an almost infallible guide. the school was in truth a very primitive institution, hardly more than a high school, but it served its purpose. it gave farmers' boys like myself the opportunity of meeting those who were older, finer, more learned than they, and every day was to me like turning a fresh and delightful page in a story book, not merely because it brought new friends, new experiences, but because it symbolized freedom from the hay fork and the hoe. learning was easy for me. in all but mathematics i kept among the highest of my class without much effort, but it was in the "friday exercises" that i earliest distinguished myself. it was the custom at the close of every week's work to bring a section of the pupils upon the platform as essayists or orators, and these "exercises" formed the most interesting and the most passionately dreaded feature of the entire school. no pupil who took part in it ever forgot his first appearance. it was at once a pillory and a burning. it called for self-possession, memory, grace of gesture and a voice! my case is typical. for three or four days before my first ordeal, i could not eat. a mysterious uneasiness developed in my solar plexus, a pain which never left me--except possibly in the morning before i had time to think. day by day i drilled and drilled and drilled, out in the fields at the edge of the town or at home when mother was away, in the barn while milking--at every opportunity i went through my selection with most impassioned voice and lofty gestures, sustained by the legends of webster and demosthenes, resolved upon a blazing victory. i did everything but mumble a smooth pebble--realizing that most of the boys in my section were going through precisely the same struggle. each of us knew exactly how the others felt, and yet i cannot say that we displayed acute sympathy one with another; on the contrary, those in the free section considered the antics of the suffering section a very amusing spectacle and we were continually being "joshed" about our lack of appetite. the test was, in truth, rigorous. to ask a bashful boy or shy girl fresh from the kitchen to walk out upon a platform and face that crowd of mocking students was a kind of torture. no desk was permitted. each victim stood bleakly exposed to the pitiless gaze of three hundred eyes, and as most of us were poorly dressed, in coats that never fitted and trousers that climbed our boot-tops, we suffered the miseries of the damned. the girls wore gowns which they themselves had made, and were, of course, equally self-conscious. the knowledge that their sleeves did not fit was of more concern to them than the thought of breaking down--but the fear of forgetting their lines also contributed to their dread and terror. while the names which preceded mine were called off that first afternoon, i grew colder and colder till at last i shook with a nervous chill, and when, in his smooth, pleasant tenor, prof. bush called out "hamlin garland" i rose in my seat with a spring like jack from his box. my limbs were numb, so numb that i could scarcely feel the floor beneath my feet and the windows were only faint gray glares of light. my head oscillated like a toy balloon, seemed indeed to be floating in the air, and my heart was pounding like a drum. however, i had pondered upon this scene so long and had figured my course so exactly that i made all the turns with moderate degree of grace and succeeded finally in facing my audience without falling up the steps (as several others had done) and so looked down upon my fellows like tennyson's eagle on the sea. in that instant a singular calm fell over me, i became strangely master of myself. from somewhere above me a new and amazing power fell upon me and in that instant i perceived on the faces of my classmates a certain expression of surprise and serious respect. my subconscious oratorical self had taken charge. i do not at present recall what my recitation was, but it was probably _catiline's defense_ or some other of the turgid declamatory pieces of classic literature with which all our readers were filled. it was bombastic stuff, but my blind, boyish belief in it gave it dignity. as i went on my voice cleared. the window sashes regained their outlines. i saw every form before me, and the look of surprise and pleasure on the smiling face of my principal exalted me. closing amid hearty applause, i stepped down with a feeling that i had won a place among the orators of the school, a belief which did no harm to others and gave me a good deal of satisfaction. as i had neither money nor clothes, and was not of figure to win admiration, why should i not express the pride i felt in my power to move an audience? besides i was only sixteen! the principal spoke to me afterwards, both praising and criticising my method. the praise i accepted, the criticism i naturally resented. i realized some of my faults of course, but i was not ready to have even prof. bush tell me of them. i hated "elocution" drill in class, i relied on "inspiration." i believed that orators were born, not made. there was one other speaker in my section, a little girl, considerably younger than myself, who had the mysterious power of the born actress, and i recognized this quality in her at once. i perceived that she spoke from a deep-seated, emotional, celtic impulse. hardly more than a child in years, she was easily the most dramatic reader in the school. she too, loved tragic prose and passionate, sorrowful verse and to hear her recite, one of them dead in the east by the sea and one of them dead in the west by the sea, was to be shaken by inexplicable emotion. her face grew pale as silver as she went on and her eyes darkened with the anguish of the poet mother. most of the students were the sons and daughters of farmers round about the county, but a few were from the village homes in western iowa and southern minnesota. two or three boys wore real tailor-made suits, and the easy flow of their trouser legs and the set of their linen collars rendered me at once envious and discontented. "some day," i said to myself, "i too, will have a suit that will not gape at the neck and crawl at the ankle," but i did not rise to the height of expecting a ring and watch. shoes were just coming into fashion and one young man wore pointed "box toes" which filled all the rest of us with despair. john cutler also wore collars of linen--real linen--which had to be laundered, but few of us dared fix our hopes as high as that. john also owned three neckties, and wore broad cuffs with engraved gold buttons, and on fridays waved these splendors before our eyes with a malicious satisfaction which aroused our hatred. of such complexion are the tragedies and triumphs of youth! how i envied arthur peters his calm and haughty bearing! most of us entered chapel like rabbits sneaking down a turnip patch, but arthur and john and walter loitered in with the easy and assured manner of senators or generals--so much depends upon leather and prunella. gradually i lost my terror of this ordeal, but i took care to keep behind some friendly bulk like young blakeslee, who stood six feet two in his gaiters. with all these anxieties i loved the school and could hardly be wrested from it even for a day. i bent to my books with eagerness, i joined a debating society, and i took a hand at all the games. the days went by on golden, noiseless, ball-bearing axles--and almost before i realized it, winter was upon the land. but oh! the luxury of that winter, with no snow drifts to climb, no corn-stalks to gather and no long walk to school. it was sweet to wake each morning in the shelter of our little house and know that another day of delightful schooling was ours. our hands softened and lightened. our walk became each day less of a "galumping plod." the companionship of bright and interesting young people, and the study of well-dressed men and women in attendance upon lectures and socials was a part of our instruction and had their refining effect upon us, graceless colts though we were. sometime during this winter wendell phillips came to town and lectured on _the lost arts_. my father took us all to see and hear this orator hero of his boyhood days in boston. i confess to a disappointment in the event. a tall old gentleman with handsome clean-cut features, rose from behind the pulpit in the congregational church, and read from a manuscript--read quietly, colloquially, like a teacher addressing a group of students, with scarcely a gesture and without raising his voice. only once toward the end of the hour did he thrill us, and then only for a moment. father was a little saddened. he shook his head gravely. "he isn't the orator he was in the good old anti-slavery days," he explained and passed again into a glowing account of the famous "slave speech" in faneuil hall when the pro-slavery men all but mobbed the speaker. per contra, i liked, (and the boys all liked) a certain peripatetic temperance lecturer named beale, for _he_ was an orator, one of those who rise on an impassioned chant, soaring above the snows of chimborazo, mingling the purple and gold of sunset with the saffron and silver of the dawn. none of us could tell just what these gorgeous passages meant, but they were beautiful while they lasted, and sadly corrupted our oratorical style. it took some of us twenty years to recover from the fascination of this man's absurd and high falutin' elocutionary sing-song. i forgot the farm, i forgot the valley of my birth, i lived wholly and with joy in the present. song, poetry, history mingled with the sports which made our life so unceasingly interesting. there was a certain girl, the daughter of the shoe merchant, who (temporarily) displaced the image of agnes in the niche of my shrine, and to roll the platter for her at a "sociable" was a very high honor indeed, and there was another, a glorious contralto singer, much older than i--but there--i must not claim to have even attracted her eyes, and my meetings with millie were so few and so public that i cannot claim to have ever conversed with her. they were all boyish adorations. much as i enjoyed this winter, greatly as it instructed me, i cannot now recover from its luminous dark more than here and there an incident, a poem, a song. it was all delightful, that i know, so filled with joyous hours that i retain but a mingled impression of satisfaction and regret--satisfaction with life as i found it, regret at its inevitable ending--for my father, irritated by the failure of his renter, announced that he had decided to put us all back upon the farm. chapter xviii back to the farm judging from the entries in a small diary of this date, i was neither an introspective youth nor one given to precocious literary subtleties. on march th, , i made this entry; "today we move back upon the farm." this is all of it! no more, no less. not a word to indicate whether i regretted the decision or welcomed it, and from subsequent equally bald notes, i derive the information that my father retained his position as grain buyer, and that he drove back and forth daily over the five miles which lay between the farm and the elevator. there is no mention of my mother, no hint as to how she felt, although the return to the loneliness and drudgery of the farm must have been as grievous to her as to her sons. our muscles were soft and our heads filled with new ambitions but there was no alternative. it was "back to the field," or "out into the cold, cold world," so forth we went upon the soil in the old familiar way, there to plod to and fro endlessly behind the seeder and the harrow. it was harder than ever to follow a team for ten hours over the soft ground, and early rising was more difficult than it had ever been before, but i discovered some compensations which helped me bear these discomforts. i saw more of the beauty of the landscape and i now had an aspiration to occupy my mind. my memories of the seminary, the echoes of the songs we had heard, gave the morning chorus of the prairie chickens a richer meaning than before. the west wind, laden with the delicious smell of uncovered earth, the tender blue of the sky, the cheerful chirping of the ground sparrows, the jocund whistling of the gophers, the winding flight of the prairie pigeons--all these sights and sounds of spring swept back upon me, bringing something sweeter and more significant than before. i had gained in perception and also in the power to assimilate what i perceived. this year in town had other far-reaching effects. it tended to warp us from our father's designs. it placed the rigorous, filthy drudgery of the farm-yard in sharp contrast with the carefree companionable existence led by my friends in the village, and we longed to be of their condition. we had gained our first set of comparative ideas, and with them an unrest which was to carry us very far away. true, neither burton nor i had actually shared the splendors of congressman deering's house but we had obtained revelatory glimpses of its well-kept lawn, and through the open windows we had watched the waving of its lace curtains. we had observed also how well avery brush's frock coat fitted and we comprehended something of the elegant leisure which the sons and daughters of wm. petty's general store enjoyed. over against these comforts, these luxurious conditions, we now set our ugly little farmhouse, with its rag carpets, its battered furniture, its barren attic, and its hard, rude beds.--all that we possessed seemed very cheap and deplorably commonplace. my brother, who had passed a vivid and wonderful year riding race horses, clerking in an ice cream parlor, with frequent holidays of swimming and baseball, also went groaning and grumbling to the fields. he too resented the curry-comb and the dung fork. we both loathed the smell of manure and hated the greasy clothing which our tasks made necessary. secretly we vowed that when we were twenty-one we would leave the farm, never to return to it. however, as the ground dried off, and the grass grew green in the door-yard some part of this bitterness, this resentment, faded away, and we made no further complaint. my responsibilities were now those of a man. i was nearly full grown, quick and powerful of hand, and vain of my strength, which was, in fact, unusual and of decided advantage to me. nothing ever really tired me out. i could perform any of my duties with ease, and none of the men under me ever presumed to question my authority. as harvest came on i took my place on our new marsh harvester, and bound my half of over one hundred acres of heavy grain. the crop that year was enormous. at times, as i looked out over the billowing acres of wheat which must not only be reaped and bound and shocked and stacked but also threshed, before there was the slightest chance of my returning to the seminary, my face grew long and my heart heavy. burton shared this feeling, for he, too, had become profoundly interested in the seminary and was eager to return, eager to renew the friendships he had gained. we both wished to walk once more beneath the maple trees in clean well-fitting garments, and above all we hungered to escape the curry-comb and the cow. both of us retained our membership in the adelphian debating society, and occasionally drove to town after the day's work to take part in the monday meetings. having decided, definitely, to be an orator, i now went about with a copy of shakespeare in my pocket and ranted the immortal soliloquies of _hamlet_ and _richard_ as i held the plow, feeling certain that i was following in the footprints of lincoln and demosthenes. sundays brought a special sweet relief that summer, a note of finer poetry into all our lives, for often after a bath behind the barn we put on clean shirts and drove away to osage to meet george and mitchell, or went to church to see some of the girls we had admired at the seminary. on other sabbaths we returned to our places at the burr oak school-house, enjoying as we used to do, a few hours' forgetfulness of the farm. my father, i am glad to say, never insisted upon any religious observance on the part of his sons, and never interfered with any reasonable pleasure even on sunday. if he made objection to our trips it was usually on behalf of the cattle. "go where you please," he often said, "only get back in time to do the milking." sometimes he would ask, "don't you think the horses ought to have a rest as well as yourselves?" he was a stern man but a just man, and i am especially grateful to him for his non-interference with my religious affairs. all that summer and all the fall i worked like a hired man, assuming in addition the responsibilities of being boss. i bound grain until my arms were raw with briars and in stacking-time i wallowed round and round upon my knees, building great ricks of grain, taking obvious pride in the skill which this task required until my trousers, reinforced at the knees, bagged ungracefully and my hands, swollen with the act of grappling the heavy bundles as they were thrown to me, grew horny and brown and clumsy, so that i quite despaired of ever being able to write another letter. i was very glad not to have my seminary friends see me in this unlovely condition. however, i took a well-defined pride in stacking, for it was a test of skill. it was clean work. even now, as i ride a country lane, and see men at work handling oats or hay, i recall the pleasurable sides of work on the farm and long to return to it. the radiant sky of august and september on the prairie was a never failing source of delight to me. nature seemed resting, opulent, self-satisfied and honorable. every phase of the landscape indicated a task fulfilled. there were still and pulseless days when slaty-blue clouds piled up in the west and came drifting eastward with thunderous accompaniment, to break the oppressive heat and leave the earth cool and fresh from having passed. there were misty, windy days when the sounding, southern breeze swept the yellow stubble like a scythe; when the sky, without a cloud, was whitened by an overspreading haze; when the crickets sang sleepily as if in dream of eternal summer; and the grasshoppers clicked and buzzed from stalk to stalk in pure delight of sunshine and the harvest. another humbler source of pleasure in stacking was the watermelon which, having been picked in the early morning and hidden under the edge of the stack, remained deliciously cool till mid-forenoon, when at a signal, the men all gathered in the shadow of the rick, and leisurely ate their fill of juicy "mountain sweets." then there was the five o'clock supper, with its milk and doughnuts and pie which sent us back to our task--replete, content, ready for another hour of toil. of course, there were unpleasant days later in the month, noons when the skies were filled with ragged, swiftly moving clouds, and the winds blew the sheaves inside out and slashed against my face the flying grain as well as the leaping crickets. such days gave prophecy of the passing of summer and the coming of fall. but there was a mitigating charm even in these conditions, for they were all welcome promises of an early return to school. crickets during stacking time were innumerable and voracious as rust or fire. they ate our coats or hats if we left them beside the stack. they gnawed the fork handles and devoured any straps that were left lying about, but their multitudinous song was a beautiful inwrought part of the symphony. that year the threshing was done in the fields with a traction engine. my uncle david came no more to help us harvest. he had almost passed out of our life, and i have no recollection of him till several years later. much of the charm, the poetry of the old-time threshing vanished with the passing of horse power and the coming of the nomadic hired hand. there was less and less of the "changing works" which used to bring the young men of the farms together. the grain was no longer stacked round the stable. most of it we threshed in the field and the straw after being spread out upon the stubble was burned. some farmers threshed directly from the shock, and the new "vibrator" took the place of the old buffalo pitts separator with its ringing bell-metal pinions. wheeled plows were common and self-binding harvesters were coming in. although my laconic little diary does not show it, i was fiercely resolved upon returning to the seminary. my father was not very sympathetic. in his eyes i already had a very good equipment for the battle of life, but mother, with a woman's ready understanding, divined that i had not merely set my heart on graduating at the seminary, but that i was secretly dreaming of another and far more romantic career than that of being a farmer. although a woman of slender schooling herself, she responded helpfully to every effort which her sons made to raise themselves above the commonplace level of neighborhood life. all through the early fall whenever burton and i met the other boys of a sunday our talk was sure to fall upon the seminary, and burton stoutly declared that he, too, was going to begin in september. as a matter of fact the autumn term opened while we were still hard at work around a threshing machine with no definite hope of release till the plowing and corn-husking were over. our fathers did not seem to realize that the men of the future (even the farmers of the future) must have a considerable amount of learning and experience, and so october went by and november was well started before parole was granted and we were free to return to our books. with what sense of liberty, of exultation, we took our way down the road on that gorgeous autumn morning! no more dust, no more grime, no more mud, no more cow milking, no more horse currying! for five months we were to live the lives of scholars, of boarders.--yes, through some mysterious channel our parents had been brought to the point of engaging lodgings for us in the home of a townsman named leete. for two dollars a week it was arranged that we could eat and sleep from monday night to friday noon, but we were not expected to remain for supper on friday; and sunday supper, was of course, extra. i thought this a great deal of money then, but i cannot understand at this distance how our landlady was able to provide, for that sum, the raw material of her kitchen, to say nothing of bed linen and soap. the house, which stood on the edge of the town, was small and without upstairs heat, but it seemed luxurious to me, and the family straightway absorbed my interest. leete, the nominal head of the establishment, was a short, gray, lame and rather inefficient man of changeable temper who teamed about the streets with a span of roans almost as dour and crippled as himself. his wife, who did nearly all the housework for five boarders as well as for the members of her own family, was a soul of heroic pride and most indomitable energy. she was a tall, dark, thin woman who had once been handsome. poor creature--how incessantly she toiled, and how much she endured! she had three graceful and alluring daughters,--ella, nineteen, cora, sixteen, and martha, a quiet little mouse of about ten years of age. ella was a girl of unusual attainment, a teacher, self-contained and womanly, with whom we all, promptly, fell in love. cora, a moody, dark-eyed, passionate girl who sometimes glowed with friendly smiles and sometimes glowered in anger, was less adored. neither of them considered burton or myself worthy of serious notice. on the contrary, we were necessary nuisances. to me ella was a queen, a kindly queen, ever ready to help me out with my algebra. everything she did seemed to me instinct with womanly grace. no doubt she read the worship in my eyes, but her attitude was that of an older sister. cora, being nearer my own age, awed me not at all. on the contrary, we were more inclined to battle than to coo. her coolness toward me, i soon discovered, was sustained by her growing interest in a young man from cerro gordo county. we were a happy, noisy gang, and undoubtedly gave poor mrs. leete a great deal of trouble. there was boggs (who had lost part of one ear in some fracas with jack frost) who paced up and down his room declining latin verbs with painful pertinacity, and burton who loved a jest but never made one, and joe pritchard, who was interested mainly in politics and oratory, and finally that criminally well-dressed young book agent (with whom we had very little in common) and myself. in cold weather we all herded in the dining room to keep from freezing, and our weekly scrub took place after we got home to our own warm kitchens and the family wash-tubs. life was a pure joy to burton as to me. each day was a poem, each night a dreamless sleep! each morning at half past eight we went to the seminary and at four o'clock left it with regret. i should like to say that we studied hard every night, burning a great deal of kerosene oil, but i cannot do so.--we had a good time. the learning, (so far as i can recall) was incidental. it happened that my closest friends, aside from burton, were pupils of the public school and for that reason i kept my membership in the adelphian society which met every monday evening. my activities there, i find, made up a large part of my life during this second winter. i not only debated furiously, disputing weighty political questions, thus advancing the forensic side of my education, but later in the winter i helped to organize a dramatic company which gave a play for the benefit of the club library. just why i should have been chosen "stage director" of our "troupe," i cannot say, but something in my ability to declaim _regulus_ probably led to this high responsibility. at any rate, i not only played the leading juvenile, i settled points of action and costume without the slightest hesitation. cora was my _ingenue_ opposite, it fell out, and so we played at love-making, while meeting coldly at the family dining table. our engagement in the town hall extended through two march evenings and was largely patronized. it would seem that i was a dominant figure on both occasions, for i declaimed a "piece" on the opening night, one of those resounding orations (addressed to the carthaginians), which we all loved, and which permitted of thunderous, rolling periods and passionate gestures. if my recollection is not distorted, i was masterful that night--at least, joe pritchard agreed that i was "the best part of the show." joe was my friend, and i hold him in especial affection for his hearty praise of my effort. on this same night i also appeared in a little sketch representing the death of a veteran of the revolutionary war, in which the dying man beholds in a vision his beloved leader. walter blakeslee was the "washington" and i, with heavily powdered hair, was the veteran. on the second night i played the juvenile lover in a drama called _his brother's keeper_. cora as "shellie," my sweetheart, was very lovely in pink mosquito netting, and for the first time i regretted her interest in the book agent from cerro gordo. strange to say i had no fear at all as i looked out over the audience which packed the town hall to the ceiling. father and mother were there with frank and jessie, all quite dazed (as i imagined) by my transcendent position behind the foot lights. it may have been this very night that willard eaton, the county attorney, spoke to my father saying, "richard, whenever that boy of yours finishes school and wants to begin to study law, you send him right to me," which was, of course, a very great compliment, for the county attorney belonged to the best known and most influential firm of lawyers in the town. at the moment his offer would have seemed very dull and commonplace to me. i would have refused it. our success that night was so great that it appeared a pity not to permit other towns to witness our performance, hence we boldly organized a "tour." we booked a circuit which included st. ansgar and mitchell, two villages, one four, the other ten miles to the north. audacious as this may seem, it was deliberately decided upon, and one pleasant day mitchell and george and i loaded all our scenery into a wagon and drove away across the prairie to our first "stand" very much as molière did in his youth, leaving the ladies to follow (in the grandeur of hired buggies) later in the day. that night we played with "artistic success"--that is to say, we lost some eighteen dollars, which so depressed the management that it abandoned the tour, and the entire organization returned to osage in diminished glory. this cut short my career as an actor. i never again took part in a theatrical performance. not long after this disaster, "shellie," as i now called cora, entered upon some mysterious and romantic drama of her own. the travelling man vanished, and soon after she too disappeared. where she went, what she did, no one seemed to know, and none of us quite dared to ask. i never saw her again but last year, after nearly forty years of wandering, i was told that she is married and living in luxurious ease near london. through what deep valleys she has travelled to reach this height, with what loss or gain, i cannot say, but i shall always remember her as she was that night in st. ansgar, in her pink-mosquito-bar dress, her eyes shining with excitement, her voice vibrant with girlish gladness. our second winter at the seminary passed all too quickly, and when the prairie chickens began to boom from the ridges our hearts sank within us. for the first time the grouse's cheery dance was unwelcome for it meant the closing of our books, the loss of our pleasant companions, the surrender of our leisure, and a return to the mud of the fields. it was especially hard to say good-bye to ella and maud, for though they were in no sense sweethearts they were very pleasant companions. there were others whom it was a pleasure to meet in the halls and to emulate in the class-rooms, and when early in april, we went home to enter upon the familiar round of seeding, corn-planting, corn plowing, harvesting, stacking and threshing, we had only the promise of an occasional trip to town to cheer us. it would seem that our interest in the girls of burr oak had diminished, for we were less regular in our attendance upon services in the little school-house, and whenever we could gain consent to use a horse, we hitched up and drove away to town. these trips have golden, unforgettable charm, and indicate the glamor which approaching manhood was flinging over my world. my father's world was less jocund, was indeed filled with increasing anxiety, for just before harvest time a new and formidable enemy of the wheat appeared in the shape of a minute, ill-smelling insect called the chinch bug. it already bore an evil reputation with us for it was reported to have eaten out the crops of southern wisconsin and northern illinois, and, indeed, before barley cutting was well under way the county was overrun with laborers from the south who were anxious to get work in order to recoup them for the loss of their own harvest. these fugitives brought incredible tales of the ravages of the enemy and prophesied our destruction but, as a matter of fact, only certain dry ridges proclaimed the presence of the insect during this year. the crop was rather poor for other reasons, and mr. babcock, like my father, objected to paying board bills. his attitude was so unpromising that burton and i cast about to see how we could lessen the expense of upkeep during our winter term of school. together we decided to hire a room and board ourselves (as many of the other fellows did) and so cut our expenses to a mere trifle. it was difficult, even in those days, to live cheaper than two dollars per week, but we convinced our people that we could do it, and so at last wrung from our mothers a reluctant consent to our trying it. we got away in october, only two weeks behind our fellows. i well remember the lovely afternoon on which we unloaded our scanty furniture into the two little rooms which we had hired for the term. it was still glorious autumn weather, and we were young and released from slavery. we had a table, three chairs, a little strip of carpet, and a melodeon, which belonged to burton's sister, and when we had spread our carpet and put up our curtains we took seats, and cocking our feet upon the window sill surveyed our surroundings with such satisfaction as only autocrats of the earth may compass. we were absolute masters of our time--that was our chiefest joy. we could rise when we pleased and go to bed when we pleased. there were no stables to clean, no pigs to feed, nothing marred our days. we could study or sing or dance at will. we could even wrestle at times with none to molest or make us afraid. my photograph shows the new suit which i had bought on my own responsibility this time, but no camera could possibly catch the glow of inward satisfaction which warmed my heart. it was a brown cassimere, coat, trousers and vest all alike,--and the trousers fitted me! furthermore as i bought it without my father's help, my selection was made for esthetic reasons without regard to durability or warmth. it was mine--in the fullest sense--and when i next entered chapel i felt not merely draped, but defended. i walked to my seat with confident security, a well-dressed person. i had a "boughten" shirt also, two boxes of paper cuffs, and two new ties, a black one for every day and a white one for sunday. i don't know that any of the girls perceived my new suit, but i hoped one or two of them did. the boys were quite outspoken in their approval of it. i had given up boots, also, for most of the townsmen wore shoes, thus marking the decline of the military spirit. i never again owned a pair of those man-killing top-boots--which were not only hard to get on and off but pinched my toes, and interrupted the flow of my trouser-legs. thus one great era fades into another. the jack-boot period was over, the shoe, commonplace and comfortable, had won. our housekeeping was very simple. each of us brought from home on monday morning a huge bag of doughnuts together with several loaves of bread, and (with a milkman near at hand) our cooking remained rudimentary. we did occasionally fry a steak and boil some potatoes, and i have a dim memory of several disastrous attempts to make flapjacks out of flour and sweet milk. however we never suffered from hunger as some of the other fellows actually did. pretty ethel beebe comes into the record of this winter, like a quaint illustration to an old-fashioned story, for she lived near us and went to school along the same sidewalk. burton was always saying, "some day i am going to brace up and ask ethel to let me carry her books, and i'm going to walk beside her right down main street." but he never did. ultimately i attained to that incredible boldness, but burton only followed along behind. ethel was a slender, smiling, brown-eyed girl with a keen appreciation of the ridiculous, and i have no doubt she catalogued all our peculiarities, for she always seemed to be laughing at us, and i think it must have been her smiles that prevented any romantic attachment. we walked and talked without any deeper interest than good comradeship. mrs. babcock was famous for her pies and cakes, and burton always brought some delicious samples of her skill. as regularly as the clock, on every tuesday evening he said, in precisely the same tone, "well, now, we'll have to eat these pies right away or they'll spoil," and as i made no objection, we had pie for luncheon, pie and cake for supper, and cake and pie for breakfast until all these "goodies" which were intended to serve as dessert through the week were consumed. by thursday morning we were usually down to dry bread and butter. we simplified our housework in other ways in order that we might have time to study and burton wasted a good deal of time at the fiddle, sawing away till i was obliged to fall upon him and roll him on the floor to silence him. i still have our ledger which gives an itemized account of the cost of this experiment in self board, and its footings are incredibly small. less than fifty cents a day for both of us! of course our mothers, sisters and aunts were continually joking us about our housekeeping, and once or twice mrs. babcock called upon us unexpectedly and found the room "a sight." but we did not mind her very much. we only feared the bright eyes of ethel and maude and carrie. fortunately they could not properly call upon us, even if they had wished to do so, and we were safe. it is probable, moreover, that they fully understood our methods, for they often slyly hinted at hasty dish-washing and primitive cookery. all of this only amused us, so long as they did not actually discover the dirt and disorder of which our mothers complained. our school library at that time was pitifully small and ludicrously prescriptive, but its shelves held a few of the fine old classics, scott, dickens and thackeray--the kind of books which can always be had in sets at very low prices--and in nosing about among these i fell, one day, upon two small red volumes called _mosses from an old manse_. of course i had read of the author, for these books were listed in my _history of american literature_, but i had never, up to this moment, dared to open one of them. i was a discoverer. i turned a page or two, and instantly my mental horizon widened. when i had finished the _artist of the beautiful_, the great puritan romancer had laid his spell upon me everlastingly. even as i walked homeward to my lunch, i read. i ate with the book beside my plate. i neglected my classes that afternoon, and as soon as i had absorbed this volume i secured the other and devoted myself to it with almost equal intensity. the stately diction, the rich and glowing imagery, the mystical radiance, and the aloofness of the author's personality all united to create in me a worshipful admiration which made all other interests pale and faint. it was my first profound literary passion and i was dazzled by the glory of it. it would be a pleasant task to say that this book determined my career--it would form a delightful literary assumption, but i cannot claim it. as a realist i must remain faithful to fact. i did not then and there vow to be a romantic novelist like hawthorne. on the contrary, i realized that this great poet (to me he was a poet) like edgar allan poe, was a soul that dwelt apart from ordinary mortals. to me he was a magician, a weaver of magic spells, a dreamer whose visions comprehended the half-lights, the borderlands, of the human soul. i loved the roll of his words in _the march of time_ and the quaint phrasing of the _rill from the town pump_; _rappacini's daughter_ whose breath poisoned the insects in the air, uplifted me. _drowne and his wooden image_, the _great stone face_--each story had its special appeal. for days i walked amid enchanted mist, my partner--(even the maidens i most admired), became less appealing, less necessary to me. eager to know more of this necromancer i searched the town for others of his books, but found only _american notes_ and _the scarlet letter_. gradually i returned to something like my normal interests in baseball and my classmates, but never again did i fall to the low level of _jack harkaway_. i now possessed a literary touchstone with which i tested the quality of other books and other minds, and my intellectual arrogance, i fear, sometimes made me an unpleasant companion. the fact that ethel did not "like" hawthorne, sank her to a lower level in my estimation. chapter xix end of school days though my years at the seminary were the happiest of my life they are among the most difficult for me to recover and present to my readers. during half the year i worked on the farm fiercely, unsparing of myself, in order that i might have an uninterrupted season of study in the village. each term was very like another so far as its broad program went but innumerable, minute but very important progressions carried me toward manhood, events which can hardly be stated to an outsider. burton remained my room-mate and in all our vicissitudes we had no vital disagreements but his unconquerable shyness kept him from making a good impression on his teachers and this annoyed me--it made him seem stupid when he was not. once, as chairman of a committee it became his duty to introduce a certain lecturer who was to speak on "elihu burritt," and by some curious twist in my chum's mind this name became "lu-hi burritt" and he so stated it in his introductory remarks. this amused the lecturer and raised a titter in the audience. burton bled in silence over this mishap for he was at heart deeply ambitious to be a public speaker. he never alluded to that speech even to me without writhing in retrospective shame. another incident will illustrate his painfully shy character. one of our summer vacations was made notable by the visit of an exceedingly pretty girl to the home of one of burton's aunts who lived on the road to the grove, and my chum's excitement over the presence of this alien bird of paradise was very amusing to me as well as to his brother charles who was inclined, as an older brother, to "take it out" of burt. i listened to my chum's account of his cousin's beauty with something more than fraternal interest. she came, it appeared, from dubuque and had the true cosmopolitan's air of tolerance. our small community amused her. her hats and gowns (for it soon developed that she had at least two), were the envy of all the girls, and the admiration of the boys. no disengaged or slightly obligated beau of the district neglected to hitch his horse at mrs. knapp's gate. burton's opportunity seemed better than that of any other youth, for he could visit his aunt as often as he wished without arousing comment, whereas for me, a call would have been equivalent to an offer of marriage. my only chance of seeing the radiant stranger was at church. needless to say we all made it a point to attend every service during her stay. one sunday afternoon as i was riding over to the grove, i met burton plodding homeward along the grassy lane, walking with hanging head and sagging shoulders. he looked like a man in deep and discouraged thought, and when he glanced up at me, with a familiar defensive smile twisting his long lips, i knew something had gone wrong. "hello," i said. "where have you been?" "over to aunt sallie's," he said. his long, linen duster was sagging at the sides, and peering down at his pockets i perceived a couple of quarts of lovely siberian crab-apples. "where did you get all that fruit?" i demanded. "at home." "what are you going to do with it?" "take it back again." "what do you mean by such a performance?" with the swift flush and silent laugh which always marked his confessions of weakness, or failure, he replied, "i went over to see nettie. i intended to give her these apples," he indicated the fruit by a touch on each pocket, "but when i got there i found old bill watson, dressed to kill and large as life, sitting in the parlor. i was so afraid of his finding out what i had in my pockets that i didn't go in. i came away leaving him in possession." of course i laughed--but there was an element of pathos in it after all. poor burt! he always failed to get his share of the good things in this world. * * * * * we continued to board ourselves,--now here, now there, and always to the effect of being starved out by friday night, but we kept well and active even on doughnuts and pie, and were grateful of any camping place in town. once burton left a soup-bone to simmer on the stove while we went away to morning recitations, and when we reached home, smoke was leaking from every keyhole. the room was solid with the remains of our bone. it took six months to get the horrid smell of charred beef out of our wardrobe. the girls all sniffed and wondered as we came near. on fridays we went home and during the winter months very generally attended the lyceum which met in the burr oak school-house. we often debated, and on one occasion i attained to the honor of being called upon to preside over the session. another memorable evening is that in which i read with what seemed to me distinguished success joaquin miller's magnificent new poem, _kit carson's ride_ and in the splendid roar and trample of its lines discovered a new and powerful american poet. his spirit appealed to me. he was at once american and western. i read every line of his verse which the newspapers or magazines brought to me, and was profoundly influenced by its epic quality. and so, term by term, in growing joy and strength, in expanding knowledge of life, we hurried toward the end of our four years' course at this modest little school, finding in it all the essential elements of an education, for we caught at every chance quotation from the scientists, every fleeting literary allusion in the magazines, attaining, at last, a dim knowledge of what was going on in the great outside world of letters and discovery. of course there were elections and tariff reforms and other comparatively unimportant matters taking place in the state but they made only the most transient impression on our minds. during the last winter of our stay at the seminary, my associate in housekeeping was one adelbert jones, the son of a well-to-do farmer who lived directly east of town. "del," as we called him, always alluded to himself as "ferguson." he was tall, with a very large blond face inclined to freckle and his first care of a morning was to scrutinize himself most anxiously to see whether the troublesome brown flecks were increasing or diminishing in number. often upon reaching the open air he would sniff the east wind and say lugubriously, "this is the kind of day that brings out the freckles on your uncle ferg." he was one of the best dressed men in the school, and especially finicky about his collars and ties,--was, indeed, one of the earliest to purchase linen. he also parted his yellow hair in the middle (which was a very noticeable thing in those days) and was always talking of taking a girl to a social or to prayer meeting. but, like burton, he never did. so far as i knew he never "went double," and most of the girls looked upon him as more or less of a rustic, notwithstanding his fine figure and careful dress. as for me i did once hire a horse and carriage of a friend and took alice for a drive! more than thirty-five years have passed since that adventure and yet i can see every turn in that road! i can hear the crackle of my starched shirt and the creak of my suspender buckles as i write. alice, being quite as bashful as myself, kept our conversation to the high plane of hawthorne and poe and schiller with an occasional tired droop to the weather, hence i infer that she was as much relieved as i when we reached her boarding house some two hours later. it was my first and only attempt at this, the most common of all ways of entertaining one's best girl. the youth who furnished the carriage betrayed me, and the outcry of my friends so intimidated me that i dared not look alice in the face. my only comfort was that no one but ourselves could possibly know what an erratic conversationalist i had been. however, she did not seem to lay it up against me. i think she was as much astonished as i and i am persuaded that she valued the compliment of my extravagant gallantry. it is only fair to say that i had risen by this time to the dignity of "boughten shirts," linen collars and "congress gaiters," and my suit purchased for graduating purposes was of black diagonal with a long tail, a garment which fitted me reasonably well. it was hot, of course, and nearly parboiled me of a summer evening, but i bore my suffering like the hero that i was, in order that i might make a presentable figure in the eyes of my classmates. i longed for a white vest but did not attain to that splendor. life remained very simple and very democratic in our little town. although the county seat, it was slow in taking on city ways. i don't believe a real bath-tub distinguished the place (i never heard of one) but its sidewalks kept our feet out of the mud (even in march or april), and this was a marvellous fact to us. one or two fine lawns and flower gardens had come in, and year by year the maples had grown until they now made a pleasant shade in june, and in october glorified the plank walks. to us it was beautiful. as county town, osage published two papers and was, in addition, the home of two judges, a state senator and a congressman. a new opera house was built in ' and an occasional "actor troupe" presented military plays like _our boys_ or farces like _solon shingle_. the brass band and the baseball team were the best in the district, and were loyally upheld by us all. with all these attractions do you wonder that whenever ed and bill and joe had a day of leisure they got out their buggies, washed them till they glistened like new, and called for their best girls on the way to town? circuses, fourth of julys, county fairs, all took place in osage, and to own a "covered rig" and to take your sweetheart to the show were the highest forms of affluence and joy--unless you were actually able to live in town, as burton and i now did for five days in each week, in which case you saw everything that was free and denied yourself everything but the circus. nobody went so far in economy as that. as a conscientious historian i have gone carefully into the records of this last year, in the hope of finding something that would indicate a feeling on the part of the citizens that dick garland's boy was in some ways a remarkable youth, but (i regret to say) i cannot lay hands on a single item. it appears that i was just one of a hundred healthy, hearty, noisy students--but no, wait! there is one incident which has slight significance. one day during my final term of school, as i stood in the postoffice waiting for the mail to be distributed, i picked up from the counter a book called _the undiscovered country_. "what is this about?" i asked. the clerk looked up at me with an expression of disgust. "i bought it for a book of travel," said he, "but it is only a novel. want it? i'll sell it cheap." having no money to waste in that way, i declined, but as i had the volume in my hands, with a few minutes to spare, i began to read. it did not take me long to discover in this author a grace and precision of style which aroused both my admiration and my resentment. my resentment was vague, i could not have given a reason for it, but as a matter of fact, the english of this new author made some of my literary heroes seem either crude or stilted. i was just young enough and conservative enough to be irritated and repelled by the modernity of william dean howells. i put the book down and turned away, apparently uninfluenced by it. indeed, i remained, if anything, more loyal to the grand manner of hawthorne, but my love of realism was growing. i recall a rebuke from my teacher in rhetoric, condemning, in my essay on mark twain, an over praise of _roughing it_. it is evident, therefore that i was even then a lover of the modern when taken off my guard. meanwhile i had definitely decided not to be a lawyer, and it happened in this way. one sunday morning as i was walking toward school, i met a young man named lohr, a law student several years older than myself, who turned and walked with me for a few blocks. "well, garland," said he, "what are you going to do after you graduate this june?" "i don't know," i frankly replied. "i have a chance to go into a law office." "don't do it," protested he with sudden and inexplicable bitterness. "whatever you do, don't become a lawyer's hack." his tone and the words, "lawyer's hack" had a powerful effect upon my mind. the warning entered my ears and stayed there. i decided against the law, as i had already decided against the farm. * * * * * yes, these were the sweetest days of my life for i was carefree and glowing with the happiness which streams from perfect health and unquestioning faith. if any shadow drifted across this sunny year it fell from a haunting sense of the impermanency of my leisure. neither burton nor i had an ache or a pain. we had no fear and cherished no sorrow, and we were both comparatively free from the lover's almost intolerable longing. our loves were hardly more than admirations. as i project myself back into those days i re-experience the keen joy i took in the downpour of vivid sunlight, in the colorful clouds of evening, and in the song of the west wind harping amid the maple leaves. the earth was new, the moonlight magical, the dawns miraculous. i shiver with the boy's solemn awe in the presence of beauty. the little recitation rooms, dusty with floating chalk, are wide halls of romance and the voices of my girl classmates (even though their words are algebraic formulas), ring sweet as bells across the years. * * * * * during the years ' and ' , while burton and i had been living our carefree jocund life at the seminary, a series of crop failures had profoundly affected the county, producing a feeling of unrest and bitterness in the farmers which was to have a far-reaching effect on my fortunes as well as upon those of my fellows. for two years the crop had been almost wholly destroyed by chinch bugs. the harvest of ' had been a season of disgust and disappointment to us for not only had the pestiferous mites devoured the grain, they had filled our stables, granaries, and even our kitchens with their ill-smelling crawling bodies--and now they were coming again in added billions. by the middle of june they swarmed at the roots of the wheat--innumerable as the sands of the sea. they sapped the growing stalks till the leaves turned yellow. it was as if the field had been scorched, even the edges of the corn showed signs of blight. it was evident that the crop was lost unless some great change took place in the weather, and many men began to offer their land for sale. naturally the business of grain-buying had suffered with the decline of grain-growing, and my father, profoundly discouraged by the outlook, sold his share in the elevator and turned his face toward the free lands of the farther west. he became again the pioneer. dakota was the magic word. the "jim river valley" was now the "land of delight," where "herds of deer and buffalo" still "furnished the cheer." once more the spirit of the explorer flamed up in the soldier's heart. once more the sunset allured. once more my mother sang the marching song of the mcclintocks, o'er the hills in legions, boys, fair freedom's star points to the sunset regions, boys, ha, ha, ha-ha! and sometime, in may i think it was, father again set out--this time by train, to explore the land of the dakotas which had but recently been wrested from the control of sitting bull. he was gone only two weeks, but on his return announced with triumphant smile that he had taken up a homestead in ordway, brown county, dakota. his face was again alight with the hope of the borderman, and he had much to say of the region he had explored. as graduation day came on, burton and i became very serious. the question of our future pressed upon us. what were we to do when our schooling ended? neither of us had any hope of going to college, and neither of us had any intention of going to dakota, although i had taken "going west" as the theme of my oration. we were also greatly worried about these essays. burton fell off in appetite and grew silent and abstracted. each of us gave much time to declaiming our speeches, and the question of dress troubled us. should we wear white ties and white vests, or white ties and black vests? the evening fell on a dark and rainy night, but the garlands came down in their best attire and so did the babcocks, the gilchrists and many other of our neighbors. burton was hoping that his people would not come, he especially dreaded the humorous gaze of his brother charles who took a much less serious view of burton's powers as an orator than burton considered just. other interested parents and friends filled the new opera house to the doors, producing in us a sense of awe for this was the first time the "exercises" had taken place outside the chapel. never again shall i feel the same exultation, the same pleasure mingled with bitter sadness, the same perception of the irrevocable passing of beautiful things, and the equally inexorable coming on of care and trouble, as filled my heart that night. whether any of the other members of my class vibrated with similar emotion or not i cannot say, but i do recall that some of the girls annoyed me by their excessive attentions to unimportant ribbons, flounces, and laces. "how do i look?" seemed their principal concern. only alice expressed anything of the prophetic sadness which mingled with her exultation. the name of my theme, (which was made public for the first time in the little programme) is worthy of a moment's emphasis. _going west_ had been suggested, of course by the emigration fever, then at its height, and upon it i had lavished a great deal of anxious care. as an oration it was all very excited and very florid, but it had some stirring ideas in it and coming in the midst of the profound political discourses of my fellows and the formal essays of the girls, it seemed much more singular and revolutionary, both in form and in substance, than it really was. as i waited my turn, i experienced that sense of nausea, that numbness which always preceded my platform trials, but as my name was called i contrived to reach the proper place behind the footlights, and to bow to the audience. my opening paragraph perplexed my fellows, and naturally, for it was exceedingly florid, filled with phrases like "the lure of the sunset," "the westward urge of men," and was neither prose nor verse. nevertheless i detected a slight current of sympathy coming up to me, and in the midst of the vast expanse of faces, i began to detect here and there a friendly smile. mother and father were near but their faces were very serious. after a few moments the blood began to circulate through my limbs and i was able to move about a little on the stage. my courage came back, but alas!--just in proportion as i attained confidence my emotional chant mounted too high! since the writing was extremely ornate, my manner should have been studiedly cold and simple. this i knew perfectly well, but i could not check the perfervid rush of my song. i ranted deplorably, and though i closed amid fairly generous applause, no flowers were handed up to me. the only praise i received came from charles lohr, the man who had warned me against becoming a lawyer's hack. he, meeting me in the wings of the stage as i came off, remarked with ironic significance, "well, that was an original piece of business!" this delighted me exceedingly, for i had written with special deliberate intent to go outside the conventional grind of graduating orations. feeling dimly, but sincerely, the epic march of the american pioneer i had tried to express it in an address which was in fact a sloppy poem. i should not like to have that manuscript printed precisely as it came from my pen, and a phonographic record of my voice would serve admirably as an instrument of blackmail. however, i thought at the time that i had done moderately well, and my mother's shy smile confirmed me in the belief. burton was white with stage-fright as he stepped from the wings but he got through very well, better than i, for he attempted no oratorical flights. now came the usual hurried and painful farewells of classmates. with fervid hand-clasp we separated, some of us never again to meet. our beloved principal (who was even then shadowed by the illness which brought about his death) clung to us as if he hated to see us go, and some of us could not utter a word as we took his hand in parting. what i said to alice and maud and ethel i do not know, but i do recall that i had an uncomfortable lump in my throat while saying it. as a truthful historian, i must add that burton and i, immediately after this highly emotional close of our school career, were both called upon to climb into the family carriage and drive away into the black night, back to the farm,--an experience which seemed to us at the time a sad anticlimax. when we entered our ugly attic rooms and tumbled wearily into our hard beds, we retained very little of our momentary sense of victory. our carefree school life was ended. our stern education in life had begun. chapter xx the land of the dakotas the movement of settlers toward dakota had now become an exodus, a stampede. hardly anything else was talked about as neighbors met one another on the road or at the burr oak school-house on sundays. every man who could sell out had gone west or was going. in vain did the county papers and farmer's institute lecturers advise cattle raising and plead for diversified tillage, predicting wealth for those who held on; farmer after farmer joined the march to kansas, nebraska, and dakota. "we are wheat raisers," they said, "and we intend to keep in the wheat belt." our own family group was breaking up. my uncle david of pioneer spirit had already gone to the far missouri valley. rachel had moved to georgia, and grandad mcclintock was with his daughters, samantha and deborah, in western minnesota. my mother, thus widely separated from her kin, resigned herself once more to the thought of founding a new home. once more she sang, "o'er the hills in legions, boys," with such spirit as she could command, her clear voice a little touched with the huskiness of regret. i confess i sympathized in some degree with my father's new design. there was something large and fine in the business of wheat-growing, and to have a plague of insects arise just as our harvesting machinery was reaching such perfection that we could handle our entire crop without hired help, was a tragic, abominable injustice. i could not blame him for his resentment and dismay. my personal plans were now confused and wavering. i had no intention of joining this westward march; on the contrary, i was looking toward employment as a teacher, therefore my last weeks at the seminary were shadowed by a cloud of uncertainty and vague alarm. it seemed a time of change, and immense, far-reaching, portentous readjustment. our homestead was sold, my world was broken up. "what am i to do?" was my question. father had settled upon ordway, brown county, south dakota, as his future home, and immediately after my graduation, he and my brother set forth into the new country to prepare the way for the family's removal, leaving me to go ahead with the harvest alone. it fell out, therefore, that immediately after my flowery oration on _going west_ i found myself more of a slave to the cattle than ever before in my life. help was scarce; i could not secure even so much as a boy to aid in milking the cows; i was obliged to work double time in order to set up the sheaves of barley which were in danger of mouldering on the wet ground. i worked with a kind of bitter, desperate pleasure, saying, "this is the last time i shall ever lift a bundle of this accursed stuff." and then, to make the situation worse, in raising some heavy machinery connected with the self-binder, i strained my side so seriously that i was unable to walk. this brought the harvesting to a stand, and made my father's return necessary. for several weeks i hobbled about, bent like a gnome, and so helped to reap what the chinch bugs had left, while my mother prepared to "follow the sunset" with her "boss." september first was the day set for saying good-bye to dry run, and it so happened that her wedding anniversary fell close upon the same date and our neighbors, having quietly passed the word around, came together one sunday afternoon to combine a farewell dinner with a silver wedding "surprise party." mother saw nothing strange in the coming of the first two carriages, the buttons often came driving in that way,--but when the babcocks, the coles, and the gilchrists clattered in with smiling faces, we all stood in the yard transfixed with amazement. "what's the meaning of all this?" asked my father. no one explained. the women calmly clambered down from their vehicles, bearing baskets and bottles and knobby parcels, and began instant and concerted bustle of preparation. the men tied their horses to the fence and hunted up saw-horses and planks, and soon a long table was spread beneath the trees on the lawn. one by one other teams came whirling into the yard. the assembly resembled a "vandoo" as asa walker said. "it's worse than that," laughed mrs. turner. "it's a silver wedding and a 'send off' combined." they would not let either the "bride" or the "groom" do a thing, and with smiling resignation my mother folded her hands and sank into a chair. "all right," she said. "i am perfectly willing to sit by and see you do the work. i won't have another chance right away." and there was something sad in her voice. she could not forget that this was the beginning of a new pioneering adventure. the shadows were long on the grass when at the close of the supper old john gammons rose to make a speech and present the silver tea set. his voice was tremulous with emotion as he spoke of the loss which the neighborhood was about to suffer, and tears were in many eyes when father made reply. the old soldier's voice failed him several times during his utterance of the few short sentences he was able to frame, and at last he was obliged to take his seat, and blow his nose very hard on his big bandanna handkerchief to conceal his emotion. it was a very touching and beautiful moment to me, for as i looked around upon that little group of men and women, rough-handed, bent and worn with toil, silent and shadowed with the sorrow of parting, i realized as never before the high place my parents had won in the estimation of their neighbors. it affected me still more deeply to see my father stammer and flush with uncontrollable emotion. i had thought the event deeply important before, but i now perceived that our going was all of a piece with the west's elemental restlessness. i could not express what i felt then, and i can recover but little of it now, but the pain which filled my throat comes back to me mixed with a singular longing to relive it. there, on a low mound in the midst of the prairie, in the shadow of the house we had built, beneath the slender trees we had planted, we were bidding farewell to one cycle of emigration and entering upon another. the border line had moved on, and my indomitable dad was moving with it. i shivered with dread of the irrevocable decision thus forced upon me. i heard a clanging as of great gates behind me and the field of the future was wide and wan. from this spot we had seen the wild prairies disappear. on every hand wheat and corn and clover had taken the place of the wild oat, the hazelbush and the rose. our house, a commonplace frame cabin, took on grace. here hattie had died. our yard was ugly, but there jessie's small feet had worn a slender path. each of our lives was knit into these hedges and rooted in these fields and yet, notwithstanding all this, in response to some powerful yearning call, my father was about to set out for the fifth time into the still more remote and untrodden west. small wonder that my mother sat with bowed head and tear-blinded eyes, while these good and faithful friends crowded around her to say good-bye. she had no enemies and no hatreds. her rich singing voice, her smiling face, her ready sympathy with those who suffered, had endeared her to every home into which she had gone, even as a momentary visitor. no woman in childbirth, no afflicted family within a radius of five miles had ever called for her in vain. death knew her well, for she had closed the eyes of youth and age, and yet she remained the same laughing, bounteous, whole-souled mother of men that she had been in the valley of the neshonoc. nothing could permanently cloud her face or embitter the sunny sweetness of her creed. one by one the women put their worn, ungraceful arms about her, kissed her with trembling lips, and went away in silent grief. the scene became too painful for me at last, and i fled away from it--out into the fields, bitterly asking, "why should this suffering be? why should mother be wrenched from all her dearest friends and forced to move away to a strange land?" * * * * * i did not see the actual packing up and moving of the household goods, for i had determined to set forth in advance and independently, eager to be my own master, and at the moment i did not feel in the least like pioneering. some two years before, when the failure of our crop had made the matter of my continuing at school an issue between my father and myself, i had said, "if you will send me to school until i graduate, i will ask nothing further of you," and these words i now took a stern pleasure in upholding. without a dollar of my own, i announced my intention to fare forth into the world on the strength of my two hands, but my father, who was in reality a most affectionate parent, offered me thirty dollars to pay my carfare. this i accepted, feeling that i had abundantly earned this money, and after a sad parting with my mother and my little sister, set out one september morning for osage. at the moment i was oppressed with the thought that this was the fork in the trail, that my family and i had started on differing roads. i had become a man. with all the ways of the world before me i suffered from a feeling of doubt. the open gate allured me, but the homely scenes i was leaving suddenly put forth a latent magic. i knew every foot of this farm. i had traversed it scores of times in every direction, following the plow, the harrow, or the seeder. with a great lumber wagon at my side i had husked corn from every acre of it, and now i was leaving it with no intention of returning. my action, like that of my father, was final. as i looked back up the lane at the tall lombardy poplar trees bent like sabres in the warm western wind, the landscape i was leaving seemed suddenly very beautiful, and the old home very peaceful and very desirable. nevertheless i went on. try as i may, i cannot bring back out of the darkness of that night any memory of how i spent the time. i must have called upon some of my classmates, but i cannot lay hold upon a single word or look or phrase from any of them. deeply as i felt my distinction in thus riding forth into the world, all the tender incidents of farewell are lost to me. perhaps my boyish self-absorption prevented me from recording outside impressions, for the idea of travelling, of crossing the state line, profoundly engaged me. up to this time, notwithstanding all my dreams of conquest in far countries, i had never ridden in a railway coach! can you wonder therefore that i trembled with joyous excitement as i paced the platform next morning waiting for the chariot of my romance? the fact that it was a decayed little coach at the end of a "mixed accommodation train" on a stub road did not matter. i was ecstatic. however, i was well dressed, and my inexperience appeared only in a certain tense watchfulness. i closely observed what went on around me and was careful to do nothing which could be misconstrued as ignorance. thrilling with excitement, feeling the mighty significance of my departure, i entered quietly and took my seat, while the train roared on through mitchell and st. ansgar, the little towns in which i had played my part as an actor,--on into distant climes and marvellous cities. my emotion was all very boyish, but very natural as i look back upon it. the town in which i spent my first night abroad should have been called thebes or athens or palmyra; but it was not. on the contrary, it was named ramsey, after an old pioneer, and no one but a youth of fervid imagination at the close of his first day of adventure in the world would have found it worth a second glance. to me it was both beautiful and inspiring, for the reason that it was new territory and because it was the home of alice, my most brilliant school mate, and while i had in mind some notion of a conference with the county superintendent of schools, my real reason for stopping off was a desire to see this girl whom i greatly admired. i smile as i recall the feeling of pride with which i stepped into the 'bus and started for the grand central hotel. and yet, after all, values are relative. that boy had something which i have lost. i would give much of my present knowledge of the world for the keen savor of life which filled my nostrils at that time. the sound of a violin is mingled with my memories of ramsey, and the talk of a group of rough men around the bar-room stove is full of savage charm. a tall, pale man, with long hair and big black eyes, one who impressed me as being a man of refinement and culture, reduced by drink to poverty and to rebellious bitterness of soul, stands out in powerful relief--a tragic and moving figure. here, too, i heard my first splendid singer. a patent medicine cart was in the street and one of its troupe, a basso, sang _rocked in the cradle of the deep_ with such art that i listened with delight. his lion-like pose, his mighty voice, his studied phrasing, revealed to me higher qualities of musical art than i had hitherto known. from this singer, i went directly to alice's home. i must have appeared singularly exalted as i faced her. the entire family was in the sitting room as i entered--but after a few kindly inquiries concerning my people and some general remarks they each and all slipped away, leaving me alone with the girl--in the good old-fashioned american way. it would seem that in this farewell call i was permitting myself an exaggeration of what had been to alice only a pleasant association, for she greeted me composedly and waited for me to justify my presence. after a few moments of explanation, i suggested that we go out and hear the singing of the "troupe." to this she consented, and rose quietly--she never did anything hurriedly or with girlish alertness--and put on her hat. although so young, she had the dignity of a woman, and her face, pale as a silver moon, was calm and sweet, only her big gray eyes expressed the maiden mystery. she read my adoration and was a little afraid of it. as we walked, i spoke of the good days at "the sem," of our classmates, and their future, and this led me to the announcement of my own plans. "i shall teach," i said. "i hope to be able to work into a professorship in literature some day.--what do you intend to do?" "i shall go on with my studies for a while," she replied. "i may go to some eastern college for a few years." "you must not become too learned," i urged. "you'll forget me." she did not protest this as a coquette might have done. on the contrary, she remained silent, and i was aware that while she liked and respected me, she was not profoundly moved by this farewell call. nevertheless i hoped, and in that hope i repeated, "you will write to me, won't you?" "of course!" she replied, and again i experienced a chilling perception that her words arose from friendliness rather than from tenderness, but i was glad of even this restrained promise, and i added, "i shall write often, for i shall be lonely--for a while." as i walked on, the girl's soft warm arm in mine, a feeling of uncertainty, of disquiet, took possession of me. "success" seemed a long way off and the road to it long and hard. however, i said nothing further concerning my doubts. the street that night had all the enchantment of granada to me. the girl's voice rippled with a music like that of the fountain lindarazza, and when i caught glimpses of her sweet, serious face beneath her hat-rim, i dreaded our parting. the nearer to her gate we drew the more tremulous my voice became, and the more uncertain my step. at last on the door-step she turned and said, "won't you come in again?" in her tone was friendly dismissal, but i would not have it so. "you will write to me, won't you?" i pleaded with choking utterance. she was moved (by pity perhaps). "why, yes, with pleasure," she answered. "good-bye, i hope you'll succeed. i'm sure you will." she extended her hand and i, recalling the instructions of my most romantic fiction, raised it to my lips. "good-bye!" i huskily said, and turned away. my next night was spent in faribault. here i touched storied ground, for near this town edward eggleston had laid the scene of his novel, _the mystery of metropolisville_ and my imagination responded to the magic which lay in the influence of the man of letters. i wrote to alice a long and impassioned account of my sensations as i stood beside the cannonball river. my search for a school proving futile, i pushed on to the town of farmington, where the dakota branch of the milwaukee railroad crossed my line of march. here i felt to its full the compelling power of the swift stream of immigration surging to the west. the little village had doubled in size almost in a day. it was a junction point, a place of transfer, and its thin-walled unpainted pine hotels were packed with men, women and children laden with bags and bundles (all bound for the west) and the joyous excitement of these adventurers compelled me to change my plan. i decided to try some of the newer counties in western minnesota. romance was still in the west for me. i slept that night on the floor in company with four or five young iowa farmers, and the smell of clean white shavings, the wailing of tired children, the excited muttering of fathers, the plaintive voices of mothers, came through the partitions at intervals, producing in my mind an effect which will never pass away. it seemed to me at the moment as if all america were in process of change, all hurrying to overtake the vanishing line of the middle border, and the women at least were secretly or openly doubtful of the outcome. woman is not by nature an explorer. she is the home-lover. early the next morning i bought a ticket for aberdeen, and entered the train crammed with movers who had found the "prairie schooner" all too slow. the epoch of the canvas-covered wagon had passed. the era of the locomotive, the day of the chartered car, had arrived. free land was receding at railroad speed, the borderline could be overtaken only by steam, and every man was in haste to arrive. all that day we rumbled and rattled into a strange country, feeding our little engine with logs of wood, which we stopped occasionally to secure from long ricks which lined the banks of the river. at chaska, at granite falls, i stepped off, but did not succeed in finding employment. it is probable that being filled with the desire of exploration i only half-heartedly sought for work; at any rate, on the third day, i found myself far out upon the unbroken plain where only the hairlike buffalo grass grew--beyond trees, beyond the plow, but not beyond settlement, for here at the end of my third day's ride at millbank, i found a hamlet six months old, and the flock of shining yellow pine shanties strewn upon the sod, gave me an illogical delight, but then i was twenty-one--and it was sunset in the land of the dakotas! all around me that night the talk was all of land, land! nearly every man i met was bound for the "jim river valley," and each voice was aquiver with hope, each eye alight with anticipation of certain success. even the women had begun to catch something of this enthusiasm, for the night was very beautiful and the next day promised fair. again i slept on a cot in a room of rough pine, slept dreamlessly, and was out early enough to witness the coming of dawn,--a wonderful moment that sunrise was to me. again, as eleven years before, i felt myself a part of the new world, a world fresh from the hand of god. to the east nothing could be seen but a vague expanse of yellow plain, misty purple in its hollows, but to the west rose a long low wall of hills, the eastern coteaux, up which a red line of prairie fire was slowly creeping. it was middle september. the air, magnificently crisp and clear, filled me with desire of exploration, with vague resolution to do and dare. the sound of horses and mules calling for their feed, the clatter of hammers and the rasping of saws gave evidence of eager builders, of alert adventurers, and i was hotly impatient to get forward. at eight o'clock the engine drew out, pulling after it a dozen box-cars laden with stock and household goods, and on the roof of a freight caboose, together with several other young jasons, i rode, bound for the valley of the james. it was a marvellous adventure. all the morning we rattled and rumbled along, our engine snorting with effort, struggling with a load almost too great for its strength. by noon we were up amid the rounded grassy hills of the sisseton reservation where only the coyote ranged and the sioux made residence. here we caught our first glimpse of the james river valley, which seemed to us at the moment as illimitable as the ocean and as level as a floor, and then pitching and tossing over the rough track, with our cars leaping and twisting like a herd of frightened buffaloes, we charged down the western slope, down into a level land of ripened grass, where blackbirds chattered in the willows, and prairie chickens called from the tall rushes which grew beside the sluggish streams. aberdeen was the end of the line, and when we came into it that night it seemed a near neighbor to sitting bull and the bison. and so, indeed, it was, for a buffalo bull had been hunted across its site less than a year before. it was twelve miles from here to where my father had set his stakes for his new home, hence i must have stayed all night in some small hotel, but that experience has also faded from my mind. i remember only my walk across the dead-level plain next day. for the first time i set foot upon a landscape without a tree to break its sere expanse--and i was at once intensely interested in a long flock of gulls, apparently rolling along the sod, busily gathering their morning meal of frosted locusts. the ones left behind kept flying over the ones in front so that a ceaseless change of leadership took place. there was beauty in this plain, delicate beauty and a weird charm, despite its lack of undulation. its lonely unplowed sweep gave me the satisfying sensation of being at last among the men who held the outposts,--sentinels for the marching millions who were approaching from the east. for two hours i walked, seeing aberdeen fade to a series of wavering, grotesque notches on the southern horizon line, while to the north an equally irregular and insubstantial line of shadows gradually took on weight and color until it became the village in which my father was at this very moment busy in founding his new home. my experienced eyes saw the deep, rich soil, and my youthful imagination looking into the future, supplied the trees and vines and flowers which were to make this land a garden. i was converted. i had no doubts. it seemed at the moment that my father had acted wisely in leaving his iowa farm in order to claim his share of uncle sam's rapidly-lessening unclaimed land. chapter xxi the grasshopper and the ant without a doubt this trip, so illogical and so recklessly extravagant, was due entirely to a boy's thirst for adventure. color it as i may, the fact of my truancy remains. i longed to explore. the valley of the james allured me, and though my ticket and my meals along the route had used up my last dollar, i felt amply repaid as i trod this new earth and confronted this new sky--for both earth and sky were to my perception subtly different from those of iowa and minnesota. the endless stretches of short, dry grass, the gorgeous colors of the dawn, the marvellous, shifting, phantom lakes and headlands, the violet sunset afterglow,--all were widely different from our old home, and the far, bare hills were delightfully suggestive of the horseman, the indian and the buffalo. the village itself was hardly more than a summer camp, and yet its hearty, boastful citizens talked almost deliriously of "corner lots" and "boulevards," and their chantings were timed to the sound of hammers. the spirit of the builder seized me and so with my return ticket in my pocket, i joined the carpenters at work on my father's claim some two miles from the village with intent to earn money for further exploration. grandfather garland had also taken a claim (although he heartily disliked the country) and in order to provide for both families a double house was being built across the line between the two farms. i helped shingle the roof, and being twenty-one now, and my own master, i accepted wages from my father without a qualm. i earned every cent of my two dollars per day, i assure you, but i carefully omitted all reference to shingling, in my letters to my classmates. at the end of a fortnight with my pay in my pocket i started eastward on a trip which i fully intended to make very long and profoundly educational. that i was green, very green, i knew but all that could be changed by travel. at the end of my second day's journey, i reached hastings, a small town on the mississippi river, and from there decided to go by water to redwing some thirty miles below. all my life i had longed to ride on a mississippi steamboat, and now, as i waited on the wharf at the very instant of the fulfillment of my desire, i expanded with anticipatory satisfaction. the arrival of the _war eagle_ from st. paul carried a fine foreign significance, and i ascended its gang-plank with the air of a traveller embarking at cairo for assouan. once aboard the vessel i mingled, aloofly, with the passengers, absorbed in study of the river winding down among its wooded hills. this ecstasy lasted during the entire trip--indeed it almost took on poetic form as the vessel approached the landing at redwing, for at this point the legendary appeal made itself felt. this lovely valley had once been the home of a chieftain, and his body, together with that of his favorite warhorse, was buried on the summit of a hill which overlooks the river, "in order" (so runs the legend) "that the chief might see the first faint glow of the resurrection morn and ride to meet it." in truth redwing was a quiet, excessively practical little town, quite commonplace to every other passenger, except myself. my excited imagination translated it into something very distinctive and far-off and shining. i took lodgings that night at a very exclusive boarding house at six dollars per week, reckless of the effect on my very slender purse. for a few days i permitted myself to wander and to dream. i have disturbing recollections of writing my friends from this little town, letters wherein i rhapsodized on the beauty of the scenery in terms which i would not now use in describing the grand canyon, or in picturing the peaks of wyoming. after all i was right. a landscape is precisely as great as the impression it makes upon the perceiving mind. i was a traveller at last!--that seemed to be my chiefest joy and i extracted from each day all the ecstasy it contained. my avowed object was to obtain a school and i did not entirely neglect my plans but application to the county superintendent came to nothing. i fear i was half-hearted in my campaign. at last, at the beginning of the week and at the end of my money, i bought passage to wabasha and from there took train to a small town where some of my mother's cousins lived. i had been in correspondence with one of them, a mrs. harris, and i landed at her door (after a glorious ride up through the hills, amid the most gorgeous autumn colors) with just three cents in my pocket--a poverty which you may be sure i did not publish to my relations who treated me with high respect and manifested keen interest in all my plans. as nothing offered in the township round about the harris home, i started one saturday morning to walk to a little cross-roads village some twenty miles away, in which i was told a teacher was required. my cousins, not knowing that i was penniless, supposed, of course, that i would go by train, and i was too proud to tell them the truth. it was very muddy, and when i reached the home of the committeeman his mid-day meal was over, and his wife did not ask if i had dined--although she was quick to tell me that the teacher had just been hired. without a cent in my pocket, i could not ask for food--therefore, i turned back weary, hungry and disheartened. to make matters worse a cold rain was falling and the eighteen or twenty miles between me and the harris farm looked long. i think it must have been at this moment that i began, for the first time, to take a really serious view of my plan "to see the world." it became evident with startling abruptness, that a man might be both hungry and cold in the midst of abundance. i recalled the fable of the grasshopper who, having wasted the summer hours in singing, was mendicant to the ant. my weeks of careless gayety were over. the money i had spent in travel looked like a noble fortune to me at this hour. the road was deep in mud, and as night drew on the rain thickened. at last i said, "i will go into some farm-house and ask the privilege of a bed." this was apparently a simple thing to do and yet i found it exceedingly hard to carry out. to say bluntly, "sir, i have no money, i am tired and hungry," seemed a baldly disgraceful way of beginning. on the other hand to plead relationship with will harris involved a relative, and besides they might not know my cousin, or they might think my statement false. arguing in this way i passed house after house while the water dripped from my hat and the mud clogged my feet. though chilled and hungry to the point of weakness, my suffering was mainly mental. a sudden realization of the natural antagonism of the well-to-do toward the tramp appalled me. once, as i turned in toward the bright light of a kitchen window, the roar of a watch dog stopped me before i had fairly passed the gate. i turned back with a savage word, hot with resentment at a house-owner who would keep a beast like that. at another cottage i was repulsed by an old woman who sharply said, "we don't feed tramps." i now had the precise feeling of the penniless outcast. with morbidly active imagination i conceived of myself as a being forever set apart from home and friends, condemned to wander the night alone. i worked on this idea till i achieved a bitter, furtive and ferocious manner. however, i knocked at another door and upon meeting the eyes of the woman at the threshold, began with formal politeness to explain, "i am a teacher, i have been to look for a school, and i am on my way back to byron, where i have relatives. can you keep me all night?" the woman listened in silence and at length replied with ungracious curtness, "i guess so. come in." she gave me a seat by the fire, and when her husband returned from the barn, i explained the situation to him. he was only moderately cordial. "make yourself at home. i'll be in as soon as i have finished my milking," he said and left me beside the kitchen fire. the woman of the house, silent, suspicious (it seemed to me) began to spread the table for supper while i, sitting beside the stove, began to suffer with the knowledge that i had, in a certain sense, deceived them. i was fairly well dressed and my voice and manner, as well as the fact that i was seeking a school, had given them, no doubt, the impression that i was able to pay for my entertainment, and the more i thought of this the more uneasy i became. to eat of their food without making an explanation was impossible but the longer i waited the more difficult the explanation grew. suffering keenly, absurdly, i sat with hanging head going over and over the problem, trying to formulate an easy way of letting them know my predicament. there was but one way of escape--and i took it. as the woman stepped out of the room for a moment, i rose, seized my hat and rushed out into the rain and darkness like a fugitive. i have often wondered what those people thought when they found me gone. perhaps i am the great mystery of their lives, an unexplained visitant from "the night's plutonian shore." i plodded on for another mile or two in the darkness, which was now so intense i could scarcely keep the road. only by the feel of the mud under my feet could i follow the pike. like jean valjean, i possessed a tempest in my brain. i experienced my first touch of despair. although i had never had more than thirty dollars at any one time, i had never been without money. distinctions had not counted largely in the pioneer world to which i belonged. i was proud of my family. i came of good stock, and knew it and felt it, but now here i was, wet as a sponge and without shelter simply because i had not in my pocket a small piece of silver with which to buy a bed. i walked on until this dark surge of rebellious rage had spent its force and reason weakly resumed her throne. i said, "what nonsense! here i am only a few miles from relatives. all the farmers on this road must know the harris family. if i tell them who i am, they will certainly feel that i have the claim of a neighbor upon them."--but these deductions, admirable as they were, did not lighten my sky or make begging easier. after walking two miles further i found it almost impossible to proceed. it was black night and i did not know where i stood. the wind had risen and the rain was falling in slant cataracts. as i looked about me and caught the gleam from the windows of a small farmhouse, my stubborn pride gave way. stumbling up the path i rapped on the door. it was opened by a middle-aged farmer in his stocking feet, smoking a pipe. having finished his supper he was taking his ease beside the fire, and fortunately for me, was in genial mood. "come in," he said heartily. "'tis a wet night." i began, "i am a cousin of william harris of byron--" "you don't say! well, what are you doing on the road a night like this? come in!" i stepped inside and finished my explanation there. this good man and his wife will forever remain the most hospitable figures in my memory. they set me close beside the stove insisting that i put my feet in the oven to dry, talking meanwhile of my cousins and the crops, and complaining of the incessant rainstorms which were succeeding one another almost without intermission, making this one of the wettest and most dismal autumns the country had ever seen. never in all my life has a roof seemed more heavenly, or hosts more sweet and gracious. after breakfast next morning i shook hands with the farmer saying: "i shall send you the money for my entertainment the first time my cousin comes to town," and under the clamor of his hospitable protestations against payment, set off up the road. the sun came out warm and beautiful and all about me on every farm the teamsters were getting into the fields. the mud began to dry up and with the growing cheer of the morning my heart expanded and the experience of the night before became as unreal as a dream and yet it had happened, and it had taught me a needed lesson. hereafter i take no narrow chances, i vowed to myself. upon arrival at my cousin's home i called him aside and said, "will, you have work to do and i have need of wages,--i am going to strip off this 'boiled shirt' and white collar, and i am going to work for you just the same as any other hand, and i shall expect the full pay of the best man on your place." he protested, "i don't like to see you do this. don't give up your plans. i'll hitch up and we'll start out and keep going till we find you a school." "no," i said, "not till i earn a few dollars to put in my pocket. i've played the grasshopper for a few weeks--from this time on i'm the busy ant." so it was settled, and the grasshopper went forth into the fields and toiled as hard as any slave. i plowed, threshed, and husked corn, and when at last december came, i had acquired money enough to carry me on my way. i decided to visit onalaska and the old coulee where my father's sister and two of the mcclintocks were still living. with swift return of confidence, i said good-bye to my friends in zumbrota and took the train. it seemed very wonderful that after a space of thirteen years i should be returning to the scenes of my childhood, a full-grown man and paying my own way. i expanded with joy of the prospect. onalaska, the reader may remember, was the town in which i had gone to school when a child, and in my return to it i felt somewhat like the man in the song, _twenty years ago_--indeed i sang, "i've wandered through the village, tom, i've sat beneath the tree" for my uncle that first night. there was the river, filled as of old with logs, and the clamor of the saws still rose from the sawdust islands. bleakly white the little church, in which we used to sit in our sunday best, remained unchanged but the old school-house was not merely altered, it was gone! in its place stood a commonplace building of brick. the boys with whom i used to play "mumblety peg" were men, and some of them had developed into worthless loafers, lounging about the doors of the saloons, and although we looked at one another with eyes of sly recognition, we did not speak. eagerly i visited the old coulee, but the magic was gone from the hills, the glamour from the meadows. the widow green no longer lived at the turn of the road, and only the randals remained. the marsh was drained, the big trees cleared away. the valley was smaller, less mysterious, less poetic than my remembrances of it, but it had charm nevertheless, and i responded to the beauty of its guarding bluffs and the deep-blue shadows which streamed across its sunset fields. uncle william drove down and took me home with him, over the long hill, back to the little farm where he was living much the same as i remembered him. one of his sons was dead, the other had shared in the rush for land, and was at this time owner of a homestead in western minnesota. grandfather mcclintock, still able to walk about, was spending the autumn with william and we had a great deal of talk concerning the changes which had come to the country and especially to our family group. "ye scatter like the leaves of autumn," he said sadly--then added, "perhaps in the final day the trumpet of the lord will bring us all together again." we sang some of his old adventist hymns together and then he asked me what i was planning to do. "i haven't any definite plans," i answered, "except to travel. i want to travel. i want to see the world." "to see the world!" he exclaimed. "as for me i wait for it to pass away. i watch daily for the coming of the chariot." this gray old crag of a man interested me as deeply as ever and yet, in a sense, he was an alien. he was not of my time--scarcely of my country. he was a survival of the days when the only book was the bible, when the newspaper was a luxury. migration had been his lifelong adventure and now he was waiting for the last great remove. his thought now was of "the region of the amaranth," his new land "the other side of jordan." he engaged my respect but i was never quite at ease with him. his valuations were too intensely religious; he could not understand my ambitions. his mind filled with singular prejudices,--notions which came down from the colonial age, was impervious to new ideas. his character had lost something of its mellow charm--but it had gained in dramatic significance. like my uncles he had ceased to be a part of my childish world. i went away with a sense of sadness, of loss as though a fine picture on the walls of memory had been dimmed or displaced. i perceived that i had idealized him as i had idealized all the figures and scenes of my boyhood--"but no matter, they were beautiful to me then and beautiful they shall remain," was the vague resolution with which i dismissed criticism. the whole region had become by contrast with dakota, a "settled" community. the line of the middle border had moved on some three hundred miles to the west. the dunlaps, mcildowneys, dudleys and elwells were the stay-at-homes. having had their thrust at the job of pioneering before the war they were now content on their fat soil. to me they all seemed remote. their very names had poetic value, for they brought up in my mind shadowy pictures of the coulee country as it existed to my boyish memories. i spent nearly two months in onalaska, living with my aunt susan, a woman of the loveliest character. richard bailey, her husband, one of the kindliest of men, soon found employment for me, and so, for a time, i was happy and secure. however, this was but a pause by the roadside. i was not satisfied. it was a show of weakness to settle down on one's relations. i wanted to make my way among strangers. i scorned to lean upon my aunt and uncle, though they were abundantly able to keep me. it was mid-winter, nothing offered and so i turned (as so many young men similarly placed have done), toward a very common yet difficult job. i attempted to take subscriptions for a book. after a few days' experience in a neighboring town i decided that whatever else i might be fitted for in this world, i was not intended for a book agent. surrendering my prospectus to the firm, i took my way down to madison, the capital of the state, a city which seemed at this time very remote, and very important in my world. only when travelling did i have the feeling of living up to the expectations of alice and burton who put into their letters to me, an envy which was very sweet. to them i was a bold adventurer! alas for me! in the shining capital of my state i felt again the world's rough hand. first of all i tried the state house. this was before the general use of typewriters and i had been told that copyists were in demand. i soon discovered that four men and two girls were clamoring for every job. nobody needed me. i met with blunt refusals and at last turned to other fields. every morning i went among the merchants seeking an opportunity to clerk or keep books, and at last obtained a place at six dollars per week in the office of an agricultural implement firm. i was put to work in the accounting department, as general slavey, under the immediate supervision of a youth who had just graduated from my position and who considered me his legitimate victim. he was only seventeen and not handsome, and i despised him with instant bitterness. under his direction i swept out the office, made copies of letters, got the mail, stamped envelopes and performed other duties of a manual routine kind, to which i would have made no objection, had it not been for the gloating joy with which that chinless cockerel ordered me about. i had never been under that kind of discipline, and to have a pin-headed gamin order me to clean spittoons was more than i could stomach. at the end of the week i went to the proprietor, and said, "if you have nothing better for me to do than sweep the floor and run errands, i think i'll quit." with some surprise my boss studied me. at last he said: "very well, sir, you can go, and from all accounts i don't think we'll miss you much," which was perfectly true. i was an absolute failure so far as any routine work of that kind was concerned. so here again i was thrown upon a cruel world with only six dollars between myself and the wolf. again i fell back upon my physical powers. i made the round of all the factories seeking manual labor. i went out on the catfish, where, through great sheds erected for the manufacture of farm machinery, i passed from superintendent to foreman, from foreman to boss,--eager to wheel sand, paint woodwork, shovel coal--anything at all to keep from sending home for money--for, mind you, my father or my uncle would have helped me out had i written to them, but i could not do that. so long as i was able to keep a roof over my head, i remained silent. i was in the world and i intended to keep going without asking a cent from anyone. besides, the grandiloquent plans for travel and success which i had so confidently outlined to burton must be carried out. i should have been perfectly secure had it been summertime, for i knew the farmer's life and all that pertained to it, but it was winter. how to get a living in a strange town was my problem. it was a bright, clear, intensely cold february, and i was not very warmly dressed--hence i kept moving. meanwhile i had become acquainted with a young clergyman in one of the churches, and had showed to him certain letters and papers to prove that i was not a tramp, and no doubt his word kept my boarding mistress from turning me into the street. mr. eaton was a man of books. his library contained many volumes of standard value and we met as equals over the pages of scott and dickens. i actually forced him to listen to a lecture which i had been writing during the winter and so wrought upon him that he agreed to arrange a date for me in a neighboring country church.--thereafter while i glowed with absurd dreams of winning money and renown by delivering that lecture in the churches and school-houses of the state, i continued to seek for work, any work that would bring me food and shelter. one bitter day in my desperate need i went down upon the lake to watch the men cutting ice. the wind was keen, the sky gray and filled with glittering minute flecks of frost, and my clothing (mainly cotton) seemed hardly thicker than gossamer, and yet i looked upon those working men with a distinct feeling of envy. had i secured "a job" i should have been pulling a saw up and down through the ice, at the same time that i dreamed of touring the west as a lecturer--of such absurd contradictions are the visions of youth. i don't know exactly what i would have done had not my brother happened along on his way to a school near chicago. to him i confessed my perplexity. he paid my board bill (which was not very large) and in return i talked him into a scheme which promised great things for us both--i contracted to lecture under his management! he was delighted at the opportunity of advancing me, and we were both happy. our first engagement was at cyene, a church which really belonged to eaton's circuit, and according to my remembrance the lecture was a moderate success. after paying all expenses we had a little money for carfare, and franklin was profoundly impressed. it really seemed to us both that i had at last entered upon my career. it was the kind of service i had been preparing for during all my years at school--but alas! our next date was a disaster. we attempted to do that which an older and fully established lecturer would not have ventured. we tried to secure an audience with only two days' advance work, and of course we failed. i called a halt. i could not experiment on the small fund which my father had given frank for his business education. however, i borrowed a few dollars of him and bought a ticket to rock river, a town near chicago. i longed to enter the great western metropolis, but dared not do so--yet. i felt safe only when in sight of a plowed field. at a junction seventy miles out of the city, we separated, he to attend a school, and i to continue my education in the grim realities of life. from office to office in rock river i sullenly plodded, willing to work for fifty cents a day, until at last i secured a clerkship in a small stationery jobbing house which a couple of school teachers had strangely started, but on saturday of the second week the proprietor called me to him and said kindly, but firmly, "garland, i'm afraid you are too literary and too musical for this job. you have a fine baritone voice and your ability to vary the text set before you to copy, is remarkable, and yet i think we must part." the reasons for this ironical statement were (to my mind) ignoble; first of all he resented my musical ability, secondly, my literary skill shamed him, for as he had put before me a badly composed circular letter, telling me to copy it one hundred times, i quite naturally improved the english.--however, i admitted the charge of insubordination, and we parted quite amicably. it was still winter, and i was utterly without promise of employment. in this extremity, i went to the y. m. c. a. (which had for one of its aims the assistance of young men out of work) and confided my homelessness to the secretary, a capital young fellow who knew enough about men to recognize that i was not a "bum." he offered me the position of night-watch and gave me a room and cot at the back of his office. these were dark hours! during the day i continued to pace the streets. occasionally some little job like raking up a yard would present itself, and so i was able to buy a few rolls, and sometimes i indulged in milk and meat. i lived along from noon to noon in presentable condition, but i was always hungry. for four days i subsisted on five cents worth of buns. having left my home for the purpose of securing experience in the world, i had this satisfaction--i was getting it! very sweet and far away seemed all that beautiful life with alice and burton and hattie at the seminary, something to dream over, to regret, to versify, something which the future (at this moment) seemed utterly incapable of reproducing. i still corresponded with several of my classmates, but was careful to conceal the struggle that i was undergoing. i told them only of my travels and my reading. as the ironical jobber remarked, i had a good voice, and upon being invited to accompany the band of hope which went to sing and pray in the county jail, i consented, at least i took part in the singing. in this way i partly paid the debt i owed the association, and secured some vivid impressions of prison life which came into use at a later time. my three associates in this work were a tinner, a clothing salesman and a cabinet maker. more and more i longed for the spring, for with it i knew would come seeding, building and a chance for me. at last in the midst of a grateful job of raking up yards and planting shrubs, i heard the rat-tat-tat of a hammer, and resolved upon a bold plan. i decided to become a carpenter, justifying myself by reference to my apprenticeship to my grandfather. one fine april morning i started out towards the suburbs, and at every house in process of construction approached the boss and asked for a job. almost at once i found encouragement. "yes, but where are your tools?" in order to buy the tools i must work, work at anything. therefore, at the next place i asked if there was any rough labor required around the house. the foreman replied: "yes, there is some grading to be done." accordingly i set to work with a wheelbarrow, grading the bank around the almost completed building. this was hard work, the crudest form of manual labor, but i grappled with it desperately, knowing that the pay (a dollar and a half a day) would soon buy a kit of tools. oh, that terrible first day! the heavy shovel blistered my hands and lamed my wrists. the lifting of the heavily laden wheelbarrow strained my back and shoulders. half-starved and weak, quite unfitted for sustained effort of this kind, i struggled on, and at the end of an interminable afternoon staggered home to my cot. the next morning came soon,--too soon. i was not merely lame, i was lacerated. my muscles seemed to have been torn asunder, but i toiled (or made a show of toiling) all the second day. on the warrant of my wages i borrowed twenty-five cents of a friend and with this bought a meat dinner which helped me through another afternoon. the third day was less painful and by the end of the week, i was able to do anything required of me. upon receiving my pay i went immediately to the hardware store and bought a set of tools and a carpenter's apron, and early on monday morning sallied forth in the _opposite direction_ as a carpenter seeking a job. i soon came to a big frame house in course of construction. "do you need another hand?" i asked. "yes," replied the boss. "take hold, right here, with this man." "this man" turned out to be a swede, a good-natured fellow, who made no comment on my deficiencies. we sawed and hammered together in very friendly fashion for a week, and i made rapid gains in strength and skill and took keen pleasure in my work. the days seemed short and life promising and as i was now getting two dollars per day, i moved out of my charity bed and took a room in a decayed mansion in the midst of a big lawn. my bearing became confident and easy. money had straightened my back. the spring advanced rapidly while i was engaged on this work and as my crew occasionally took contracts in the country i have vivid pictures of the green and pleasant farm lands, of social farmers at barn-raisings, and of tables filled with fatness. i am walking again in my stocking feet, high on the "purline plate," beetle in hand, driving home the oaken "pins." i am shingling on the broad roof of a suburban house from which i can see the sunny slopes of a meadow and sheep feeding therein. i am mending a screen door for a farmer's wife while she confides to me the tragedy of her life--and always i have the foolish boyish notion that i am out in the world and seeing life. into the midst of this busy peaceful season of manual labor came my first deeply romantic admiration. edwin booth was announced as "the opening attraction of the new opera house" and i fairly trembled with anticipatory delight, for to me the word _booth_ meant all that was splendid and tragic and glorious in the drama. i was afraid that something might prevent me from hearing him. at last the night came and so great was the throng, so strong the pressure on the doors that the lock gave way and i, with my dollar clutched tightly in my hand, was borne into the hall and half-way up the stairs without touching foot to the floor, and when at last, safe in my balcony seat i waited for the curtain to rise, i had a distinct realization that a shining milestone was about to be established in my youthful trail. my father had told me of the elder booth, and of edwin's beautiful prince of denmark i had heard many stories, therefore i waited with awe as well as eagerness, and when the curtain, rising upon the court scene, discovered the pale, handsome face and graceful form of the noble dane, and the sound of his voice,--that magic velvet voice--floated to my ear with the words, "seems, madame, i know not seems," neither time nor space nor matter existed for me--i was in an ecstasy of attention. i had read much of shakespeare. i could recite many pages of the tragedies and historical plays, and i had been assured by my teachers that _hamlet_ was the greatest of all dramas, but edwin booth in one hour taught me more of its wonders, more of the beauty of the english language than all my instructors and all my books. he did more, he aroused in me a secret ambition to read as he read, to make the dead lines of print glow with color and throb with music. there was something magical in his interpretation of the drama's printed page. with voice and face and hand he restored for duller minds the visions of the poet, making hamlet's sorrows as vital as our own. from this performance, which filled me with vague ambitions and a glorious melancholy, i returned to my association with a tinker, a tailor, and a tinner, whose careless and stupid comments on the play both pained and angered me. i went to my work next day in such absorbed silence as only love is supposed to give. i re-read my _hamlet_ now with the light of booth's face in my eyes and the music of his glorious voice in my ear. as i nailed and sawed at pine lumber, i murmured inaudibly the lofty lines of the play, in the hope of fixing forever in my mind the cadences of the great tragedian's matchless voice. great days! growing days! lonely days! days of dream and development, needing only the girl to be perfect--but i had no one but alice to whom i could voice my new enthusiasm and she was not only out of the reach of my voice, but serenely indifferent to my rhapsodic letters concerning _hamlet_ and the genius of edwin booth. chapter xxii we discover new england edwin booth's performance of _hamlet_ had another effect. it brought to my mind the many stories of boston which my father had so often related to his children. i recalled his enthusiastic accounts of the elder booth and edwin forrest, and especially his descriptions of the wonderful scenic effects in _old put_ and _the gold seekers_, wherein actors rode down mimic stone steps or debarked from theatrical ships which sailed into pictured wharves, and one day in the midst of my lathing and sawing, i evolved a daring plan--i decided to visit boston and explore new england. with all his feeling for the east my father had never revisited it. this was a matter of pride with him. "i never take the back trail," he said, and yet at times, as he dwelt on the old home in the state of maine a wistful note had crept into his voice, and so now in writing to him, i told him that i intended to seek out his boyhood haunts in order that i might tell him all about the friends and relations who still lived there. without in any formal way intending it the old borderman had endowed both his sons with a large sense of the power and historic significance of massachusetts. he had contrived to make us feel some part of his idolatry of wendell phillips, for his memory of the great days of _the liberator_ were keen and worshipful. from him i derived a belief that there were giants in those days and the thought of walking the streets where garrison was mobbed and standing in the hall which webster had hallowed with his voice gave me a profound anticipatory stir of delight. as first assistant to a quaint and dirty old carpenter, i was now earning two dollars per day, and saving it. there was no occasion in those days for anyone to give me instructions concerning the care of money. i knew how every dollar came and i was equally careful to know where every nickel went. travel cost three cents per mile, and the number of cities to be visited depended upon the number of dimes i should save. with my plan of campaign mapped out to include a stop at niagara falls and fourth of july on boston common i wrote to my brother at valparaiso, indiana, inviting him to join me in my adventure. "if we run out of money and of course we shall, for i have only about thirty dollars, we'll flee to the country. one of my friends here says we can easily find work in the meadows near concord." the audacity of my design appealed to my brother's imagination. "i'm your huckleberry!" he replied. "school ends the last week in june. i'll meet you at the atlantic house in chicago on the first. have about twenty dollars myself." at last the day came for my start. with all my pay in my pocket and my trunk checked i took the train for chicago. i shall never forget the feeling of dismay with which, an hour later, i perceived from the car window a huge smoke-cloud which embraced the whole eastern horizon, for this, i was told was the soaring banner of the great and gloomy inland metropolis, whose dens of vice and houses of greed had been so often reported to me by wandering hired men. it was in truth only a huge flimsy country town in those days, but to me it was august as well as terrible. up to this moment rockford was the largest town i had ever seen, and the mere thought of a million people stunned my imagination. "how can so many people find a living in one place?" naturally i believed most of them to be robbers. "if the city is miles across, how am i to get from the railway station to my hotel without being assaulted?" had it not been for the fear of ridicule, i think i should have turned back at the next stop. the shining lands beyond seemed hardly worth a struggle against the dragon's brood with which the dreadful city was a-swarm. nevertheless i kept my seat and was carried swiftly on. soon the straggling farm-houses thickened into groups, the villages merged into suburban towns, and the train began to clatter through sooty freight yards filled with box cars and switching engines; at last, after crawling through tangled, thickening webs of steel, it plunged into a huge, dark and noisy shed and came to a halt and a few moments later i faced the hackmen of chicago, as verdant a youth as these experienced pirates had ever made common cause against. i knew of them (by report), and was prepared for trouble, but their clanging cries, their cynical eyes, their clutching insolent hands were more terrifying than anything i had imagined. their faces expressed something remorseless, inhuman and mocking. their grins were like those of wolves. in my hand i carried an imitation leather valise, and as i passed, each of the drivers made a snatch at it, almost tearing it from my hands, but being strong as well as desperate, i cleared myself of them, and so, following the crowd, not daring to look to right or left, reached the street and crossed the bridge with a sigh of relief. so much was accomplished. without knowing where i should go, i wandered on, shifting my bag from hand to hand, till my mind recovered its balance. my bewilderment, my depth of distrust, was augmented by the roar and tumult of the crowd. i was like some wild animal with exceedingly sensitive ears. the waves of sound smothered me. at last, timidly approaching a policeman, i asked the way to the atlantic hotel. "keep straight down the street five blocks and turn to the left," he said, and his kind voice filled me with a glow of gratitude. with ears benumbed and brain distraught, i threaded the rush, the clamor of clark street and entered the door of the hotel, with such relief as a sailor must feel upon suddenly reaching safe harbor after having been buffeted on a wild and gloomy sea by a heavy northeast gale. it was an inconspicuous hotel of the "farmer's home" type, but i approached the desk with meek reluctance and explained, "i am expecting to meet my brother here. i'd like permission to set my bag down and wait." with bland impersonal courtesy the clerk replied, "make yourself at home." gratefully sinking into a chair by the window, i fell into study of the people streaming by, and a chilling sense of helplessness fell upon me. i realized my ignorance, my feebleness. as a minute bubble in this torrent of human life, with no friend in whom i could put trust, and with only a handful of silver between myself and the gray wolf, i lost confidence. the boston trip seemed a foolish tempting of providence and yet, scared as i was, i had no real intention of giving it up. my brother's first words as he entered the door, were gayly derisive. "oh, see the whiskers!" he cried and his calm acceptance of my plan restored my own courage. together we planned our itinerary. we were to see niagara falls, of course, but to spend the fourth of july on boston common, was our true objective. "when our money is used up," i said, "we'll strike out into the country." to all this my brother agreed. neither of us had the slightest fear of hunger in the country. it was the city that gave us pause. all the afternoon and evening we wandered about the streets (being very careful not to go too far from our hotel), counting the stories of the tall buildings, and absorbing the drama of the pavement. returning now and again to our sanctuary in the hotel lobby we ruminated and rested our weary feet. everything interested us. the business section so sordid to others was grandly terrifying to us. the self-absorption of the men, the calm glances of the women humbled our simple souls. nothing was commonplace, nothing was ugly to us. we slept that night in a room at the extreme top of the hotel. it couldn't have been a first class accommodation, for the frame of the bed fell in the moment we got into it, but we made no complaint--we would not have had the clerk know of our mishap for twice our bill. we merely spread the mattress on the floor and slept till morning. having secured our transportation we were eager to be off, but as our tickets were second class, and good only on certain trains, we waited. we did not even think of a sleeping car. we had never known anyone rich enough to occupy one. grant and edwin booth probably did, and senators were ceremonially obliged to do so, but ordinary folks never looked forward to such luxury. neither of us would have known what to do with a berth if it had been presented to us, and the thought of spending two dollars for a night's sleep made the cold chills run over us. we knew of no easier way to earn two dollars than to save them, therefore we rode in the smoker. late that night as we were sitting stoically in our places, a brakeman came along and having sized us up for the innocents we were, good-naturedly said, "boys, if you'll get up i'll fix your seats so's you can lie down and catch a little sleep." silently, gratefully we watched him while he took up the cushions and turned them lengthwise, thus making a couch. to be sure, it was a very short and very hard bed but with the health and strength of nineteen and twenty-two, we curled up and slept the remainder of the night like soldiers resting on their guns. pain, we understood, was an unavoidable accompaniment of travel. when morning dawned the train was running through canada, and excitedly calling upon franklin to rouse, i peered from the window, expecting to see a land entirely different from wisconsin and illinois. we were both somewhat disappointed to find nothing distinctive in either the land or its inhabitants. however, it was a foreign soil and we had seen it. so much of our exploration was accomplished. it was three o'clock in the afternoon when we came in sight of the suspension bridge and niagara falls. i suppose it would be impossible for anyone now to feel the same profound interest in any natural phenomenon whatsoever. we believed that we were approaching the most stupendous natural wonder in all the world, and we could scarcely credit the marvel of our good fortune. all our lives we had heard of this colossal cataract. our school readers contained stately poems and philosophical dissertations concerning it. gough, the great orator, had pointed out the likeness of its resistless torrent to the habit of using spirituous liquors. the newspapers still printed descriptions of its splendor and no foreigner (so we understood) ever came to these shores without visiting and bowing humbly before the voice of its waters.--and to think that we, poor prairie boys, were soon to stand upon the illustrious brink of that dread chasm and listen to its mighty song was wonderful, incredible, benumbing! alighting at the squalid little station on the american side, we went to the cheapest hotel our keen eyes could discover, and leaving our valises, we struck out immediately toward the towering white column of mist which could be seen rising like a ghostly banner behind the trees. we were like those who first discover a continent. as we crept nearer, the shuddering roar deepened, and our awe, our admiration, our patriotism deepened with it, and when at last we leaned against the rail and looked across the tossing spread of river swiftly sweeping to its fall, we held our breaths in wonder. it met our expectations. of course we went below and spent two of our hard-earned dollars in order to be taken behind the falls. we were smothered with spray and forced to cling frenziedly to the hands of our guide, but it was a part of our duty, and we did it. no one could rob us of the glory of having adventured so far. that night we resumed our seats in the smoking car, and pushed on toward boston in patiently-endured discomfort. early the following morning we crossed the hudson, and as the berkshire hills began to loom against the dawn, i asked the brakeman, with much emotion, "have we reached the massachusetts line?" "we have," he said, and by pressing my nose against the glass and shading my face with my hands i was able to note the passing landscape. little could be seen other than a tumbled, stormy sky with wooded heights dimly outlined against it, but i had all the emotions of a pilgrim entering upon some storied oriental vale. massachusetts to me meant whittier and hawthorne and wendell phillips and daniel webster. it was the cradle of our liberty, the home of literature, the province of art--and it contained boston! as the sun rose, both of us sat with eyes fixed upon the scenery, observant of every feature. it was all so strange, yet familiar! barns with long, sloping roofs stood with their backs against the hillsides, precisely as in the illustrations to hawthorne's stories, and whittier's poems. the farm-houses, old and weather-beaten and guarded by giant elms, looked as if they might have sheltered emerson and lowell. the little villages with narrow streets lined with queer brick-walled houses (their sides to the gutter) reminded us of the pictures in ben franklin's _autobiography_. everything was old, delightfully old. nothing was new.--most of the people we saw were old. the men working in the fields were bent and gray, scarcely a child appeared, though elderly women abounded. (this was thirty-five years ago, before the canadians and italians had begun to swarm). everywhere we detected signs of the historical, the traditional, the yankee. the names of the stations rang in our ears like bells, _lexington_, _concord_, _cambridge_, _charlestown_, and--at last _boston_! what a strange, new world this ancient city was to us, as we issued from the old hoosac tunnel station! the intersection of every street was a bit of history. the houses standing sidewise to the gutter, the narrow, ledge-like pavements, the awkward two-wheeled drays and carts, the men selling lobsters on the corner, the newsboys with their "papahs," the faces of the women so thin and pale, the men, neat, dapper, small, many of them walking with finicky precision as though treading on eggs,--everything had a yankee tang, a special quality, and then, the noise! we had thought chicago noisy, and so it was, but here the clamor was high-keyed, deafening for the reason that the rain-washed streets were paved with cobble stones over which enormous carts bumped and clattered with resounding riot. bewildered,--with eyes and ears alert, we toiled up haymarket square shoulder to shoulder, seeking the common. of course we carried our hand-bags--(the railway had no parcel rooms in those days, or if it had we didn't know it) clinging to them like ants to their eggs and so slowly explored tremont street. cornhill entranced us with its amazing curve. we passed the granary burying ground and king's chapel with awe, and so came to rest at last on the upper end of the common! we had reached the goal of our long pilgrimage. to tell the truth, we were a little disappointed in our first view of it. it was much smaller than we had imagined it to be and the pond was only a pond, but the trees were all that father had declared them to be. we had known broad prairies and splendid primitive woodlands--but these elms dated back to the days of washington, and were to be reverenced along with the state house and bunker hill. we spent considerable time there on that friendly bench, resting in the shadows of the elms, and while sitting there, we ate our lunch, and watched the traffic of tremont street, in perfect content till i remembered that the night was coming on, and that we had no place to sleep. approaching a policeman i inquired the way to a boarding house. the officer who chanced to be a good-natured irishman, with a courtesy almost oppressive, minutely pointed the way to a house on essex street. think of it--essex street! it sounded like shakespeare and merrie england! following his direction, we found ourselves in the door of a small house on a narrow alley at the left of the common. the landlady, a kindly soul, took our measure at once and gave us a room just off her little parlor, and as we had not slept, normally, for three nights, we decided to go at once to bed. it was about five o'clock, one of the noisiest hours of a noisy street, but we fell almost instantly into the kind of slumber in which time and tumult do not count. when i awoke, startled and bewildered, the sounds of screaming children, roaring, jarring drays, and the clatter of falling iron filled the room. at first i imagined this to be the business of the morning, but as i looked out of the window i perceived that it was sunset! "wake up!" i called to franklin. "_it's the next day!_" "we've slept twenty-four hours!--what will the landlady think of us?" frank did not reply. he was still very sleepy, but he dressed, and with valise in hand dazedly followed me into the sitting room. the woman of the house was serving supper to her little family. to her i said, "you've been very kind to let us sleep all this time. we were very tired." "all this time?" she exclaimed. "isn't it the next day?" i asked. then she laughed, and her husband laughed, doubling himself into a knot of merriment. "oh, but that's rich!" said he. "you've been asleep exactly an hour and a quarter," he added. "how long did you _think_ you'd slept--two days?" sheepishly confessing that i thought we had, i turned back to bed, and claimed ten hours more of delicious rest. all "the next day" we spent in seeing bunker hill, faneuil hall, the old north church, king's chapel, longfellow's home, the washington elm, and the navy yard.--it was all glorious but a panic seized us as we found our money slipping away from us, and late in the afternoon we purchased tickets for concord, and fled the roaring and turbulent capital. we had seen the best of it anyway. we had tasted the ocean and found it really salt, and listened to "the sailors with bearded lips" on the wharves where the ships rocked idly on the tide,--the tide! yes, that most inexplicable wonder of all we had proved. we had watched it come in at the charles river bridge, mysterious as the winds. we knew it was so. why concord, do you ask? well, because hawthorne had lived there, and because the region was redolent of emerson and thoreau, and i am glad to record that upon reaching it of a perfect summer evening, we found the lovely old village all that it had been pictured by the poets. the wide and beautiful meadows, the stone walls, the slow stream, the bridge and the statue of the "minute man" guarding the famous battlefield, the gray old manse where hawthorne lived, the cemetery of sleepy hollow, the grave of emerson--all these historic and charming places enriched and inspired us. this land, so mellowed, so harmonious, so significant, seemed hardly real. it was a vision. we rounded out our day by getting lodgings in the quaint old wright's tavern which stood (and still stands) at the forks of the road, a building whose date painted on its chimney showed that it was nearly two hundred years old! i have since walked carnarvan's famous walls, and sat in the circus at nismes--but i have never had a deeper thrill of historic emotion than when i studied the beamed ceiling of that little dining room. our pure joy in its age amused our landlord greatly. being down to our last dollar, we struck out into the country next morning, for the purpose of finding work upon a farm but met with very little encouragement. most of the fields were harvested and those that were not were well supplied with "hands." once we entered a beautiful country place where the proprietor himself (a man of leisure, a type we had never before seen) interrogated us with quizzical humor, and at last sent us to his foreman with honest desire to make use of us. but the foreman had nothing to give, and so we went on. all day we loitered along beautiful wood roads, passing wonderful old homesteads gray and mossy, sheltered by trees that were almost human in the clasp of their protecting arms. we paused beside bright streams, and drank at mossy wells operated by rude and ancient sweeps, contrivances which we had seen only in pictures. it was all beautiful, but we got no work. the next day, having spent our last cent in railway tickets, we rode to ayer junction, where we left our trunks in care of the baggage man and resumed our tramping. chapter xxiii coasting down mt. washington in spite of all our anxiety, we enjoyed this search for work. the farmers were all so comically inquisitive. a few of them took us for what we were, students out on a vacation. others though kind enough, seemed lacking in hospitality, from the western point of view, and some were openly suspicious--but the roads, the roads! in the west thoroughfares ran on section lines and were defined by wire fences. here they curved like indian trails following bright streams, and the stone walls which bordered them were festooned with vines as in a garden. that night we lodged in the home of an old farmer, an octogenarian who had never in all his life been twenty miles from his farm. he had never seen boston, or portland, but he had been twice to nashua, returning, however, in time for supper. he, as well as his wife (dear simple soul), looked upon us as next door to educated indians and entertained us in a flutter of excited hospitality. we told them of dakota, of the prairies, describing the wonderful farm machinery, and boasting of the marvellous crops our father had raised in iowa, and the old people listened in delighted amaze. they put us to bed at last in a queer high-posted, corded bedstead and i had a feeling that we were taking part in a colonial play. it was like living a story book. we stared at each other in a stupor of satisfaction. we had never hoped for such luck. to be thrust back abruptly into the very life of our forebears was magical, and the excitement and delight of it kept us whispering together long after we should have been asleep. this was thirty years ago, and those kindly old souls have long since returned to dust, but their big four-posted bed is doing service, no doubt, in the home of some rich collector. i have forgotten their names but they shall live here in my book as long as its print shall endure. they seemed sorry to have us go next morning, but as they had nothing for us to do, they could only say, "good-bye, give our love to jane, if you see her, she lives in illinois." illinois and dakota were all the same to them! again we started forth along the graceful, irregular, elm-shaded roads, which intersected the land in every direction, perfectly happy except when we remembered our empty pockets. we could not get accustomed to the trees and the beauty of the vineclad stone walls. the lanes made _pictures_ all the time. so did the apple trees and the elms and the bending streams. about noon of this day we came to a farm of very considerable size and fairly level, on which the hay remained uncut. "here's our chance," i said to my brother, and going in, boldly accosted the farmer, a youngish man with a bright and pleasant face. "do you want some skilled help?" i called out. the farmer admitted that he did, but eyed us as if jokers. evidently we did not look precisely like workmen to him, but i jolted him by saying, "we are iowa schoolboys out for a vacation. we were raised on a farm, and know all about haying. if you'll give us a chance we'll make you think you don't know much about harvesting hay." this amused him. "come in," he said, "and after dinner we'll see about it." at dinner we laid ourselves out to impress our host. we told him of the mile-wide fields of the west, and enlarged upon the stoneless prairies of dakota. we described the broadcast seeders they used in minnesota and bragged of the amount of hay we could put up, and both of us professed a contempt for two-wheeled carts. in the end we reduced our prospective employer to humbleness. he consulted his wife a moment and then said, "all right, boys, you may take hold." we stayed with him two weeks and enjoyed every moment of our stay. "our expedition is successful," i wrote to my parents. on sundays we picked berries or went fishing or tumbled about the lawn. it was all very beautiful and delightfully secure, so that when the time came to part with our pleasant young boss and his bright and cheery wife, we were as sorry as they. "we must move on," i insisted. "there are other things to see." after a short stay in portland we took the train for bethel, eager to visit the town which our father had described so many times. we had resolved to climb the hills on which he had gathered berries and sit on the "overset" from which he had gazed upon the landscape. we felt indeed, a certain keen regret that he could not be with us. at locks mills, we met his old playmates, dennis and abner herrick, men bent of form and dim of eye, gnarled and knotted by their battle with the rocks and barren hillsides, and to them we, confident lads, with our tales of smooth and level plow-lands, must have seemed like denizens from some farmers' paradise,--or perhaps they thought us fictionists. i certainly put a powerful emphasis on the pleasant side of western life at that time. dennis especially looked upon us with amazement, almost with awe. to think that we, unaided and alone, had wandered so far and dared so much, while he, in all his life, had not been able to visit boston, was bewildering. this static condition of the population was a constant source of wonder to us. how could people stay all their lives in one place? must be something the matter with them.--their ox-teams and tipcarts amused us, their stony fields appalled us, their restricted, parsimonious lives saddened us, and so, not wishing to be a burden, we decided to cut our stay short. on the afternoon of our last day, abner took us on a tramp over the country, pointing out the paths "where dick and i played," tracing the lines of the old farm, which had long since been given over to pasture, and so to the trout brook and home. in return for our "keep" we sang that night, and told stories of the west, and our hosts seemed pleased with the exchange. shouldering our faithful "grips" next morning, we started for the railway and took the train for gorham. each mile brought us nearer the climax of our trip. we of the plains had longed and dreamed of the peaks. to us the white mountains were at once the crowning wonder and chief peril of our expedition. they were to be in a very real sense the test of our courage. the iron crest of mount washington allured us as a light-house lures sea-birds. leaving gorham on foot, and carrying our inseparable valises, we started westward along the road leading to the peaks, expecting to get lodging at some farm-house, but as we stood aside to let gay coaches pass laden with glittering women and haughty men, we began to feel abused. we were indeed, quaint objects. each of us wore a long yellow linen "duster" and each bore a valise on a stick, as an irishman carries a bundle. we feared neither wind nor rain, but wealth and coaches oppressed us. nevertheless we trudged cheerily along, drinking at the beautiful springs beside the road, plucking blackberries for refreshment, lifting our eyes often to the snow-flecked peaks to the west. at noon we stopped at a small cottage to get some milk, and there again met a pathetic lonely old couple. the woman was at least eighty, and very crusty with her visitors, till i began to pet the enormous maltese cat which came purring to our feet. "what a magnificent animal!" i said to frank. this softened the old woman's heart. she not only gave us bread and milk but sat down to gossip with us while we ate. she, too, had relatives "out there, somewhere in iowa" and would hardly let us go, so eager was she to know all about her people. "surely you must have met them." as we neared the foot of the great peak we came upon hotels of all sizes but i had not the slightest notion of staying even at the smallest. having walked twelve miles to the foot of the mountain we now decided to set out for the top, still carrying those precious bags upon our shoulders. what we expected to do after we got to the summit, i cannot say, for we knew nothing of conditions there and were too tired to imagine--we just kept climbing, sturdily, doggedly, breathing heavily, more with excitement than with labor, for it seemed that we were approaching the moon,--so bleak and high the roadway ran. i had miscalculated sadly. it had looked only a couple of hours' brisk walk from the hotel, but the way lengthened out toward the last in a most disheartening fashion. "where will we stay?" queried frank. "oh, we'll find a place somewhere," i answered, but i was far from being as confident as i sounded. we had been told that it cost five dollars for a night's lodging at the hotel, but i entertained some vague notion that other and cheaper places offered. perhaps i thought that a little village on the summit presented boarding houses. "no matter, we're in for it now," i stoutly said. "we'll find a place--we've got to find a place." it grew cold as we rose, surprisingly, dishearteningly cold and we both realized that to sleep in the open would be to freeze. as the night fell, our clothing, wet with perspiration, became almost as clammy as sheet iron, and we shivered with weakness as well as with frost. the world became each moment more barren, more wind-swept and frank was almost at his last gasp. it was long after dark, and we were both trembling with fatigue and hollow with hunger as we came opposite a big barn just at the top of the trail. the door of this shelter stood invitingly open, and creeping into an empty stall we went to sleep on the straw like a couple of homeless dogs. we did not for a moment think of going to the hotel which loomed like a palace a few rods further on. a couple of hours later i was awakened by the crunch of a boot upon my ankle, followed by an oath of surprise. the stage-driver, coming in from his last trip, was looking down upon me. i could not see his face, but i did note the bright eyes and pricking ears of a noble gray horse standing just behind his master and champing his bit with impatience. sleepy, scared and bewildered, i presented my plea with such eloquence that the man put his team in another stall and left us to our straw. "but you get out o' here before the boss sees you," said he, "or there'll be trouble." "we'll get out before daybreak," i replied heartily. when i next awoke it was dawn, and my body was so stiff i could hardly move. we had slept cold and our muscles resented it. however, we hurried from the barn. once safely out of reach of the "boss" we began to leap and dance and shout to the sun as it rose out of the mist, for this was precisely what we had come two thousand miles to see--sunrise on mount washington! it chanced, gloriously, that the valleys were filled with a misty sea, breaking soundlessly at our feet and we forgot cold, hunger, poverty, in the wonder of being "above the clouds!" in course of time our stomachs moderated our transports over the view and i persuaded my brother (who was younger and more delicate in appearance) to approach the kitchen and purchase a handout. frank being harshly persuaded by his own need, ventured forth and soon came back with several slices of bread and butter and part of a cold chicken, which made the day perfectly satisfactory, and in high spirits we started to descend the western slope of the mountain. here we performed the incredible. our muscles were so sore and weak that as we attempted to walk down the railway track, our knees refused to bear our weight, and while creeping over the ties, groaning and sighing with pain, a bright idea suddenly irradiated my mind. as i studied the iron groove which contained the cogs in the middle of the track, i perceived that its edges were raised a little above the level of the rails and covered with oil. it occurred to me that it might be possible to slide down this track on a plank--if only i had a plank! i looked to the right. a miracle! there in the ditch lay a plank of exactly the right dimensions. i seized it, i placed it cross-wise of the rails. "all aboard," i called. frank obeyed. i took my place at the other end, and so with our valises between us, we began to slip slowly, smoothly, and with joyous ease down the shining track! hoopla! we had taken wing! we had solved our problem. the experiment was successful. laughing and shouting with exultation, we swept on. we had but to touch every other tie with our heels in order to control our speed, so we coasted, smoothly, genially. on we went, mile after mile, slipping down the valley into the vivid sunlight, our eyes on the glorious scenery about us, down, down like a swooping bird. once we passed above some workmen, who looked up in open-mouthed amazement, and cursed us in voices which seemed far and faint and futile. a little later the superintendent of the water tank warningly shouted, "_stop that! get off!_" but we only laughed at him and swept on, out over a high trestle, where none could follow. at times our heads grew dizzy with the flicker and glitter of the rocks beneath us and as we rounded dangerous curves of the track, or descended swift slides with almost uncontrollable rapidity, i had some doubts, but we kept our wits, remained upon the rails, and at last spun round the final bend and came to a halt upon a level stretch of track, just above the little station. there, kicking aside our faithful plank, we took up our valises and with trembling knees and a sense of triumph set off down the valley of the wild amonoosuc. chapter xxiv tramping, new york, washington, and chicago for two days we followed the amonoosuc (which is a lovely stream), tramping along exquisite winding roads, loitering by sunny ripples or dreaming in the shadow of magnificent elms. it was all very, very beautiful to us of the level lands of iowa and dakota. these brooks rushing over their rocky beds, these stately trees and these bleak mountain-tops looming behind us, all glowed with the high splendor, of which we had dreamed. at noon we called at a farm-house to get something to eat and at night we paid for lodging in a rude tavern beside the way, and so at last reached the railway and the connecticut river. here we gained our trunks (which had been sent round by express) and as the country seemed poor and the farms barren, we spent nearly all our money in riding down the railway fifty or sixty miles. at some small town (i forget the name), we again took to the winding roads, looking for a job. jobs, it turned out, were exceedingly hard to get. the haying was over, the oats mainly in shock, and the people on the highway suspicious and inhospitable. as we plodded along, our dimes melting away, hunger came, at last, to be a grim reality. we looked less and less like college boys and more and more like tramps, and the householders began to treat us with hostile contempt. no doubt these farmers, much beset with tramps, had reasonable excuse for their inhospitable ways, but to us it was all bitter and uncalled for. i knew that cities were filled with robbers, brigands, burglars and pirates, but i had held (up to this time), the belief that the country, though rude and barren of luxury was nevertheless a place of plenty where no man need suffer hunger. frank, being younger and less hardy than i, became clean disheartened, and upon me fell the responsibility and burden of the campaign. i certainly was to blame for our predicament. we came finally to the point of calling at every house where any crops lay ungathered, desperately in hope of securing something to do. at last there came a time when we no longer had money for a bed, and were forced to sleep wherever we could find covert. one night we couched on the floor of an old school-house, the next we crawled into an oat-shock and covered ourselves with straw. let those who have never slept out on the ground through an august night say that it is impossible that one should be cold! during all the early warm part of the night a family of skunks rustled about us, and toward morning we both woke because of the chill. on the third night we secured the blessed opportunity of nesting in a farmer's granary. all humor had gone out of our expedition. each day the world grew blacker, and the men of the connecticut valley more cruel and relentless. we both came to understand (not to the full, but in a large measure) the bitter rebellion of the tramp. to plod on and on into the dusk, rejected of comfortable folk, to couch at last with pole-cats in a shock of grain is a liberal education in sociology. on the fourth day we came upon an old farmer who had a few acres of badly tangled oats which he wished gathered and bound. he was a large, loose-jointed, good-natured sloven who looked at me with stinging, penetrating stare, while i explained that we were students on a vacation tramping and in need of money. he seemed not particularly interested till frank said with tragic bitterness, "if we ever get back to dakota we'll never even look this way again." this interested the man. he said, "turn in and cut them oats," and we gladly buckled to our job. our spirits rose with the instant resiliency of youth, but what a task that reaping proved to be! the grain, tangled and flattened close to the ground, had to be caught up in one hand and cut with the old-fashioned reaping-hook, the kind they used in egypt five thousand years ago--a thin crescent of steel with a straight handle, and as we bowed ourselves to the ground to clutch and clip the grain, we nearly broke in two pieces. it was hot at mid-day and the sun fell upon our bended shoulders with amazing power, but we toiled on, glad of the opportunity to earn a dollar. "every cent means escape from this sad country," i repeated. we stayed some days with this reticent gardener, sleeping in the attic above his kitchen like two scullions, uttering no complaint till we had earned seven dollars apiece; then we said, "good luck," and bought tickets for greenfield, massachusetts. we chose this spot for the reason that a great railway alluringly crossed the river at that place. we seemed in better situation to get west from such a point. greenfield was so like rockford (the western town in which i had worked as a carpenter), that i at once purchased a few tools and within a few hours secured work shingling a house on the edge of the town, while my brother took a hand at harvesting worms from a field of tobacco near by. the builder, a tall man, bent and grizzled, complimented me warmly at the close of my second day, and said, "you may consider yourself hired for as long as you please to stay. you're a rattler." no compliment since has given me more pleasure than this. a few days later he invited both of us to live at his home. we accepted and were at once established in most comfortable quarters. tranquil days followed. the country was very attractive, and on sundays we walked the neighboring lanes, or climbed the high hills, or visited the quaint and lonely farm-houses round about, feeling more akin each week to the life of the valley, but we had no intention of remaining beyond a certain time. great rivers called and cities allured. new york was still to be explored and to return to the west before winter set in was our plan. at last the time came when we thought it safe to start toward albany and with grateful words of thanks to the carpenter and his wife, we set forth upon our travels. our courage was again at topmost gauge. my success with the saw had given me confidence. i was no longer afraid of towns, and in a glow of high resolution and with thirty dollars in my pocket, i planned to invade new york which was to me the wickedest and the most sorrowful as well as the most splendid city in the world. doubtless the true story of how i entered manhattan will endanger my social position, but as an unflinching realist, i must begin by acknowledging that i left the hudson river boat carrying my own luggage. i shudder to think what we two boys must have looked like as we set off, side by side, prospecting for union square and the bowery. broadway, we knew, was the main street and union square the center of the island, therefore we turned north and paced along the pavement, still clamped to our everlasting bags. broadway was not then the deep canon that it is today. it was walled by low shops of red brick--in fact, the whole city seemed low as compared with the high buildings of chicago, nevertheless i was keenly worried over the question of housing. food was easy. we could purchase a doughnut and a cup of coffee almost anywhere, or we could eat a sandwich in the park, but the matter of a bed, the business of sleeping in a maelstrom like new york was something more than serious--it was dangerous. frank, naturally of a more prodigal nature, was all for going to the broadway hotel. "it's only for one night," said he. he always was rather careless of the future! i reminded him that we still had philadelphia, baltimore and washington to "do" and every cent must be husbanded--so we moved along toward union square with the question of a hotel still undecided, our arms aching with fatigue. "if only we could get rid of these awful bags," moaned frank. to us broadway was a storm, a cyclone, an abnormal unholy congestion of human souls. the friction of feet on the pavement was like the hissing of waves on the beach. the passing of trucks jarred upon our ears like the sevenfold thunders of patmos, but we kept on, shoulder to shoulder, watchful, alert, till we reached union square, where with sighs of deep relief we sank upon the benches along with the other "rubes" and "jay-hawkers" lolling in sweet repose with weary soles laxly turned to the kindly indiscriminating breeze. the evening was mild, the scene enthralling, and we would have been perfectly happy but for the deeply disturbing question of a bed. franklin, resting upon my resourceful management, made no motion even when the sun sank just about where that venetian fronted building now stands, but whilst the insolent, teeming populace in clattering carts and drays charged round our peaceful sylvan haven (each driver plying the lash with the fierce aspect of a roman charioteer) i rose to a desperate mission. with a courage born of need i led the way straight toward the basement portal of a small brown hotel on fourth avenue, and was startled almost into flight to find myself in a bar-room. not knowing precisely how to retreat, i faltered out, "have you a bed for us?" it is probable that the landlord, a huge foreign-looking man understood our timidity--at any rate, he smiled beneath his black mustache and directed a clerk to show us a room. in charge of this man, a slim youth, with a very bad complexion, we climbed a narrow stairway (which grew geometrically shabbier as we rose) until, at last, we came into a room so near the roof that it could afford only half-windows--but as we were getting the chamber at half-price we could not complain. no sooner had the porter left us than we both stretched out on the bed, in such relief and ecstasy of returning confidence as only weary youth and honest poverty can know.--it was heavenly sweet, this sense of safety in the heart of a tempest of human passion but as we rested, our hunger to explore returned. "time is passing. we shall probably never see new york again," i argued, "and besides our bags are now safely _cached_. let's go out and see how the city looks by night." to this franklin agreed, and forth we went into the square, rejoicing in our freedom from those accursed bags. here for the first time, i observed the electric light shadows, so clear-cut, so marvellous. the park was lighted by several sputtering, sizzling arc-lamps, and their rays striking down through the trees, flung upon the pavement a wavering, exquisite tracery of sharply defined, purple-black leaves and branches. this was, indeed, an entirely new effect in our old world and to my mind its wonder surpassed nature. it was as if i had suddenly been translated to some realm of magic art. where we dined i cannot say, probably we ate a doughnut at some lunch counter but i am glad to remember that we got as far as madison square--which was like discovering another and still more enchanting island of romance. to us the fifth avenue hotel was a great and historic building, for in it grant and sherman and lincoln and greeley had often registered. ah, what a night that was! i did not expend a dollar, not even a quarter, but i would give half of all i now own for the sensitive heart, the absorbent brain i then possessed. each form, each shadow was a miracle. romance and terror and delight peopled every dusky side street. submerged in the wondrous, drenched with the spray of this measureless ocean of human life, we wandered on and on till overborne nature called a halt. it was ten o'clock and prudence as well as weariness advised retreat. decisively, yet with a feeling that we would never again glow beneath the lights of this radiant city, i led the way back to our half-rate bed in the union square hungarian hotel. it is worth recording that on reaching our room, we opened our small window and leaning out, gazed away over the park, what time the tumult and the thunder and the shouting died into a low, continuous roar. the poetry and the majesty of the city lost nothing of its power under the moon. although i did not shake my fist over the town and vow to return and conquer it (as penniless writers in fiction generally do) i bowed down before its power. "it's too much for us," i told my brother. "two millions of people--think of it--of course london is larger, but then london is so far off." sleep for us both was but a moment's forgetfulness. at one moment it was night and at another it was morning. we were awakened by the voice of the pavement, that sound which whitman calls "the loud, proud, restive bass of the streets," and again i leaned forth to listen to the widespread crescendo roar of the deepening traffic. the air being cool and clear, the pedestrians stepped out with brisker, braver movement, and we, too, rose eager to meet the day at the gate of the town. all day we tramped, absorbing everything that went on in the open. having explored the park, viewed the obelisk and visited the zoo, we wandered up and down broadway, mooning upon the life of the streets. curbstone fights, police manoeuvres, shop-window comedies, building operations--everything we saw instructed us. we soaked ourselves in the turbulent rivers of the town with a feeling that we should never see them again. we had intended to stay two days but a tragic encounter with a restaurant bandit so embittered and alarmed us that we fled new york (as we supposed), forever. at one o'clock, being hungry, very hungry, we began to look for a cheap eating house, and somewhere in university place we came upon a restaurant which looked humble enough to afford a twenty-five cent dinner (which was our limit of extravagance), and so, timidly, we ventured in. a foreign-looking waiter greeted us, and led us to one of a number of very small tables covered with linen which impressed even frank's uncritical eyes with its mussiness. with a feeling of having inadvertently entered a den of thieves, i wished myself out of it but lacked the courage to rise and when the man returned and placed upon the table two glasses and a strange looking bottle with a metal stopper which had a kind of lever at the side, frank said, "hi! good thing!--i'm thirsty." quite against my judgment he fooled around with the lever till he succeeded in helping himself to some of the liquid with which the bottle was filled. it was soda water and he drank heartily, although i was sure it would be extra on the bill. the food came on slowly, by fits and starts, and the dishes were all so cold and queer of taste that even frank complained. but we ate with a terrifying premonition of trouble. "this meal will cost us at least thirty-five cents each!" i said. "no matter, it's an experience," my spendthrift brother retorted. at last when the limp lettuce, the amazing cheese and the bitter coffee were all consumed, i asked the soiled, outlandish waiter the price. in reply he pencilled on a slip as though we were deaf, and finally laid the completed bill face down beside my plate. i turned it over and grew pale. it totalled _one dollar and twenty cents_! i felt weak and cold as if i had been suddenly poisoned. i trembled, then grew hot with indignation. "sixty cents apiece!" i gasped. "didn't i warn you?" frank was still in reckless mood. "well, this is the only time we have to do it. they won't catch us here again." i paid the bill and hurried out, bitterly exclaiming, "no more new york for me. i will not stay in such a robbers' den another night." and i didn't. at sunset we crossed the ferry and took the train for new brunswick, new jersey. why we selected this town i cannot say, but i think it must have been because it was half-way to philadelphia--and that we were just about as scared of philadelphia as we were resentful of new york. after a night battle with new jersey mosquitoes and certain plantigrade bed-fellows native to cheap hotels, we passed on to philadelphia and to baltimore, and at sunset of the same day reached washington, the storied capital of the nation. everything we saw here was deeply significant, national, rousing our patriotism. we were at once and profoundly interested by the negro life which flowered here in the free air of the district as under an african sun; the newsboys, the bootblacks, the muledrivers, all amused us. we spent that first night in washington in a little lodging house just at the corner of the capitol grounds where beds were offered for twenty-five cents. it was a dreadful place, but we slept without waking. it took a large odor, a sharp lance to keep either of us awake in those days. tramping busily all the next day, we climbed everything that could be climbed. we visited the capitol, the war building, the treasury and the white house grounds. we toiled through all the museums, working harder than we had ever worked upon the farm, till frank cried out for mercy. i was inexorable. "our money is getting low. we must be very saving of carfare," i insisted. "we must see all we can. we'll never be here again." once more we slept (among the negroes in a bare little lodging house), and on the third day, brimming with impressions, boarded the chicago express and began our glorious, our exultant return over the alleghanies, toward the west. it was with a feeling of joy, of distinct relief that we set our faces toward the sunset. every mile brought us nearer home. i knew the west. i knew the people, and i had no fear of making a living beyond the alleghanies. every mile added courage and hope to our hearts, and increased the value of the splendid, if sometimes severe experiences through which we had passed. frank was especially gay for he was definitely on his way home, back to dakota. and when next day on the heights of the alleghany mountains, the train dipped to the west, and swinging around a curve, disclosed to us the tumbled spread of mountain-land descending to the valley of the ohio, we sang "o'er the hills in legions, boys" as our forefathers did of old. we were about to re-enter the land of the teeming furrow. late that night as we were riding through the darkness in the smoking car, i rose and, placing in my brother's hands all the money i had, said good-bye, and at mansfield, ohio, swung off the train, leaving him to proceed on his homeward way alone. it was about one o'clock of an autumn night, sharp and clear, and i spent the remainder of the morning on a bench in the railway station, waiting for the dawn. i could not sleep, and so spent the time in pondering on my former experiences in seeking work. "have i been wrong?" i asked myself. "is the workman in america, as in the old world, coming to be a man despised?" having been raised in the splendid patriotism, perhaps one might say flamboyant patriotism, of the west during and following our civil war, i had been brought up to believe that labor was honorable, that idlers were to be despised, but now as i sat with bowed head, cold, hungry and penniless, knowing that i must go forth at daylight--seeking work, the world seemed a very hostile place to me. of course i did not consider myself a workman in the ordinary hopeless sense. my need of a job was merely temporary, for it was my intention to return to the middle west in time to secure a position as teacher in some country school. nevertheless a lively imagination gave me all the sensations of the homeless man. the sun rose warm and golden, and with a return of my courage i started forth, confident of my ability to make a place for myself. with a wisdom which i had not hitherto shown i first sought a home, and luckily, i say luckily because i never could account for it, i knocked at the door of a modest little boarding house, whose mistress, a small blonde lady, invited me in and gave me a room without a moment's hesitation. her dinner--a delicious mid-day meal, so heartened me that before the end of the day, i had secured a place as one of a crew of carpenters. my spirits rose. i was secure. my evenings were spent in reading abbott's _life of napoleon_ which i found buried in an immense pile of old magazines. i had never before read a full history of the great corsican, and this chronicle moved me almost as profoundly as hugo's _les misérables_ had done the year before. on sundays i walked about the country under the splendid oaks and beeches which covered the ridges, dreaming of the west, and of the future which was very vague and not very cheerful in coloring. my plan so far as i had a plan, was not ambitious. i had decided to return to some small town in illinois and secure employment as a teacher, but as i lingered on at my carpenter trade till october nothing was left for me but a country school, and when orrin carter, county superintendent of grundy county, (he is judge carter now) informed me that a district school some miles out would pay fifty dollars a month for a teacher, i gladly accepted the offer. on the following afternoon i started forth a passenger with hank ring on his way homeward in an empty corn wagon. the box had no seat, therefore he and i both rode standing during a drive of six miles. the wind was raw, and the ground, frozen hard as iron, made the ride a kind of torture, but our supper of buckwheat pancakes and pork sausages at deacon ring's was partial compensation. on the following monday i started my school. the winter which followed appalled the oldest inhabitant. snow fell almost daily, and the winds were razor-bladed. in order to save every dollar of my wages, i built my own fires in the school-house. this means that on every week-day morning, i was obliged to push out into the stinging dawn, walk a mile to the icy building, split kindling, start a flame in the rude stove, and have the room comfortable at half-past eight. the thermometer often went to a point twenty degrees below zero, and my ears were never quite free from peeling skin and fevered tissues. my pupils were boys and girls of all sizes and qualities, and while it would be too much to say that i made the best teacher of mathematics in the county, i think i helped them in their reading, writing, and spelling, which after all are more important than algebra. on saturday i usually went to town, for i had in some way become acquainted with the principal of a little normal school which was being carried on in morris by a young quaker from philadelphia. prof. forsythe soon recognized in me something more than the ordinary "elocutionist" and readily aided me in securing a class in oratory among his students. this work and forsythe's comradeship helped me to bear the tedium of my work in the country. no saturday was too stormy, and the roads were never too deep with snow to keep me from my weekly visit to morris where i came in contact with people nearer to my ways of thinking and living. but after all this was but the final section of my eastern excursion--for as the spring winds set in, the call of "the sunset regions" again overcame my love of cities. the rush to dakota in march was greater than ever before and a power stronger than my will drew me back to the line of the middle border which had moved on into the missouri valley, carrying my people with it. as the spring odors filled my nostrils, my wish to emigrate was like that of the birds. "out there is my share of the government land--and, if i am to carry out my plan of fitting myself for a professorship," i argued--"these claims are worth securing. my rights to the public domain are as good as any other man's." my recollections of the james river valley were all pleasant. my brother and father both wrote urging me to come and secure a claim, and so at last i replied, "i'll come as soon as my school is out," thus committing all my future to the hazard of the homestead. and so it came about that in the second spring after setting my face to the east i planned a return to the border. i had had my glimpse of boston, new york and washington. i was twenty-three years of age, and eager to revisit the plain whereon my father with the faith of a pioneer, was again upturning the sod and building a fourth home. and yet, son of the middle border--i had discovered that i was also a grandson of new england. chapter xxv the land of the straddle-bug a night in chicago (where i saw salvini play othello), a day in neshonoc to visit my uncle richard, and i was again in the midst of a jocund rush of land-seekers. the movement which had begun three years before was now at its height. thousands of cars, for lack of engines to move them, were lying idle on the switches all over the west. trains swarming with immigrants from every country of the world were haltingly creeping out upon the level lands. norwegians, swedes, danes, scotchmen, englishmen, and russians all mingled in this flood of land-seekers rolling toward the sundown plain, where a fat-soiled valley had been set aside by good uncle sam for the enrichment of every man. such elation, such hopefulness could not fail to involve an excitable youth like myself. my companion, forsythe, dropped off at milbank, but i kept on, on into the james valley, arriving at ordway on the evening of the second day--a clear cloudless evening in early april, with the sun going down red in the west, the prairie chickens calling from the knolls and hammers still sounding in the village, their tattoo denoting the urgent need of roofs to shelter the incoming throng. the street swarmed with boomers. all talk was of lots, of land. hour by hour as the sun sank, prospectors returned to the hotel from their trips into the unclaimed territory, hungry and tired but jubilant, and as they assembled in my father's store after supper, their boastful talk of "claims secured" made me forget all my other ambitions. i was as eager to clutch my share of uncle sam's bounty as any of them. the world seemed beginning anew for me as well as for these aliens from the crowded eastern world. "i am ready to stake a claim," i said to my father. early the very next day, with a party of four (among them charles babcock, a brother of burton), i started for the unsurveyed country where, some thirty miles to the west, my father had already located a pre-emption claim and built a rough shed, the only shelter for miles around. "we'll camp there," said charles. it was an inspiring ride! the plain freshly uncovered from the snow was swept by a keen wind which held in spite of that an acrid prophecy of sudden spring. ducks and geese rose from every icy pond and resumed their flight into the mystic north, and as we advanced the world broadened before us. the treelessness of the wide swells, the crispness of the air and the feeling that to the westward lay the land of the sioux, all combined to make our trip a kind of epic in miniature. charles also seemed to feel the essential poetry of the expedition, although he said little except to remark, "i wish burton were here." it was one o'clock before we reached the cabin and two before we finished luncheon. the afternoon was spent in wandering over the near-by obtainable claims and at sundown we all returned to the shed to camp. as dusk fell, and while the geese flew low gabbling confidentially, and the ducks whistled by overhead in swift unerring flight, charles and i lay down on the hay beside the horses, feeling ourselves to be, in some way, partners with god in this new world. i went to sleep hearing the horses munching their grain in the neighboring stalls, entirely contented with my day and confident of the morrow. all questions were answered, all doubts stilled. we arose with the sun and having eaten our rude breakfast set forth, some six miles to the west, to mark the location of our claims with the "straddle-bugs." the straddle-bug, i should explain, was composed of three boards set together in tripod form and was used as a monument, a sign of occupancy. its presence defended a claim against the next comer. lumber being very scarce at the moment, the building of a shanty was impossible, and so for several weeks these signs took the place of "improvements" and were fully respected. no one could honorably jump these claims within thirty days and no one did. at last, when far beyond the last claimant, we turned and looked back upon a score of these glittering guidons of progress, banners of the army of settlement, i realized that i was a vedette in the van of civilization, and when i turned to the west where nothing was to be seen save the mysterious plain and a long low line of still more mysterious hills, i thrilled with joy at all i had won. it seemed a true invasion, this taking possession of the virgin sod, but as i considered, there was a haunting sadness in it, for these shining pine pennons represented the inexorable plow. they prophesied the death of all wild creatures and assured the devastation of the beautiful, the destruction of all the signs and seasons of the sod. apparently none of my companions shared this feeling, for they all leaped from the wagon and planted their stakes, each upon his chosen quarter-section with whoops of joy, cries which sounded faint and far, like the futile voices of insects, diminished to shrillness by the echoless abysses of the unclouded sky. as we had measured the distance from the township lines by counting the revolutions of our wagon-wheels, so now with pocket compass and a couple of laths, charles and i laid out inner boundaries and claimed three quarter-sections, one for frank and one each for ourselves. level as a floor these acres were, and dotted with the bones of bison. we ate our dinner on the bare sod while all around us the birds of spring-time moved in myriads, and over the swells to the east other wagons laden with other land-seekers crept like wingless beetles--stragglers from the main skirmish line. having erected our pine-board straddle-bugs with our names written thereon, we jubilantly started back toward the railway. tired but peaceful, we reached ordway at dark and mrs. wynn's supper of ham and eggs and potatoes completed our day most satisfactorily. my father, who had planned to establish a little store on his claim, now engaged me as his representative, his clerk, and i spent the next week in hauling lumber and in helping to build the shanty and ware-room on the section line. as soon as the place was habitable, my mother and sister jessie came out to stay with me, for in order to hold his pre-emption my father was obliged to make it his "home." before we were fairly settled, my mother was forced to feed and house a great many land-seekers who had no other place to stay. this brought upon her once again all the drudgery of a pioneer house-wife, and filled her with longing for the old home in iowa. it must have seemed to her as if she were never again to find rest except beneath the sod. nothing that i have ever been called upon to do caused me more worry than the act of charging those land-seekers for their meals and bunks, and yet it was perfectly right that they should pay. our buildings had been established with great trouble and at considerable expense, and my father said, "we cannot afford to feed so many people without return," and yet it seemed to me like taking an unfair advantage of poor and homeless men. it was with the greatest difficulty that i brought myself to charge them anything at all. fortunately the prices had been fixed by my father. night by night it became necessary to lift a lantern on a high pole in front of the shack, in order that those who were traversing the plain after dark might find their way, and often i was aroused from my bed by the arrival of a worn and bewildered party of pilgrims rescued from a sleepless couch upon the wet sod. for several weeks mother was burdened with these wayfarers, but at last they began to thin out. the skirmish line moved on, the ranks halted, and all about the moggeson ranch hundreds of yellow shanties sparkled at dawn like flecks of gold on a carpet of green velvet. before the end of may every claim was taken and "improved"--more or less. meanwhile i had taken charge of the store and frank was the stage driver. he was a very bad salesman, but i was worse--that must be confessed. if a man wanted to purchase an article and had the money to pay for it, we exchanged commodities right there, but as far as my selling anything--father used to say, "hamlin couldn't sell gold dollars for ninety cents a piece," and he was right--entirely right. i found little to interest me in the people who came to the store for they were "just ordinary folk" from illinois, and iowa, and i had never been a youth who made acquaintances easily, so with nothing of the politician in me, i seldom inquired after the babies or gossiped with the old women about their health and housekeeping. i regretted this attitude afterward. a closer relationship with the settlers would have furnished me with a greater variety of fictional characters, but at the time i had no suspicion that i was missing anything. as the land dried off and the breaking plow began its course, a most idyllic and significant period of life came on. the plain became very beautiful as the soil sent forth its grasses. on the shadowed sides of the ridges exquisite shades of pink and purple bloomed, while the most radiant yellow-green flamed from slopes on which the sunlight fell. the days of may and june succeeded one another in perfect harmony like the notes in a song, broken only once or twice by thunderstorms. an opalescent mist was in the air, and everywhere, on every swell, the settlers could be seen moving silently to and fro with their teams, while the women sang at their work about the small shanties, and in their new gardens. on every side was the most cheerful acceptance of hard work and monotonous fare. no one acknowledged the transient quality of this life, although it was only a novel sort of picnic on the prairie, soon to end. many young people and several groups of girls (teachers from the east) were among those who had taken claims, and some of these made life pleasant for themselves and helpful to others by bringing to their cabins, books and magazines and pictures. the store was not only the social center of the township but the postoffice, and frank, who carried the mail (and who was much more gallant than i) seemed to draw out all the school ma'ams of the neighborhood. the raising of a flag on a high pole before the door was the signal for the post which brought the women pouring in from every direction eager for news of the eastern world. in accordance with my plan to become a teacher, i determined to go to the bottom of the laws which govern literary development, and so with an unexpurgated volume of taine, a set of chambers' _encyclopædia of english literature_, and a volume of greene's _history of the english people_, i set to work to base myself profoundly in the principles which govern a nation's self-expression. i still believed that in order to properly teach an appreciation of poetry, a man should have the power of dramatic expression, that he should be able to read so as to make the printed page live in the ears of his pupils. in short i had decided to unite the orator and the critic. as a result, i spent more time over my desk than beside the counter. i did not absolutely refuse to wait on a purchaser but no sooner was his package tied up than i turned away to my work of digesting and transcribing in long hand taine's monumental book. day after day i bent to this task, pondering all the great frenchman had to say of _race_, _environment_, and _momentum_ and on the walls of the cabin i mapped out in chalk the various periods of english society as he had indicated them. these charts were the wonder and astonishment of my neighbors whenever they chanced to enter the living room, and they appeared especially interested in the names written on the ceiling over my bed. i had put my favorites there so that when i opened my eyes of a morning, i could not help absorbing a knowledge of their dates and works. however, on saturday afternoon when the young men came in from their claims, i was not above pitching quoits or "putting the shot" with them--in truth i took a mild satisfaction in being able to set a big boulder some ten inches beyond my strongest competitor. occasionally i practiced with the rifle but was not a crack shot. i could still pitch a ball as well as any of them and i served as pitcher in the games which the men occasionally organized. as harvest came on, mother and sister returned to ordway, and cooking became a part of my daily routine. charles occasionally helped out and we both learned to make biscuits and even pies. frank loyally declared my apple-pies to be as good as any man could make. meanwhile an ominous change had crept over the plain. the winds were hot and dry and the grass, baked on the stem, had became as inflammable as hay. the birds were silent. the sky, absolutely cloudless, began to scare us with its light. the sun rose through the dusty air, sinister with flare of horizontal heat. the little gardens on the breaking withered, and many of the women began to complain bitterly of the loneliness, and lack of shade. the tiny cabins were like ovens at mid-day. smiling faces were less frequent. timid souls began to inquire, "are all dakota summers like this?" and those with greatest penetration reasoned, from the quality of the grass which was curly and fine as hair, that they had unwittingly settled upon an arid soil. and so, week by week the holiday spirit faded from the colony and men in feverish unrest uttered words of bitterness. eyes ached with light and hearts sickened with loneliness. defeat seemed facing every man. by the first of september many of those who were in greatest need of land were ready to abandon their advanced position on the border and fall back into the ranks behind. we were all nothing but squatters. the section lines had not been run and every pre-emptor looked and longed for the coming of the surveying crew, because once our filings were made we could all return to the east, at least for six months, or we could prove up and buy our land. in other words, the survey offered a chance to escape from the tedious monotony of the burning plain into which we had so confidently thrust ourselves. but the surveyors failed to appear though they were reported from day to day to be at work in the next township and so, one by one, those of us who were too poor to buy ourselves food, dropped away. hundreds of shanties were battened up and deserted. the young women returned to their schools, and men who had counted upon getting work to support their families during the summer, and who had failed to do so, abandoned their claims and went east where settlement had produced a crop. our song of emigration seemed but bitter mockery now. moved by the same desire to escape, i began writing to various small towns in minnesota and iowa in the hope of obtaining a school, but with little result. my letters written from the border line did not inspire confidence in the school boards of "the east." then winter came. winter! no man knows what winter means until he has lived through one in a pine-board shanty on a dakota plain with only buffalo bones for fuel. there were those who had settled upon this land, not as i had done with intent to prove up and sell, but with plans to make a home, and many of these, having toiled all the early spring in hope of a crop, now at the beginning of winter found themselves with little money and no coal. many of them would have starved and frozen had it not been for the buffalo skeletons which lay scattered over the sod, and for which a sudden market developed. upon the proceeds of this singular harvest they almost literally lived. thus "the herds of deer and buffalo" did indeed strangely "furnish the cheer." as for charles and myself, we also returned to ordway and there spent a part of each month, brooding darkly over the problem of our future. i already perceived the futility of my return to the frontier. the mysterious urgings of a vague yet deep-seated longing to go east rendered me restless, sour and difficult. i saw nothing before me, and yet my hard experiences in wisconsin and in new england made me hesitate about going far. teaching a country school seemed the only thing i was fitted for, and there shone no promise of that. furthermore, like other pre-emptors i was forced to hold my claim by visiting it once every thirty days, and these trips became each time more painful, more menacing. february and march were of pitiless severity. one blizzard followed another with ever-increasing fury. no sooner was the snow laid by a north wind than it took wing above a southern blast and returned upon us sifting to and fro until at last its crystals were as fine as flour, so triturated that it seemed to drive through an inch board. often it filled the air for hundreds of feet above the earth like a mist, and lay in long ridges behind every bush or weed. nothing lived on these desolate uplands but the white owl and the wolf. one cold, bright day i started for my claim accompanied by a young englishman, a fair-faced delicate young clerk from london, and before we had covered half our journey the west wind met us with such fury that the little cockney would certainly have frozen had i not forced him out of the sleigh to run by its side. poor little man! this was not the romantic home he had expected to gain when he left his office on the strand. luckily, his wretched shanty was some six miles nearer than mine or he would have died. leaving him safe in his den, i pushed on toward my own claim, in the teeth of a terrific gale, the cold growing each moment more intense. "the sunset regions" at that moment did not provoke me to song. in order to reach my cabin before darkness fell, i urged my team desperately, and it was well that i did, for i could scarcely see my horses during the last mile, and the wind was appalling even to me--an experienced plainsman. arriving at the barn i was disheartened to find the doors heavily banked with snow, but i fell to in desperate haste, and soon shoveled a passageway. this warmed me, but in the delay one of my horses became so chilled that he could scarcely enter his stall. he refused to eat also, and this troubled me very much. however, i loaded him with blankets and fell to work rubbing his legs with wisps of hay, to start the circulation, and did not desist until the old fellow began nibbling his forage. by this time the wind was blowing seventy miles an hour, and black darkness was upon the land. with a rush i reached my shanty only to find that somebody had taken all my coal and nearly all my kindling, save a few pieces of pine. this was serious, but i kindled a fire with the blocks, a blaze which was especially grateful by reason of its quick response. hardly was the stove in action, when a rap at the door startled me. "come," i shouted. in answer to my call, a young man, a neighbor, entered, carrying a sack filled with coal. he explained with some embarrassment, that in his extremity during the preceding blizzard, he had borrowed from my store, and that (upon seeing my light) he had hurried to restore the fuel, enough, at any rate, to last out the night. his heroism appeased my wrath and i watched him setting out on his return journey with genuine anxiety. that night is still vivid in my memory. the frail shanty, cowering close, quivered in the wind like a frightened hare. the powdery snow appeared to drive directly through the solid boards, and each hour the mercury slowly sank. drawing my bed close to the fire, i covered myself with a buffalo robe and so slept for an hour or two. when i woke it was still dark and the wind, though terrifying, was intermittent in its attack. the timbers of the house creaked as the blast lay hard upon it, and now and again the faint fine crystals came sifting down upon my face,--driven beneath the shingles by the tempest. at last i lit my oil lamp and shivered in my robe till dawn. i felt none of the exultation of a "king in fairyland" nor that of a "lord of the soil." the morning came, bright with sun but with the thermometer forty degrees below zero. it was so cold that the horses refused to face the northwest wind. i could not hitch them to the sleigh until i had blanketed them both beneath their harness; even then they snorted and pawed in terror. at last, having succeeded in hooking the traces i sprang in and, wrapping the robe about me, pushed eastward with all speed, seeking food and fire. this may be taken as a turning point in my career, for this experience (followed by two others almost as severe) permanently chilled my enthusiasm for pioneering the plain. never again did i sing "sunset regions" with the same exultant spirit. "o'er the hills in legions, boys," no longer meant sunlit savannahs, flower meadows and deer-filled glades. the mingled "wood and prairie land" of the song was gone and uncle sam's domain, bleak, semi-arid, and wind-swept, offered little charm to my imagination. from that little cabin on the ridge i turned my face toward settlement, eager to escape the terror and the loneliness of the treeless sod. i began to plan for other work in other airs. furthermore, i resented the conditions under which my mother lived and worked. our home was in a small building next to the shop, and had all the shortcomings of a cabin and none of its charm. it is true nearly all our friends lived in equal discomfort, but it seemed to me that mother had earned something better. was it for this she had left her home in iowa. was she never to enjoy a roomy and comfortable dwelling? she did not complain and she seldom showed her sense of discomfort. i knew that she longed for the friends and neighbors she had left behind, and yet so far from being able to help her i was even then planning to leave her. in a sullen rage i endured the winter and when at last the sun began to ride the sky with fervor and the prairie cock announced the spring, hope of an abundant crop, the promise of a new railroad, the incoming of jocund settlers created in each of us a confidence which expressed itself in a return to the land. with that marvellous faith which marks the husbandmen, we went forth once more with the drill and the harrow, planting seed against another harvest. sometime during these winter days, i chanced upon a book which effected a profound change in my outlook on the world and led to far-reaching complications in my life. this volume was the lovell edition of _progress and poverty_ which was at that time engaging the attention of the political economists of the world. up to this moment i had never read any book or essay in which our land system had been questioned. i had been raised in the belief that this was the best of all nations in the best of all possible worlds, in the happiest of all ages. i believed (of course) that the wisdom of those who formulated our constitution was but little less than that of archangels, and that all contingencies of our progress in government had been provided for or anticipated in that inspired and deathless instrument. now as i read this book, my mind following step by step the author's advance upon the citadel of privilege, i was forced to admit that his main thesis was right. unrestricted individual ownership of the earth i acknowledged to be wrong and i caught some glimpse of the radiant plenty of george's ideal commonwealth. the trumpet call of the closing pages filled me with a desire to battle for the right. here was a theme for the great orator. here was opportunity for the most devoted evangel. raw as i was, inconspicuous as a grasshopper by the roadside, i still had something in me which responded to the call of "the prophet of san francisco," and yet i had no definite intention of becoming a missionary. how could i? penniless, dependent upon the labor of my hands for a livelihood, discontented yet unable to decide upon a plan of action, i came and went all through that long summer with laggard feet and sorrowful countenance. my brother franklin having sold his claim had boldly advanced upon chicago. his ability as a bookkeeper secured him against want, and his letters were confident and cheerful. at last in the hour when my perplexity was greatest--the decisive impetus came, brought by a chance visitor, a young clergyman from portland, maine, who arrived in the town to buy some farms for himself and a friend. though a native of madison mr. bashford had won a place in the east and had decided to put some part of his salary into dakota's alluring soil. upon hearing that we were also from wisconsin he came to call and stayed to dinner, and being of a jovial and candid nature soon drew from me a fairly coherent statement of my desire to do something in the world. at the end of a long talk he said, "why don't you come to boston and take a special course at the university? i know the professor of literature, and i can also give you a letter to the principal of a school of oratory." this offer threw me into such excitement that i was unable to properly thank my adviser, but i fell into depths of dejection as soon as he left town. "how can i go east? how can i carry out such a plan?" i asked myself with bitter emphasis. all i had in the world was a small trunk, a couple of dozen books, a valise and a few acres of barren unplowed land. my previous visit to boston was just the sort to tempt me to return, but my experiences as a laborer in new england had lessened my confidence in its resources--and yet the thought of being able to cross the common every day opened a dazzling vista. the very fact that mr. bashford had gone there from the west as a student, a poor student, made the prodigiously daring step seem possible to me. "if only i had a couple of hundred dollars," i said to my mother who listened to my delirious words in silence. she divined what was surging in my heart and feared it. thereafter i walked the floor of my room or wandered the prairie roads in continual debate. "what is there for me to do out here?" i demanded. "i can farm on these windy dusty acres--that's all. i am a failure as a merchant and i am sick of the country." there were moments of a morning or at sunset when the plain was splendid as a tranquil sea, and in such moments i bowed down before its mysterious beauty--but for the most part it seemed an empty, desolate, mocking world. the harvest was again light and the earth shrunk and seamed for lack of moisture. a hint of winter in the autumn air made me remember the remorseless winds and the iron earth over which the snows swept as if across an icy polar sea. i shuddered as i thought of again fighting my way to that desolate little cabin in mcpherson county. i recalled but dimly the exultation with which i had made my claim. boston, by contrast, glowed with beauty, with romance, with history, with glory like the vision of some turreted town built in the eastern sky at sunset. "i'll do it," i said at last. "i'll sell my claim. i'll go east. i'll find some little hole to creep into. i'll study night and day and so fit myself for teaching, then i'll come back west to illinois or wisconsin. never will i return to this bleak world." i offered my claim for sale and while i continued my daily labor on the farm, my mind was far-away amid the imagined splendors of the east. my father was puzzled and a good deal irritated by his son's dark moods. my failure to fit into the store was unaccountable and unreasonable. "to my thinking," said he, "you have all the school you need. you ought to find it easy to make a living in a new, progressive community like this." to him, a son who wanted to go east was temporarily demented. it was an absurd plan. "why, it's against the drift of things. you can't make a living back east. hang onto your land and you'll come out all right. the place for a young man is in the west." bitter and rebellious of mood, uneasy and uncertain of purpose my talks with him resulted only in irritation and discord, but my mother, with an abiding faith in my powers, offered no objection. she could not advise, it was all so far above and beyond her, but she patted my hand and said, "cheer up! i'm sure it will come out all right. i hate to have you go, but i guess mr. bashford is right. you need more schooling." i could see that she was saddened by the thought of the separation which was to follow--with a vague knowledge of the experience of all the mothers of pioneer sons she feared that the days of our close companionship were ended. the detachment was not for a few months, it was final. her face was very wistful and her voice tremulous as she told me to go. "it is hard for me to leave you and sister," i replied, "but i must. i'm only rotting here. i'll come back--at least to visit you." in tremendous excitement i mortgaged my claim for two hundred dollars and with that in my hand, started for the land of emerson, longfellow, and hawthorne, believing that i was in truth reversing all the laws of development, breasting the current of progress, stemming the tide of emigration. all about me other young men were streaming toward the sunset, pushing westward to escape the pressure of the earth-lords behind, whilst i alone and poor, was daring all the dangers, all the difficulties from which they were so eagerly escaping. there was in my heart an illogical exaltation as though i too were about to escape something--and yet when the actual moment of parting came, i embraced my sorrowing mother, and kissed my quaint little sister good-bye without feeling in the least heroic or self-confident. at the moment sadness weakened me, reducing me to boyish timidity. chapter xxvi on to boston with plenty of time to think, i thought, crouched low in my seat silent as an owl. true, i dozed off now and again but even when shortened by these periods of forgetfulness, the journey seemed interminable and when i reached the grimy old shed of a station which was the chicago terminal of the northwestern in those days, i was glad of a chance to taste outside air, no matter how smoky it reported itself to be. my brother, who was working in the office of a weekly farm journal, met me with an air of calm superiority. he had become a true chicagoan. under his confident leadership i soon found a boarding place and a measure of repose. i must have stayed with him for several days for i recall being hypnotized into ordering a twenty-dollar tailor-made suit from a south clark street merchant--you know the kind. it was a "prince albert soot"--my first made-to-order outfit, but the extravagance seemed justified in face of the known elegance of man's apparel in boston. it took me thirty-six hours more to get to boston, and as i was ill all the way (i again rode in the smoking car) a less triumphant jason never entered the city of light and learning. the day was a true november day, dark and rainy and cold, and when i confronted my cloud-built city of domes and towers i was concerned only with a place to sleep--i had little desire of battle and no remembrance of the golden fleece. up from the hoosac station and over the slimy, greasy pavement i trod with humped back, carrying my heavy valise (it was the same imitation-leather concern with which i had toured the city two years before), while gay little street cars tinkled by, so close to my shoulder that i could have touched them with my hand. again i found my way through haymarket square to tremont street and so at last to the common, which presented a cold and dismal face at this time. the glory of my dream had fled. the trees, bare and brown and dripping with rain, offered no shelter. the benches were sodden, the paths muddy, and the sky, lost in a desolate mist shut down over my head with oppressive weight. i crawled along the muddy walk feeling about as important as a belated beetle in a july thunderstorm. half of me was ready to surrender and go home on the next train but the other half, the obstinate half, sullenly forged ahead, busy with the problem of a roof and bed. my experience in rock river now stood me in good hand. stopping a policeman i asked the way to the young men's christian association. the officer pointed out a small tower not far away, and down the tremont street walk i plodded as wretched a youth as one would care to see. humbled, apologetic, i climbed the stairway, approached the desk, and in a weak voice requested the address of a cheap lodging place. from the cards which the clerk carelessly handed to me i selected the nearest address, which chanced to be on boylston place, a short narrow street just beyond the public library. it was a deplorably wet and gloomy alley, but i ventured down its narrow walk and desperately knocked on the door of no. . a handsome elderly woman with snow-white hair met me at the threshold. she looked entirely respectable, and as she named a price which i could afford to pay i accepted her invitation to enter. the house swarmed with life. somebody was strumming a banjo, a girl was singing, and as i mounted the stair to the first floor, a slim little maid of about fourteen met us. "this is my daughter fay," said the landlady with manifest pride. left to myself i sank into a chair with such relief as only the poor homeless country boy knows when at the end of a long tramp from the station, he lets slip his hand-bag and looks around upon a room for which he has paid. it was a plain little chamber, but it meant shelter and sleep and i was grateful. i went to bed early. i slept soundly and the world to which i awoke was new and resplendent. my headache was gone, and as i left the house in search of breakfast i found the sun shining. just around the corner on tremont street i discovered a little old man who from a sidewalk booth, sold delicious coffee in cups of two sizes,--one at three cents and a larger one at five cents. he also offered doughnuts at a penny each. having breakfasted at an outlay of exactly eight cents i returned to my chamber, which was a hall-room, eight feet by ten, and faced the north. it was heated (theoretically) from a register in the floor, and there was just space enough for my trunk, a cot and a small table at the window but as it cost only six dollars per month i was content. i figured that i could live on five dollars per week which would enable me to stay till spring. i had about one hundred and thirty dollars in my purse. from this sunless nook, this narrow niche, i began my study of boston, whose historic significance quite overpowered me. i was alone. mr. bashford, in portland, maine, was the only person in all the east on whom i could call for aid or advice in case of sickness. my father wrote me that he had relatives living in the city but i did not know how to find them. no one could have been more absolutely alone than i during that first month. i made no acquaintances, i spoke to no one. a part of each day was spent in studying the historical monuments of the city, and the remaining time was given to reading at the young men's union or in the public library, which stood next door to my lodging house. at night i made detailed studies of the habits of the cockroaches with which my room was peopled. there was something uncanny in the action of these beasts. they were new to me and apparently my like had never before been observed by them. they belonged to the shadow, to the cold and to the damp of the city, whereas i was fresh from the sunlight of the plain, and as i watched them peering out from behind my wash-basin, they appeared to marvel at me and to confer on my case with almost elfish intelligence. tantalized by an occasional feeble and vacillating current of warm air from the register, i was forced at times to wear my overcoat as i read, and at night i spread it over my cot. i did not see the sun for a month. the wind was always filled with rain or sleet, and as the lights in bates' hall were almost always blazing, i could hardly tell when day left off and night began. it seemed as if i had been plunged into another and darker world, a world of storm, of gray clouds, of endless cold. having resolved to keep all my expenses within five dollars per week, i laid down a scientific plan for cheap living. i first nosed out every low-priced eating place within ten minutes walk of my lodging and soon knew which of these "joints" were wholesome, and which were not. just around the corner was a place where a filling dinner could be procured for fifteen cents, including pudding, and the little lunch counter on tremont street supplied my breakfast. not one nickel did i spend in carfare, and yet i saw almost every celebrated building in the city. however, i tenderly regarded my shoe soles each night, for the cost of tapping was enormous. my notion of studying at some school was never carried out. the boston university classes did not attract me. the harvard lectures were inaccessible, and my call upon the teacher of "expression" to whom mr. bashford had given me a letter led to nothing. the professor was a nervous person and made the mistake of assuming that i was as timid as i was silent. his manner irritated me and the outburst of my resentment was astonishing to him. i was hungry at the moment and to be patronized was too much! this encounter plunged me into deep discouragement and i went back to my reading in the library with a despairing resolution to improve every moment, for my stay in the east could not last many weeks. at the rate my money was going may would see me bankrupt. i read both day and night, grappling with darwin, spencer, fiske, helmholtz, haeckel,--all the mighty masters of evolution whose books i had not hitherto been able to open. for diversion i dived into early english poetry and weltered in that sea of song which marks the beginnings of every literature, conning the ballads of ireland and wales, the epics of ireland, the early german and the songs of the troubadours, a course of reading which started me on a series of lectures to be written directly from a study of the authors themselves. this dimly took shape as a volume to be called _the development of english ideals_, a sufficiently ambitious project. among other proscribed books i read whitman's _leaves of grass_ and without doubt that volume changed the world for me as it did for many others. its rhythmic chants, its wonderful music filled me with a keen sense of the mystery of the near at hand. i rose from that first reading with a sense of having been taken up into high places. the spiritual significance of america was let loose upon me. herbert spencer remained my philosopher and master. with eager haste i sought to compass the "synthetic philosophy." the universe took on order and harmony as, from my five cent breakfast, i went directly to the consideration of spencer's theory of the evolution of music or painting or sculpture. it was thrilling, it was joyful to perceive that everything moved from the simple to the complex--how the bow-string became the harp, and the egg the chicken. my mental diaphragm creaked with the pressure of inrushing ideas. my brain young, sensitive to every touch, took hold of facts and theories like a phonographic cylinder, and while my body softened and my muscles wasted from disuse, i skittered from pole to pole of the intellectual universe like an impatient bat. i learned a little of everything and nothing very thoroughly. with so many peaks in sight, i had no time to spend on digging up the valley soil. my only exercise was an occasional slow walk. i could not afford to waste my food in physical effort, and besides i was thinly dressed and could not go out except when the sun shone. my overcoat was considerably more than half cotton and a poor shield against the bitter wind which drove straight from the arctic sea into my bones. even when the weather was mild, the crossings were nearly always ankle deep in slush, and walking was anything but a pleasure, therefore it happened that for days i took no outing whatsoever. from my meals i returned to my table in the library and read until closing time, conserving in every way my thirty cents' worth of "food units." in this way i covered a wide literary and scientific territory. humped over my fitful register i discussed the nebular hypothesis. my poets and scientists not merely told me of things i had never known, they confirmed me in certain conceptions which had come to me without effort in the past. i became an evolutionist in the fullest sense, accepting spencer as the greatest living thinker. fiske and galton and allen were merely assistants to the master mind whose generalizations included in their circles all modern discovery. it was a sad change when, leaving the brilliant reading room where my mind had been in contact with these masters of scientific world, i crept back to my minute den, there to sit humped and shivering (my overcoat thrown over my shoulders) confronting with scared resentment the sure wasting of my little store of dollars. in spite of all my care, the pennies departed from my pockets like grains of sand from an hour-glass and most disheartening of all i was making no apparent gain toward fitting myself for employment in the west. furthermore, the greatness, the significance, the beauty of boston was growing upon me. i felt the neighboring presence of its autocrats more definitely and powerfully each day. their names filled the daily papers, their comings and goings were carefully noted. william dean howells, oliver wendell holmes, john g. whittier, edwin booth, james russell lowell, all these towering personalities seemed very near to me now, and their presence, even if i never saw their faces, was an inspiration to one who had definitely decided to compose essays and poems, and to write possibly a history of american literature. symphony concerts, the lowell institute lectures, the _atlantic monthly_--(all the distinctive institutions of the hub) had become very precious to me notwithstanding the fact that i had little actual share in them. their nearness while making my poverty more bitter, aroused in me a vague ambition to succeed--in something. "i won't be beaten, i will not surrender," i said. being neither a resident of the city nor a pupil of any school i could not take books from the library and this inhibition wore upon me till at last i determined to seek the aid of edward everett hale who had long been a great and gracious figure in my mind. his name had been among the "authors" of our rainy-day game on the farm. i had read his books, and i had heard him preach and as his "lend-a-hand" helpfulness was proverbial, i resolved to call upon him at his study in the church, and ask his advice. i was not very definite as to what i expected him to do, probably i hoped for sympathy in some form. the old man received me with kindness, but with a look of weariness which i quickly understood. accustomed to helping people he considered me just another "case." with hesitation i explained my difficulty about taking out books. with a bluff roar he exclaimed, "well, well! that is strange! have you spoken to the librarian about it?" "i have, dr. hale, but he told me there were twenty thousand young students in the city in precisely my condition. people not residents and with no one to vouch for them cannot take books home." "i don't like that," he said. "i will look into that. you shall be provided for. present my card to judge chamberlain; i am one of the trustees, and he will see that you have all the books you want." i thanked him and withdrew, feeling that i had gained a point. i presented the card to the librarian whose manner softened at once. as a protégé of dr. hale i was distinguished. "i will see what can be done for you," said judge chamberlain. thereafter i was able to take books to my room, a habit which still further imperilled my health, for i read fourteen hours a day instead of ten. naturally i grew white and weak. my dakota tan and my corn-fed muscle melted away. the only part of me which flourished was my hair. i begrudged every quarter which went to the barbers and i was cold most of the time (except when i infested the library) and i was hungry _all_ the time. i knew that i was physically on the down-grade, but what could i do? nothing except to cut down my expenses. i was living on less than five dollars a week, but even at that the end of my _stay_ in the city was not far off. hence i walked gingerly and read fiercely. bates' hall was deliciously comfortable, and every day at nine o'clock i was at the door eager to enter. i spent most of my day at a desk in the big central reading room, but at night i haunted the young men's union, thus adding myself to a dubious collection of half-demented, ill-clothed derelicts, who suffered the contempt of the attendants by reason of their filling all the chairs and monopolizing all the newspaper racks. we never conversed one with another and no one knew my name, but there came to be a certain diplomatic understanding amongst us somewhat as snakes, rabbits, hyenas, and turtles sometimes form "happy families." there was one old ruffian who always sniffled and snuffled like a fat hog as he read, monopolizing my favorite newspaper. another member of the circle perused the same page of the same book day after day, laughing vacuously over its contents. never by any mistake did he call for a different book, and i never saw him turn a leaf. no doubt i was counted as one of this group of irresponsibles. all this hurt me. i saw no humor in it then, for i was even at this time an intellectual aristocrat. i despised brainless folk. i hated these loafers. i loathed the clerk at the desk who dismissed me with a contemptuous smirk, and i resented the formal smile and impersonal politeness of mr. baldwin, the president. of course i understood that the attendants knew nothing of my dreams and my ambitions, and that they were treating me quite as well as my looks warranted, but i blamed them just the same, furious at my own helplessness to demonstrate my claims for higher honors. during all this time the only woman i knew was my landlady, mrs. davis, and her daughter fay. once a week i curtly said, "here is your rent, mrs. davis," and yet, several times she asked with concern, "how are you feeling?--you don't look well. why don't you board with me? i can feed you quite as cheaply as you can board yourself." it is probable that she read slow starvation in my face, but i haughtily answered, "thank you, i prefer to take my meals out." as a matter of fact, i dreaded contact with the other boarders. as a member of the union a certain number of lectures were open to me and so night by night, in company with my fellow "nuts," i called for my ticket and took my place in line at the door, like a charity patient at a hospital. however, as i seldom occupied a seat to the exclusion of anyone else and as my presence usually helped to keep the speaker in countenance, i had no qualms. the union audience was notoriously the worst audience in boston, being in truth a group of intellectual mendicants waiting for oratorical hand-me-outs. if we didn't happen to like the sandwiches or the dry doughnuts given us, we threw them down and walked away. nevertheless in this hall i heard nearly all the great preachers of the city, and though some of their cant phrases worried me, i was benefited by the literary allusions of others. carpenter retained nothing of the old-fashioned theology, and hale was always a delight--so was minot savage. dr. bartol, a quaint absorbing survival of the concord school of philosophy, came once, and i often went to his sunday service. it was always joy to enter the old west meeting house for it remained almost precisely as it was in revolutionary days. its pews, its curtains, its footstools, its pulpit, were all deliciously suggestive of the time when stately elms looked in at the window, and when the minister, tall, white-haired, black-cravatted arose in the high pulpit and began to read with curious, sing-song cadences a chant from _job_ i easily imagined myself listening to ralph waldo emerson. his sermons held no cheap phrases and his sentences delighted me by their neat literary grace. once in an address on grant he said, "he was an atmospheric man. he developed from the war-cloud like a bolt of lightning." perhaps minot savage pleased me best of all for he too was a disciple of spencer, a logical, consistent, and fearless evolutionist. he often quoted from the poets in his sermon. once he read whitman's "song of myself" with such power, such sense of rhythm that his congregation broke into applause at the end. i heard also (at tremont temple and elsewhere) men like george william curtis, henry ward beecher, and frederick douglass, but greatest of all in a certain sense was the influence of edwin booth who taught me the greatness of shakespeare and the glory of english speech. poor as i was, i visited the old museum night after night, paying thirty-five cents which admitted me to a standing place in the first balcony, and there on my feet and in complete absorption, i saw in wondrous procession _hamlet_, _lear_, _othello_, _petruchio_, _sir giles overreach_, _macbeth_, _iago_, and _richelieu_ emerge from the shadow and re-enact their tragic lives before my eyes. these were my purple, splendid hours. from the light of this glorious mimic world i stumbled down the stairs out into the night, careless of wind or snow, my brain in a tumult of revolt, my soul surging with high resolves. the stimulation of these performances was very great. the art of this "prince of tragedy" was a powerful educational influence along the lines of oratory, poetry and the drama. he expressed to me the soul of english literature. he exemplified the music of english speech. his acting was at once painting and sculpture and music and i became still more economical of food in order that i might the more often bask in the golden atmosphere of his world. i said, "i, too, will help to make the dead lines of the great poets speak to the living people of today," and with new fervor bent to the study of oratory as the handmaid of poetry. the boys who acted as ushers in the balcony came at length to know me, and sometimes when it happened that some unlucky suburbanite was forced to leave his seat near the railing, one of the lads would nod at me and allow me to slip down and take the empty place. in this way i got closer to the marvellous lines of the actor's face, and was enabled to read and record the subtler, fleeter shadows of his expression. i have never looked upon a face with such transcendent power of externalizing and differentiating emotions, and i have never heard a voice of equal beauty and majesty. booth taught millions of americans the dignity, the power and the music of the english tongue. he set a high mark in grace and precision of gesture, and the mysterious force of his essentially tragic spirit made so deep an impression upon those who heard him that they confused him with the characters he portrayed. as for me--i could not sleep for hours after leaving the theater. line by line i made mental note of the actor's gestures, accents, and cadences and afterward wrote them carefully down. as i closed my eyes for sleep i could hear that solemn chant "_duncan is in his grave. after life's fitful fever he sleeps well._" with horror and admiration i recalled him, when as _sir giles_, with palsied hand helpless by his side, his face distorted, he muttered as if to himself, "some undone widow sits upon my sword," or when as _petruchio_ in making a playful snatch at kate's hand with the blaze of a lion's anger in his eye his voice rang out, "were it the paw of an angry bear, i'd smite it off--but as it's kate's i kiss it." to the boy from the cabin on the dakota plain these stage pictures were of almost incommunicable beauty and significance. they justified me in all my daring. they made any suffering past, present, or future, worth while, and the knowledge that these glories were evanescent and that i must soon return to the dakota plain only deepened their power and added to the grandeur of every scene. booth's home at this time was on beacon hill, and i used to walk reverently by just to see where the great man housed. once, the door being open, i caught a momentary glimpse of a curiously ornate umbrella stand, and the soft glow of a distant lamp, and the vision greatly enriched me. this singularly endowed artist presented to me the radiant summit of human happiness and glory, and to see him walk in or out of his door was my silent hope, but alas, this felicity was denied me! under the spell of these performers, i wrote a series of studies of the tragedian in his greatest rôles. "edwin booth as lear," "edwin booth as hamlet," and so on, recording with minutest fidelity every gesture, every accent, till four of these impersonations were preserved on the page as if in amber. i re-read my shakespeare in the light of booth's eyes, in the sound of his magic voice, and when the season ended, the city grew dark, doubly dark for me. thereafter i lived in the fading glory of that month. these were growing days! i had moments of tremendous expansion, hours when my mind went out over the earth like a freed eagle, but these flights were always succeeded by fits of depression as i realized my weakness and my poverty. nevertheless i persisted in my studies. under the influence of spencer i traced a parallel development of the arts and found a measure of scientific peace. under the inspiration of whitman i pondered the significance of democracy and caught some part of its spiritual import. with henry george as guide, i discovered the main cause of poverty and suffering in the world, and so in my little room, living on forty cents a day, i was in a sense profoundly happy. so long as i had a dollar and a half with which to pay my rent and two dollars for the keepers of the various dives in which i secured my food, i was imaginatively the equal of booth and brother to the kings of song. and yet one stern persistent fact remained, my money was passing and i was growing weaker and paler every day. the cockroaches no longer amused me. coming as i did from a land where the sky made up half the world i resented being thus condemned to a nook from which i could see only a gray rag of mist hanging above a neighboring chimney. in the moments when i closely confronted my situation the glory of the western sky came back to me, and it must have been during one of these dreary storms that i began to write a poor faltering little story which told of the adventures of a cattleman in the city. no doubt it was the expression of the homesickness at my own heart but only one or two of the chapters ever took shape, for i was tortured by the feeling that no matter how great the intellectual advancement caused by hearing edwin booth in _hamlet_ might be, it would avail me nothing when confronted by the school committee of blankville, illinois. i had moments of being troubled and uneasy and at times experienced a feeling that was almost despair. chapter xxvii enter a friend one night seeing that the principal of a well known school of oratory was bulletined to lecture at the young men's union upon "the philosophy of expression" i went to hear him, more by way of routine than with any expectation of being enlightened or even interested, but his very first words surprised and delighted me. his tone was positive, his phrases epigrammatic, and i applauded heartily. "here is a man of thought," i said. at the close of the address i ventured to the platform and expressed to him my interest in what he had said. he was a large man with a broad and smiling face, framed in a brown beard. he appeared pleased with my compliments and asked if i were a resident of boston. "no, i am a western man," i replied. "i am here to study and i was especially interested in your quotations from darwin's book on _expression in man and animals_." his eyes expressed surprise and after a few minutes' conversation, he gave me his card saying, "come and see me tomorrow morning at my office." i went home pleasantly excited by this encounter. after months of unbroken solitude in the midst of throngs of strangers, this man's cordial invitation meant much to me. on the following morning, at the hour set, i called at the door of his office on the top floor of no. beacon street, which was an old-fashioned one-story building without an elevator. brown asked me where i came from, what my plans were, and i replied with eager confidence. then we grew harmoniously enthusiastic over herbert spencer and darwin and mantegazza and i talked a stream. my long silence found vent. words poured from me in a torrent but he listened smilingly, his big head cocked on one side, waiting patiently for me to blow off steam. later, when given a chance, he showed me the manuscript of a book upon which he was at work and together we discussed its main thesis. he asked me my opinion of this passage and that--and i replied, not as a pupil but as an equal, and the author seemed pleased at my candor. two hours passed swiftly in this way and as the interview was about to end he asked, "where do you live?" i told him and explained that i was trying to fit myself for teaching and that i was living as cheaply as possible. "i haven't any money for tuition," i confessed. he mused a moment, then said, "if you wish to come into my school i shall be glad to have you do so. never mind about tuition,--pay me when you can." this generous offer sent me away filled with gratitude and an illogical hope. not only had i gained a friend, i had found an intellectual comrade, one who was far more widely read, at least in science, than i. i went to my ten-cent lunch with a feeling that a door had unexpectedly opened and that it led into broader, sunnier fields of toil. the school, which consisted of several plain offices and a large class-room, was attended by some seventy or eighty pupils, mostly girls from new england and canada with a few from indiana and ohio. it was a simple little workshop but to me it was the most important institution in boston. it gave me welcome, and as i came into it on monday morning at nine o'clock and was introduced to the pretty teacher of delsarte, miss maida craigen, whose smiling lips and big irish-gray eyes made her beloved of all her pupils, i felt that my lonely life in boston was ended. the teachers met me with formal kindliness, finding in me only another crude lump to be moulded into form, and while i did not blame them for it, i instantly drew inside my shell and remained there--thus robbing myself of much that would have done me good. some of the girls went out of their way to be nice to me, but i kept aloof, filled with a savage resentment of my poverty and my threadbare clothing. before the week was over, professor brown asked me to assist in reading the proof-sheets of his new book and this i did, going over it with him line by line. his deference to my judgment was a sincere compliment to my reading and warmed my heart like some elixir. it was my first authoritative appreciation and when at the end of the third session he said, "i shall consider your criticism more than equal to the sum of your tuition," i began to faintly forecast the time when my brain would make me self-supporting. my days were now cheerful. my life had direction. for two hours each afternoon (when work in the school was over) i sat with brown discussing the laws of dramatic art, and to make myself still more valuable in this work, i read every listed book or article upon expression, and translated several french authorities, transcribing them in longhand for his use. in this work the weeks went by and spring approached. in a certain sense i felt that i was gaining an education which would be of value to me but i was not earning one cent of money, and my out-go was more than five dollars per week, for i occasionally went to the theater, and i had also begun attendance at the boston symphony concerts in music hall. by paying twenty-five cents students were allowed to fill the gallery and to stand on the ground floor, and friday afternoons generally found me leaning against the wall listening to brahms and wagner. at such times i often thought of my mother, and my uncle david and wished that they too might hear these wondrous harmonies. i tried to imagine what the effect of this tumult of sound would be, as it beat in upon their inherited deeply musical brain-cells! one by one i caught up the threads of certain other peculiar boston interests, and by careful reading of the _transcript_ was enabled to vibrate in full harmony with the local hymn of gratitude. new york became a mere emporium, a town without a library, a city without a first class orchestra, the home of a few commercial painters and several journalistic poets! chicago was a huge dirty town on the middle border. washington a vulgar political camp--only philadelphia was admitted to have the quality of a real city and her literary and artistic resources were pitiably slender and failing! but all the time that i was feasting on these insubstantial glories, my meat was being cut down and my coat hung ever more loosely over my ribs. pale and languid i longed for spring, for sunshine, with all the passion of a prisoner, and when at last the grass began to show green in the sheltered places on the common and the sparrows began to utter their love notes, i went often of an afternoon to a bench in lee of a clump of trees and there sprawled out like a debilitated fox, basking in the tepid rays of a diminished sun. for all his expressed admiration of my literary and scientific acumen, brown did not see fit to invite me to dinner, probably because of my rusty suit and frayed cuffs. i did not blame him. i was in truth a shabby figure, and the dark-brown beard which had come upon me added to the unhealthy pallor of my skin, so that mrs. brown, a rather smart and socially ambitious lady, must have regarded me as something of an anarchist, a person to avoid. she always smiled as we met, but her smile was defensive. however, a blessed break in the monotony of my fare came during april when my friend bashford invited me to visit him in portland. i accepted his invitation with naïve precipitation and furbished up my wardrobe as best i could, feeling that even the wife of a clergyman might not welcome a visitor with fringed cuffs and celluloid collars. this was my first sea voyage and i greatly enjoyed the trip--after i got there! mrs. bashford received me kindly, but (i imagined) with a trace of official hospitality in her greeting. it was plain that she (like mrs. brown) considered me a "charity patient." well, no matter, bashford and i got on smoothly. their house was large and its grandeur was almost oppressive to me, but i spent nearly a week in it. as i was leaving, bashford gave me a card to dr. cross, a former parishioner in jamaica plain, saying, "call upon the doctor as soon as you return. he'll be glad to hear of dakota." my little den in boylston place was almost intolerable to me now. spring sunshine, real sunshine flooded the land and my heart was full of longing for the country. therefore--though i dreaded meeting another stranger,--i decided to risk a dime and make the trip to jamaica plains, to call upon dr. cross. this ride was a further revelation of the beauty of new england. for half an hour the little horse-car ran along winding lanes under great overarching elm trees, past apple-orchards in bursting bloom. on every hand luscious lawns spread, filled with crocuses and dandelions just beginning to spangle the green. the effect upon me was somewhat like that which would be produced in the mind of a convict who should suddenly find his prison doors opening into a june meadow. standing with the driver on the front platform, i drank deep of the flower-scented air. i had never seen anything more beautiful. dr. cross, a sweet and gentle man of about sixty years of age (not unlike in manner and habit professor bush, my principal at the cedar valley seminary) received his seedy visitor with a kindly smile. i liked him and trusted him at once. he was tall and very thin, with dark eyes and a long gray beard. his face was absolutely without suspicion or guile. it was impossible to conceive of his doing an unkind or hasty act, and he afterward said that i had the pallor of a man who had been living in a cellar. "i was genuinely alarmed about you," he said. his small frame house was simple, but it stood in the midst of a clump of pear trees, and when i broke out in lyrical praise of the beauty of the grass and glory of the flowers, the doctor smiled and became even more distinctly friendly. it appeared that through mr. bashford he had purchased a farm in dakota, and the fact that i knew all about it and all about wheat farming gave me distinction. he introduced me to his wife, a wholesome hearty soul who invited me to dinner. i stayed. it was my first chance at a real meal since my visit to portland, and i left the house with a full stomach, as well as a full heart, feeling that the world was not quite so unfriendly after all. "come again on sunday," the doctor almost commanded. "we shall expect you." my money had now retired to the lower corner of my left-hand pocket and it was evident that unless i called upon my father for help i must go back to the west; and much as i loved to talk of the broad fields and pleasant streams of dakota, i dreaded the approach of the hour when i must leave boston, which was coming to mean more and more to me every day. in a blind vague way i felt that to leave boston was to leave all hope of a literary career and yet i saw no way of earning money in the city. in the stress of my need i thought of an old friend, a carpenter in greenfield. "i'm sure he will give me a job," i said. with this in mind i went into professor brown's office one morning and i said, "well, professor, i must leave you." "what's that? what's the matter?" queried the principal shrilly. "my money's gone. i've got to get out and earn more," i answered sadly. he eyed me gravely. "what are you going to do?" he inquired. "i am going back to shingling," i said with tragic accent. "shingling!" the old man exclaimed, and then began to laugh, his big paunch shaking up and down with the force of his mirth. "shingling!" he shouted finally. "can _you_ shingle?" "you bet i can," i replied with comical access of pride, "but i don't like to. that is to say i don't like to give up my work here in boston just when i am beginning to feel at home." brown continued to chuckle. to hear that a man who knew mantegazza and darwin and whitman and browning could even _think_ of shingling, was highly humorous, but as he studied my forlorn face he sensed the despairing quiver in my voice and his kind heart softened. he ceased to smile. "oh, you mustn't do that," he said earnestly. "you mustn't surrender now. we'll fix up some way for you to earn your keep. can't you borrow a little?" "yes, i could get a few dollars from home, but i don't feel justified in doing so,--times are hard out there and besides i see no way of repaying a loan." he pondered a moment, "well, now i'll tell you what we'll do. i'll make you our instructor in literature for the summer term and i'll put your booth lecture on the programme. that will give you a start, and perhaps something else will develop for the autumn." this noble offer so emboldened me that i sent west for twenty-five dollars to pay my board, and to have my suit dyed.--it was the very same suit i had bought of the clark street tailor, and the aniline purple had turned pink along the seams--or if not pink it was some other color equally noticeable in the raiment of a lecturer, and not to be endured. i also purchased a new pair of shoes and a necktie of the windsor pattern. this cravat and my long prince albert frock, while not strictly in fashion, made me feel at least presentable. another piece of good fortune came to me soon after. dr. cross again invited me to dine and after dinner as we were driving together along one of the country lanes, the good doctor said, "mrs. cross is going up into new hampshire for the summer and i shall be alone in the house. why don't you come and stay with me? you need the open air, and i need company." this generous offer nearly shipwrecked my dignity. several moments passed before i could control my voice to thank him. at last i said, "that's very kind of you, doctor. i'll come if you will let me pay at least the cost of my board." the doctor understood this feeling and asked, "how much are you paying now?" with slight evasion i replied, "well, i try to keep within five dollars a week." he smiled. "i don't see how you do it, but i can give you an attic room and you can pay me at your convenience." this noble invitation translated me from my dark, cold, cramped den (with its night-guard of redoubtable cockroaches) into the light and air of a comfortable suburban home. it took me back to the sky and the birds and the grass--and irish mary, the cook, put red blood into my veins. in my sabbath walks along the beautiful country roads, i heard again the song of the cat-bird and the trill of the bobolink. for the first time in months i slept in freedom from hunger, in security of the morrow. oh, good hiram cross, your golden crown should be studded with jewels, for your life was filled with kindnesses like this! meanwhile, in preparation for the summer term i gladly helped stamp and mail brown's circulars. the lecture "edwin booth as iago" i carefully re-wrote--for brown had placed it on his printed programme and had also announced me as "instructor in literature." i took care to send this circular to all my friends and relatives in the west. decidedly that summer of taine in a dakota cabin was bearing fruit, and yet just in proportion as brown came to believe in my ability so did he proceed to "hector" me. he never failed to ask of a morning, "well, when are you going back to shingling?" the summer school opened in july. it was well attended, and the membership being made up of teachers of english and oratory from several states was very impressive to me. professors of elocution and of literature from well-known colleges and universities gave dignity and distinction to every session. my class was very small and paid me very little but it brought me to know mrs. payne, a studious, kindly woman (a resident of hyde park), who for some reason which will forever remain obscure, considered me not merely a youth of promise, but a lecturer of value. having heard from brown how sadly i needed money--perhaps she even detected poverty in my dyed coat, she not only invited me to deliver an immediate course of lectures at her house in hyde park but proceeded to force tickets upon all her friends. the importance of this engagement will appear when the reader is informed that i was owing the doctor for a month's board, and saw no way of paying it, and that my one suit was distressingly threadbare. there are other and more interesting ways of getting famous but alas! i rose only by inches and incredible effort. my reader must be patient with me. my subjects were ambitious enough, "the art of edwin booth," was ready for delivery, but "victor hugo and his prose masterpieces," was only partly composed and "the modern german novel" and "the american novel" were in notes merely, therefore with puckered brow and sturdy pen i set to work in my little attic room, and there i toiled day and night to put on paper the notions i had acquired concerning these grandiose subjects. in after years i was appalled at the audacity of that schedule, and i think i had the grace to be scared at the time, but i swung into it recklessly. tickets had been taken by some of the best known men among the teachers, and i was assured by mrs. payne that we would have the most distinguished audience that ever graced hyde park. "among your listeners will be the literary editors of several boston papers, two celebrated painters, and several well-known professors of oratory," she said, and like lieutenant napoleon called upon to demonstrate his powers, i graved with large and ruthless fist, and approached my opening date with palpitating but determined heart. it was a tense moment for me as (while awaiting my introduction) i looked into the faces of the men and women seated in that crowded parlor. just before the dais, shading his eyes with his hand, was a small man with a pale face and brown beard. this was charles e. hurd, literary editor of the _transcript_. near him sat theodore weld, as venerable in appearance as socrates (with long white hair and rosy cheeks), well known as one of the anti-slavery guard, a close friend of wendell phillips and william lloyd garrison. beside him was professor raymond of princeton, the author of several books, while churchill of andover and half a dozen other representatives of great colleges loomed behind him. i faced them all with a gambler's composure but behind my mask i was jellied with fear. however, when i rose to speak, the tremor passed out of my limbs, the blood came back to my brain, and i began without stammering. this first paper, fortunately for us all, dealt with edwin booth, whom i revered. to my mind he not only expressed the highest reach of dramatic art in his day, he was the best living interpreter of shakespeare, and no doubt it was the sincerity of my utterance which held my hearers, for they all listened intently while i analyzed the character of _iago_, and disclosed what seemed to me to be the sources of the great tragedian's power, and when i finished they applauded with unmistakable approval, and mrs. payne glowed with a sense of proprietorship in her protégé who had seized the opportunity and made it his. i was absurd but triumphant. many of the guests (kindly of spirit) came up to shake hands and congratulate me. mr. hurd gave me a close grip and said, "come up to the _transcript_ office and see me." john j. enneking, a big, awkward red-bearded painter, elbowed up and in his queer german way spoke in approval. churchill, raymond, both said, "you'll do," and brown finally came along with a mocking smile on his big face, eyed me with an air of quizzical comradeship, nudged me slyly with his elbow as he went by, and said, "going back to shingling, are you?" on the homeward drive, dr. cross said very solemnly, "you have no need to fear the future." it was a very small event in the history of hyde park, but it was a veritable bridge of lodi for me. i never afterward felt lonely or disheartened in boston. i had been tested both as teacher and orator and i must be pardoned for a sudden growth of boyish self-confidence. the three lectures which followed were not so successful as the first, but my audience remained. indeed i think it would have increased night by night had the room permitted it, and mrs. payne was still perfectly sure that her protégé had in him all the elements of success, but i fear prof. church expressed the sad truth when he said in writing, "your man garland is a diamond in the rough!" of course i must have appeared very seedy and uncouth to these people and i am filled with wonder at their kindness to me. my accent was western. my coat sleeves shone at the elbows, my trousers bagged at the knees. considering the anarch i must have been, i marvel at their toleration. no western audience could have been more hospitable, more cordial. the ninety dollars which i gained from this series of lectures was, let me say, the less important part of my victory, and yet it was wondrous opportune. they enabled me to cancel my indebtedness to the doctor, and still have a little something to keep me going until my classes began in october, and as my landlord did not actually evict me, i stayed on shamelessly, fattening visibly on the puddings and roasts which mrs. cross provided and dear old mary cooked with joy. she was the true artist. she loved to see her work appreciated. my class in english literature that term numbered twenty and the money which this brought carried me through till the mid-winter vacation, and permitted another glorious season of booth and the symphony orchestra. in the month of january i organized a class in american literature, and so at last became self-supporting in the city of boston! no one who has not been through it can realize the greatness of this victory. i permitted myself a few improvements in hose and linen. i bought a leather hand-bag with a shoulder strap, and every day joined the stream of clerks and students crossing the common. i began to feel a proprietary interest in the hub. my sleeping room (also my study), continued to be in the attic (a true attic with a sloping roof and one window) but the window faced the south, and in it i did all my reading and writing. it was hot on sunny days and dark on cloudy days, but it was a refuge. as a citizen with a known habitation i was permitted to carry away books from the library, and each morning from eight until half-past twelve i sat at my desk writing, tearing away at some lecture, or historical essay, and once in a while i composed a few lines of verse. five afternoons in each week i went to my classes and to the library, returning at six o'clock to my dinner and to my reading. this was my routine, and i was happy in it. my letters to my people in the west were confident, more confident than i ofttimes felt. during my second summer burton babcock, who had decided to study for the unitarian ministry, came east with intent to enter the divinity school at harvard. he was the same old burton, painfully shy, thoughtful, quaintly abrupt in manner, and together we visited the authorities at cambridge and presented his case as best we could. for some reason not clear to either of us, the school refused to aid and after a week's stay with me burton, a little disheartened but not resentful, went to meadville, pennsylvania. boston seemed very wonderful to him and i enjoyed his visit keenly. we talked inevitably of old friends and old days in the manner of middle-aged men, and he told me that john gammons had entered the methodist ministry and was stationed in decorah, that charles, my former partner in dakota, had returned to the old home very ill with some obscure disease. mitchell morrison was a watch-maker and jeweler in winona and lee moss had gone to superior. the scattering process had begun. the diverging wind-currents of destiny had already parted our little group and every year would see its members farther apart. how remote it all seems to me now,--like something experienced on another planet! each month saw me more and more the bostonian by adoption. my teaching paid my board, leaving me free to study and to write. i never did any hack-work for the newspapers. hawthorne's influence over me was still powerful, and in my first attempts at writing fiction i kept to the essay form and sought for a certain distinction in tone. in poetry, however, bret harte, joaquin miller, and walt whitman were more to my way of thinking than either poe or emerson. in brief i was sadly "mixed." perhaps the enforced confinement of my city life gave all poems of the open air, of the prairies, their great and growing power over me for i had resolved to remain in boston until such time as i could return to the west in the guise of a conqueror. just what i was about to conquer and in what way i was to secure eminence was not very clear to me, but i was resolved none the less, and had no immediate intention of returning. in the summer of brown held another summer school and again i taught a class. autumn brought a larger success. mrs. lee started a browning class in chelsea, and another loyal pupil organized a shakespeare class in waltham. i enjoyed my trips to these classes very much and one of the first stories i ever wrote was suggested by some characters i saw in an old grocery store in waltham. as i recall my method of teaching, it consisted chiefly of readings. my critical comment could not have been profound. i was earning now twelve dollars per week, part of this went for railway fare, but i still had a margin of profit. true i still wore reversible cuffs and carried my laundry bundles in order to secure the discount, but i dressed in better style and looked a little less like a starving russian artist, and i was becoming an author! my entrance into print came about through my good friend, mr. hurd, the book reviewer of the _transcript_. for him i began to write an occasional critical article or poem just to try my hand. one of my regular "beats" was up the three long flights of stairs which led to hurd's little den above washington street, for there i felt myself a little more of the literary man, a little nearer the current of american fiction. let me repeat my appreciation of the fact that i met with the quickest response and the most generous aid among the people of boston. there was nothing cold or critical in their treatment of me. my success, admittedly, came from some sympathy in them rather than from any real deserving on my part. i cannot understand at this distance why those charming people should have consented to receive from me, opinions concerning anything whatsoever,--least of all notions of literature,--but they did, and they seemed delighted at "discovering" me. perhaps they were surprised at finding so much intelligence in a man from the plains. it was well that i was earning my own living at last, for things were not going especially well at home. a couple of dry seasons had made a great change in the fortunes of my people. frank, with his usual careless good nature as clerk in the store had given credit to almost every comer, and as the hard times came on, many of those indebted failed to pay, and father was forced to give up his business and go back to the farm which he understood and could manage without the aid of an accountant. "the junior" as i called my brother, being footloose and discontented, wrote to say that he was planning to go farther west--to montana, i think it was. his letter threw me into dismay. i acknowledged once again that my education had in a sense been bought at his expense. i recalled the many weeks when the little chap had plowed in my stead whilst i was enjoying the inspiration of osage. it gave me distress to think of him separating himself from the family as david had done, and yet my own position was too insecure to warrant me promising much in his aid. nevertheless, realizing that mother would suffer less if she knew her two sons were together, i wrote, saying, "if you have definitely decided on leaving home, don't go west. come to boston, and i will see if i cannot get you something to do." it ended in his coming to boston, and my mother was profoundly relieved. father gave no sign either of pleasure or regret. he set to work once more increasing his acreage, vigorous and unsubdued. frank's coming added to my burden of responsibility and care, but increased my pleasure in the city, for i now had someone to show it to. he secured a position as an accountant in a railway office and though we seldom met during the week, on sundays we roamed the parks, or took excursions down the bay, and in a short time he too became an enthusiastic bostonian with no thought of returning to dakota. little jessie was now the sole stay and comfort of our mother. as i look back now upon the busy, happy days of and , i can grasp only a few salient experiences.... a terrific storm is on the sea. we are at nantasket to study it. the enormous waves are charging in from the illimitable sky like an army of horses, only to fall and waste themselves in wrath upon the sand. i feel the stinging blast against my face.... i am riding on a train over the marshes on my way to my class in chelsea. i look across the level bay and behold a soaring banner of sunshot mist, spun by a passing engine, rising, floating, vanishing in the air.... i am sitting in an old grocery shop in waltham listening to the quaint aphorism of a group of loafers around the stove.... i am lecturing before a summer school in pepperel, new hampshire.... i am at the theater, i hear salvini thunderously clamoring on the stage. i see modjeska's beautiful hands. i thrill to sarah bernhardt's velvet somber voice.... it is summer, frank and i are walking the lovely lanes of milton under gigantic elms, or lying on the grass of the park in west roxbury, watching the wild birds come and go, hearing the sound of the scythestone in the meadow. day by day, week by week, boston, new england, comes to fuse that part of me which is eastern. i grow at last into thinking myself a fixture. boston is the center of music, of art, of literature. my only wish now is to earn money enough to visit my people in the west. and yet, notwithstanding all this, neither of us ever really became a bostonian. we never got beyond a feeling for the beauty, the picturesqueness and the charm of our surroundings. the east caused me to cry out in admiration, but it did not inspire me to write. it did not appeal to me as my material. it was rather as a story already told, a song already sung. when i walked a lane, or saw the sloping roof of a house set against a hillside i thought of whittier or hawthorne and was silent. the sea reminded me of celia thaxter or lucy larcom. the marshes brought up the _wayside inn_ of longfellow; all, all was of the past. new england, rich with its memories of great men and noble women, had no direct inspiration for me, a son of the west. it did not lay hold upon my creative imagination, neither did it inspire me to sing of its glory. i remained immutably of the middle border and strange to say, my desire to celebrate the west was growing. each season dropped a thickening veil of mist between me and the scenes of my youth, adding a poetic glamour to every rememberable form and fact. each spring when the smell of fresh, uncovered earth returned to fret my nostrils i thought of the wide fields of iowa, of the level plains of dakota, and a desire to hear once more the prairie chicken calling from the ridges filled my heart. in the autumn when the wind swept through the bare branches of the elm, i thought of the lonely days of plowing on the prairie, and the poetry and significance of those wild gray days came over me with such power that i instinctively seized my pen to write of them. one day, a man shoveling coal in the alley below my window reminded me of that peculiar ringing _scrape_ which the farm shovel used to make when (on the iowa farm) at dusk i scooped my load of corn from the wagon box to the crib, and straightway i fell a-dreaming, and from dreaming i came to composition, and so it happened that my first writing of any significance was an article depicting an iowa corn-husking scene. it was not merely a picture of the life my brother and i had lived,--it was an attempt to set forth a typical scene of the middle border. "the farm life of new england has been fully celebrated by means of innumerable stories and poems," i began, "its husking bees, its dances, its winter scenes are all on record; is it not time that we of the west should depict our own distinctive life? the middle border has its poetry, its beauty, if we can only see it." to emphasize these differences i called this first article "the western corn husking," and put into it the grim report of the man who had "been there," an insistence on the painful as well as the pleasant truth, a quality which was discovered afterwards to be characteristic of my work. the bitter truth was strongly developed in this first article. up to this time i had composed nothing except several more or less high-falutin' essays, a few poems and one or two stories somewhat in imitation of hawthorne, but in this my first real shot at the delineation of prairie life, i had no models. perhaps this clear field helped me to be true. it was not fiction, as i had no intention at that time of becoming a fictionist, but it was fact, for it included the mud and cold of the landscape as well as its bloom and charm. i sent "the corn husking" to the _new american magazine_, and almost by return mail the editor, william wyckoff, wrote an inspiring letter to the effect that the life i had described was familiar to him, and that it had never been treated in this way. "i shall be very glad to read anything you have written or may write, and i suggest that you follow up this article by others of the same nature." it was just the encouragement i needed. i fell to work at once upon other articles, taking up the seasons one by one. wyckoff accepted them gladly, but paid for them slowly and meagerly--but i did not blame him for that. his magazine was even then struggling for life. it must have been about this time that i sold to _harper's weekly_ a long poem of the prairie, for which i was paid the enormous sum of twenty-five dollars. with this, the first money i ever had received for magazine writing, i hastened to purchase some silk for my mother, and the _memoirs of general grant_ for my father, with intent to suitably record and celebrate my entrance into literature. for the first time in her life, my mother was able to wear a silk dress, and she wrote, soon after, a proud and grateful letter saying things which blurred my eyes and put a lump into my throat. if only i could have laid the silk in her lap, and caught the light of her happy smile! chapter xxviii a visit to the west at twenty-seven years of age, and after having been six years absent from osage, the little town in which i went to school, i found myself able to revisit it. my earnings were still humiliatingly less than those of a hod-carrier, but by shameless economy i had saved a little over one hundred dollars and with this as a travelling fund, i set forth at the close of school, on a vacation tour which was planned to include the old home in the coulee, the iowa farm, and my father's house in dakota. i took passage in a first class coach this time, but was still a long way from buying a berth in a sleeping car. to find myself actually on the train and speeding westward was deeply and pleasurably exciting, but i did not realize how keen my hunger for familiar things had grown, till the next day when i reached the level lands of indiana. every field of wheat, every broad hat, every honest treatment of the letter "r" gave me assurance that i was approaching my native place. the reapers at work in the fields filled my mind with visions of the past. the very weeds at the roadside had a magical appeal and yet, eager as i was to reach old friends, i found in chicago a new friend whose sympathy was so stimulating, so helpful that i delayed my journey for two days in order that i might profit by his critical comment. this meeting came about in a literary way. some months earlier, in may, to be exact, hurd of the _transcript_ had placed in my hands a novel called _zury_ and my review of it had drawn from its author, a western man, a letter of thanks and a cordial invitation to visit him as i passed through chicago, on my way to my old home. this i had gladly accepted, and now with keen interest, i was on my way to his home. joseph kirkland was at this time nearly sixty years of age, a small, alert, dark-eyed man, a lawyer, who lived in what seemed to me at the time, plutocratic grandeur, but in spite of all this, and notwithstanding the difference in our ages, i liked him and we formed an immediate friendship. "mrs. kirkland and my daughters are in michigan for the summer," he explained, "and i am camping in my study." i was rather glad of this arrangement for, having the house entirely to ourselves, we could discuss realism, howells and the land-question with full vigor and all night if we felt like it. kirkland had read some of my western sketches and in the midst of his praise of them suddenly asked, "why don't you write fiction?" to this i replied, "i can't manage the dialogue." "nonsense!" said he. "you're lazy, that's all. you use the narrative form because it's easier. buckle to it--you can write stories as well as i can--but you must sweat!" this so surprised me that i was unable to make any denial of his charge. the fact is he was right. to compose a page of conversation, wherein each actor uses his own accent and speaks from his own point of view, was not easy. i had dodged the hard spots. the older man's bluntness and humor, and his almost wistful appreciation of my youth and capacity for being moved, troubled me, absorbed my mind even during our talk. some of his words stuck like burrs, because they seemed so absurd. "when your name is known all over the west," he said in parting, "remember what i say. you can go far if you'll only work. i began too late. i can't emotionalize present day western life--you can, but you must bend to your desk like a man. you must grind!" i didn't feel in the least like a successful fictionist and being a household word seemed very remote,--but i went away resolved to "grind" if grinding would do any good. once out of the city, i absorbed "atmosphere" like a sponge. it was with me no longer (as in new england) a question of warmed-over themes and appropriated characters. whittier, hawthorne, holmes, had no connection with the rude life of these prairies. each weedy field, each wire fence, the flat stretches of grass, the leaning lombardy trees,--everything was significant rather than beautiful, familiar rather than picturesque. something deep and resonant vibrated within my brain as i looked out upon this monotonous commonplace landscape. i realized for the first time that the east had surfeited me with picturesqueness. it appeared that i had been living for six years amidst painted, neatly arranged pasteboard scenery. now suddenly i dropped to the level of nature unadorned, down to the ugly unkempt lanes i knew so well, back to the pungent realities of the streamless plain. furthermore i acknowledged a certain responsibility for the conditions of the settlers. i felt related to them, an intolerant part of them. once fairly out among the fields of northern illinois everything became so homely, uttered itself so piercingly to me that nothing less than song could express my sense of joy, of power. this was my country--these my people. it was the third of july, a beautiful day with a radiant sky, darkened now and again with sudden showers. great clouds, trailing veils of rain, enveloped the engine as it roared straight into the west,--for an instant all was dark, then forth we burst into the brilliant sunshine careening over the green ridges as if drawn by runaway dragons with breath of flame. it was sundown when i crossed the mississippi river (at dubuque) and the scene which i looked out upon will forever remain a splendid page in my memory. the coaches lay under the western bluffs, but away to the south the valley ran, walled with royal purple, and directly across the flood, a beach of sand flamed under the sunset light as if it were a bed of pure untarnished gold. behind this an island rose, covered with noble trees which suggested all the romance of the immemorial river. the redman's canoe, the explorer's batteau, the hunter's lodge, the emigrant's cabin, all stood related to that inspiring vista. for the first time in my life i longed to put this noble stream into verse. all that day i had studied the land, musing upon its distinctive qualities, and while i acknowledged the natural beauty of it, i revolted from the gracelessness of its human habitations. the lonely boxlike farm-houses on the ridges suddenly appeared to me like the dens of wild animals. the lack of color, of charm in the lives of the people anguished me. i wondered why i had never before perceived the futility of woman's life on a farm. i asked myself, "why have these stern facts never been put into our literature as they have been used in russia and in england? why has this land no story-tellers like those who have made massachusetts and new hampshire illustrious?" these and many other speculations buzzed in my brain. each moment was a revelation of new uglinesses as well as of remembered beauties. at four o'clock of a wet morning i arrived at charles city, from which i was to take "the spur" for osage. stiffened and depressed by my night's ride, i stepped out upon the platform and watched the train as it passed on, leaving me, with two or three other silent and sleepy passengers, to wait until seven o'clock in the morning for the "accommodation train." i was still busy with my problem, but the salient angles of my interpretation were economic rather than literary. walking to and fro upon the platform, i continued to ponder my situation. in a few hours i would be among my old friends and companions, to measure and be measured. six years before i had left them to seek my fortune in the eastern world. i had promised little,--fortunately--and i was returning, without the pot of gold and with only a tinge of glory. exteriorly i had nothing but a crop of sturdy whiskers to show for my years of exile but mentally i was much enriched. twenty years of development lay between my thought at the moment and those of my simpler days. my study of spencer, whitman and other of the great leaders of the world, my years of absorbed reading in the library, my days of loneliness and hunger in the city had swept me into a far bleak land of philosophic doubt where even the most daring of my classmates would hesitate to follow me. a violent perception of the mysterious, the irrevocable march of human life swept over me and i shivered before a sudden realization of the ceaseless change and shift of western life and landscape. how few of those i knew were there to greet me! walter and charles were dead, maud and lena were both married, and burton was preaching somewhere in the west. six short years had made many changes in the little town and it was in thinking upon these changes that i reached a full realization of the fact that i was no longer a "promising boy" of the prairie but a man, with a notion of human life and duty and responsibility which was neither cheerful nor resigned. i was returning as from deep valleys, from the most alien climate. looking at the sky above me, feeling the rush of the earth beneath my feet i saw how much i had dared and how little, how pitifully little i had won. over me the ragged rainclouds swept, obscuring the stars and in their movement and in the feeling of the dawn lay something illimitable and prophetic. such moments do not come to men often--but to me for an hour, life was painfully purposeless. "what does it all mean?" i asked myself. at last the train came, and as it rattled away to the north and i drew closer to the scenes of my boyhood, my memory quickened. the cedar rippling over its limestone ledges, the gray old mill and the pond where i used to swim, the farm-houses with their weedy lawns, all seemed not only familiar but friendly, and when at last i reached the station (the same grimy little den from which i had started forth six years before), i rose from my seat with the air of a world-traveller and descended upon the warped and splintered platform, among my one time friends and neighbors, with quickened pulse and seeking eye. it was the fourth of july and a crowd was at the station, but though i recognized half the faces, not one of them lightened at sight of me. the 'bus driver, the ragged old dray-man (scandalously profane), the common loafers shuffling about, chewing and spitting, seemed absolutely unchanged. one or two elderly citizens eyed me closely as i slung my little boston valise with a long strap over my shoulder and started up the billowing board sidewalk toward the center of the town, but i gave out no word of recognition. indeed i took a boyish pride in the disguising effect of my beard. how small and flat and leisurely the village seemed. the buildings which had once been so imposing in my eyes were now of very moderate elevation indeed, and the opera house was almost indistinguishable from the two-story structures which flanked it; but the trees had increased in dignity, and some of the lawns were lovely. with eyes singling out each familiar object i loitered along the walk. there stood the grimy wagon shop from which a hammer was ringing cheerily, like the chirp of a cricket,--just as aforetime. orrin blakey stood at the door of his lumber yard surveying me with curious eyes but i passed him in silence. i wished to spend an hour or two in going about in guise of a stranger. there was something instructive as well as deliciously exciting in thus seeing old acquaintances as from behind a mask. they were at once familiar and mysterious--mysterious with my new question, "is this life worth living?" the merchants' hotel which once appeared so luxurious (within the reach only of great lecturers like joseph cook and wendell phillips) had declined to a shabby frame tavern, but entering the dining room i selected a seat near an open window, from which i could look out upon the streets and survey the throng of thickening sightseers as they moved up and down before me like the figures in a vitascope. i was waited upon by a slatternly girl and the breakfast she brought to me was so bad (after mary's cooking) that i could only make a pretense of eating it, but i kept my seat, absorbed by the forms coming and going, almost within the reach of my hand. among the first to pace slowly by was lawyer ricker, stately, solemn and bibulous as ever, his red beard flowing over a vest unbuttoned in the manner of the old-fashioned southern gentleman, his spotless linen and neat tie showing that his careful, faithful wife was still on guard. him i remembered for his astounding ability to recite poetry by the hour and also because of a florid speech which i once heard him make in the court room. for six mortal hours he spoke on a case involving the stealing of a horse-blanket worth about four dollars and a half. in the course of his argument he ranged with leisurely self-absorption, from ancient egypt and the sacred crocodile down through the dark ages, touching at athens and mount olympus, reviewing rome and the court of charlemagne, winding up at four p. m. with an impassioned appeal to the jury to remember the power of environment upon his client. i could not remember how the suit came out, but i did recall the look of stupefaction which rested on the face of the accused as he found himself likened to gurth the swine-herd and a peasant of carcassone. ricker seemed quite unchanged save for the few gray hairs which had come into his beard and, as he stood in conversation with one of the merchants of the town, his nasal voice, his formal speech and the grandiloquent gesture of his right hand brought back to me all the stories i had heard of his drinking and of his wife's heroic rescuing expeditions to neighboring saloons. a strange, unsatisfactory end to a man of great natural ability. following him came a young girl leading a child of ten. i knew them at once. ella mckee had been of the size of the little one, her sister, when i went away, and nothing gave me a keener realization of the years which had passed than the flowering of the child i had known into this charming maiden of eighteen. her resemblance to her sister flora was too marked to be mistaken, and the little one by her side had the same flashing eyes and radiant smile with which both of her grown up sisters were endowed. their beauty fairly glorified the dingy street as they walked past my window. then an old farmer, bent and worn of frame, halted before me to talk with a merchant. this was david babcock, burton's father, one of our old time neighbors, a little more bent, a little thinner, a little grayer--that was all, and as i listened to his words i asked, "what purpose does a man serve by toiling like that for sixty years with no increase of leisure, with no growth in mental grace?" there was a wistful note in his voice which went straight to my heart. he said: "no, our wheat crop ain't a-going to amount to much this year. of course we don't try to raise much grain--it's mostly stock, but i thought i'd try wheat again. i wisht we could get back to the good old days of wheat raising--it w'ant so confining as stock-raisin'." his good days were also in the past! as i walked the street i met several neighbors from dry run as well as acquaintances from the grove. nearly all, even the young men, looked worn and weather-beaten and some appeared both silent and sad. laughter was curiously infrequent and i wondered whether in my days on the farm they had all been as rude of dress, as misshapen of form and as wistful of voice as they now seemed to me to be. "have times changed? has a spirit of unrest and complaining developed in the american farmer?" i perceived the town from the triple viewpoint of a former resident, a man from the city, and a reformer, and every minutest detail of dress, tone and gesture revealed new meaning to me. fancher and gammons were feebler certainly, and a little more querulous with age, and their faded beards and rough hands gave pathetic evidence of the hard wear of wind and toil. at the moment nothing glozed the essential tragic futility of their existence. then down the street came "the ragamuffins," the little fourth of july procession, which in the old days had seemed so funny, so exciting to me. i laughed no more. it filled me with bitterness to think that such a makeshift spectacle could amuse anyone. "how dull and eventless life must be to enable such a pitiful travesty to attract and hold the attention of girls like ella and flora," i thought as i saw them standing with their little sister to watch "the parade." from the window of a law office, emma and matilda leete were leaning and i decided to make myself known to them. emma, who had been one of my high admirations, had developed into a handsome and interesting woman with very little of the village in her dress or expression, and when i stepped up to her and asked, "do you know me?" her calm gray eyes and smiling lips denoted humor. "of course i know you--in spite of the beard. come in and sit with us and tell all of us about yourself." as we talked, i found that they, at least, had kept in touch with the thought of the east, and ella understood in some degree the dark mood which i voiced. she, too, occasionally doubted whether the life they were all living was worth while. "we make the best of it," she said, "but none of us are living up to our dreams." her musical voice, thoughtful eyes and quick intelligence, re-asserted their charm, and i spent an hour or more in her company talking of old friends. it was not necessary to talk down to her. she was essentially urban in tone while other of the girls who had once impressed me with their beauty had taken on the airs of village matrons and did not interest me. if they retained aspirations they concealed the fact. their husbands and children entirely occupied their minds. returning to the street, i introduced myself to uncle billy fraser and osmund button and other sun prairie neighbors and when it became known that "dick garland's boy" was in town, many friends gathered about to shake my hand and inquire concerning "belle" and "dick." the hard, crooked fingers, which they laid in my palm completed the sorrowful impression which their faces had made upon me. a twinge of pain went through my heart as i looked into their dim eyes and studied their heavy knuckles. i thought of the hand of edwin booth, of the flower-like palm of helena modjeska, of the subtle touch of inness, and i said, "is it not time that the human hand ceased to be primarily a bludgeon for hammering a bare living out of the earth? nature all bountiful, undiscriminating, would, under justice, make such toil unnecessary." my heart burned with indignation. with william morris and henry george i exclaimed, "nature is not to blame. man's laws are to blame,"--but of this i said nothing at the time--at least not to men like babcock and fraser. next day i rode forth among the farms of dry run, retracing familiar lanes, standing under the spreading branches of the maple trees i had planted fifteen years before. i entered the low stone cabin wherein neighbor button had lived for twenty years (always intending sometime to build a house and make a granary of this), and at the table with the family and the hired men, i ate again of ann's "riz" biscuit and sweet melon pickles. it was not a pleasant meal, on the contrary it was depressing to me. the days of the border were over, and yet arvilla his wife was ill and aging, still living in pioneer discomfort toiling like a slave. at neighbor gardner's home, i watched his bent complaining old wife housekeeping from dawn to dark, literally dying on her feet. william knapp's home was somewhat improved but the men still came to the table in their shirt sleeves smelling of sweat and stinking of the stable, just as they used to do, and mrs. knapp grown more gouty, more unwieldy than ever (she spent twelve or fourteen hours each day on her swollen and aching feet), moved with a waddling motion because, as she explained, "i can't limp--i'm just as lame in one laig as i am in t'other. but 'tain't no use to complain, i've just so much work to do and i might as well go ahead and do it." i slept that night in her "best room," yes, at last, after thirty years of pioneer life, she had a guest chamber and a new "bedroom soot." with open pride and joy she led belle garland's boy in to view this precious acquisition, pointing out the soap and towels, and carefully removing the counterpane! i understood her pride, for my mother had not yet acquired anything so luxurious as this. she was still on the border! next day, i called upon andrew ainsley and while the women cooked in a red-hot kitchen, andy stubbed about the barnyard in his bare feet, showing me his hogs and horses. notwithstanding his town-visitor and the fact that it was sunday, he came to dinner in a dirty, sweaty, collarless shirt, and i, sitting at his oil-cloth covered table, slipped back, deeper, ever deeper among the stern realities of the life from which i had emerged. i recalled that while my father had never allowed his sons or the hired men to come to the table unwashed or uncombed, we usually ate while clothed in our sweaty garments, glad to get food into our mouths in any decent fashion, while the smell of the horse and the cow mingled with the savor of the soup. there is no escape even on a modern "model farm" from the odor of the barn. every house i visited had its individual message of sordid struggle and half-hidden despair. agnes had married and moved away to dakota, and bess had taken upon her girlish shoulders the burdens of wifehood and motherhood almost before her girlhood had reached its first period of bloom. in addition to the work of being cook and scrub-woman, she was now a mother and nurse. as i looked around upon her worn chairs, faded rag carpets, and sagging sofas,--the bare walls of her pitiful little house seemed a prison. i thought of her as she was in the days of her radiant girlhood and my throat filled with rebellious pain. all the gilding of farm life melted away. the hard and bitter realities came back upon me in a flood. nature was as beautiful as ever. the soaring sky was filled with shining clouds, the tinkle of the bobolink's fairy bells rose from the meadow, a mystical sheen was on the odorous grass and waving grain, but no splendor of cloud, no grace of sunset could conceal the poverty of these people, on the contrary they brought out, with a more intolerable poignancy, the gracelessness of these homes, and the sordid quality of the mechanical daily routine of these lives. i perceived beautiful youth becoming bowed and bent. i saw lovely girlhood wasting away into thin and hopeless age. some of the women i had known had withered into querulous and complaining spinsterhood, and i heard ambitious youth cursing the bondage of the farm. "of such pain and futility are the lives of the average man and woman of both city and country composed," i acknowledged to myself with savage candor, "why lie about it?" some of my playmates opened their acrid hearts to me. my presence stimulated their discontent. i was one of them, one who having escaped had returned as from some far-off glorious land of achievement. my improved dress, my changed manner of speech, everything i said, roused in them a kind of rebellious rage and gave them unwonted power of expression. their mood was no doubt transitory, but it was as real as my own. men who were growing bent in digging into the soil spoke to me of their desire to see something of the great eastern world before they died. women whose eyes were faded and dim with tears, listened to me with almost breathless interest whilst i told them of the great cities i had seen, of wonderful buildings, of theaters, of the music of the sea. young girls expressed to me their longing for a life which was better worth while, and lads, eager for adventure and excitement, confided to me their secret intention to leave the farm at the earliest moment. "i don't intend to wear out my life drudging on this old place," said wesley fancher with a bitter oath. in those few days, i perceived life without its glamor. i no longer looked upon these toiling women with the thoughtless eyes of youth. i saw no humor in the bent forms and graying hair of the men. i began to understand that my own mother had trod a similar slavish round with never a full day of leisure, with scarcely an hour of escape from the tugging hands of children, and the need of mending and washing clothes. i recalled her as she passed from the churn to the stove, from the stove to the bedchamber, and from the bedchamber back to the kitchen, day after day, year after year, rising at daylight or before, and going to her bed only after the evening dishes were washed and the stockings and clothing mended for the night. the essential tragedy and hopelessness of most human life under the conditions into which our society was swiftly hardening embittered me, called for expression, but even then i did not know that i had found my theme. i had no intention at the moment of putting it into fiction. the reader may interrupt at this point to declare that all life, even the life of the city is futile, if you look at it in that way, and i reply by saying that i still have moments when i look at it that way. what is it all about, anyhow, this life of ours? certainly to be forever weary and worried, to be endlessly soiled with thankless labor and to grow old before one's time soured and disappointed, is not the whole destiny of man! some of these things i said to emma and matilda but their optimism was too ingrained to yield to my gray mood. "we can't afford to grant too much," said emma. "we are in it, you see." leaving the village of osage, with my mind still in a tumult of revolt, i took the train for the northwest, eager to see my mother and my little sister, yet beginning to dread the changes which i must surely find in them. not only were my senses exceedingly alert and impressionable, my eyes saw nothing but the loneliness and the lack of beauty in the landscape, and the farther west i went, the lonelier became the boxlike habitations of the plain. here were the lands over which we had hurried in , lured by the "government land" of the farther west. here, now, a kind of pioneering behind the lines was going on. the free lands were gone and so, at last, the price demanded by these speculators must be paid. this wasteful method of pioneering, this desolate business of lonely settlement took on a new and tragic significance as i studied it. instructed by my new philosophy i now perceived that these plowmen, these wives and daughters had been pushed out into these lonely ugly shacks by the force of landlordism behind. these plodding swedes and danes, these thrifty germans, these hairy russians had all fled from the feudalism of their native lands and were here because they had no share in the soil from which they sprung, and because in the settled communities of the eastern states, the speculative demand for land had hindered them from acquiring even a leasing right to the surface of the earth. i clearly perceived that our song of emigration had been, in effect, the hymn of fugitives! and yet all this did not prevent me from acknowledging the beauty of the earth. on the contrary, social injustice intensified nature's prodigality. i said, "yes, the landscape is beautiful, but how much of its beauty penetrates to the heart of the men who are in the midst of it and battling with it? how much of consolation does the worn and weary renter find in the beauty of cloud and tree or in the splendor of the sunset?--grace of flower does not feed or clothe the body, and when the toiler is both badly clothed and badly fed, bird-song and leaf-shine cannot bring content." like millet, i asked, "why should all of a man's waking hours be spent in an effort to feed and clothe his family? is there not something wrong in our social scheme when the unremitting toiler remains poor?" with such thoughts filling my mind, i passed through this belt of recent settlement and came at last into the valley of the james. one by one the familiar flimsy little wooden towns were left behind (strung like beads upon a string), and at last the elevator at ordway appeared on the edge of the horizon, a minute, wavering projection against the sky-line, and half an hour later we entered the village, a sparse collection of weather-beaten wooden houses, without shade of trees or grass of lawns, a desolate, drab little town. father met me at the train, grayer of beard and hair, but looking hale and cheerful, and his voice, his peculiar expressions swept away all my city experience. in an instant i was back precisely where i had been when i left the farm. he was captain, i was a corporal in the rear ranks. and yet he was distinctly less harsh, less keen. he had mellowed. he had gained in sentiment, in philosophy, that was evident, and as we rode away toward the farm we fell into intimate, almost tender talk. i was glad to note that he had lost nothing either in dignity or manliness in my eyes. his speech though sometimes ungrammatical was vigorous and precise and his stories gave evidence of his native constructive skill. "your mother is crazy to see you," he said, "but i have only this one-seated buggy, and she couldn't come down to meet you." when nearly a mile away i saw her standing outside the door of the house waiting for us, so eager that she could not remain seated, and as i sprang from the carriage she came hurrying out to meet me, uttering a curious little murmuring sound which touched me to the heart. the changes in her shocked me, filled me with a sense of guilt. hesitation was in her speech. her voice once so glowing and so jocund, was tremulous, and her brown hair, once so abundant, was thin and gray. i realized at once that in the three years of my absence she had topped the high altitude of her life and was now descending swiftly toward defenseless age, and in bitter sadness i entered the house to meet my sister jessie who was almost a stranger to me. she had remained small and was quaintly stooped in neck and shoulders but retained something of her childish charm. to her i was quite alien, in no sense a brother. she was very reticent, but it did not take me long to discover that in her quiet fashion she commanded the camp. for all his military bluster, the old soldier was entirely subject to her. she was never wilful concerning anything really important, but she assumed all the rights of an individual and being the only child left in the family, went about her affairs without remark or question, serene, sweet but determined. the furniture and pictures of the house were quite as humble as i had remembered them to be, but mother wore with pride the silk dress i had sent to her and was so happy to have me at home that she sat in silent content, while i told her of my life in boston (boasting of my success of course, i had to do that to justify myself), and explaining that i must return, in time to resume my teaching in september. harvest was just beginning, and i said, "father, if you'll pay me full wages, i'll take a hand." this pleased him greatly, but he asked, "do you think you can stand it?" "i can try," i responded. next day i laid off my city clothes and took my place as of old on the stack. on the broad acres of the arid plains the header and not the binder was then in use for cutting the wheat, and as stacker i had to take care of the grain brought to me by the three header boxes. it was very hard work that first day. it seemed that i could not last out the afternoon, but i did, and when at night i went to the house for supper, i could hardly sit at the table with the men, so weary were my bones. i sought my bed early and rose next day so sore that movement was torture. this wore away at last and on the third day i had no difficulty in keeping up my end of the whiffletree. the part of labor that i hated was the dirt. night after night as i came in covered with dust, too tired to bathe, almost too weary to change my shirt, i declared against any further harvesting. however, i generally managed to slosh myself with cold water from the well, and so went to my bed with a measure of self-respect, but even the "spare room" was hot and small, and the conditions of my mother's life saddened me. it was so hot and drear for her! every detail of the daily life of the farm now assumed literary significance in my mind. the quick callousing of my hands, the swelling of my muscles, the sweating of my scalp, all the unpleasant results of severe physical labor i noted down, but with no intention of exalting toil into a wholesome and regenerative thing as tolstoi, an aristocrat, had attempted to do. labor when so prolonged and severe as at this time my toil had to be, is warfare. i was not working as a visitor but as a hired hand, and doing my full day's work and more. at the end of the week i wrote to my friend kirkland, enclosing some of my detailed notes and his reply set me thinking. "you're the first actual farmer in american fiction,--now tell the truth about it," he wrote. thereafter i studied the glory of the sky and the splendor of the wheat with a deepening sense of the generosity of nature and monstrous injustice of social creeds. in the few moments of leisure which came to me as i lay in the shade of a grain-rick, i pencilled rough outlines of poems. my mind was in a condition of tantalizing productivity and i felt vaguely that i ought to be writing books instead of pitching grain. conceptions for stories began to rise from the subconscious deeps of my thought like bubbles, noiseless and swift--and still i did not realize that i had entered upon a new career. at night or on sunday i continued my conferences with father and mother. together we went over the past, talking of old neighbors and from one of these conversations came the theme of my first story. it was a very simple tale (told by my mother) of an old woman, who made a trip back to her york state home after an absence in the west of nearly thirty years. i was able to remember some of the details of her experience and when my mother had finished speaking i said to her, "that is too good to lose. i'm going to write it out." then to amuse her, i added, "why, that's worth seventy-five dollars to me. i'll go halves with you." smilingly she held out her hand. "very well, you may give me my share now." "wait till i write it," i replied, a little taken aback. going to my room i set to work and wrote nearly two thousand words of the sketch. this i brought out later in the day and read to her with considerable excitement. i really felt that i had struck out a character which, while it did not conform to the actual woman in the case, was almost as vivid in my mind. mother listened very quietly until i had finished, then remarked with sententious approval. "that's good. go on." she had no doubt of my ability to go on--indefinitely! i explained to her that it wasn't so easy as all that, but that i could probably finish it in a day or two. (as a matter of fact, i completed the story in boston but mother got her share of the "loot" just the same.) soon afterward, while sitting in the door looking out over the fields, i pencilled the first draft of a little poem called _color in the wheat_ which i also read to her. she received this in the same manner as before, from which it appeared that nothing i wrote could surprise her. her belief in my powers was quite boundless. father was inclined to ask, "what's the good of it?" of course all of my visit was not entirely made up of hard labor in the field. there were sundays when we could rest or entertain the neighbors, and sometimes a shower gave us a few hours' respite, but for the most part the weeks which i spent at home were weeks of stern service in the ranks of the toilers. there was a very good reason for my close application to the fork-handle. father paid me an extra price as "boss stacker," and i could not afford to let a day pass without taking the fullest advantage of it. at the same time, i was careful not to convey to my pupils and friends from boston the disgraceful fact that i was still dependent upon my skill with a pitch-fork to earn a living. i was not quite sure of their approval of the case. at last there came the time when i must set my face toward the east. it seemed a treachery to say good-bye to my aging parents, leaving them and my untrained sister to this barren, empty, laborious life on the plain, whilst i returned to the music, the drama, the inspiration, the glory of boston. opposite poles of the world could not be farther apart. acute self-accusation took out of my return all of the exaltation and much of the pleasure which i had expected to experience as i dropped my harvester's fork and gloves and put on the garments of civilization once more. with heart sore with grief and rebellion at "the inexorable trend of things," i entered the car, and when from its window i looked back upon my grieving mother, my throat filled with a suffocating sense of guilt. i was deserting her, recreant to my blood!--that i was re-enacting the most characteristic of all american dramas in thus pursuing an ambitious career in a far-off city i most poignantly realized and yet--i went! it seemed to me at the time that my duty lay in the way of giving up all my selfish plans in order that i might comfort my mother in her growing infirmity, and counsel and defend my sister--but i did not. i went away borne on a stream of purpose so strong that i seemed but a leak in its resistless flood. this feeling of bitterness, of rebellion, of dissatisfaction with myself, wore gradually away, and by the time i reached chicago i had resolved to climb high. "i will carry mother and jessie to comfort and to some small share, at least, in the world of art," was my resolve. in this way i sought to palliate my selfish plan. obscurely forming in my mind were two great literary concepts--that truth was a higher quality than beauty, and that to spread the reign of justice should everywhere be the design and intent of the artist. the merely beautiful in art seemed petty, and success at the cost of the happiness of others a monstrous egotism. in the spirit of these ideals i returned to my small attic room in jamaica plain and set to work to put my new conceptions into some sort of literary form. chapter xxix i join the anti-poverty brigade in the slow procession of my struggling fortunes this visit to the west seems important, for it was the beginning of my career as a fictionist. my talk with kirkland and my perception of the sordid monotony of farm life had given me a new and very definite emotional relationship to my native state. i perceived now the tragic value of scenes which had hitherto appeared merely dull or petty. my eyes were opened to the enforced misery of the pioneer. as a reformer my blood was stirred to protest. as a writer i was beset with a desire to record in some form this newly-born conception of the border. no sooner did i reach my little desk in jamaica plain than i began to write, composing in the glow of a flaming conviction. with a delightful (and deceptive) sense of power, i graved with heavy hand, as if with pen of steel on brazen tablets, picture after picture of the plain. i had no doubts, no hesitations about the kind of effect i wished to produce. i perceived little that was poetic, little that was idyllic, and nothing that was humorous in the man, who, with hands like claws, was scratching a scanty living from the soil of a rented farm, while his wife walked her ceaseless round from tub to churn and from churn to tub. on the contrary, the life of such a family appealed to me as an almost unrelievedly tragic futility. in the few weeks between my return and the beginning of my teaching, i wrote several short stories, and outlined a propagandist play. with very little thought as to whether such stories would sell rapidly or not at all i began to send them away, to the _century_, to _harper's_, and other first class magazines without permitting myself any deep disappointment when they came back--as they all did! however, having resolved upon being printed by the best periodicals i persisted. notwithstanding rejection after rejection i maintained an elevated aim and continued to fire away. there was a certain arrogance in all this, i will admit, but there was also sound logic, for i was seeking the ablest editorial judgment and in this way i got it. my manuscripts were badly put together (i used cheap paper and could not afford a typist), hence i could not blame the readers who hurried my stories back at me. no doubt my illegible writing as well as the blunt, unrelenting truth of my pictures repelled them. one or two friendly souls wrote personal notes protesting against my "false interpretation of western life." the fact that i, a working farmer, was presenting for the first time in fiction the actualities of western country life did not impress them as favorably as i had expected it to do. my own pleasure in being true was not shared, it would seem, by others. "give us charming love stories!" pleaded the editors. "no, we've had enough of lies," i replied. "other writers are telling the truth about the city,--the artisan's narrow, grimy, dangerous job is being pictured, and it appears to me that the time has come to tell the truth about the barn-yard's daily grind. i have lived the life and i know that farming is not entirely made up of berrying, tossing the new-mown hay and singing _the old oaken bucket_ on the porch by moonlight. "the working farmer," i went on to argue, "has to live in february as well as june. he must pitch manure as well as clover. milking as depicted on a blue china plate where a maid in a flounced petticoat is caressing a gentle jersey cow in a field of daisies, is quite unlike sitting down to the steaming flank of a stinking brindle heifer in flytime. pitching odorous timothy in a poem and actually putting it into a mow with the temperature at ninety-eight in the shade are widely separated in fact as they should be in fiction. for me," i concluded, "the grime and the mud and the sweat and the dust exist. they still form a large part of life on the farm, and i intend that they shall go into my stories in their proper proportions." alas! each day made me more and more the dissenter from accepted economic as well as literary conventions. i became less and less of the booming, indiscriminating patriot. precisely as successful politicians, popular preachers and vast traders diminished in importance in my mind, so the significance of whitman, and tolstoi and george increased, for they all represented qualities which make for saner, happier and more equitable conditions in the future. perhaps i despised idlers and time-savers unduly, but i was of an age to be extreme. during the autumn henry george was announced to speak in faneuil hall, sacred ark of liberty, and with eager feet my brother and i hastened to the spot to hear this reformer whose fame already resounded throughout the english-speaking world. beginning his campaign in california he had carried it to ireland, where he had been twice imprisoned for speaking his mind, and now after having set bernard shaw and other english fabians aflame with indignant protest, was about to run for mayor of new york city. i have an impression that the meeting was a noon-day meeting for men, at any rate the historical old hall, which had echoed to the voices of garrison and phillips and webster was filled with an eager expectant throng. the sanded floor was packed with auditors standing shoulder to shoulder and the galleries were crowded with these who, like ourselves, had gone early in order to ensure seats. from our places in the front row we looked down upon an almost solid mosaic of derby hats, the majority of which were rusty by exposure to wind and rain. as i waited i recalled my father's stories of the stern passions of anti-slavery days. in this hall wendell phillips in the pride and power of his early manhood, had risen to reply to the cowardly apologies of entrenched conservatism, and here now another voice was about to be raised in behalf of those whom the law oppressed. my brother had also read _progress and poverty_ and both of us felt that we were taking part in a distinctly historical event, the beginning of a new abolition movement. at last, a stir at the back of the platform announced the approach of the speaker. three or four men suddenly appeared from some concealed door and entered upon the stage. one of them, a short man with a full red beard, we recognized at once,--"the prophet of san francisco" as he was then called (in fine derision) was not a noticeable man till he removed his hat. then the fine line of his face from the crown of his head to the tip of his chin printed itself ineffaceably upon our minds. the dome-like brow was that of one highly specialized on lines of logic and sympathy. there was also something in the tense poise of his body which foretold the orator. impatiently the audience endured the speakers who prepared the way and then, finally, george stepped forward, but prolonged waves of cheering again and again prevented his beginning. thereupon he started pacing to and fro along the edge of the platform, his big head thrown back, his small hands clenched as if in anticipation of coming battle. he no longer appeared small. his was the master mind of that assembly. his first words cut across the air with singular calmness. coming after the applause, following the nervous movement of a moment before, his utterance was surprisingly cold, masterful, and direct. action had condensed into speech. heat was transformed into light. his words were orderly and well chosen. they had precision and grace as well as power. he spoke as other men write, with style and arrangement. his address could have been printed word for word as it fell from his lips. this self-mastery, this graceful lucidity of utterance combined with a personal presence distinctive and dignified, reduced even his enemies to respectful silence. his altruism, his sincere pity and his hatred of injustice sent me away in the mood of a disciple. meanwhile a few of his followers had organized an "anti-poverty society" similar to those which had already sprung up in new york, and my brother and i used to go of a sunday evening to the old horticultural hall on tremont street, contributing our presence and our dimes in aid of the meeting. speakers were few and as the weeks went by the audiences grew smaller and smaller till one night chairman roche announced with sad intonation that the meetings could not go on. "you've all got tired of hearing us repeat ourselves and we have no new speaker, none at all for next week. i am afraid we'll have to quit." my brother turned to me--"here's your 'call,'" he said. "volunteer to speak for them." recognizing my duty i rose just as the audience was leaving and sought the chairman. with a tremor of excitement in my voice i said, "if you can use me as a speaker for next sunday i will do my best for you." roche glanced at me for an instant, and then without a word of question, shouted to the audience, "wait a moment! we _have_ a speaker for next sunday." then, bending down, he asked of me, "what is your name and occupation?" i told him, and again he lifted his voice, this time in triumphant shout, "professor hamlin garland will speak for us next sunday at eight o'clock. come and bring all your friends." "you are in for it now," laughed my brother gleefully. "you'll be lined up with the anarchists sure!" that evening was in a very real sense a parting of the ways for me. to refuse this call was to go selfishly and comfortably along the lines of literary activity i had chosen. to accept was to enter the arena where problems of economic justice were being sternly fought out. i understood already something of the disadvantage which attached to being called a reformer, but my sense of duty and the influence of herbert spencer and walt whitman rose above my doubts. i decided to do my part. all the week i agonized over my address, and on sunday spoke to a crowded house with a kind of partisan success. on monday my good friend chamberlin, _the listener_ of _the transcript_ filled his column with a long review of my heretical harangue.--with one leap i had reached the lime-light of conservative boston's disapproval! chamberlin, himself a "philosophical anarchist," was pleased with the individualistic note which ran through my harangue. the single taxers were of course, delighted for i admitted my discipleship to george, and my socialistic friends urged that the general effect of my argument was on their side. altogether, for a penniless student and struggling story writer, i created something of a sensation. all my speeches thereafter helped to dye me deeper than ever with the color of reform. however, in the midst of my anti-poverty campaign, i did not entirely forget my fiction and my teaching. i was becoming more and more a companion of artists and poets, and my devotion to things literary deepened from day to day. a dreadful theorist in some ways, i was, after all, more concerned with literary than with social problems. writing was my life, land reform one of my convictions. high in my attic room i bent above my manuscript with a fierce resolve. from eight o'clock in the morning until half past twelve, i dug and polished. in the afternoon, i met my classes. in the evening i revised what i had written and in case i did not go to the theater or to a lecture (i had no social engagements) i wrote until ten o'clock. for recreation i sometimes drove with dr. cross on his calls or walked the lanes and climbed the hills with my brother. in this way most of my stories of the west were written. happy in my own work, i bitterly resented the laws which created millionaires at the expense of the poor. these were days of security and tranquillity, and good friends thickened. each week i felt myself in less danger of being obliged to shingle, though i still had difficulty in clothing myself properly. again i saw booth play his wondrous round of parts and was able to complete my monograph which i called _the art of edwin booth_. i even went so far as to send to the great actor the chapter on his _macbeth_ and received from him grateful acknowledgments, in a charming letter. a little later i had the great honor of meeting him for a moment and it happened in this way. the veteran reader, james e. murdock, was giving a recital in a small hall on park street, and it was privately announced that edwin booth and lawrence barrett would be present. this was enough to justify me in giving up one of my precious dollars on the chance of seeing the great tragedian enter the room. he came in a little late, flushing, timid, apologetic! it seemed to me a very curious and wonderful thing that this man who had spoken to millions of people from behind the footlights should be timid as a maid when confronted by less than two hundred of his worshipful fellow citizens in a small hall. so gentle and kindly did he seem. my courage grew, and after the lecture i approached the spot where he stood, and mr. barrett introduced me to him as "the author of the lecture on _macbeth_."--never had i looked into such eyes--deep and dark and sad--and my tongue failed me miserably. i could not say a word. booth smiled with kindly interest and murmured his thanks for my critique, and i went away, down across the common in a glow of delight and admiration. in the midst of all my other duties i was preparing my brother franklin for the stage. yes, through some mischance, this son of the prairie had obtained the privilege of studying with a retired "leading lady" who still occasionally made tours of the "kerosene circuit" and who had agreed to take him out with her, provided he made sufficient progress to warrant it. it was to prepare him for this trip that i met him three nights in the week at his office (he was bookkeeper in a cutlery firm) and there rehearsed _east lynne_, _leah the forsaken_, and _the lady of lyons_. from seven o'clock until nine i held the book whilst he pranced and shouted and gesticulated through his lines. at last, emboldened by his star's praise, he cut loose from his ledger and went out on a tour which was extremely diverting but not at all remunerative. the company ran on a reef and frank sent for carfare which i cheerfully remitted, crediting it to his educational account. the most vital literary man in all america at this time was wm. dean howells who was in the full tide of his powers and an issue. all through the early eighties, reading boston was divided into two parts,--those who liked howells and those who fought him, and the most fiercely debated question at the clubs was whether his heroines were true to life or whether they were caricatures. in many homes he was read aloud with keen enjoyment of his delicate humor, and his graceful, incisive english; in other circles he was condemned because of his "injustice to the finer sex." as for me, having begun my literary career (as the reader may recall) by assaulting this leader of the realistic school i had ended, naturally, by becoming his public advocate. how could i help it? it is true a large part of one of my lectures consisted of a gratuitous slam at "mr. howells and the so-called realists," but further reading and deeper thought along the lines indicated by whitman, had changed my view. one of walt's immortal invitations which had appealed to me with special power was this: stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems; you shall no longer take things at second or third hand nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor through my eyes either, but through your own eyes.... you shall listen to all sides, and filter them from yourself. thus by a circuitous route i had arrived at a position where i found myself inevitably a supporter not only of howells but of henry james whose work assumed ever larger significance in my mind. i was ready to concede with the realist that the poet might go round the earth and come back to find the things nearest at hand the sweetest and best after all, but that certain injustices, certain cruel facts must not be blinked at, and so, while admiring the grace, the humor, the satire of howells' books, i was saved from anything like imitation by the sterner and darker material in which i worked. my wall of prejudice against the author of _a modern instance_ really began to sag when during the second year of my stay in boston, i took up and finished _the undiscovered country_ (which i had begun five or six years before), but it was _the minister's charge_ which gave the final push to my defenses and fetched them tumbling about my ears in a cloud of dust. in fact, it was a review of this book, written for the _transcript_ which brought about a meeting with the great novelist. my friend hurd liked the review and had it set up. the editor, mr. clement, upon reading it in proof said to hurd, "this is an able review. put it in as an editorial. who is the writer of it?" hurd told him about me and clement was interested. "send him to me," he said. on saturday i was not only surprised and delighted by the sight of my article in large type at the head of the literary page, i was fluttered by the word which mr. clement had sent to me. humbly as a minstrel might enter the court of his king, i went before the editor, and stood expectantly while he said: "that was an excellent article. i have sent it to mr. howells. you should know him and sometime i will give you a letter to him, but not now. wait awhile. war is being made upon him just now, and if you were to meet him your criticism would have less weight. his enemies would say that you had come under his personal influence. go ahead with the work you have in hand, and after you have put yourself on record concerning him and his books i will see that you meet him." like a knight enlisted in a holy war i descended the long narrow stairway to the street, and went to my home without knowing what passed me. i ruminated for hours on mr. clement's praise. i read and re-read my "able article" till i knew it by heart and then i started in, seriously, to understand and estimate the school of fiction to which mr. howells belonged. i read every one of his books as soon as i could obtain them. i read james, too, and many of the european realists, but it must have been two years before i called upon mr. clement to redeem his promise. deeply excited, with my note of introduction carefully stowed in my inside pocket, i took the train one summer afternoon bound for lee's hotel in auburndale, where mr. howells was at this time living. i fervently hoped that the building would not be too magnificent for i felt very small and very poor on alighting at the station, and every rod of my advance sensibly decreased my self-esteem. starting with faltering feet i came to the entrance of the grounds in a state of panic, and as i looked up the path toward the towering portico of the hotel, it seemed to me the palace of an emperor and my resolution entirely left me. actually i walked up the street for some distance before i was able to secure sufficient grip on myself to return and enter. "it is entirely unwarranted and very presumptuous in me to be thus intruding on a great author's time," i admitted, but it was too late to retreat, and so i kept on. entering the wide central hall i crept warily across its polished, hardwood floor to the desk where a highly ornate clerk presided. in a meek, husky voice i asked, "is mr. howells in?" "he is, but he's at dinner," the despot on the other side of the counter coldly replied, and his tone implied that he didn't think the great author would relish being disturbed by an individual who didn't even know the proper time to call. however, i produced my letter of introduction and with some access of spirit requested his highness to have it sent in. a colored porter soon returned, showed me to a reception room off the hall, and told me that mr. howells would be out in a few minutes. during these minutes i sat with eyes on the portieres and a frog in my throat. "how will he receive me? how will he look? what shall i say to him?" i asked myself, and behold i hadn't an idea left! suddenly the curtains parted and a short man with a large head stood framed in the opening. his face was impassive but his glance was one of the most piercing i had ever encountered. in the single instant before he smiled he discovered my character and my thought as though his eyes had been the lenses of some singular and powerful x-ray instrument. it was the glance of a novelist. of course all this took but a moment's time. then his face softened, became winning and his glance was gracious. "i'm glad to see you," he said, and his tone was cordial. "won't you be seated?" we took seats at the opposite ends of a long sofa, and mr. howells began at once to inquire concerning the work and the purposes of his visitor. he soon drew forth the story of my coming to boston and developed my theory of literature, listening intently while i told him of my history of american ideals and my attempt at fiction. my conception of the local novel and of its great importance in american literature, especially interested the master who listened intently while i enlarged upon my reasons for believing that the local novel would continue to grow in power and insight. at the end i said, "in my judgment the men and women of the south, the west and the east, are working (without knowing it) in accordance with a great principle, which is this: american literature, in order to be great, must be national, and in order to be national, must deal with conditions peculiar to our own land and climate. every genuinely american writer must deal with the life he knows best and for which he cares the most. thus joel chandler harris, george w. cable, joseph kirkland, sarah orne jewett, and mary wilkins, like bret harte, are but varying phases of the same movement, a movement which is to give us at last a really vital and original literature!" once set going i fear i went on like the political orator who doesn't know how to sit down. i don't think i did quit. howells stopped me with a compliment. "you're doing a fine and valuable work," he said, and i thought he meant it--and he did mean it. "each of us has had some perception of this movement but no one has correlated it as you have done. i hope you will go on and finish and publish your essays." these words uttered, perhaps, out of momentary conviction brought the blood to my face and filled me with conscious satisfaction. words of praise by this keen thinker were like golden medals. i had good reason to know how discriminating he was in his use of adjectives for he was even then the undisputed leader in the naturalistic school of fiction and to gain even a moment's interview with him would have been a rich reward for a youth who had only just escaped from spreading manure on an iowa farm. emboldened by his gracious manner, i went on. i confessed that i too was determined to do a little at recording by way of fiction the manners and customs of my native west. "i don't know that i can write a novel, but i intend to try," i added. he was kind enough then to say that he would like to see some of my stories of iowa. "you have almost a clear field out there--no one but howe seems to be tilling it." how long he talked or how long i talked, i do not know, but at last (probably in self-defense), he suggested that we take a walk. we strolled about the garden a few minutes and each moment my spirits rose, for he treated me, not merely as an aspiring student, but as a fellow author in whom he could freely confide. at last, in his gentle way, he turned me toward my train. it was then as we were walking slowly down the street, that he faced me with the trust of a comrade and asked, "what would you think of a story dealing with the effect of a dream on the life of a man?--i have in mind a tale to be called _the shadow of a dream_, or something like that, wherein a man is to be influenced in some decided way by the memory of a vision, a ghostly figure which is to pursue him and have some share in the final catastrophe, whatever it may turn out to be. what would you think of such a plot?" filled with surprise at his trust and confidence, i managed to stammer a judgment. "it would depend entirely upon the treatment," i answered. "the theme is a little like hawthorne, but i can understand how, under your hand, it would not be in the least like hawthorne." his assent was instant. "you think it not quite like me? you are right. it does sound a little lurid. i may never write it, but if i do, you may be sure it will be treated in my own way and not in hawthorne's way." stubbornly i persisted. "there are plenty who can do the weird kind of thing, mr. howells, but there is only one man who can write books like _a modern instance_ and _silas lapham_." all that the novelist said, as well as his manner of saying it was wonderfully enriching to me. to have such a man, one whose fame was even at this time international, desire an expression of my opinion as to the fitness of his chosen theme, was like feeling on my shoulder the touch of a kingly accolade. i went away, exalted. my apprenticeship seemed over! to america's chief literary man i was a fellow-writer, a critic, and with this recognition the current of my ambition shifted course. i began to hope that i, too, might some day become a social historian as well as a teacher of literature. the reformer was still present, but the literary man had been reinforced, and yet, even here, i had chosen the unpopular, unprofitable side! thereafter the gentle courtesy, the tact, the exquisite, yet simple english of this man was my education. every hour of his delicious humor, his wise advice, his ready sympathy sent me away in mingled exaltation and despair--despair of my own blunt and common diction, exaltation over his continued interest and friendship. how i must have bored that sweet and gracious soul! he could not escape me. if he moved to belmont i pursued him. if he went to nahant or magnolia or kittery i spent my money like water in order to follow him up and bother him about my work, or worry him into a public acceptance of the single tax, and yet every word he spoke, every letter he wrote was a benediction and an inspiration. he was a constant revelation to me of the swift transitions of mood to which a celtic man of letters is liable. his humor was like a low, sweet bubbling geyser spring. it rose with a chuckle close upon some very somber mood and broke into exquisite phrases which lingered in my mind for weeks. side by side with every jest was a bitter sigh, for he, too, had been deeply moved by new social ideals, and we talked much of the growing contrasts of rich and poor, of the suffering and loneliness of the farmer, the despair of the proletariat, and though i could never quite get him to perceive the difference between his program and ours (he was always for some vague socialistic reform), he readily admitted that land monopoly was the chief cause of poverty, and the first injustice to be destroyed. "but you must go farther, much farther," he would sadly say. of all of my literary friends at this time, edgar chamberlin of the _transcript_ was the most congenial. he, too, was from wisconsin, and loved the woods and fields with passionate fervor. at his house i met many of the young writers of boston--at least they were young then--sylvester baxter, imogene guiney, minna smith, alice brown, mary e. wilkins, and bradford torrey were often there. no events in my life except my occasional calls on mr. howells were more stimulating to me than my visits to the circle about chamberlin's hearth--(he was the kind of man who could not live without an open fire) and mrs. chamberlin's boundlessly hospitable table was an equally appealing joy. how they regarded me at that time i cannot surely define--perhaps they tolerated me out of love for the west. but i here acknowledge my obligation to "the listener." he taught me to recognize literary themes in the city, for he brought the same keen insight, the same tender sympathy to bear upon the crowds of the streets that he used in describing the songs of the thrush or the whir of the partridge. he was especially interested in the italians who were just beginning to pour into the north end, displacing the irish as workmen in the streets, and often in his column made gracious and charming references to them, softening without doubt the suspicion and dislike with which many citizens regarded them. hurd, on the contrary, was a very bookish man. he sat amidst mountains of "books for review" and yet he was always ready to welcome the slender volume of the new poet. to him i owe much. from him i secured my first knowledge of james whitcomb riley, and it was hurd who first called my attention to kirkland's _zury_. through him i came to an enthusiasm for the study of ibsen and bjornsen, for he was widely read in the literature of the north. on the desk of this hard-working, ill-paid man of letters (who never failed to utter words of encouragement to me) i wish to lay a tardy wreath of grateful praise. he deserves the best of the world beyond, for he got little but hard work from this. he loved poetry of all kinds and enjoyed a wide correspondence with those "who could not choose but sing." his desk was crammed with letters from struggling youths whose names are familiar now, and in whom he took an almost paternal interest. one day as i was leaving hurd's office he said, "by the way, garland, you ought to know jim herne. he's doing much the same sort of work on the stage that you and miss wilkins are putting into the short story. here are a couple of tickets to his play. go and see it and come back and tell what you think of it." herne's name was new to me but hurd's commendation was enough to take me down to the obscure theater in the south end where _drifting apart_ was playing. the play was advertised as "a story of the gloucester fishermen" and katharine herne was the "mary miller" of the piece. herne's part was that of a stalwart fisherman, married to a delicate young girl, and when the curtain went up on his first scene i was delighted with the setting. it was a veritable cottage interior--not an english cottage but an american working man's home. the worn chairs, the rag rugs, the sewing machine doing duty as a flowerstand, all were in keeping. the dialogue was homely, intimate, almost trivial and yet contained a sweet and touching quality. it was, indeed, of a piece with the work of miss jewett only more humorous, and the action of katharine and james herne was in key with the text. the business of "jack's" shaving and getting ready to go down the street was most delightful in spirit and the act closed with a touch of true pathos. the second act, a "dream act" was not so good, but the play came back to realities in the last act and sent us all away in joyous mood. it was for me the beginning of the local color american drama, and before i went to sleep that night i wrote a letter to herne telling him how significant i found his play and wishing him the success he deserved. almost by return mail came his reply thanking me for my good wishes and expressing a desire to meet me. "we are almost always at home on sunday and shall be very glad to see you whenever you can find time to come." a couple of weeks later--as soon as i thought it seemly--i went out to ashmont to see them, for my interest was keen. i knew no one connected with the stage at this time and i was curious to know--i was almost frenziedly eager to know the kind of folk the hernes were. my first view of their house was a disappointment. it was quite like any other two-story suburban cottage. it had a small garden but it faced directly on the walk and was a most uninspiring color. but if the house disappointed me the home did not. herne, who looked older than when on the stage, met me with a curiously impassive face but i felt his friendship through this mask. katharine who was even more charming than "mary miller" wore no mask. she was radiantly cordial and we were friends at once. both persisted in calling me "professor" although i explained that i had no right to any such title. in the end they compromised by calling me "the dean," and "the dean" i remained in all the happy years of our friendship. not the least of the charms of this home was the companionship of herne's three lovely little daughters julie, chrystal and dorothy, who liked "the dean"--i don't know why--and were always at the door to greet me when i came. no other household meant as much to me. no one understood more clearly than the hernes the principles i stood for, and no one was more interested in my plans for uniting the scattered members of my family. before i knew it i had told them all about my mother and her pitiful condition, and katharine's expressive face clouded with sympathetic pain. "you'll work it out," she said, "i am sure of it," and her confident words were a comfort to me. they were true celts, swift to laughter and quick with tears; they inspired me to bolder flights. they met me on every plane of my intellectual interests, and our discussions of herbert spencer, henry george, and william dean howells often lasted deep into the night. in all matters concerning the american drama we were in accord. having found these rare and inspiring souls i was not content until i had introduced them to all my literary friends. i became their publicity agent without authority and without pay, for i felt the injustice of a situation where such artists could be shunted into a theater in the south end where no one ever saw them--at least no one of the world of art and letters. their cause was my cause, their success my chief concern. _drifting apart_, i soon discovered, was only the beginning of herne's ambitious design to write plays which should be as true in their local color as howells' stories. he was at this time working on two plays which were to bring lasting fame and a considerable fortune. one of these was a picture of new england coast life and the other was a study of factory life. one became _shore acres_ and the other _margaret fleming_. from time to time as we met he read me these plays, scene by scene, as he wrote them, and when _margaret fleming_ was finished i helped him put it on at chickering hall. my brother was in the cast and i served as "man in front" for six weeks--again without pay of course--and did my best to let boston know what was going on there in that little theater--the first of all the "little theaters" in america. then came the success of _shore acres_ at the boston museum and my sense of satisfaction was complete. how all this puts me back into that other shining boston! i am climbing again those three long flights of stairs to the _transcript_ office. chamberlin extends a cordial hand, clement nods as i pass his door. it is raining, and in the wet street the vivid reds, greens, and yellows of the horse-cars, splash the pavement with gaudy color. round the tower of the old south church the doves are whirling. it is saturday. i am striding across the common to park square, hurrying to catch the : train. the trees of the mall are shaking their heavy tears upon me. drays thunder afar off. bells tinkle.--how simple, quiet, almost village-like this city of my vision seems in contrast with the boston of today with its diabolic subways, its roaring overhead trains, its electric cars and its streaming automobiles! over and over again i have tried to re-discover that boston, but it is gone, never to return. herne is dead, hurd is dead, clement no longer edits the _transcript_, howells and mary wilkins live in new york. louise chandler moulton lies deep in that grave of whose restful quiet she so often sang, and edward everett hale, type of a new england that was old when i was young, has also passed into silence. his name like that of higginson and holmes is only a faint memory in the marble splendors of the new public library. the ravening years--how they destroy! chapter xxx my mother is stricken in the summer of , notwithstanding a widening opportunity for lectures in the east, i decided to make another trip to the west. in all my mother's letters i detected a tremulous undertone of sadness, of longing, and this filled me with unrest even in the midst of the personal security i had won. i could not forget the duty i owed to her who had toiled so uncomplainingly that i might be clothed and fed and educated, and so i wrote to her announcing the date of my arrival. my friend, dr. cross, eager to see the short-grass country which was a far-off and romantic territory to him, arranged to go with me. it was in july, and very hot the day we started, but we were both quite disposed to make the most of every good thing and to ignore all discomforts. i'm not entirely certain, but i think i occupied a sleeping car berth on this trip; if i did so it was for the first time in my life. anyhow, i must have treated myself to regular meals, for i cannot recall being ill on the train. this, in itself, was remarkable. strange to say, most of the incidents of the journey between boston and wisconsin are blended like the faded figures on a strip of sun-smit cloth, nothing remains definitely distinguishable except the memory of our visit to my uncle william's farm in neshonoc, and the recollection of the pleasure we took in the vivid bands of wild flowers which spun, like twin ribbons of satin, from beneath the wheels of the rear coach as we rushed across the state. all else has vanished as though it had never been. these primitive blossoms along the railroad's right-of-way deeply delighted my friend, but to me they were more than flowers, they were cups of sorcery, torches of magic incense. each nodding pink brought back to me the sights and sounds and smells of the glorious meadows of my boyhood's vanished world. every weed had its mystic tale. the slopes of the hills, the cattle grouped under the trees, all wrought upon me like old half-forgotten poems. my uncle, big, shaggy, gentle and reticent, met us at the faded little station and drove us away toward the sun-topped "sleeping camel" whose lines and shadows were so lovely and so familiar. in an hour we were at the farm-house where quaint aunt maria made us welcome in true pioneer fashion, and cooked a mess of hot biscuit to go with the honey from the bees in the garden. they both seemed very remote, very primitive even to me, to my friend cross they were exactly like characters in a story. he could only look and listen and smile from his seat in the corner. william, a skilled bee-man, described to us his methods of tracking wild swarms, and told us how he handled those in his hives. "i can scoop 'em up as if they were so many kernels of corn," he said. after supper as we all sat on the porch watching the sunset, he reverted to the brave days of fifty-five when deer and bear came down over the hills, when a rifle was almost as necessary as a hoe, and as he talked i revived in him the black-haired smiling young giant of my boyhood days, untouched of age or care. he was a poet, in his dreamy reticent way, for when next morning i called attention to the beauty of the view down the valley, his face took on a kind of wistful sweetness and a certain shyness as he answered with a visible effort to conceal his feeling--"i like it--no place better. i wish your father and mother had never left the valley." and in this wish i joined. on the third day we resumed our journey toward dakota, and the doctor, though outwardly undismayed by the long hard ride and the increasing barrenness of the level lands, sighed with relief when at last i pointed out against the level sky-line the wavering bulk of the grain elevator which alone marked the wind-swept deserted site of ordway, the end of our journey. he was tired. business, i soon learned, had not been going well on the border during the two years of my absence. none of the towns had improved. on the contrary, all had lost ground. another dry year was upon the land and the settlers were deeply disheartened. the holiday spirit of eight years before had entirely vanished. in its place was a sullen rebellion against government and against god. the stress of misfortune had not only destroyed hope, it had brought out the evil side of many men. dissensions had grown common. two of my father's neighbors had gone insane over the failure of their crops. several had slipped away "between two days" to escape their debts, and even little jessie, who met us at the train, brave as a meadow lark, admitted that something gray had settled down over the plain. graveyards, jails, asylums, all the accompaniments of civilization, were now quite firmly established. on the west lay the lands of the sioux and beyond them the still more arid foot-hills. the westward movement of the middle border for the time seemed at an end. my father, jessie told me, was now cultivating more than five hundred acres of land, and deeply worried, for his wheat was thin and light and the price less than sixty cents per bushel. it was nearly sunset as we approached the farm, and a gorgeous sky was overarching it, but the bare little house in which my people lived seemed a million miles distant from boston. the trees which my father had planted, the flowers which my mother had so faithfully watered, had withered in the heat. the lawn was burned brown. no green thing was in sight, and no shade offered save that made by the little cabin. on every side stretched scanty yellowing fields of grain, and from every worn road, dust rose like smoke from crevices, giving upon deep-hidden subterranean fires. it was not a good time to bring a visitor to the homestead, but it was too late to retreat. mother, grayer, older, much less vigorous than she had been two years before, met us, silently, shyly, and i bled, inwardly, every time i looked at her. a hesitation had come into her speech, and the indecision of her movements scared me, but she was too excited and too happy to admit of any illness. her smile was as sweet as ever. dr. cross quietly accepted the hot narrow bedroom which was the best we could offer him, and at supper took his place among the harvest help without any noticeable sign of repugnance. it was all so remote, so characteristic of the border that interest dominated disgust. he was much touched, as indeed was i, by the handful of wild roses which father brought in to decorate the little sitting-room. "there's nothing i like better," he said, "than a wild rose." the old trailer had noticeably softened. while retaining his clarion voice and much of his sleepless energy, he was plainly less imperious of manner, less harsh of speech. jessie's case troubled me. as i watched her, studied her, i perceived that she possessed uncommon powers, but that she must be taken out of this sterile environment. "she must be rescued at once or she will live and die the wife of some dakota farmer," i said to mother. again i was disturbed by the feeling that in some way my own career was disloyal, something built upon the privations of my sister as well as upon those of my mother. i began definitely to plan their rescue. "they must not spend the rest of their days on this barren farm," i said to dr. cross, and my self-accusation spurred me to sterner resolve. it was not a pleasant time for my good friend, but, as it turned out, there was a special providence in his being there, for a few days later, while jessie and i were seated in the little sitting-room busily discussing plans for her schooling we heard a short, piercing cry, followed by low sobbing. hurrying out into the yard, i saw my mother standing a few yards from the door, her sweet face distorted, the tears streaming down her cheeks. "what is it, mother?" i called out. "i can't lift my feet," she stammered, putting her arms about my neck. "i can't move!" and in her voice was such terror and despair that my blood chilled. it was true! she was helpless. from the waist downward all power of locomotion had departed. her feet were like lead, drawn to the earth by some terrible magnetic power. in a frenzy of alarm, jessie and i carried her into the house and laid her on her bed. my heart burned with bitter indignation. "this is the end," i said. "here is the result of long years of ceaseless toil. she has gone as her mother went, in the midst of the battle." at the moment i cursed the laws of man, i cursed myself. i accused my father. each moment my remorse and horror deepened, and yet i could do nothing, nothing but kneel beside the bed and hold her hand while jessie ran to call the doctor. she returned soon to say she could not find him. slowly the stricken one grew calmer and at last, hearing a wagon drive into the yard, i hurried out to tell my father what had happened. he read in my face something wrong. "what's the matter?" he asked as i drew near. "mother is stricken," i said. "she cannot walk." he stared at me in silence, his gray eyes expanding like those of an eagle, then calmly, mechanically he got down and began to unhitch the team. he performed each habitual act with most minute care, till i, impatient of his silence, his seeming indifference, repeated, "don't you understand? mother has had a stroke! she is absolutely helpless." then he asked, "where is your friend dr. cross?" "i don't know, i thought he was with you." even as i was calling for him, dr. cross came into the cabin, his arms laden with roses. he had been strolling about on the prairie. with his coming hope returned. calmly yet skillfully he went to the aid of the sufferer, while father, jessie and i sat in agonized suspense awaiting his report. at last he came back to us with gentle reassuring smile. "there is no immediate danger," he said, and the tone in which he spoke was even more comforting than his words. "as soon as she recovers from her terror she will not suffer"--then he added gravely, "a minute blood vessel has ruptured in her brain, and a small clot has formed there. if this is absorbed, as i think it will be, she will recover. nothing can be done for her. no medicine can reach her. it is just a question of rest and quiet." then to me he added something which stung like a poisoned dart. "she should have been relieved from severe household labor years ago." my heart filled with bitterness and rebellion, bitterness against the pioneering madness which had scattered our family, and rebellion toward my father who had kept my mother always on the border, working like a slave long after the time when she should have been taking her ease. above all, i resented my own failure, my own inability to help in the case. here was i, established in a distant city, with success just opening her doors to me, and yet still so much the struggler that my will to aid was futile for lack of means. sleep was difficult that night, and for days thereafter my mind was rent with a continual and ineffectual attempt to reach a solution of my problem, which was indeed typical of ambitious young america everywhere. "shall i give up my career at this point? how can i best serve my mother?" these were my questions and i could not answer either of them. at the end of a week the sufferer was able to sit up, and soon recovered a large part of her native cheerfulness although it was evident to me that she would never again be the woman of the ready hand. her days of labor were over. her magnificent voice was now weak and uncertain. her speech painfully hesitant. she who had been so strong, so brave, was now both easily frightened and readily confused. she who had once walked with the grace and power of an athlete was now in terror of an up-rolled rug upon the floor. every time i looked at her my throat ached with remorseful pain. every plan i made included a vow to make her happy if i could. my success now meant only service to her. in no other way could i justify my career. dr. cross though naturally eager to return to the comfort of his own home stayed on until his patient had regained her poise. "the clot seems in process of being taken up," he said to me, one morning, "and i think it safe to leave her. but you had better stay on for a few weeks." "i shall stay until september, at least," i replied. "i will not go back at all if i am needed here." "don't fail to return," he earnestly advised. "the field is just opening for you in boston, and your earning capacity is greater there than it is here. success is almost won. your mother knows this and tells me that she will insist on your going on with your work." heroic soul! she was always ready to sacrifice herself for others. the doctor's parting words comforted me as i returned to the shadeless farmstead to share in the work of harvesting the grain which was already calling for the reaper, and could not wait either upon sickness or age. again i filled the place of stacker while my father drove the four-horse header, and when at noon, covered with sweat and dust, i looked at myself, i had very little sense of being a "rising literary man." i got back once again to the solid realities of farm life, and the majesty of the colorful sunsets which ended many of our days could not conceal from me the starved lives and lonely days of my little sister and my aging mother. "think of it!" i wrote to my brother. "after eight years of cultivation, father's farm possesses neither tree nor vine. mother's head has no protection from the burning rays of the sun, except the shadow which the house casts on the dry, hard door-yard. where are the 'woods and prairie lands' of our song? is this the 'fairy land' in which we were all to 'reign like kings'? doesn't the whole migration of the garlands and mcclintocks seem a madness?" thereafter when alone, my mother and i often talked of the good old days in wisconsin, of david and deborah and william and frank. i told her of aunt loretta's peaceful life, of the green hills and trees. "oh, i wish we had never left green's coulee!" she said. but this was as far as her complaint ever went, for father was still resolute and undismayed. "we'll try again," he declared. "next year will surely bring a crop." in a couple of weeks our patient, though unable to lift her feet, was able to shuffle across the floor into the kitchen, and thereafter insisted on helping jessie at her tasks. from a seat in a convenient corner she picked over berries, stirred cake dough, ground coffee and wiped dishes, almost as cheerfully as ever, but to me it was a pitiful picture of bravery, and i burned ceaselessly with desire to do something to repay her for this almost hopeless disaster. the worst of the whole situation lay in the fact that my earnings both as teacher and as story writer were as yet hardly more than enough to pay my own carefully estimated expenses, and i saw no way of immediately increasing my income. on the face of it, my plain duty was to remain on the farm, and yet i could not bring myself to sacrifice my boston life. in spite of my pitiful gains thus far, i held a vital hope of soon,--very soon--being in condition to bring my mother and my sister east. i argued, selfishly of course, "it must be that dr. cross is right. my only chance of success lies in the east." mother did her best to comfort me. "don't worry about us," she said. "go back to your work. i am gaining. i'll be all right in a little while." her brave heart was still unsubdued. while i was still debating my problem, a letter came which greatly influenced me, absurdly influenced all of us. it contained an invitation from the secretary of the cedar valley agriculture society to be "the speaker of the day" at the county fair on the twenty-fifth of september. this honor not only flattered me, it greatly pleased my mother. it was the kind of honor she could fully understand. in imagination she saw her son standing up before a throng of old-time friends and neighbors introduced by judge daly and applauded by all the bankers and merchants of the town. "you must do it," she said, and her voice was decisive. father, though less open in his expression, was equally delighted. "you can go round that way just as well as not," he said. "i'd like to visit the old town myself." this letter relieved the situation in the most unexpected way. we all became cheerful. i began to say, "of course you are going to get well," and i turned again to my plan of taking my sister back to the seminary. "we'll hire a woman to stay with you," i said, "and jessie can run up during vacation, or you and father can go down and spend christmas with old friends." yes, i confess it, i was not only planning to leave my mother again--i was intriguing to take her only child away from her. there is no excuse for this, none whatever except the fact that i had her co-operation in the plan. she wanted her daughter to be educated quite as strongly as i could wish, and was willing to put up with a little more loneliness and toil if only her children were on the road to somewhere. jessie was the obstructionist. she was both scared and resentful. she had no desire to go to school in osage. she wanted to stay where she was. mother needed her,--and besides she didn't have any decent clothes to wear. ultimately i overcame all her scruples, and by promising her a visit to the great city of minneapolis (with the privilege of returning if she didn't like the school) i finally got her to start with me. poor, little scared sister, i only half realized the agony of mind through which you passed as we rode away into the minnesota prairies! the farther she got from home the shabbier her gown seemed and the more impossible her coat and hat. at last, as we were leaving minneapolis on our way to osage she leaned her tired head against me and sobbed out a wild wish to go home. her grief almost wrecked my own self-control but i soothed her as best i could by telling her that she would soon be among old friends and that she couldn't turn back now. "go on and make a little visit anyway," i added. "it's only a few hours from ordway and you can go home at any time." she grew more cheerful as we entered familiar scenes, and one of the girls she had known when a child took charge of her, leaving me free to play the part of distinguished citizen. the last day of the races was in action when i, with a certain amount of justifiable pride, rode through the gate (the old familiar sagging gate) seated beside the president of the association. i wish i could believe that as "speaker of the day," i filled the sons of my neighbors with some small part of the awe with which the speakers of other days filled me, and if i assumed something of the polite condescension with which all public personages carry off such an entrance, i trust it will be forgiven me. the event, even to me, was more inspiring in anticipation than in fulfillment, for when i rose to speak in the band-stand the wind was blowing hard, and other and less intellectual attractions were in full tide. my audience remained distressingly small--and calm. i have a dim recollection of howling into the face of the equatorical current certain disconnected sentences concerning my reform theory, and of seeing on the familiar faces of david babcock, john gammons and others of my bronzed and bent old neighbors a mild wonder as to what i was talking about. on the whole i considered it a defeat. in the evening i spoke in the opera house appearing on the same platform whence, eight years before, i had delivered my impassioned graduating oration on "going west." true, i had gone east but then, advice is for others, not for oneself. lee moss, one of my classmates, and in those seminary days a rival orator, was in my audience, and so was burton, wordless as ever, and a little sad, for his attempt at preaching had not been successful--his ineradicable shyness had been against him. hattie was there looking thin and old, and ella and matilda with others of the girls i had known eight years before. some were accompanied by their children. i suspect i aroused their wonder rather than their admiration. my radicalism was only an astonishment to them. however, a few of the men, the more progressive of them, came to me at the close of my talk and shook hands and said, "go on! the country needs just such talks." one of these was uncle billy frazer and his allegiance surprised me, for he had never shown radical tendencies before. summing it all up on my way to chicago i must admit that as a great man returning to his native village i had not been a success. after a few hours of talk with kirkland i started east by way of washington in order that i might stop at camden and call upon old walt whitman whose work i had been lecturing about, and who had expressed a willingness to receive me. it was hot and dry in the drab little city in which he lived, and the street on which the house stood was as cheerless as an ash-barrel, even to one accustomed to poverty, like myself, and when i reached the door of his small, decaying wooden tenement, i was dismayed. it was all so unlike the home of a world-famous poet. it was indeed very like that in which a very destitute mechanic might be living, and as i mounted the steps to walt's room on the second story my resentment increased. not a line of beauty or distinction or grace rewarded my glance. it was all of the same unesthetic barrenness, and not overly clean at that. the old man, majestic as a stranded sea-god, was sitting in an arm chair, his broad quaker hat on his head, waiting to receive me. he was spotlessly clean. his white hair, his light gray suit, his fine linen all gave the effect of exquisite neatness and wholesome living. his clear tenor voice, his quiet smile, his friendly hand-clasp charmed me and calmed me. he was so much gentler and sweeter than i had expected him to be. he sat beside a heap of half-read books, marked newspapers, clippings and letters, a welter of concerns which he refused to have removed by the broom of the caretaker, and now and again as he wished to show me something he rose and hobbled a step or two to fish a book or a letter out of the pile. he was quite lame but could move without a crutch. he talked mainly of his good friends in boston and elsewhere, and alluded to his enemies without a particle of rancor. the lines on his noble face were as placid as those on the brow of an ox--not one showed petulance or discouragement. he was the optimist in every word. he spoke of one of my stories to which traubel had called his attention, and reproved me gently for not "letting in the light." it was a memorable meeting for me and i went away back to my work in boston with a feeling that i had seen one of the very greatest literary personalities of the century, a notion i have had no cause to change in the twenty-seven years which have intervened. chapter xxxi main travelled roads my second visit to the west confirmed me in all my sorrowful notions of life on the plain, and i resumed my writing in a mood of bitter resentment, with full intention of telling the truth about western farm life, irrespective of the land-boomer or the politicians. i do not defend this mood, i merely report it. in this spirit i finished a story which i called _a prairie heroine_ (in order that no one should mistake my meaning, for it was the study of a crisis in the life of a despairing farmer's wife), and while even here, i did not tell the whole truth, i succeeded in suggesting to the sympathetic observer a tragic and hopeless common case. it was a tract, that must be admitted, and realizing this, knowing that it was entirely too grim to find a place in the pages of the _century_ or _harper's_ i decided to send it to the _arena_, a new boston review whose spirit, so i had been told, was frankly radical. a few days later i was amazed to receive from the editor a letter of acceptance enclosing a check, but a paragraph in the letter astonished me more than the check which was for one hundred dollars. "i herewith enclose a check," wrote the editor, "which i hope you will accept in payment of your story.... i note that you have cut out certain paragraphs of description with the fear, no doubt, that the editor would object to them. i hope you will restore the manuscript to its original form and return it. when i ask a man to write for me, i want him to utter his mind with perfect freedom. my magazine is not one that is afraid of strong opinions." this statement backed up by the writer's signature on a blue slip produced in me a moment of stupefaction. entertaining no real hope of acceptance, i had sent the manuscript in accordance with my principle of trying every avenue, and to get such an answer--an immediate answer--with a check! as soon as i recovered the use of my head and hand, i replied in eager acknowledgment. i do not recall the precise words of my letter, but it brought about an early meeting between b. o. flower, the editor, and myself. flower's personality pleased me. hardly more than a boy at this time, he met me with the friendliest smile, and in our talk we discovered many common lines of thought. "your story," he said, "is the kind of fiction i need. if you have any more of that sort let me see it. my magazine is primarily for discussion but i want to include at least one story in each issue. i cannot match the prices of magazines like the _century_ of course, but i will do the best i can for you." it would be difficult to exaggerate the value of this meeting to me, for no matter what anyone may now say of the _arena's_ logic or literary style, its editor's life was nobly altruistic. i have never known a man who strove more single-heartedly for social progress, than b. o. flower. he was the embodiment of unselfish public service, and his ready sympathy for every genuine reform made his editorial office a center of civic zeal. as champions of various causes we all met in his open lists. in the months which followed he accepted for his magazine several of my short stories and bought and printed _under the wheel_, an entire play, not to mention an essay or two on _the new declaration of rights_. he named me among his "regular contributors," and became not merely my comforter and active supporter but my banker, for the regularity of his payments raised me to comparative security. i was able to write home the most encouraging reports of my progress. at about the same time (or a little later) the _century_ accepted a short story which i called _a spring romance_, and a three-part tale of wisconsin. for these i received nearly five hundred dollars! accompanying the note of acceptance was a personal letter from richard watson gilder, so hearty in its words of appreciation that i was assured of another and more distinctive avenue of expression. it meant something to get into the _century_ in those days. the praise of its editor was equivalent to a diploma. i regarded gilder as second only to howells in all that had to do with the judgment of fiction. flower's interests were ethical, gilder's esthetic, and after all my ideals were essentially literary. my reform notions were subordinate to my desire to take honors as a novelist. i cannot be quite sure of the precise date of this good fortune, but i think it must have been in the winter of for i remember writing a lofty letter to my father, in which i said, "if you want any money, let me know." as it happened he had need of seed wheat, and it was with deep satisfaction that i repaid the money i had borrowed of him, together with three hundred dollars more and so faced the new year clear of debt. like the miner who, having suddenly uncovered a hidden vein of gold, bends to his pick in a confident belief in his "find" so i humped above my desk without doubts, without hesitations. i had found my work in the world. if i had any thought of investment at this time, which i am sure i had not, it was concerned with the west. i had no notion of settling permanently in the east. my success in entering both the _century_ and the _arena_ emboldened me to say to dr. cross, "i shall be glad to come down out of the attic and take a full-sized chamber at regular rates." alas! he had no such room, and so after much perturbation, my brother and i hired a little apartment on moreland street in roxbury and moved into it joyously. with a few dollars in my pocket, i went so far as to buy a couple of pictures and a new book rack, the first property i had ever owned, and when, on that first night, with everything in place we looked around upon our "suite," we glowed with such exultant pride as only struggling youth can feel. after years of privation, i had, at last, secured a niche in the frowning escarpment of boston's social palisade. frank was twenty-seven, i was thirty, and had it not been for a haunting sense of our father's defeat and a growing fear of mother's decline, we would have been entirely content. "how can we share our good fortune with her and with sister jessie?" was the question which troubled us most. jessie's fate seemed especially dreary by contrast with our busy and colorful life. "we can't bring them here," i argued. "they would never be happy here. father is a borderman. he would enjoy coming east on a visit, but to shut him up in boston would be like caging an eagle. the case seems hopeless." the more we discussed it the more insoluble the problem became. the best we could do was to write often and to plan for frequent visits to them. one day, late in march, flower, who had been using my stories in almost every issue of his magazine, said to me: "why don't you put together some of your tales of the west, and let us bring them out in book form? i believe they would have instant success." his words delighted me for i had not yet begun to hope for an appearance as the author of a book. setting to work at once to prepare such a volume i put into it two unpublished novelettes called _up the cooley_ and _the branch road_, for the very good reason that none of the magazines, not even _the arena_, found them "available." this reduced the number of sketches to six so that the title page read: main travelled roads six mississippi valley stories by hamlin garland the phrase "main travelled road" is common in the west. ask a man to direct you to a farmhouse and he will say, "keep the main travelled road till you come to the second crossing and turn to the left." it seemed to me not only a picturesque title, significant of my native country, but one which permitted the use of a grimly sardonic foreword. this i supplied. "the main travelled road in the west (as everywhere) is hot and dusty in summer and desolate and drear with mud in fall and spring, and in winter the winds sweep the snows across it, but it does sometimes cross a rich meadow where the songs of the larks and blackbirds and bobolinks are tangled. follow it far enough, it may lead past a bend in the river where the water laughs eternally over its shallows. mainly it is long and weariful and has a dull little town at one end, and a home of toil at the other. like the main travelled road of life it is traversed by many classes of people, but the poor and the weary predominate." this, my first book, was put together during a time of deep personal sorrow. my little sister died suddenly, leaving my father and mother alone on the bleak plain, seventeen hundred miles from both their sons. hopelessly crippled, my mother now mourned the loss of her "baby" and the soldier's keen eyes grew dim, for he loved this little daughter above anything else in the world. the flag of his sunset march was drooping on its staff. nothing but poverty and a lonely old age seemed before him, and yet, in his letters to me, he gave out only the briefest hints of his despair. all this will explain, if the reader is interested to know, why the dedication of my little book was bitter with revolt: "to my father and mother, whose half-century of pilgrimage on the main travelled road of life has brought them only pain and weariness, these stories are dedicated by a son to whom every day brings a deepening sense of his parents' silent heroism." it will explain also why the comfortable, the conservative, those who farmed the farmer, resented my thin gray volume and its message of acrid accusation. it was published in and the outcry against it was instant and astonishing--to me. i had a foolish notion that the literary folk of the west would take a local pride in the color of my work, and to find myself execrated by nearly every critic as "a bird willing to foul his own nest" was an amazement. editorials and criticisms poured into the office, all written to prove that my pictures of the middle border were utterly false. statistics were employed to show that pianos and brussels carpets adorned almost every iowa farmhouse. tilling the prairie soil was declared to be "the noblest vocation in the world, not in the least like the pictures this eastern author has drawn of it." true, corn was only eleven cents per bushel at that time, and the number of alien farm-renters was increasing. true, all the bright boys and girls were leaving the farm, following the example of my critics, but these i was told were all signs of prosperity and not of decay. the american farmer was getting rich, and moving to town, only the renters and the hired man were uneasy and clamorous. my answer to all this criticism was a blunt statement of facts. "butter is not always golden nor biscuits invariably light and flaky in my farm scenes, because they're not so in real life," i explained. "i grew up on a farm and i am determined once for all to put the essential ugliness of its life into print. i will not lie, even to be a patriot. a proper proportion of the sweat, flies, heat, dirt and drudgery of it all shall go in. i am a competent witness and i intend to tell the whole truth." but i didn't! even my youthful zeal faltered in the midst of a revelation of the lives led by the women on the farms of the middle border. before the tragic futility of their suffering, my pen refused to shed its ink. over the hidden chamber of their maternal agonies i drew the veil. the old soldier had nothing to say but mother wrote to me, "it scares me to read some of your stories--they are so true. you might have said more," she added, "but i'm glad you didn't. farmers' wives have enough to bear as it is." "my stories were not written for farmers' wives," i replied. "they were written to convict the selfish monopolistic liars of the towns." "i hope the liars read 'em," was her laconic retort. nevertheless, in spite of all the outcry against my book, words of encouragement came in from a few men and women who had lived out the precise experiences which i had put into print. "you have delineated my life," one man said. "every detail of your description is true. the sound of the prairie chickens, the hum of the threshing machine, the work of seeding, corn husking, everything is familiar to me and new in literature." a woman wrote, "you are entirely right about the loneliness, the stagnation, the hardship. we are sick of lies. give the world the truth." another critic writing from the heart of a great university said, "i value your stories highly as literature, but i suspect that in the social war which is coming you and i will be at each other's throats." this controversy naturally carried me farther and farther from the traditional, the respectable. as a rebel in art i was prone to arouse hate. every letter i wrote was a challenge, and one of my conservative friends frankly urged the folly of my course. "it is a mistake for you to be associated with cranks like henry george and writers like whitman," he said. "it is a mistake to be published by the _arena_. your book should have been brought out by one of the old established firms. if you will fling away your radical notions and consent to amuse the governing classes, you will succeed." fling away my convictions! it were as easy to do that as to cast out my bones. i was not wearing my indignation as a cloak. my rebellious tendencies came from something deep down. they formed an element in my blood. my patriotism resented the failure of our government. therefore such advice had very little influence upon me. the criticism that really touched and influenced me was that which said, "don't preach,--exemplify. don't let your stories degenerate into tracts." howells said, "be fine, be fine--but not too fine!" and gilder warned me not to leave beauty out of the picture. in the light of this friendly council i perceived my danger, and set about to avoid the fault of mixing my fiction with my polemics. the editor of the _arena_ remained my most loyal supporter. he filled the editorial section of his magazine with praise of my fiction and loudly proclaimed my non-conformist character. no editor ever worked harder to give his author a national reputation and the book sold, not as books sell now, but moderately, steadily, and being more widely read than sold, went far. this proved of course, that my readers were poor and could not afford to pay a dollar for a book, at least they didn't, and i got very little royalty from the sale. if i had any illusions about that they were soon dispelled. on the paper bound book i got five cents, on the cloth bound, ten. the sale was mainly in the fifty-cent edition. it was not for me to criticise the methods by which my publisher was trying to make me known, and i do not at this moment regret flower's insistence upon the reforming side of me,--but for the reason that he was essentially ethical rather than esthetic, some part of the literary significance of my work escaped him. it was from the praise of howells, matthews and stedman, that i received my enlightenment. i began to perceive that in order to make my work carry its message, i must be careful to keep a certain balance between significance and beauty. the artist began to check the preacher. howells gave the book large space in "the study" in _harper's_ and what he said of it profoundly instructed me. edward everett hale, mary e. wilkins, thomas wentworth higginson, charles dudley warner, edmund clarence stedman, and many others were most generous of applause. in truth i was welcomed into the circle of american realists with an instant and generous greeting which astonished, at the same time that it delighted me. i marvel at this appreciation as i look back upon it, and surely in view of its reception, no one can blame me for considering my drab little volume a much more important contribution to american fiction than it really was. it was my first book, and so, perhaps, the reader will excuse me for being a good deal uplifted by the noise it made. then too, it is only fair to call attention to the fact that aside from edward eggleston's _hoosier schoolmaster_, _howe's story of a country town_, and _zury_, by joseph kirkland, i had the middle west almost entirely to myself. not one of the group of western writers who have since won far greater fame, and twenty times more dollars than i, had at that time published a single volume. william allen white, albert bigelow payne, stewart edward white, jack london, emerson hough, george ade, meredith nicholson, booth tarkington, and rex beach were all to come. "octave thanet" was writing her stories of arkansas life for _scribners_ but had published only one book. among all my letters of encouragement of this time, not one, except perhaps that from mr. howells, meant more to me than a word which came from walt whitman, who hailed me as one of the literary pioneers of the west for whom he had been waiting. his judgment, so impersonal, so grandly phrased, gave me the feeling of having been "praised by posterity." in short, i was assured that my face was set in the right direction and that the future was mine, for i was not yet thirty-one years of age, and thirty-one is a most excellent period of life! and yet, by a singular fatality, at this moment came another sorrow, the death of alice, my boyhood's adoration. i had known for years that she was not for me, but i loved to think of her as out there walking the lanes among the roses and the wheat as of old. my regard for her was no longer that of the lover desiring and hoping, and though i acknowledged defeat i had been too broadly engaged in my ambitious literary plans to permit her deflection to permanently cloud my life. she had been a radiant and charming figure in my prairie world, and when i read the letter telling of her passing, my mind was irradiated with the picture she had made when last she said good-bye to me. her gentle friendship had been very helpful through all my years of struggle and now in the day of my security, her place was empty. chapter xxxii the spirit of revolt during all this time while i had been living so busily and happily in boston, writing stories, discussing ibsen and arguing the cause of impressionism, a portentous and widespread change of sentiment was taking place among the farmers of the middle border. the discouragement which i had discovered in old friends and neighbors in dakota was finding collective expression. a vast and non-sectional union of the corn-growers, wheat-raisers, and cotton-growers had been effected and the old time politicians were uneasy. as ten cent corn and ten per cent interest were troubling kansas so six-cent cotton was inflaming georgia--and both were frankly sympathetic with montana and colorado whose miners were suffering from a drop in the price of silver. to express the meaning of this revolt a flying squadron of radical orators had been commissioned and were in the field. mary ellen lease with cassandra voice, and jerry simpson with shrewd humor were voicing the demands of the plainsman, while "coin" harvey as champion of the free silver theory had stirred the mountaineer almost to a frenzy. it was an era of fervent meetings and fulminating resolutions. the grange had been social, or at most commercially co-operative in its activities, but the farmers' alliance came as a revolt. the people's party which was the natural outcome of this unrest involved my father. he wrote me that he had joined "the populists," and was one of their county officers. i was not surprised at this action on his part, for i had known how high in honor he held general weaver who was the chief advocate of a third party. naturally flower sympathized with this movement, and kept the pages of his magazine filled with impassioned defenses of it. one day, early in ' , as i was calling upon him in his office, he suddenly said, "garland, why can't you write a serial story for us? one that shall deal with this revolt of the farmers? it's perfectly legitimate material for a novel, as picturesque in its way as _the rise of the vendée_--can't you make use of it?" to this i replied, with some excitement--"why yes, i think i can. i have in my desk at this moment, several chapters of an unfinished story which uses the early phases of the grange movement as a background. if it pleases you i can easily bring it down to date. it might be necessary for me to go into the field, and make some fresh studies, but i believe i can treat the two movements in the same story. anyhow i should like to try." "bring the manuscript in at once," replied flower. "it may be just what we are looking for. if it is we will print it as a serial this summer, and bring it out in book form next winter." in high excitement i hurried home to dig up and re-read the fragment which i called at this time _bradley talcott_. it contained about thirty thousand words and its hero was a hired man on an iowa farm. of course i saw possibilities in this manuscript--i was in the mood to do that--and sent it in. flower read it and reported almost by return mail. "we'll take it," he said. "and as soon as you can get away, i think that you'd better go out to kansas and nebraska and make the studies necessary to complete the story. we'll pay all your expenses and pay you for the serial besides." the price agreed upon would seem very small in these days of millionaire authors, but to me the terms of flower's commission were nobly generous. they set me free. they gave me wings!--for the first time in my life i was able to travel in comfort. i could not only eat in the dining car, and sleep in the sleeping car, but i could go to a hotel at the end of my journey with a delightful sense of freedom from worry about the bills. do you wonder that when i left boston a week or two later, i did so with elation--with a sense of conquest? eager to explore--eager to know every state of the union and especially eager to study the far plains and the rocky mountains, i started westward and kept going until i reached colorado. my stay in the mountain country was short, but my glimpses of ouray and telluride started me on a long series of stories of "the high trails." on the way out as well as on the way back, i took part in meetings of rebellious farmers in bare-walled kansas school-houses, and watched protesting processions of weather-worn nebraska populists as they filed through the shadeless cities of their sun-baked plain. i attended barbecues on drab and dusty fair grounds, meeting many of the best known leaders in the field. everywhere i came in contact with the discontented. i saw only those whose lives seemed about to end in failure, and my grim notions of farm life were in no wise softened by these experiences. how far away all this seems in these days of three-dollar wheat and twenty-six cent cotton--these days of automobiles, tractor plows, and silos! as i kept no diary in those days, i am a little uncertain about dates and places--and no wonder, for i was doing something every moment (i travelled almost incessantly for nearly two years) but one event of that summer does stand clearly out--that of a meeting with my father at omaha in july. it seems that some sort of convention was being held there and that my father was a delegate from brown county, dakota. at any rate i distinctly recall meeting him at the train and taking him to my hotel and introducing him to general weaver. as a representative of the _arena_ i had come to know many of the most prominent men in the movement, and my father was deeply impressed with their recognition of me. for the first time in his life, he deferred to me. he not only let me take charge of him, he let me pay the bills. he said nothing to me of his pride in my position, but my good friends robert and elia peattie told me that to them he expressed the keenest satisfaction. "i never thought hamlin would make a success of writing," he said, "although he was always given to books. i couldn't believe that he would ever earn a living that way, but it seems that he is doing it." my commission from flower and the fact that the _arena_ was willing to pay my way about the country, were to him indubitable signs of prosperity. they could not be misinterpreted by his neighbors. elia peattie sat beside him at a meeting when i spoke, and she heard him say to an old soldier on the right, "i never knew just what that boy of mine was fitted for, but i guess he has struck his gait at last." it may seem illogical to the reader, but this deference on the part of the old soldier did not amuse me. on the contrary it hurt me. a little pang went through me every time he yielded his leadership. i hated to see him display the slightest evidence of age, of weakness. i would rather have had him storm than sigh. part of his irresolution, his timidity, was due, as i could see, to the unwonted noise, and to the crowds of excited men, but more of it came from the vague alarm of self-distrust which are signs of advancing years. for two days we went about together, attending all the sessions and meeting many of the delegates, but we found time to discuss the problems which confronted us both. "i am farming nearly a thousand acres this year," he said, "and i'm getting the work systematized so that i can raise wheat at sixty cents a bushel--if i can only get fifteen bushels to the acre. but there's no money in the country. we seem to be at the bottom of our resources. i never expected to see this country in such a state. i can't get money enough to pay my taxes. look at my clothes! i haven't had a new suit in three years. your mother is in the same fix. i wanted to bring her down, but she had no clothes to wear--and then, besides, it's hard for her to travel. the heat takes hold of her terribly." this statement of the border's poverty and drought was the more moving to me for the reason that the old pioneer had always been so patriotic, so confident, so sanguine of his country's future. he had come a long way from the buoyant faith of ' , and the change in him was typical of the change in the west--in america--and it produced in me a sense of dismay, of rebellious bitterness. why should our great new land fall into this slough of discouragement? my sympathy with the alliance took on a personal tinge. my pride in my own "success" sank away. how pitiful it all seemed in the midst of the almost universal disappointment and suffering of the west! in the face of my mother's need my resources were pitifully inadequate. "i can't go up to see mother this time," i explained to my father, "but i am coming out again this fall to speak in the campaign and i shall surely run up and visit her then." "i'll arrange for you to speak in aberdeen," he said. "i'm on the county committee." all the way back to boston, and during the weeks of my work on my novel, i pondered the significance of the spiritual change which had swept over the whole nation--but above all others the problem of my father's desperate attempt to retrieve his fortunes engaged my sympathy. "unless he gets a crop this year," i reported to my brother--"he is going to need help. it fills me with horror to think of those old people spending another winter out there on the plain." my brother who was again engaged by herne to play one of the leading parts in _shore acres_ was beginning to see light ahead. his pay was not large but he was saving a little of it and was willing to use his savings to help me out in my plan of rescue. it was to be a rescue although we were careful never to put it in that form in our letters to the old pioneer. * * * * * up to this month i had retained my position in the boston school of oratory, but i now notified brown that i should teach no more in his school or any other school. his big shoulders began to shake and a chuckle preceded his irritating joke--"going back to shingling?" he demanded. "no," i replied, "i'm not going to shingle any more--except for exercise after i get my homestead in the west--but i think--i'm not sure--i _think_ i can make a living with my pen." he became serious at this and said, "i'm sorry to have you go--but you are entirely right. you have found your work and i give you my blessing on it. but you must always count yourself one of my teachers and come and speak for us whenever you can." this i promised to do and so we parted. early in september i went west and having put myself in the hands of the state central committee of iowa, entered the field, campaigning in the interests of the people's party. for six weeks i travelled, speaking nearly every day--getting back to the farms of the west and harvesting a rich fund of experiences. it was delightful autumn weather, and in central iowa the crops were fairly abundant. on every hand fields of corn covered the gentle hills like wide rugs of lavender velvet, and the odor of melons and ripening leaves filled the air. nature's songs of cheer and abundance (uttered by innumerable insects) set forth the monstrous injustice of man's law by way of contrast. why should children cry for food in our cities whilst fruits rotted on the vines and wheat had no value to the harvester? with other eager young reformers, i rode across the odorous prairie swells, journeying from one meeting place to another, feeling as my companions did that something grandly beneficial was about to be enacted into law. in this spirit i spoke at populist picnics, standing beneath great oaks, surrounded by men and women, work-worn like my own father and mother, shadowed by the same cloud of dismay. i smothered in small halls situated over saloons and livery stables, travelling by freight-train at night in order to ride in triumph as "orator of the day" at some county fair, until at last i lost all sense of being the writer and recluse. as i went north my indignation burned brighter, for the discontent of the people had been sharpened by the drought which had again cut short the crop. at millbank, cyrus, one of my old dry run neighbors, met me. he was now a grave, stooping middle-aged man also in the midst of disillusionment. "going west" had been a mistake for him as for my father--"but here we are," he said, "and i see nothing for it but to stick to the job." mother and father came to aberdeen to hear me speak, and as i looked down on them from the platform of the opera house, i detected on their faces an expression which was not so much attention, as preoccupation. they were not listening to my words, they were thinking of my relationship to them, of the mystery involved in my being there on the platform surrounded by the men of the county whom they most respected. they could not take my theories seriously, but they did value and to the full, the honor which their neighbors paid me--their son! their presence so affected me that i made, i fear, but an indifferent address. we did not have much time to talk over family affairs but it was good to see them even for a few moments and to know that mother was slowly regaining the use of her limbs. another engagement made it necessary for me to take the night train for st. paul and so they both went down to the station with me, and as the time came to part i went out to the little covered buggy (which was all the carriage my father owned) to start them off on their lonely twelve-mile trip back to the farm. "i don't know how it is all coming about, mother, but sometime, somewhere you and i are going to live together,--not here, back in osage, or perhaps in boston. it won't be long now." she smiled, but her voice was tremulous. "don't worry about me. i'm all right again--at least i am better. i shall be happy if only you are successful." this meeting did me good. my mother's smile lessened my bitterness, and her joy in me, her faith in me, sent me away in renewed determination to rescue her from the destitution and loneliness of this arid land. my return to boston in november discovered a startling change in my relationship to it. the shining city in which i had lived for seven years, and which had become so familiar to me (and so necessary to my progress), had begun to dwindle, to recede. the warm, broad, unkempt and tumultuous west, with its clamorous movement, its freedom from tradition, its vitality of political thought, re-asserted its power over me. new england again became remote. it was evident that i had not really taken root in massachusetts after all. i perceived that boston was merely the capital of new england while new york was fast coming to be the all-conquering capital of the nation. my realization of this shift of values was sharpened by the announcement that howells had definitely decided to move to the metropolis, and that herne had broken up his little home in ashmont and was to make his future home on convent avenue in harlem. the process of stripping boston to build up manhattan had begun. my brother who was still one of herne's company of players in _shore acres_, had no home to break up, but he said, "i'm going to get some sort of headquarters in new york. if you'll come on we'll hire a little apartment up town and 'bach' it. i'm sick of theatrical boarding houses." with suddenly acquired conviction that new york was about to become the literary center of america, i replied, "very well. get your flat. i'd like to spend a winter in the old town anyway." my brother took a small furnished apartment on th street, and together we camped above the tumult. it was only twelve-and-a-half feet wide and about forty-eight long, and its furnishings were ugly, frayed and meager, but its sitting room opened upon the sun, and there, of a morning, i continued to write in growing content. at about noon the actor commonly cooked a steak or a chop and boiled a pot of coffee, and after the dishes were washed, we both merrily descended upon broadway by means of a ninth avenue elevated train. sometimes we dined down town in reckless luxury at one of the french restaurants, "where the tip was but a nickel and the dinner thirty cents," but usually even our evening meal was eaten at home. herne was playing an unlimited engagement at the broadway theater and i spent a good deal of time behind the scenes with him. his house on convent avenue was a handsome mansion and on a sunday, i often dined there, and when we all got going the walls resounded with argument. jim was a great wag and a delightful story teller, but he was in deadly earnest as a reformer, and always ready to speak on the single tax. he took his art very seriously also, and was one of the best stage directors of his day. some of his dramatic methods were so far in advance of his time that they puzzled or disgusted many of his patrons, but without doubt he profoundly influenced the art of the american stage. men like william gillette and clyde fitch quite frankly acknowledged their indebtedness to him. jim and katharine both had an exaggerated notion of my importance in the world of art and letters, and listened to me with a respect, a fellowship and an appreciation which increased my sense of responsibility and inspired me to greater effort as a novelist. together we hammered out questions of art and economics, and planned new plays. those were inspiring hours to us all and we still refer to them as "the good old convent avenue days!" new york city itself was incredibly simpler and quieter than it is now, but to me it was a veritable hell because of the appalling inequality which lay between the palaces of the landlords and the tenements of the proletariat. the monstrous injustice of permitting a few men to own the land on which millions toiled for the barest living tore at my heart strings then, as it does now, and the worst of it rested in the fact that the landless seemed willing to be robbed for the pleasure of those who could not even dissipate the wealth which rolled in upon them in waves of unearned rent. and yet, much as i felt this injustice and much as the city affected me, i could not put it into fiction. "it is not my material," i said. "my dominion is the west." though at ease, i had no feeling of being at home in this tumult. i was only stopping in it in order to be near the hernes, my brother, and howells. the georges, whom i had come to know very well, interested me greatly and often of an evening i went over to the east side, to the unpretentious brick house in which the prophet and his delightful family lived. of course this home was doctrinaire, but then i liked that flavor, and so did the hernes, although katharine's keen sense of humor sometimes made us all seem rather like thorough-going cranks--which we were. in the midst of our growing security and expanding acquaintanceship, my brother and i often returned to the problem of our aging parents. my brother was all for bringing them east but to this i replied, "no, that is out of the question. the old pioneer would never be happy in a city." "we could buy a farm over in jersey." "what would he do there? he would be among strangers and in strange conditions.--no, the only solution is to get him to go back either to iowa or to wisconsin. he will find even that very hard to do for it will seem like failure but he must do it. for mother's sake i'd rather see him go back to the lacrosse valley. it would be a pleasure to visit them there." "that is the thing to do," my brother agreed. "i'll never get out to dakota again." the more i thought about this the lovelier it seemed. the hills, the farmhouses, the roads, the meadows all had delightful associations in my mind, as i knew they must have in my mother's mind and the idea of a regained homestead in the place of my birth began to engage my thought whenever i had leisure to ponder my problem and especially whenever i received a letter from my mother. there was a certain poetic justice in the return of my father and mother to the land from which they had been lured a quarter of a century before, and i was willing to make any sacrifice to bring it about. i take no credit for this, it was a purely selfish plan, for so long as they were alone out there on the plain my own life must continue to be troubled and uneasy. chapter xxxiii the end of the sunset trail in february while attending a conference of reformers in st. louis i received a letter from my mother which greatly disturbed me. "i wish i could see you," she wrote. "i am not very well this winter, i can't go out very often and i get very lonesome for my boys. if only you did not live so far away!" there was something in this letter which made all that i was doing in the convention of no account, and on the following evening i took the train for columbia, the little village in which my parents were spending the winter, filled with remorseful forebodings. my pain and self-accusation would not let me rest. something clutched my heart every time i thought of my crippled mother prisoned in a dakota shanty and no express train was swift enough to satisfy my desire to reach her. the letter had been forwarded to me and i was afraid that she might be actually ill. that ride next day from sioux city to aberdeen was one of the gloomiest i had ever experienced. not only was my conscience uneasy, it seemed that i was being hurled into a region of arctic storms. a terrific blizzard possessed the plain, and the engine appeared to fight its way like a brave animal. all day it labored forward while the coaches behind it swayed in the ever-increasing power of the tempest, their wheels emitting squeals of pain as they ground through the drifts, and i sitting in my overcoat with collar turned high above my ears, my hands thrust deep in my pockets, sullenly counted the hours of my discomfort. the windows, furred deep with frost, let in but a pallid half-light, thus adding a mental dusk to the actual menace of the storm. after each station the brakemen re-entered as if blown in by the blast, and a vapor, white as a shower of flour, filled the door-way, behind them. occasionally as i cleared a space for a peephole through the rimy panes, i caught momentary glimpses of a level, treeless earth, desolate as the polar ocean swept by ferocious elemental warfare. no life was to be seen save here and there a suffering steer or colt, humped under the lee of a straw-stack. the streets of the small wooden towns were deserted. no citizen was abroad, only the faint smoke of chimneys testified to the presence of life beneath the roof-trees. occasionally a local passenger came in, puffing and whistling with loud explosions of excited comment over the storm which he seemed to treat as an agreeable diversion, but the conductor, who followed, threshing his hands and nursing his ears, swore in emphatic dislike of the country and climate, but even this controversy offered no relief to the through passengers who sat in frozen stoical silence. there was very little humor in a dakota blizzard for them--or for me. at six o'clock that night i reached the desolate end of my journey. my father met me at the station and led the way to the low square bleak cottage which he had rented for the winter. mother, still unable to lift her feet from the floor, opened the door to us, and reaching her, as i did, through that terrifying tempest, made her seem as lonely as a castaway on some gelid greenland coast. father was in unwonted depression. his crop had again failed to mature. with nearly a thousand acres of wheat, he had harvested barely enough for the next year's seed. he was not entirely at the end of his faith, however; on the contrary, he was filled with desire of the farther west. "the irrigated country is the next field for development. i'm going to sell out here and try irrigation in montana. i want to get where i can regulate the water for my crops." "you'll do nothing of the kind," i retorted. "you'll go no further west. i have a better plan than that." the wind roared on, all that night and all the next day, and during this time we did little but feed the stove and argue our widely separated plans. i told them of franklin's success on the stage with herne, and i described my own busy, though unremunerative life as a writer, and as i talked the world from which i came shone with increasing splendor. little by little the story of the country's decay came out. the village of ordway had been moved away, nothing remained but the grain elevator. many of our old neighbors had gone "to the irrigation country" and more were planning to go as soon as they could sell their farms. columbia was also in desolate decline. its hotel stood empty, its windows broken, its doors sagging. nothing could have been more depressing, more hopeless, and my throat burned with bitter rage every time my mother shuffled across the floor, and when she shyly sat beside me and took my hand in hers as if to hold me fast, my voice almost failed me. i began to plead "father, let's get a home together, somewhere. suppose we compromise on old neshonoc where you were married and where i was born. let's buy a house and lot there and put the deed in mother's name so that it can never be alienated, and make it the garland homestead. come! mother's brothers are there, your sister is there, all your old pioneer comrades are there. it's in a rich and sheltered valley and is filled with associations of your youth.--haven't you had enough of pioneering? why not go back and be sheltered by the hills and trees for the rest of your lives? if you'll join us in this plan, frank and i will spend our summers with you and perhaps we can all eat our thanksgiving dinners together in the good old new england custom and be happy." mother yielded at once to the earnestness of my appeal. "i'm ready to go back," she said. "there's only one thing to keep me here, and that is jessie's grave," (poor little girl! it did seem a bleak place in which to leave her lying alone) but the old soldier was still too proud, too much the pioneer, to bring himself at once to a surrender of his hopes. he shook his head and said, "i can't do it, hamlin. i've got to fight it out right here or farther west." to this i darkly responded, "if you go farther west you go alone. mother's pioneering is done. she is coming with me, back to comfort, back to a real home beside her brothers." as i grew calmer, we talked of the past, of the early days in iowa, of the dimmer, yet still more beautiful valleys of wisconsin, till mother sighed, and said, "i'd like to see the folks and the old coulee once more, but i never shall." "yes, you shall," i asserted. we spoke of david whose feet were still marching to the guidons of the sunset, of burton far away on an island in puget sound, and together we decided that placid old william, sitting among his bees in gill's coulee, was after all the wiser man. of what avail this constant quest of gold, beneath the far horizon's rim? "father," i bluntly said, "you've been chasing a will-o'-the-wisp. for fifty years you've been moving westward, and always you have gone from certainty to uncertainty, from a comfortable home to a shanty. for thirty years you've carried mother on a ceaseless journey--to what end? here you are,--snowbound on a treeless plain with mother old and crippled. it's a hard thing to say but the time has come for a 'bout face. _you must take the back trail._ it will hurt, but it must be done." "i can't do it!" he exclaimed. "i've never 'backed water' in my life, and i won't do it now. i'm not beaten yet. we've had three bad years in succession--we'll surely have a crop next year. i won't surrender so long as i can run a team." "then, let me tell you something else," i resumed. "i will never visit you on this accursed plain again. you can live here if you want to, but i'm going to take mother out of it. she shall not grow old and die in such surroundings as these. i won't have it--it isn't right." at last the stern old captain gave in, at least to the point of saying, "well, we'll see. i'll come down next summer, and we'll visit william and look the ground over.--but i won't consider going back to stay till i've had a crop. i won't go back to the old valley dead-broke. i can't stand being called a failure. if i have a crop and can sell out i'll talk with you." "very well. i'm going to stop off at salem on my way east and tell the folks that you are about to sell out and come back to the old valley." * * * * * this victory over my pioneer father gave me such relief from my gnawing conscience that my whole sky lightened. the thought of establishing a family hearth at the point where my life began, had a fine appeal. all my schooling had been to migrate, to keep moving. "if your crop fails, go west and try a new soil. if disagreeable neighbors surround you, sell out and move,--always toward the open country. to remain quietly in your native place is a sign of weakness, of irresolution. happiness dwells afar. wealth and fame are to be found by journeying toward the sunset star!" such had been the spirit, the message of all the songs and stories of my youth. now suddenly i perceived the futility of our quest. i felt the value, i acknowledged the peace of the old, the settled. the valley of my birth even in the midst of winter had a quiet beauty. the bluffs were draped with purple and silver. steel-blue shadows filled the hollows of the sunlit snow. the farmhouses all put forth a comfortable, settled, homey look. the farmers themselves, shaggy, fur-clad and well-fed, came into town driving fat horses whose bells uttered a song of plenty. on the plain we had feared the wind with a mortal terror, here the hills as well as the sheltering elms (which defended almost every roof) stood against the blast like friendly warders. the village life, though rude and slow-moving, was hearty and cheerful. as i went about the streets with my uncle william--gray-haired old pioneers whose names were startlingly familiar, called out, "hello, bill"--adding some homely jest precisely as they had been doing for forty years. as young men they had threshed or cradled or husked corn with my father, whom they still called by his first name. "so you are dick's boy? how is dick getting along?" "he has a big farm," i replied, "nearly a thousand acres, but he's going to sell out next year and come back here." they were all frankly pleased. "is that so! made his pile, i s'pose?" "enough to live on, i guess," i answered evasively. "i'm glad to hear of it. i always liked dick. we were in the woods together. i hated to see him leave the valley. how's belle?" this question always brought the shadow back to my face. "not very well,--but we hope she'll be better when she gets back here among her own folks." "well, we'll all be glad to see them both," was the hearty reply. in this hope, with this plan in mind, i took my way back to new york, well pleased with my plan. after nearly a third of a century of migration, the garlands were about to double on their trail, and their decision was deeply significant. it meant that a certain phase of american pioneering had ended, that "the woods and prairie lands" having all been taken up, nothing remained but the semi-arid valleys of the rocky mountains. "irrigation" was a new word and a vague word in the ears of my father's generation, and had little of the charm which lay in the "flowery savannahs" of the mississippi valley. in the years between and the nation had swiftly passed through the buoyant era of free land settlement, and now the day of reckoning had come. chapter xxxiv we go to california the idea of a homestead now became an obsession with me. as a proletariat i knew the power of the landlord and the value of land. my love of the wilderness was increasing year by year, but all desire to plow the wild land was gone. my desire for a home did not involve a lonely cabin in a far-off valley, on the contrary i wanted roads and bridges and neighbors. my hope now was to possess a minute isle of safety in the midst of the streaming currents of western life--a little solid ground in my native valley on which the surviving members of my family could catch and cling. all about me as i travelled, i now perceived the mournful side of american "enterprise." sons were deserting their work-worn fathers, daughters were forgetting their tired mothers. families were everywhere breaking up. ambitious young men and unsuccessful old men were in restless motion, spreading, swarming, dragging their reluctant women and their helpless and wondering children into unfamiliar hardships--at times i visioned the middle border as a colony of ants--which was an injustice to the ants, for ants have a reason for their apparently futile and aimless striving. my brother and i discussed my notion in detail as we sat in our six-by-nine dining room, high in our harlem flat. "the house must be in a village. it must be new england in type and stand beneath tall elm trees," i said. "it must be broad-based and low--you know the kind, we saw dozens of them on our tramp-trip down the connecticut valley and we'll have a big garden and a tennis court. we'll need a barn, too, for father will want to keep a driving team. mother shall have a girl to do the housework so that we can visit her often,"--and so on and on! things were not coming our way very fast but they were coming, and it really looked as though my dream might become a reality. my brother was drawing a small but regular salary as a member of herne's company, my stories were selling moderately well and as neither of us was given to drink or cards, whatever we earned we saved. to some minds our lives seemed stupidly regular, but we were happy in our quiet way. it was in my brother's little flat on one hundred and fifth street that stephen crane renewed a friendship which had begun a couple of years before, while i was lecturing in avon, new jersey. he was a slim, pale, hungry looking boy at this time and had just written _the red badge of courage_, in fact he brought the first half of it in his pocket on his second visit, and i loaned him fifteen dollars to redeem the other half from the keep of a cruel typist. he came again and again to see me, always with a new roll of manuscript in his ulster. now it was _the men in the storm_, now a bunch of _the black riders_, curious poems, which he afterwards dedicated to me, and while my brother browned a steak, steve and i usually sat in council over his dark future. "you will laugh over these lean years," i said to him, but he found small comfort in that prospect. to him i was a man established, and i took an absurd pleasure in playing the part of successful author. it was all very comical--for my study was the ratty little parlor of a furnished flat for which we paid thirty dollars per month. still to the man at the bottom of a pit the fellow on top, in the sunlight, is a king, and to crane my brother and i were at least dukes. an expression used by suderman in his preface to _dame care_ had made a great impression on my mind and in discussing my future with the hernes i quoted these lines and said, "i am resolved that _my_ mother shall not 'rise from the feast of life empty.' think of it! she has never seen a real play in a real theater in all her life. she has never seen a painting or heard a piece of fine music. she knows nothing of the splendors of our civilization except what comes to her in the newspapers, while here am i in the midst of every intellectual delight. i take no credit for my desire to comfort her--it's just my way of having fun. it's a purely selfish enterprise on my part." katharine who was familiar with the theory of egoistic altruism would not let my statement go uncontradicted. she tried to make a virtue of my devotion to my parents. "no," i insisted,--"if batting around town gave me more real pleasure i would do it. it don't, in fact i shall never be quite happy till i have shown mother _shore acres_ and given her an opportunity to hear a symphony concert." meanwhile, having no business adviser, i was doing honorable things in a foolish way. with no knowledge of how to publish my work i was bringing out a problem novel here, a realistic novelette there and a book of short stories in a third place, all to the effect of confusing my public and disgusting the book-seller. but then, no one in those days had any very clear notion of how to launch a young writer, and so (as i had entered the literary field by way of a side-gate) i was doing as well as could have been expected of me. my idea, it appears, was to get as many books into the same market at the same time as possible. as a matter of fact none of them paid me any royalty, my subsistence came from the sale of such short stories as i was able to lodge with _the century_, and _harper's_, _the youth's companion_ and _the arena_. the "bacheller syndicate" took a kindly interest in me, and i came to like the big, blonde, dreaming youth from the north country who was the nominal head of the firm. irving bacheller, even at that time struck me as more of a poet than a business man, though i was always glad to get his check, for it brought the garland homestead just that much nearer. on the whole it was a prosperous and busy winter for both my brother and myself. chicago was in the early stages of building a world's fair, and as spring came on i spent a couple of weeks in the city putting _prairie folks_ into shape for the printer. kirkland introduced me to the chicago literary club, and my publisher, frances schulte, took me to the press club and i began to understand and like the city. as may deepened i went on up to wisconsin, full of my plan for a homestead, and the green and luscious slopes of the old valley gave me a new delight, a kind of proprietary delight. i began to think of it as home. it seemed not only a natural deed but a dutiful deed, this return to the land of my birth, it was the beginning of a more settled order of life. my aunt, susan bailey, who was living alone in the old house in onalaska made me welcome, and showed grateful interest when i spoke to her of my ambition. "i'll be glad to help you pay for such a place," she said, "provided you will set aside a room in it for me. i am lonely now. your father is all i have and i'd like to spend my old age with him. but don't buy a farm. buy a house and lot here or in lacrosse." "mother wants to be in west salem," i replied. "all our talk has been of west salem, and if you can content yourself to live with us there, i shall be very glad of your co-operation. father is still skittish. he will not come back till he can sell to advantage. however, the season has started well and i am hoping that he will at least come down with mother and talk the matter over with us." to my delight, almost to my surprise, mother came, alone. "father will follow in a few days," she said--"if he can find someone to look after his stock and tools while he is gone." she was able to walk a little now and together we went about the village, and visited relatives and neighbors in the country. we ate "company dinners" of fried chicken and shortcake, and sat out on the grass beneath the shelter of noble trees during the heat of the day. there was something profoundly restful and satisfying in this atmosphere. no one seemed in a hurry and no one seemed to fear either the wind or the sun. the talk was largely of the past, of the fine free life of the "early days" and my mother's eyes often filled with happy tears as she met friends who remembered her as a girl. there was no doubt in her mind. "i'd like to live here," she said. "it's more like home than any other place. but i don't see how your father could stand it on a little piece of land. he likes his big fields." one night as we were sitting on william's porch, talking of war times and of hugh and jane and walter, a sweet and solemn mood came over us. it seemed as if the spirits of the pioneers, the mcclintocks and dudleys had been called back and were all about us. it seemed to me (as to my mother) as if luke or leonard might at any moment emerge from the odorous june dusk and speak to us. we spoke of david, and my mother's love for him vibrated in her voice as she said, "i don't suppose i'll ever see him again. he's too poor and too proud to come back here, and i'm too old and lame and poor to visit him." this produced in me a sudden and most audacious change of plan. "i'm not so certain about that," i retorted. "frank's company is going to play in california this winter, and i am arranging a lecture tour--i've just decided that you and father shall go along." the boldness of my plan startled her. "oh, we can't do a crazy thing like that," she declared. "it's not so crazy. father has been talking for years of a visit to his brother in santa barbara. aunt susan tells me she wants to spend one more winter in california, and so i see no reason in the world why you and father should not go. i'll pay for your tickets and addison will be glad to house you. we're going!" i asserted firmly. "we'll put off buying our homestead till next year and make this the grandest trip of your life." aunt maria here put in a word, "you do just what hamlin tells you to do. if he wants to spend his money giving you a good time, you let him." mother smiled wistfully but incredulously. to her it all seemed as remote, as improbable as a trip to egypt, but i continued to talk of it as settled and so did william and maria. i wrote at once to my father outlining my trip and pleading strongly for his consent and co-operation. "all your life long you and mother have toiled with hardly a day off. your travelling has been mainly in a covered wagon. you have seen nothing of cities for thirty years. addison wants you to spend the winter with him, and mother wants to see david once more--why not go? begin to plan right now and as soon as your crops are harvested, meet me at omaha or kansas city and we'll all go along together." he replied with unexpected half-promise. "the crops look pretty well. unless something very destructive turns up i shall have a few dollars to spend. i'd like to make that trip. i'd like to see addison once more." i replied, "the more i think about it, the more wonderful it all seems. it will enable you to see the mountains, and the great plains. you can visit los angeles and san francisco. you can see the ocean. frank is to play for a month in frisco, and we can all meet at uncle david's for christmas." the remainder of the summer was taken up with the preparations for this gorgeous excursion. mother went back to help father through the harvest, whilst i returned to boston and completed arrangements for my lecture tour which was to carry me as far north as puget sound. at last in november, when the grain was all safely marketed, the old people met me in kansas city, and from there as if in a dream, started westward with me in such holiday spirits as mother's health permitted. father was like a boy. having cut loose from the farm--at least for the winter, he declared his intention to have a good time, "as good as the law allows," he added with a smile. of course they both expected to suffer on the journey, that's what travel had always meant to them, but i surprised them. i not only took separate lower berths in the sleeping car, i insisted on regular meals at the eating houses along the way, and they were amazed to find travel almost comfortable. the cost of all this disturbed my mother a good deal till i explained to her that my own expenses were paid by the lecture committees and that she need not worry about the price of her fare. perhaps i even boasted about a recent sale of a story! if i did i hope it will be forgiven me for i was determined that this should be the greatest event in her life. my father's interest in all that came to view was as keen as my own. during all his years of manhood he had longed to cross the plains and to see pike's peak, and now while his approach was not as he had dreamed it, he was actually on his way into colorado. "by the great horn spoons," he exclaimed as we neared the foot hills, "i'd like to have been here before the railroad." here spoke the born explorer. his eyes sparkled, his face flushed. the farther we got into the houseless cattle range, the better he liked it. "the best times i've ever had in my life," he remarked as we were looking away across the plain at the faint shapes of the spanish peaks, "was when i was cruising the prairie in a covered wagon." then he told me once again of his long trip into minnesota before the war, and of the cavalry lieutenant who rounded the settlers up and sent them back to st. paul to escape the sioux who were on the warpath. "i never saw such a country for game as northern minnesota was in those days. it swarmed with water-fowl and chicken and deer. if the soldiers hadn't driven me out i would have had a farm up there. i was just starting to break a garden when the troops came." it was all glorious to me as to them. the spanish life of las vegas where we rested for a day, the indians of laguna, the lava beds and painted buttes of the desert, the beautiful slopes of the san francisco mountains, the herds of cattle, the careering cowboys, the mines and miners--all came in for study and comment. we resented the nights which shut us out from so much that was interesting. then came the hot sand of the colorado valley, the swift climb to the bleak heights of the coast range--and, at last, the swift descent to the orange groves and singing birds of riverside. a dozen times father cried out, "this alone is worth the cost of the trip." mother was weary, how weary i did not know till we reached our room in the hotel. she did not complain but her face was more dejected than i had ever seen it, and i was greatly disturbed by it. our grand excursion had come too late for her. a good night's sleep and a hearty breakfast restored her to something like her smiling self and when we took the train for santa barbara she betrayed more excitement than at any time on our trip. "do we really _see_ the ocean?" she asked. "yes," i explained, "we run close along the shore. you'll see waves and ships and sharks--may be a whale or two." father was even more excited. he spent most of his time on the platform or hanging from the window. "well, i never really expected to see the pacific," he said as we were nearing the end of our journey. "now i'm determined to see frisco and the golden gate." "of course--that is a part of our itinerary. you can see frisco when you come up to visit david." my uncle addison who was living in a plain but roomy house, was genuinely glad to see us, and his wife made us welcome in the spirit of the middle border for she was one of the early settlers of green county, wisconsin. in an hour we were at home. our host was, as i remembered him, a tall thin man of quiet dignity and notable power of expression. his words were well chosen and his manner urbane. "i want you people to settle right down here with me for the winter," he said. "in fact i shall try to persuade richard to buy a place here." this brought out my own plan for a home in west salem and he agreed with me that the old people should never again spend a winter in dakota. there was no question in my mind about the hospitality of this home and so with a very comfortable, a delightful sense of peace, of satisfaction, of security, i set out on my way to san francisco, portland and olympia, eager to see california--all of it. its mountains, its cities and above all its poets had long called to me. it meant the _argonauts_ and _the songs of the sierras_ to me, and one of my main objects of destination was joaquin miller's home in oakland heights. no one else, so far as i knew, was transmitting this coast life into literature. edwin markham was an oakland school teacher, frank norris, a college student, and jack london a boy in short trousers. miller dominated the coast landscape. the mountains, the streams, the pines were his. a dozen times as i passed some splendid peak i quoted his lines. "sierras! eternal tents of snow that flash o'er battlements of mountains." nevertheless, in all my journeying, throughout all my other interests, i kept in mind our design for a reunion at my uncle david's home in san josé, and i wrote him to tell him when to expect us. franklin, who was playing in san francisco, arranged to meet me, and father and mother were to come up from santa barbara. it all fell out quite miraculously as we had planned it. on the th of december we all met at my uncle's door. this reunion, so american in its unexpectedness, deserves closer analysis. my brother had come from new york city. father and mother were from central dakota. my own home was still in boston. david and his family had reached this little tenement by way of a long trail through iowa, dakota, montana, oregon and northern california. we who had all started, from the same little wisconsin valley were here drawn together, as if by the magic of a conjuror's wand, in a city strange to us all. can any other country on earth surpass the united states in the ruthless broadcast dispersion of its families? could any other land furnish a more incredible momentary re-assembling of scattered units? the reader of this tale will remember that david was my boyish hero, and as i had not seen him for fifteen years, i had looked forward, with disquieting question concerning our meeting. alas! my fears were justified. there was more of pain than pleasure in the visit, for us all. although my brother and i did our best to make it joyous, the conditions of the reunion were sorrowful, for david, who like my father, had been following the lure of the sunset all his life, was in deep discouragement. from his fruitful farm in iowa he had sought the free soil of dakota. from dakota he had been lured to montana. in the forests of montana he had been robbed by his partner, reduced in a single day to the rank of a day laborer, and so in the attempt to retrieve his fortunes, had again moved westward--ever westward, and here now at last in san josé, at the end of his means and almost at the end of his courage, he was working at whatever he could find to do. nevertheless, he was still the borderer, still the man of the open. something in his face and voice, something in his glance set him apart from the ordinary workman. he still carried with him something of the hunter, something which came from the broad spaces of the middle border, and though his bushy hair and beard were streaked with white, and his eyes sad and dim, i could still discern in him some part of the physical strength and beauty which had made his young manhood so glorious to me--and deeper yet, i perceived in him the dreamer, the celtic minstrel, the poet. his limbs, mighty as of old, were heavy, and his towering frame was beginning to stoop. his brave heart was beating slow. fortune had been harshly inimical to him and his outlook on life was bitter. with all his tremendous physical power he had not been able to regain his former footing among men. in talking of his misfortunes, i asked him why he had not returned to wisconsin after his loss in montana, and he replied, as my father had done. "how could i do that? how could i sneak back with empty pockets?" inevitably, almost at once, father spoke of the violin. "have you got it yet?" he asked. "yes," david replied. "but i seldom play on it now. in fact, i don't think there are any strings on it." i could tell from the tone of his voice that he had no will to play, but he dug the almost forgotten instrument out of a closet, strung it and tuned it, and that evening after dinner, when my father called out in familiar imperious fashion, "come, come! now for a tune," david was prepared, reluctantly, to comply. "my hands are so stiff and clumsy now," he said by way of apology to me. it was a sad pleasure to me, as to him, this revival of youthful memories, and i would have spared him if i could, but my father insisted upon having all of the jocund dances and sweet old songs. although a man of deep feeling in many ways, he could not understand the tragedy of my uncle's failing skill. but mother did! her ear was too acute not to detect the difference in tone between his playing at this time and the power of expression he had once possessed, and in her shadowy corner she suffered sympathetically when beneath his work-worn fingers the strings cried out discordantly. the wrist, once so strong and sure, the hands so supple and swift were now hooks of horn and bronze. the magic touch of youth had vanished, and yet as he went on, some little part of his wizardry came back. at father's request he played once more _maggie, air ye sleepin'_, and while the strings wailed beneath his bow i shivered as of old, stirred by the winds of the past "roaring o'er moorland craggy." deep in my brain the sob of the song sank, filling my inner vision with flitting shadows of vanished faces, brows untouched of care, and sweet kind eyes lit by the firelight of a secure abundant hearth. i was lying once more before the fire in david's little cabin in the deep wisconsin valley and grandfather mcclintock, a dreaming giant, was drumming on his chair, his face flame-lit, his hair a halo of snow and gold. tune after tune the old borderman played, in answer to my father's insistent demands, until at last the pain of it all became unendurable and he ended abruptly. "i can't play any more.--i'll never play again," he added harshly as he laid the violin away in its box like a child in its coffin. we sat in silence, for we all realized that never again would we hear those wistful, meaningful melodies. wordless, with aching throats, resentful of the present, my mother and my aunt dreamed of the bright and beautiful neshonoc days when they were young and david was young and all the west was a land of hope. my father now joined in urging david to go back to the middle border. "i'll put you on my farm," he said. "or if you want to go back to neshonoc, we'll help you do that. we are thinking of going back there ourselves." david sadly shook his grizzled head. "no, i can't do that," he repeated. "i haven't money enough to pay my carfare, and besides, becky and the children would never consent to it." i understood. his proud heart rebelled at the thought of the pitying or contemptuous eyes of his stay-at home neighbors. he who had gone forth so triumphantly thirty years before could not endure the notion of going back on borrowed money. better to die among strangers like a soldier. father, stern old pioneer though he was, could not think of leaving his wife's brother here, working like a chinaman. "dave has acted the fool," he privately said to me, "but we will help him. if you can spare a little, we'll lend him enough to buy one of these fruit farms he's talking about." to this i agreed. together we loaned him enough to make the first payment on a small farm. he was deeply grateful for this and hope again sprang up in his heart. "you won't regret it," he said brokenly. "this will put me on my feet, and by and by perhaps we'll meet in the old valley."--but we never did. i never saw him again. i shall always insist that a true musician, a superb violinist was lost to the world in david mcclintock--but as he was born on the border and always remained on the border, how could he find himself? his hungry heart, his need of change, his search for the pot of gold beyond the sunset, had carried him from one adventure to another and always farther and farther from the things he most deeply craved. he might have been a great singer, for he had a beautiful voice and a keen appreciation of the finer elements of song. it was hard for me to adjust myself to his sorrowful decline into old age. i thought of him as he appeared to me when riding his threshing machine up the coulee road. i recalled the long rifle with which he used to carry off the prizes at the turkey shoots, and especially i remembered him as he looked while playing the violin on that far off thanksgiving night in lewis valley. i left california with the feeling that his life was almost ended, and my heart was heavy with indignant pity for i must now remember him only as a broken and discouraged man. the david of my idolatry, the laughing giant of my boyhood world, could be found now, only in the mist which hung above the hills and valleys of neshonoc. chapter xxxv the homestead in the valley to my father the golden gate of san francisco was grandly romantic. it was associated in his mind with bret harte and the goldseekers of forty nine, as well as with fremont and the mexican war, hence one of his expressed desires for many years had been to stand on the hills above the bay and look out on the ocean. "i know boston," he said, "and i want to know frisco." my mother's interest in the city was more personal. she was eager to see her son franklin play his part in a real play on a real stage. for that reward she was willing to undertake considerable extra fatigue and so to please her, to satisfy my father and to gratify myself, i accompanied them to san francisco and for several days with a delightful sense of accomplishment, my brother and i led them about the town. we visited the seal rocks and climbed nob hill, explored chinatown and walked through the old spanish quarter, and as each of these pleasures was tasted my father said, "well now, that's done!" precisely as if he were getting through a list of tedious duties. there was no hint of obligation, however, in the hours which they spent in seeing my brother's performance as one of the "three twins" in _incog_. the piece was in truth very funny and franklin hardly to be distinguished from his "star," a fact which astonished and delighted my mother. she didn't know he could look so unlike himself. she laughed herself quite breathless over the absurd situations of the farce but father was not so easily satisfied. "this foolery is all well enough," said he, "but i'd rather see you and your friend herne in _shore acres_." at last the day came when they both expressed a desire to return to santa barbara. "we've had about all we can stand this trip," they confessed, whereupon, leaving franklin at his job, we started down the valley on our way to addison garland's home which had come to have something of the quality of home to us all. we were tired but triumphant. one by one the things we had promised ourselves to see we had seen. the plains, the mountains, the desert, the orange groves, the ocean, all had been added to the list of our achievements. we had visited david and watched franklin play in his "troupe," and now with a sense of fullness, of victory, we were on our way back to a safe harbor among the fruits and flowers of southern california. this was the pleasantest thought of all to me and in private i said to my uncle, "i hope you can keep these people till spring. they must not go back to dakota now." "give yourself no concern about that!" replied addison. "i have a program laid out which will keep them busy until may. we're going out to catalina and up into the ojai valley and down to los angeles. we are to play for the rest of the winter like a couple of boys." with mind entirely at ease i left them on the rose-embowered porch of my uncle's home, and started east by way of denver and chicago, eager to resume work on a book which i had promised for the autumn. chicago was now full in the spot-light of the national stage. in spite of the business depression which still engulfed the west, the promoters of the columbian exposition were going steadily forward with their plans, and when i arrived in the city about the middle of january, the bustle of preparation was at a very high point. the newly-acquired studios were swarming with eager and aspiring young artists, and i believed, (as many others believed) that the city was entering upon an era of swift and shining development. all the near-by states were stirred and heartened by this esthetic awakening of a metropolis which up to this time had given but little thought to the value of art in the life of a community. from being a huge, muddy windy market-place, it seemed about to take its place among the literary capitals of the world. colonies of painters, sculptors, decorators and other art experts now colored its life in gratifying degree. beauty was a work to advertise with, and writers like harriet monroe, henry b. fuller, george ade, peter finley dunne, and eugene field were at work celebrating, each in his kind, the changes in the thought and aspect of the town. ambitious publishing houses were springing up and "dummies" of new magazines were being thumbed by reckless young editors. the talk was all of art, and the exposition. it did, indeed seem as if culture were about to hum. naturally this flare of esthetic enthusiasm lit the tow of my imagination. i predicted a publishing center and a literary market-place second only to new york, a publishing center which by reason of its geographical position would be more progressive than boston, and more american than manhattan. "here flames the spirit of youth. here throbs the heart of america," i declared in _crumbling idols_, an essay which i was at this time writing for the _forum_. in the heat of this conviction, i decided to give up my residence in boston and establish headquarters in chicago. i belonged here. my writing was of the middle border, and must continue to be so. its spirit was mine. all of my immediate relations were dwellers in the west, and as i had also definitely set myself the task of depicting certain phases of mountain life, it was inevitable that i should ultimately bring my workshop to chicago which was my natural pivot, the hinge on which my varied activities would revolve. and, finally, to live here would enable me to keep in closer personal touch with my father and mother in the wisconsin homestead which i had fully determined to acquire. following this decision, i returned to boston, and at once announced my plan to howells, flower and other of my good friends who had meant so much to me in the past. each was kind enough to express regret and all agreed that my scheme was logical. "it should bring you happiness and success," they added. alas! the longer i stayed, the deeper i settled into my groove and the more difficult my removal became. it was not easy to surrender the busy and cheerful life i had been leading for nearly ten years. it was hard to say good-bye to the artists and writers and musicians with whom i had so long been associated. to leave the common, the parks, the library and the lovely walks and drives of roxbury, was sorrowful business--but i did it! i packed my books ready for shipment and returned to chicago in may just as the exposition was about to open its doors. like everyone else who saw it at this time i was amazed at the grandeur of "the white city," and impatiently anxious to have all my friends and relations share in my enjoyment of it. my father was back on the farm in dakota and i wrote to him at once urging him to come down. "frank will be here in june and we will take charge of you. sell the cook stove if necessary and come. you _must_ see this fair. on the way back i will go as far as west salem and we'll buy that homestead i've been talking about." my brother whose season closed about the twenty-fifth of may, joined me in urging them not to miss the fair and a few days later we were both delighted and a little surprised to get a letter from mother telling us when to expect them. "i can't walk very well," she explained, "but i'm coming. i am so hungry to see my boys that i don't mind the long journey." having secured rooms for them at a small hotel near the west gate of the exposition grounds, we were at the station to receive them as they came from the train surrounded by other tired and dusty pilgrims of the plains. father was in high spirits and mother was looking very well considering the tiresome ride of nearly seven hundred miles. "give us a chance to wash up and we'll be ready for anything," she said with brave intonation. we took her at her word. with merciless enthusiasm we hurried them to their hotel and as soon as they had bathed and eaten a hasty lunch, we started out with intent to astonish and delight them. here was another table at "the feast of life" from which we did not intend they should rise unsatisfied. "this shall be the richest experience of their lives," we said. with a wheeled chair to save mother from the fatigue of walking we started down the line and so rapidly did we pass from one stupendous vista to another that we saw in a few hours many of the inside exhibits and all of the finest exteriors--not to mention a glimpse of the polyglot amazements of the midway. in pursuance of our plan to watch the lights come on, we ate our supper in one of the big restaurants on the grounds and at eight o'clock entered the court of honor. it chanced to be a moonlit night, and as lamps were lit and the waters of the lagoon began to reflect the gleaming walls of the great palaces with their sculptured ornaments, and boats of quaint shape filled with singers came and went beneath the arching bridges, the wonder and the beauty of it all moved these dwellers of the level lands to tears of joy which was almost as poignant as pain. in addition to its grandeur the scene had for them the transitory quality of an autumn sunset, a splendor which they would never see again. stunned by the majesty of the vision, my mother sat in her chair, visioning it all yet comprehending little of its meaning. her life had been spent among homely small things, and these gorgeous scenes dazzled her, overwhelmed her, letting in upon her in one mighty flood a thousand stupefying suggestions of the art and history and poetry of the world. she was old and she was ill, and her brain ached with the weight of its new conceptions. her face grew troubled and wistful, and her eyes as big and dark as those of a child. at last utterly overcome she leaned her head against my arm, closed her eyes and said, "take me home. i can't stand any more of it." sadly i took her away, back to her room, realizing that we had been too eager. we had oppressed her with the exotic, the magnificent. she was too old and too feeble to enjoy as we had hoped she would enjoy, the color and music and thronging streets of the magic city. at the end of the third day father said, "well, i've had enough." he too, began to long for the repose of the country, the solace of familiar scenes. in truth they were both surfeited with the alien, sick of the picturesque. their ears suffered from the clamor of strange sounds as their eyes ached with the clash of unaccustomed color. my insistent haste, my desire to make up in a few hours for all their past deprivations seemed at the moment to have been a mistake. seeing this, knowing that all the splendors of the orient could not compensate them for another sleepless night, i decided to cut their visit short and hurry them back to quietude. early on the fourth morning we started for the lacrosse valley by way of madison--they with a sense of relief, i with a feeling of disappointment. "the feast was too rich, too highly spiced for their simple tastes," i now admitted. however, a certain amount of comfort came to me as i observed that the farther they got from the fair the keener their enjoyment of it became!--with bodies at ease and minds untroubled, they now relived in pleasant retrospect all the excitement and bustle of the crowds, all the bewildering sights and sounds of the midway. scenes which had worried as well as amazed them were now recalled with growing enthusiasm, as our train, filled with other returning sightseers of like condition, rushed steadily northward into the green abundance of the land they knew so well, and when at six o'clock of a lovely afternoon, they stepped down upon the platform of the weather-beaten little station at west salem, both were restored to their serene and buoyant selves. the leafy village, so green, so muddy, so lush with grass, seemed the perfection of restful security. the chuckle of robins on the lawns, the songs of cat-birds in the plum trees and the whistle of larks in the pasture appealed to them as parts of a familiar sweet and homely hymn. * * * * * just in the edge of the village, on a four-acre plot of rich level ground, stood an old two-story frame cottage on which i had fixed my interest. it was not beautiful, not in the least like the ideal new england homestead my brother and i had so long discussed, but it was sheltered on the south by three enormous maples and its gate fronted upon a double row of new england elms whose branches almost arched the wide street. its gardens, rich in grape vines, asparagus beds, plums, raspberries and other fruiting shrubs, appealed with especial power to my mother who had lived so long on the sun-baked plains that the sight of green things growing was very precious in her eyes. clumps of lilacs, syringa and snow-ball, and beds of old-fashioned flowers gave further evidence of the love and care which the former owners of the place had lavished upon it. as for myself, the desire to see my aging parents safely sheltered beneath the benignant branches of those sturdy trees would have made me content even with a log cabin. in imagination i perceived this angular cottage growing into something fine and sweet and--our own! there was charm also in the fact that its western windows looked out upon the wooded hills over which i had wandered as a boy, and whose sky-line had printed itself deep into the lowest stratum of my subconscious memory; and so it happened that on the following night, as we stood before the gate looking out upon that sunset wall of purple bluffs from beneath the double row of elms stretching like a peristyle to the west, my decision came. "this is my choice," i declared. "right here we take root. this shall be the garland homestead." i turned to my father. "when can you move?" "not till after my grain is threshed and marketed," he replied. "very well, let's call it the first of november, and we'll all meet here for our thanksgiving dinner." thanksgiving with us, as with most new englanders, had always been a date-mark, something to count upon and to count from, and no sooner were we in possession of a deed, than my mother and i began to plan for a dinner which should be at once a reunion of the garlands and mcclintocks, a homecoming and a housewarming. with this understanding i let them go back for a final harvest in dakota. the purchase of this small lot and commonplace house may seem very unimportant to the reader but to me and to my father it was in very truth epoch-marking. to me it was the ending of one life and the beginning of another. to him it was decisive and not altogether joyous. to accept this as his home meant a surrender of his faith in the golden west, a tacit admission that all his explorations of the open lands with whatsoever they had meant of opportunity, had ended in a sense of failure on a barren soil. it was not easy for him to enter into the spirit of our thanksgiving plans although he had given his consent to them. he was still the tiller of broad acres, the speculator hoping for a boom. early in october, as soon as i could displace the renter of the house, i started in rebuilding and redecorating it as if for the entrance of a bride. i widened the dining room, refitted the kitchen and ordered new rugs, curtains and furniture from chicago. i engaged a cook and maid, and bought a horse so that on november first, the date of my mother's arrival, i was able to meet her at the station and drive her in a carriage of her own to an almost completely outfitted home. it was by no means what i intended it to be, but it seemed luxurious to her. tears dimmed her eyes as she stepped across the threshold, but when i said, "mother, hereafter my headquarters are to be in chicago, and my home here with you," she put her arms around my neck and wept. her wanderings were over, her heart at peace. my father arrived a couple of weeks later, and with his coming, mother sent out the invitations for our dinner. so far as we could, we intended to bring together the scattered units of our family group. at last the great day came! my brother was unable to be present and there were other empty chairs, but the mcclintocks were well represented. william, white-haired, gigantic, looking almost exactly like grandad at the same age, came early, bringing his wife, his two sons, and his daughter-in-law. frank and lorette drove over from lewis valley, with both of their sons and a daughter-in-law. samantha and dan could not come, but deborah and susan were present and completed the family roll. several of my father's old friends promised to come in after dinner. the table, reflecting the abundance of the valley in those peaceful times, was stretched to its full length and as we gathered about it william congratulated my father on getting back where cranberries and turkeys and fat squashes grew. my mother smiled at this jest, but my father, still loyal to dakota, was quick to defend it. "i like it out there," he insisted. "i like wheat raising on a big scale. i don't know how i'm going to come down from operating a six-horse header to scraping with a hoe in a garden patch." mother, wearing her black silk dress and lace collar, sat at one end of the table, while i, to relieve my father of the task of carving the twenty-pound turkey, sat opposite her. for the first time in my life i took position as head of the family and the significance of this fact did not escape the company. the pen had proved itself to be mightier than the plow. going east had proved more profitable than going west! it was a noble dinner! as i regard it from the standpoint of today, with potatoes six dollars per bushel and turkeys forty cents per pound, it all seems part of a kindlier world, a vanished world--as it is! there were squashes and turnips and cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie and mince pie, (made under mother's supervision) and coffee with real cream,--all the things which are so precious now, and the talk was in praise of the delicious food and the exposition which was just closing, and reports of the crops which were abundant and safely garnered. the wars of the world were all behind us and the nation on its way back to prosperity--and we were unafraid. the gay talk lasted well through the meal, but as mother's pies came on, aunt maria regretfully remarked, "it's a pity frank can't help eat this dinner." "i wish dave and mantie were here," put in deborah. "and rachel," added mother. this brought the note of sadness which is inevitable in such a gathering, and the shadow deepened as we gathered about the fire a little later. the dead claimed their places. since leaving the valley thirty years before our group had suffered many losses. all my grandparents were gone. my sisters harriet and jessie and my uncle richard had fallen on the march. david and rebecca were stranded in the foot hills of the cascade mountains. rachel, a widow, was in georgia. the pioneers of ' were old and their bright world a memory. my father called on mother for some of the old songs. "you and deb sing _nellie wildwood_," he urged, and to me it was a call to all the absent ones, an invitation to gather about us in order that the gaps in our hearth-fire's broken circle might be filled. sweet and clear though in diminished volume, my mother's voice rose on the tender refrain: never more to part, nellie wildwood never more to long for the spring. and i thought of hattie and jessie and tried to believe that they too were sharing in the comfort and contentment of our fire. george, who resembled his uncle david, and had much of his skill with the fiddle bow, had brought his violin with him, but when father asked frank to play _maggie, air ye sleepin'_, he shook his head, saying, "that's dave's tune," and his loyalty touched us all. quick tears sprang to mother's eyes. she knew all too well that never again would she hear her best-beloved brother touch the strings or join his voice to hers. it was a moment of sorrow for us all but only for a moment, for deborah struck up one of the lively "darky pieces" which my father loved so well, and with its jubilant patter young and old returned to smiling. it must be now in the kingdom a-comin' in the year of jubilo! we shouted, and so translated the words of the song into an expression of our own rejoicing present. song after song followed, war chants which renewed my father's military youth, ballads which deepened the shadows in my mother's eyes, and then at last, at my request, she sang _the rolling stone_, and with a smile at father, we all joined the chorus. we'll stay on the farm and we'll suffer no loss for the stone that keeps rolling will gather no moss. my father was not entirely convinced, but i, surrounded by these farmer folk, hearing from their lips these quaint melodies, responded like some tensely-strung instrument, whose chords are being played upon by searching winds. i acknowledged myself at home and for all time. beneath my feet lay the rugged country rock of my nativity. it pleased me to discover my mental characteristics striking so deep into this typically american soil. one by one our guests rose and went away, jocularly saying to my father, "well, dick, you've done the right thing at last. it's a comfort to have you so handy. we'll come to dinner often." to me they said, "we'll expect to see more of you, now that the old folks are here." "this is my home," i repeated. when we were alone i turned to mother in the spirit of the builder. "give me another year and i'll make this a homestead worth talking about. my head is full of plans for its improvement." "it's good enough for me as it is," she protested. "no, it isn't," i retorted quickly. "nothing that i can do is good enough for you, but i intend to make you entirely happy if i can." here i make an end of this story, here at the close of an epoch of western settlement, here with my father and mother sitting beside me in the light of a tender thanksgiving, in our new old home and facing a peaceful future. i was thirty-three years of age, and in a certain very real sense this plot of ground, this protecting roof may be taken as the symbols of my hard-earned first success as well as the defiant gages of other necessary battles which i must fight and win. * * * * * as i was leaving next day for chicago, i said, "mother, what shall i bring you from the city?" with a shy smile she answered, "there is only one thing more you can bring me,--one thing more that i want." "what is that?" "a daughter. i need a daughter--and some grandchildren." +-----------------------------------------------+ | transcriber's note: | | | | some inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in | | the original document have been preserved. | | | | typographical errors corrected in the text: | | | | page mceldowney changed to mcildowney | | page winneshiek changed to winnesheik | | page winneshiek changed to winnesheik | | page winnesheik changed to winnesheik | | page arroya changed to arroyo | | page luminious changed to luminous | | page canon changed to canyon | | page missing word "he" inserted | | page buffetted changed to buffeted | | page maneuvres changed to manoeuvres | | page these changed to those | | page turretted changed to turreted | | page douglas changed to douglass | | page gratitud changed to gratitude | | page "of" added between "all us" | | page unwieldly changed to unwieldy | | page harpers changed to harper's | | page proverty changed to poverty | | page gratuitious changed to gratuitous | | page kurd's changed to hurd's | | page discusssions changed to discussions | | page harpers changed to harper's | | page wearyful changed to weariful | | page harpers changed to harper's | | page other changed to others | | page harpers changed to harper's | | page that changed to than | +-----------------------------------------------+ [illustration: cover] in a little town books by rupert hughes in a little town illustrated. post vo the thirteenth commandment illustrated. post vo clipped wings. frontispiece. post vo what will people say? illustrated. post vo the last rose of summer. frontispiece. mo empty pockets. illustrated. post vo * * * * * harper & brothers, new york [illustration: frontispiece] in a little town [illustration: title page decoration] by rupert hughes [illustration: publisher's mark] harper & brothers publishers new york and london in a little town copyright, , by harper & brothers printed in the united states of america published march, to frederick atherton duneka as an i-o-u of heartfelt esteem contents page don't you care! pop baby talk the mouth of the gift horse the old folks at home and this is marriage the man that might have been the happiest man in ioway prayers pain the beauty and the fool the ghostly counselors daughters of shiloh "a" as in "father" foreword there are two immortal imbecilities that i have no patience for. the other one is the treatment of little towns as if they were essentially different from big towns. cities are not "ninevehs" and "babylons" any more than little towns are arcadias or utopias. in fact we are now unearthing plentiful evidence of what might have been safely assumed, that babylon never was a "babylon" nor nineveh a "nineveh" in the sense employed by poets and praters without number. those old cities were made up of assorted souls as good and as bad and as mixed as now. they do small towns a grievous injustice who deny them restlessness, vice, ostentation, cruelty; as they do cities a grievous injustice who deny them simplicity, homeliness, friendship, and contentment. it is one of those undeniable facts (which everybody denies) that a city is only a lot of small towns put together. its population is largely made up of people who came from small towns and of people who go back to small towns every evening. a village is simply a quiet street in the big city of the world. quaint, sweet happenings take place in the avenues most thronged, and desperate events come about in sleepy lanes. people are people, chance is chance. my novels have mainly concerned themselves with new york, and i have tried therein to publish bits of its life as they appear to such eyes and such mind as i have. though several of my short stories have been published in single volumes, this is the first group to be issued. they are all devoted to small-town people. in them i have sought the same end as in the city novels: to be true to truth, to observe with sympathy and explain with fidelity, to find the epic of a stranger's existence and shape it for the eyes of strangers--to pass the throb of another heart through my heart to your heart. the scene of these stories lies pretty close to the core of these united states, in the middle west, in the valley of the mississippi river. i was born near that river and spent a good deal of my boyhood in it. though it would be unfair, false, and unkind to fasten these stories on any definite originals, they are centered in the region about the small city of keokuk, iowa, from which one can also see into illinois, and into missouri, where i was born. comic poets have found something comic in the name of keokuk, as in other town names in which the letter "k" is prominent. why "k" should be so humorous, i can't imagine. the name of keokuk, however, belonged to a splendid indian chief who was friendly to the early settlers and saved them from massacre. the monument over his bones in the park, on the high bluff there, now commands one of the noblest views in the world, a great lake formed in the mississippi river by a dam which is as beautiful as if the greeks had built it. it was, in fact, built by a thousand greeks who camped there for years. as an engineering achievement it rivals the assouan dam and as a manufacturer of electricity it is a second to niagara falls. but it has not yet materially disturbed the rural quality of the country. the scenery thereabout is very beautiful, but i guarantee you against landscape in these stories. i cannot, however, guarantee that the stories are even based on fact. yet i hope that they are truth. the characters are limited to a small neighborhood, but if they are not also faithful to humanity in general, then, as we would say out there, "i miss my guess." rupert hughes. in a little town don't you care! i when she was told it was a girl, mrs. govers sighed. "well, i never did have any luck, anyway; so i d' know's i'm supprised." later she wept feebly: "girls are easier to raise, i suppose; but i kind of had my heart set on namin' him launcelot." after another interval she rallied to a smile: "i was prepared for the worst, though; so i picked out ellaphine for a name in case he was a her. it's an awful pirty name, ellaphine is. don't you think so?" "yes, yes," said the nurse, who would have agreed to anything then. after a time mrs. govers resumed: "she'll be an awful pirty girl, i hope. is that her makin' all that noise? give me a glimpse of her, will you? i got a right, i guess, to see my own baby. oh, goshen! is that how she looks?" a kind of swoon; then more meditation, followed by a courageous philosophy: "children always look funny at first. she'll outgrow it, i expect. ellaphine is such an elegant name. it ought to be a kind of inducement to grow up to. don't you think so?" the nurse, who was juggling the baby as if it were red-hot, mumbled through a mustache of safety-pins that she thought so. mrs. govers echoed, "i thought so, too." after that she went to sleep. ellaphine, however, did not grow up elegant, to fit the name. the name grew inelegant to fit her. during her earliest years the witty little children called her elephant until they tired of the ingenuity and allowed her to lapse indolently from ellar to el. mrs. govers for some years cherished a dream that her ugly duckling would develop into a swan and fly away with a fabulously wealthy prince. later she dwindled to a prayer that she might capture a man who was "tol'able well-to-do." the majority of ugly ducklings, however, grow up into uglier ducks, and mrs. govers resigned herself to the melancholy prospect of the widowed mother of an old maid perennial. to the confusion of prophecy, among all the batch of girls who descended on carthage about the time of ellaphine's birth--"out of the nowhere into the here"--ellaphine was the first to be married! and she cut out the prettiest girl in the township--it was not such a small township, either. those homely ones seem to make straight for a home the first thing. ellaphine carried off eddie pouch--the very eddie of whom his mother used to say, "he's little, but oh, my!" the rest of the people said, "oh, my, but he's little!" eddie's given name was egbert. edward was his taken name. he took it after his mother died and he went to live at his uncle loren's. eddie was sorry to change his name, but he said his mother was not responsible at the time she pasted the label egbert on him, and his shy soul could not endure to be called egg by his best friends--least of all by his best girl. his best girl was the township champion looker, luella thickins. from the time his heart was big enough for cupid to stick a child's-size arrow in, eddie idolized luella. so did the other boys; and as eddie was the smallest of the lot, he was lost in the crowd. even when luella noticed him it was with the atrocious contempt of little girls for little boys they do not like. eddie could not give her sticks of candy or jawbreakers, for his uncle loren did not believe in spending money. and eddie had no mother to go to when the boys mistreated him and the girls ignored him. a dismal life he led until he grew up as far as he ever grew up. eddie reached his twenty-second birthday and was working in uncle loren's factory--one of the largest feather-duster factories in the whole state--when he observed a sudden change in luella's manner. she had scared him away from paying court to her, save from a distance. now she took after him, with her aggressive beauty for a club and her engaging smiles for a net. she asked him to take her to the sunday-school picnic, and asked him what he liked best for her to put in for him. she informed him that she was going to cook it for herself and everybody said she could fry chicken something grand. so he chose fried chicken. he was so overjoyed that it was hard for him to be as solemn about the house as he ought to have been, in view of the fact that uncle loren had been taken suddenly and violently ill. eddie was the natural heir to the old man's fortune. uncle loren was considered close in a town where extravagance was almost impossible, but where rigid economy was supposed to pile up tremendous wealth. hitherto it had pained uncle loren to devote a penny to anything but the sweet uses of investment. now it suddenly occurred to the old miser that he had invested nothing in the securities of new jerusalem, limited. he was frightened immeasurably. in his youth he had joined the campbellite church and had been baptized in the town pond when there was a crust of ice over it which the pastor had to break with a stick before he immersed loren. everybody said the crust of ice had stuck to his heart ever since. in the panic that came on him now he craftily decided to transfer all his savings to the other shore. the factory, of course, he must leave behind; but he drafted a hasty will presenting all his money to the campbellite church under conditions that he counted on to gain him a high commercial rating in heaven. over his shoulder, as he wrote, a shadow waited, grinning; and the old man had hardly folded his last testament and stuffed it into his pillow-slip when the grisly hand was laid on his shoulders and uncle loren was no longer there. ii his uncle's demise cut eddie out of the picnic with luella; but she was present at the funeral and gave him a wonderful smile. uncle loren's final will was not discovered until the pillow-slip was sent to the wash; and at the funeral eddie was still the object of more or less disguised congratulations as an important heir. luella solaced him with rare tact and tenderness, and spoke much of his loneliness and his need of a helpmate. eddie resolved to ask her to marry him as soon as he could compose the speech. some days later uncle loren's farewell will turned up, and eddie fell from grace with a thump. the town laughed at him, as people always laugh when a person--particularly so plump a person as eddie was--falls hard on the slippery sidewalk of this icy world. in his dismay he hastened to luella for sympathy, but she turned up missing. she jilted him with a jolt that knocked his heart out of his mouth. he stood, as it were, gaping stupidly, in the middle of the highway. then ellaphine govers came along, picked his heart out of the road, dusted it, and offered it back. he was so grateful that he asked her to keep it for him. he was so pitiable an object that he felt honored even by the support of ellar govers. he went with ellar quite a lot. he found her very comfortable company. she seemed flattered by his attention. other people acted as if they were doing him a favor by letting him stand around. he had lost uncle loren's money, but he still had a small job at the factory. partly to please ellar and partly to show certain folks that he was not yet dead, he took her out for a drive behind a livery-stable horse. it was a beautiful drive, and the horse was so tame that it showed no desire to run away. it was perfectly willing to stand still where the view was good. he let ellar drive awhile, and that was the only time the horse misbehaved. it saw a stack of hay, nearly went mad, and tried to climb a rail fence; but ellar yelled at it and slapped the lines at it and got it past the danger zone, and it relapsed into its usual mood of despair. eddie told ellar the horse was "attackted with haydrophobia." and she nearly laughed herself to death and said: "you do say the funniest things!" she was a girl who could appreciate a fellow's jokes, and he saw that they could have awful good times together. he told her so without difficulty and she agreed that they could, and they were as good as engaged before they got back as far as the fair-grounds. as they came into the familiar streets eddie observed a remarkable change in the manner of the people they passed. people made an effort to attract his eye. they wafted him salutes from a distance. he encountered such a lifting of hats, elaborateness of smiles and flourish of hands, that he said to ellaphine: "say, pheeny, i wonder what the joke is!" "me, i guess," sighed ellaphine. "they're makin' fun of you for takin' me out buggy-ridin'." "ah, go on!" said eddie. "they've found out something about me and they're pokin' fun." he was overcome with shame and drove to ellaphine's house by a side street and escorted the horse to the livery-stable by a back alley. on his way home he tried in vain to dodge luella thickins, but she headed him off with one of her sunday-best smiles. she bowled him over by an effusive manner. "why, eddie, you haven't been round to see me for the longest time! can't you come on over 'safternoon? i'd just love to see you!" he wondered whether she had forgotten how she had ground his meek heart under her heel the last time he called. she was so nice to him that she frightened him. he mumbled that he would certainly call that afternoon, and got away, wondering what the trick was. her smile seemed less pretty than it used to be. iii a block farther on eddie met a man who explained the news, which had run across the town like oil on water. tim holdredge, an idle lawyer who had nothing else to do, looked into the matter of uncle loren's will and found that the old man, in his innocence of charity and his passion for economy, had left his money to the church on conditions that were not according to the law. the money reverted to the estate. eddie was the estate. when tim holdredge slapped eddie on the shoulder and explained the result of what he called "the little joker" in uncle loren's will, eddie did not rejoice, as tim had a right to expect. eddie was poisoned by a horrible suspicion. the logic of events ran through his head like a hateful tune which he could not shake off: "when luella thought i was coming into a pile of money she was nice to me. when she heard i wasn't she was mean to me. now that my money's coming to me, after all, she's nice again. therefore--" but he was ashamed to give that ungallant _ergo_ brain room. still more bewildering was the behavior of ellaphine. as soon as he heard of his good fortune he hurried to tell her about it. her mother answered the door-bell and congratulated him on his good luck. when he asked for ellar, her mother said, "she was feelin' right poorly, so she's layin' down." he was so alarmed that he forgot about luella, who waited the whole afternoon all dressed up. after supper that night he patrolled before ellaphine's home and tried to pluck up courage enough to twist that old door-bell again. suddenly she ran into him. she was sneaking through the front gate. he tried to talk to her, but she said: "i'm in a tur'ble hurry. i got to go to the drug-store and get some chloroform liniment. mamma's lumbago's awful bad." he walked along with her, though she tried to escape him. the first drowsy lamp-post showed him that ellaphine had been crying. it was the least becoming thing she could have done. eddie asked whether her mother was so sick as all that. she said "no"--then changed to "yes"--and then stopped short and began to blubber uncouthly, dabbing her eyes alternately with the backs of her wrists. eddie stared awhile, then yielded to an imperious urge to clasp her to his heart and comfort her. she twisted out of his arms, and snapped, "don't you touch me, eddie pouch!" eddie mumbled, inanely, "you didn't mind it this mornin', buggy-ridin'." her answer completely flabbergasted him: "no; because you didn't have all that money then." "gee whiz, pheeny!" he gasped. "what you got against uncle loren's money? it ain't a disease, is it? it's not ketchin', is it?" "no," she sobbed; "but we--well, when you were so poor and all, i thought you might--you might really like me because i could be of some--of some use to you; but now you--you needn't think i'm goin' to hold you to any--anything against your will." eddie realized that across the street somebody had stopped to listen. eddie wanted to throw a rock at whoever it was, but ellaphine absorbed him as she wailed: "it 'd be just like you to be just's nice to me as ever; but i'm not goin' to tie you down to any homely old crow like me when you got money enough to marry anybody. you can get luella thickins back now. you could marry the queen of england if you'd a mind to." eddie could find nothing better to say than, "well, i'll be dog-on'd!" while he gaped she got away. iv luella thickins cast her spells over eddie with all her might, but he understood them now and escaped through their coarse meshes. she was so resolute, however, that he did not dare trust himself alone in the same town with her unless he had a chaperon. he sent a note to ellaphine, saying he was in dire trouble and needed her help. this brought him the entree to her parlor. he told her the exact situation and begged her to rescue him from luella. ellaphine's craggy features grew as radiant as a mountain peak in the sunrise. the light made beautiful what it illumined. she consented at last to believe in eddie's devotion, or at least in his need of her; and the homely thing enjoyed the privilege of being pleaded for and of yielding to the prayers of an ardent lover. she assumed that the marriage could not take place for several years, if ever. she wanted to give eddie time to be sure of his heart; but eddie was stubborn and said: "seein' as we're agreed on gettin' married, let's have the wedding right away and get it over with." when ellaphine's mother learned that ellaphine had a chance to marry an heir and was asking for time, mrs. govers delivered an oration that would have sent ellaphine to the altar with almost anybody, let alone her idolized eddie. the wedding was a quiet affair. everybody in carthage was invited. few came. people feared that if they went they would have to send wedding-presents, and eddie and ellar were too unimportant to the social life of carthage to make their approval valuable. eddie wore new shoes, which creaked and pinched. he looked twice as uncomfortable and twice as sad as he had looked at his uncle loren's obsequies; and he suffered that supreme disenchantment of a too-large collar with a necktie rampant. in spite of the ancient and impregnable theory that all brides are beautiful, was there ever a woman who looked her best in the uniform of approaching servitude? in any case, ellaphine's best was not good, and she was at her worst in her ill-fitting white gown, with the veil askew. her graceless carriage was not improved by the difficulty of keeping step with her escort and the added task of keeping step with the music. the organist, mr. norman maugans, always grew temperamental when he played mendelssohn's "wedding march," and always relieved its monotonous cadence with passionate accelerations and abrupt retardations. that made walking difficult. when the minister had finished with the couple and they moved down the aisle to what the paper called the "bridle march, by lohengrin," mr. maugans always craned his neck to see and usually put his foot on the wrong pedal, with the startling effect of firing a cannon at the departing guests. he did not crane his neck, however, to see mr. and mrs. pouch depart. they were too commonplace entirely. he played the march with such doleful indifference that eddie found the aisle as long as the distance from marathon to athens. also he was trying to walk so that his pinching shoes would not squeak. at the end of the last pew eddie and ellaphine encountered luella thickins leaning out into the aisle and triumphantly beautiful in her finest raiment. her charms were militant and vindictive, and her smile plainly said: "uh-huh! don't you wish you'd taken me instead of that thing you've hitched up with for life?" eddie gave her one glance and found her hideous. ellaphine lowered her eyelids in defeat and slunk from the church, thinking: "now he's already sorry that he married me. what can he see in me to love? nothing! nothing!" when they clambered into the carriage eddie said, "well, mrs. pouch, give your old husband a kiss!" ellaphine shrank away from him, however, crying again. he was hurt and puzzled until he remembered that it is the business of brides to cry. he held her hand and tried to console her for being his victim, and imagined almost every reason for her tears but the true one. the guests at the church straggled to mrs. govers's home, drawn by the call of refreshments. luella was the gayest of them all. people wondered why eddie had not married her instead of ellaphine. luella heard some one say, "what on earth can he see in her?" luella answered, "what on earth can she see in him?" it was hardly playing fair, but luella was a poor loser. she even added, to clinch it, "what on earth can they see in each other?" that became the town comment on the couple when there was any comment at all. mainly they were ignored completely. eddie and ellar were not even honored with the usual outburst of the ignoblest of all sports--bride-baiting. nobody tied a white ribbon to the wheel of the hack that took them to the depot. old shoes had not been provided and rice had been forgotten. they were not pelted or subjected to immemorial jokes. they were not chased to the train, and their elaborate schemes for deceiving the neighbors as to the place of their honeymoon were wasted. nobody cared where they went or how long they stayed. they returned sheepishly, expecting to run a gantlet of humor; but people seemed unaware that they had been away. they settled down into the quiet pool of carthage without a splash, like a pair of mud-turtles slipping off a log into the water. even the interest in eddie's inheritance did not last long, for uncle loren's fortune did not last long--not that they were spendthrift, for they spent next to nothing; but money must be fed or it starves to death. money must grow or wither. v eddie found that his uncle's reputation for hard dealing had been a condition of his success. he soon learned that the feather-duster factory could be run at a profit only by the most microscopic care. wages must be kept down; hours kept up; the workers driven every minute, fined if they were late, nagged if they dawdled. profit could be wrung from the trade only by ugly battles with dealers and purchasers. raw material had to be fought down, finished product fought up; bills due fought off, accounts fought in; the smallest percentage of a percentage wrestled for. eddie was incapable of such vigilant hostility toward everybody. the factory almost immediately ceased to pay expenses. eddie was prompt to meet debts, but lenient as a collector. the rest of his inheritance fared no better. eddie was an ideal mortgagee. the first widow wept him out of his interest in five tears. having obliged her, he could hardly deny the next person, who had money but wanted more, "to carry out a big deal." eddie first gained a reputation for being a kind-hearted gentleman and a christian, and later a notoriety for being an easy mark. eddie overheard such comment eventually, and it wounded him as deeply as it bewildered him. bitterer than the contempt for a hard man is the contempt for a soft man who is betrayed by a vice of mercy. eddie was hopelessly addicted to decency. uncle loren had been a miser and so close that his nickname had implied the ability to skin a flint. people hated him and raged against him; but it suddenly became evident that they had worked hard to meet their bills payable to him. they had sat up nights devising schemes to gain cash for him. he was a cause of industry and thrift and self-denial. he paid poor wages, but he kept the factory going. he squeezed a penny until the eagle screamed, but he made dusters out of the tail feathers, and he was planning to branch out into whisk brooms and pillows when, in the words of the pastor, he was "called home." the pastor liked the phrase, as it did not commit him to any definite habitat. eddie, however, though he worked hard and used thrift, and, with ellaphine's help, practised self-denial, found that he was not so big a man as the small man he succeeded. he increased the wages and cut down the hours, and found that he had diminished the output of everything except complaints. the men loafed shamelessly, cheated him of the energy and the material that belonged to him, and whined all the time. his debtors grew shiftless and contemptuous. it is the irony, the meanness, of the trade of life that virtue may prove vicious in effect; and viciousness may produce good fruit. figs do grow from thistles. for a time the pouch couple attracted a great deal of attention from the people of carthage--the sort of attention that people on shore devote to a pair of capsized canoeists for whom nobody cares to risk his life. luella thickins had forced the note of gaiety at the wedding, but she soon grew genuinely glad that eddie had got away. she began to believe that she had jilted him. vi people who wondered what mr. and mrs. pouch saw in each other could not realize that he saw in her a fellow-sufferer who upheld him with her love in all his terrors. she was everything that his office was not--peace without demand for money; glowing admiration and raptures of passion. what she saw in him was what a mother sees in a crippled child that runs home to her when the play of the other boys is too swift or too rough. she saw a good man, who could not fight because he could not slash and trample and loot. she saw what the belgian peasant women saw--a little cottage holder staring in dismay at the hostile armies crashing about his homestead. the only comfort eddie found in the situation was the growing realization that it was hopeless. the drowsy opiate of surrender began to spread its peace through his soul. his torment was the remorse of proving a traitor to his dead uncle's glory. the feather-dustery that had been a monument was about to topple into the weeds. eddie writhed at that and at his feeling of disloyalty to the employees, who would be turned out wageless in a small town that was staggering under the burden of hard times. he made a frantic effort to keep going on these accounts, but the battle was too much for him. he could not imagine ways and means--he knew nothing of the ropes of finance. he was like a farmer with a scythe against sharpshooters. ellaphine began to fear that the struggle would break him down. one night she persuaded him to give up. she watched him anxiously the next morning as his fat little body, bulging with regrets, went meekly down the porch steps and along the walk. the squeal of the gate as he shoved through sounded like a groan from his own heart. he closed the gate after him with the gentle care he gave all things. then he leaned across it to wave to his pheeny. it was like the good-by salute of a man going to jail. ellaphine moped about the kitchen, preparing him the best dinner she could to cheer him when he came home at noon. to add a touch of grace she decided to set a bowl of petunias in front of him. he loved the homely little flowers in their calico finery, like farmers' daughters at a picnic. their cheap and almost palpable fragrancy delighted him when it powdered the air. she hoped that they would bring a smile to him at noon, for he could still afford petunias. she was squatting by the colony aligned along the walk, and her big sunbonnet hid her unbeautiful face from the passers-by and theirs from her, when she caught a glimpse of luella thickins coming along, giggling with the banker's son. luella put on a little extra steam for the benefit of ellaphine, who was glad of her sunbonnet and did not look up. later there came a quick step, thumping the boardwalk in a rhythm she would have recognized but for its allegrity. the gate was opened with a sweep that brought a shriek from its old rheumatic hinge, and was permitted to swing shut with an unheeded smack. ellaphine feared it was somebody coming with the haste that bad news inspires. something awful had happened to eddie! her knees could not lift her to face the evil tidings. she dared not turn her head. then she heard eddie's own voice: "pheeny! pheeny, honey! everything's all right!" pheeny spilled the petunias and sat down on them. eddie lifted her up and pushed his glowing face deep into her sunbonnet, and kissed her. luella thickins was coming back and her giggling stopped. she and the banker's son, who were just sauntering about, exchanged glances of disgust at the indecorous proceeding. later luella resumed her giggle and enjoyed hugely her comment: "ellar looks fine in a sunbonnet! the bigger it is, the better she looks." vii meantime eddie was supporting his pheeny into the house. his path was strewn with petunias and she supposed he had some great victory to announce. he had; but he was the victim. the conqueror was the superintendent of the factory, jabez pittinger, who had survived a cycle of uncle loren's martinetism with less resentment than a year of eddie's lenience. but eddie is telling ellaphine of his glorious achievement: "you see, i went to the fact'ry feeling like i was goin' to my grave." "i know," she said; "but what happened?" "i just thought i'd rather die than tack up the notice that we were going to shut down and turn off those poor folks and all." "i know," said ellaphine; "but tell me." "well, finally," eddie plodded along, "i tried to draw up the 'nouncement with the markin'-brush; but i just couldn't make the letters. so i called in jabe pittinger and told him how it was; and i says to him: 'jabe, i jest naturally can't do it m'self. i wisht you'd send the word round that the factory's goin' to stop next sat'd'y.' i thought he'd show some surprise; but he didn't. he just shot a splash of tobacco-juice through that missin' tooth of his and says, 'i wouldn't if i's you.' and i says, 'goodness knows i hate to; but there's no way out of it.' and he wopsed his cud round and said, 'mebbe there is.' 'what do you mean?' i says. and he says, 'fact is, eddie'--he always called me mr. pouch or boss before, but i couldn't say anything to him, seeing--" "i know!" ellaphine almost screamed. "but what'd he say? what's the upshot?" eddie went on at his ox-like gait. "'well,' he says, 'fact is, eddie,' he says, 'i been expectin' this, and i been figgerin' if they wasn't a way somewhere to keep a-runnin',' says he; 'and i been talkin' to certain parties that believes as i do, that the fault ain't with the feather-duster business, but with the way it's run,' he says. 'people gotter have feather dusters,' he says; 'but they gotter be gave to 'em right.' o' course i knew he was gettin' at me, but i was in no p'sition to talk back." "oh, please, eddie!" ellaphine moaned. "please tell me! i'm goin' crazy to know the upshot of it, and i smell the pie burnin'--it's rhubob, too." "you got rhubob pie for dinner to-day?" eddie chortled. "oh, crickety, that's fine!" he followed her into the kitchen and helped her carry the things to the dining-room, where they waited on each other in alternate dashes and clashes of "lemme get it!" and "you set right still!" eventually he reached the upshot, which was that mr. pittinger thought he might raise money to run the factory if eddie would give him the control and drop out. eddie concluded, with a burst of rapture: "i'm so tickled i wisht i could telegraft poor uncle loren that everything's all right!" viii it was an outrageous piece of petty finance on high models, and it euchred eddie out of everything he had in the world except his illusion that jabez was working for the good of the factory. eddie always said "the fact'ry" in the tone that city people use when they say "the cathedral." ellaphine saw through the wiles of jabez and the measly capitalists he had bound together, and she was ablaze with rage at them and with pity for her tender-hearted child-husband; but she did not reveal these emotions to eddie. she encouraged him to feast on the one sweetmeat of the situation: that the hands would not be turned off and the factory would keep open doors. in fact, when doubt began to creep into his own idle soul and a feeling of shame depressed him, as the butt of the jokes and the pity that the neighbors flung at him, ellaphine pretended to be overjoyed at the triumph he had wrested from defeat. and when he began to chafe at his lack of occupation, and to fret about their future, she went to the factory and invaded the office where the usurper, jabez pittinger, sat enthroned at the hallowed desk, tossing copious libations of tobacco-juice toward a huge new cuspidor. she demanded a job for eddie and bullied jabez into making him a bookkeeper, at a salary of forty-five dollars a month. thus, at last, eddie pouch found his place in the world. there are soldiers who make ideal first sergeants and are ruined and ruinous as second lieutenants; and there are soldiers who are worthless as first sergeants, but irresistible as major-generals. eddie was a born first sergeant, a routine man, a congenital employee--doomed, like fire, to be a splendid servant and a disastrous master. working for himself, he neglected every opportunity. working for another, he neglected nothing. meeting emergencies, tricking creditors and debtors, and massacring competitors were not in his line; but when it came to adding up columns of figures all day, making out bills, drawing checks for somebody else to sign, and the santa claus function of stuffing the pay-roll into the little envelopes--eddie was there. shrewd old jabez recognized this. he tried him on a difficult collection once--sent him forth to pry an ancient debt of eighteen dollars and thirty-four cents out of the meanest man in town, vice uncle loren. eddie came back with a look of contentment. "did you git it?" said jabez. "well, you see, it was like this: the poor feller--" "poor heller! did you git it?" "no; he was so hard up i lent him four dollars." "what!" "out of my own pocket, o' course." jabez remarked that he'd be hornswoggled; but he valued the incident and added it to the anecdotes he used when he felt that he had need to justify himself for playing huerta with his dreamy madero. ix after that the most jabez asked of eddie was to write "please remit" or "past due" on the mossier bills. eddie preferred an exquisite poem he had copied from a city creditor: "this account has no doubt escaped your notice. as we have several large obligations to meet, we should greatly appreciate a check by return mail." eddie loved that. there was a fine chivalry and democracy about it, as one should say: "we're all debtors and creditors in this world, and we big fellows and you little fellows must all work together." life had a regularity now that would have maddened a man more ambitious than eddie or a woman more restless than ellaphine. their world was like the petunia-garden--the flowers were not orchids or telegraph-pole-stemmed roses; but the flower faces were joyous, their frocks neat, and their perfume savory. eddie knew just how much money was coming in and there was no temptation to hope for an increase. they knew just how much time they had, and one day was like another except that along about the first of every month eddie went to the office a little earlier and went back at night to get out the bills and adjust his balances. on these evenings ellaphine was apt to go along and sit with him, knitting thick woolen socks for the winter, making him shirts or nightgowns, or fashioning something for herself or the house. her loftiest reach of splendor was a crazy quilt; and her rag carpets were highly esteemed. on sundays they went to church in the morning and again in the evening. prayer-meeting night saw them always on their way to the place where the church bell called: "come! come!" sometimes irregular people, who forgot it was prayer-meeting night, would be reminded of it by seeing eddie and ellar go by. they went so early that there was time for the careless to make haste with their bonnets and arrive in time. it was a saying that housewives set their kitchen clocks by eddie's transits to and from the factory. at any rate, there was no end to the occasions when shiftless gossips, dawdling on their porches, were surprised to see eddie toddle homeward, and scurried away, cackling: "my gracious! there goes eddie pouch, and my biscuits not cut out!" x the whole year was tranquil now for the pouches, and the halcyon brooded unalarmed in the waveless cove of their life. there were no debtors to be harassed, no creditors to harass them. they paid cash for everything--at least, ellaphine did; for eddie turned his entire forty-five dollars over to her. she was his banker and his steward. she could not persuade him to smoke, or to buy new clothes before the old ones grew too shabby for so nice a man as a bookkeeper is apt to be. he did not drink or play cards or billiards; he did not belong to any lodge or political organization. the outgo of money was as regular as the income--so much for the contribution-basket on sundays; so much for the butcher; so much for the grocer; so much for the coal-oil lamps. the baker got none of their money and the druggist little. a few dollars went now and then to the dry-goods store for dress goods, which pheeny made up; and eddie left an occasional sum at the pantatorium for a fresh alpaca coat, or for a new pair of trousers when the seat of the old ones grew too refulgent or perilously extenuate. as eddie stood up at his tall desk most of the time, however, it was rather his shoes than his pantaloons that felt the wear and tear of attrition. and yet, in spite of all the tender miserhood of ellaphine and the asceticism of eddie, few of the forty-five dollars survived the thirty days' demands. still, there was always something for the savings-bank, and the blessing on its increment was that it grew by exactions from themselves--not from their neighbors. the inspiration of the fund was the children that were to be. the fund had ample time for accretion, since the children were as late as never is. such things are not discussed, of course, in carthage. and nobody knew how fiercely they yearned. nobody knew of the high hopes that flared and faded. after the first few months of marriage eddie had begun to call pheeny "mother"--just for fun, you know. and it teased her so that he kept it up, for he liked a joke as well as the next fellow. before people, of course, she was "pheeny," and, on very grand occasions, "the wife." "mrs. pouch" was beyond him. but once, at a sociable, he called across the room, "say, mother!" he was going to ask her whether she wanted him to bring her a piece of the "chalklut" cake or a hunk of the "cokernut," but he got no farther. nobody noticed it; but eddie and pheeny were consumed with shame and slunk home scarlet. nobody noticed that they had gone. time went on and on, and the fund grew and grew--a little coral reef of pennies and nickels and dimes. the amusements of the couple were petty--an occasional church sociable was society; a revival period was drama. they never went to the shows that came to the carthage opera house. they did not miss much. eddie wasted no time on reading any fiction except that in the news columns of the evening paper, which a boy threw on the porch in a twisted boomerang every afternoon, and which eddie untwisted and read after he had wiped the dishes that pheeny washed. ellaphine spent no money on such vanities as novels or short stories, but she read the edifying romances in the sunday-school paper and an occasional book from the sunday-school library, mainly about children whose angelic qualities gave her a picture of child life that would have contrasted strongly with what their children would have been if they had had any. their great source of literature, however, was the bible. soon after their factory passed out of their control and their evenings ceased to be devoted to riddles in finance, they had resolved to read the bible through, "from kiver to kiver." and eddie and ellaphine found that a chapter read aloud before going to bed was an excellent sedative. they had not invaded genesis quite three weeks before the evening when it came eddie's turn to read aloud the astonishing romance of abram, who became abraham, and of sarai, who became sarah. it was very exciting when the child was promised to sarah, though she was "well stricken in age." eddie smiled as he read, "sarah laughed within herself." but pheeny blushed. ellaphine was far from the ninety years of sarah, but she felt that the promise of a son was no laughing matter. these poignant hopes and awful denials and perilous adventures are not permitted to be written about or printed for respectable eyes. if they are discussed it must be with laughing ribaldry. even in their solitude eddie and pheeny used modest paraphrases and breathed hard and looked askance, and made sure that no one overheard. they whispered as parents do when their children are abed up-stairs. the neighbors gave them hardly thought enough to imagine the lofty trepidation of these thrilling hours. the neighbors never knew of the merciless joke fate played on them when, in their ignorance, they believed the lord had sent them a sign. they dwelt in a fools' paradise for a long time, hoarding their glorious expectations. at length pheeny grew brazen enough to consult the old and peevish doctor noxon; and he laughed her hopes away and informed her that she need never trouble herself to hope again. that was a smashing blow; and they cowered together under the shadow of this great denial, each telling the other that it did not matter, since children were a nuisance and a danger anyway. they pretended to take solace in two current village tragedies--the death of the mayor's wife in childbed and the death of the minister's son in disgrace; but, though they lied to each other lovingly, they were neither convincing nor convinced. xi year followed year as season trudged at the heel of season. the only difference it made to them was that now ellaphine evicted weeds from the petunia-beds, and now swept snow from the porch and beat the broom out on the steps; now eddie carried his umbrella up against the sun or rain and mopped his bald spot, and now he wore his galoshes through the slush and was afraid he had caught a cold. the fund in the bank went on growing like a neglected garden, but it was growing for nothing. eddie walked more slowly to and from the office, and pheeny took a longer time to set the table. she had to sit down a good deal between trips and suffered a lot of pain. she said nothing about it to eddie of evenings, but it grew harder to conceal her weakness from him when he helped her with the sunday dinner. finally she could not walk to church one day and had to stay at home. he stayed with her, and their empty pew made a sensation. eddie fought at pheeny until she consented to see the doctor again--on monday. the doctor censured her for being foolish enough to try to die on her feet, and demanded of eddie why they did not keep a hired girl. eddie had never thought of it. he was horrified to realize how heartless and negligent he had been. he promised to get one in at once. pheeny stormed and wept against the very idea; but her protests ended on the morning when she could not get up to cook eddie's breakfast for him. he had to get his own and hers, and he was late at the office for the first time in years. two householders, seeing him going by, looked at their clocks and set them back half an hour. jabez spoke harshly to eddie about his tardiness. it would never do to ignore an imperfection in the perfect. eddie was pheeny's nurse that night and overslept in the morning. it would have made him late again if he had stopped to fry an egg or boil a cup of coffee. he ran breakfastless to his desk. after that pheeny consented to the engagement of a cook. they tried five or six before they found one who combined the traits of being both enduring and endurable. eddie was afraid of her to a pitiful degree. she put too much coffee in his coffee and she made lighter bread than pheeny did. "there's no substance to her biscuits!" eddie wailed, hoping to comfort pheeny, who had leisure enough now to develop at that late date her first acquaintance with jealousy. xii the cook was young and vigorous, and a hired man on a farm might have called her good-looking; but her charms did not interest eddie. his soul was replete with the companionship of his other self--pheeny; and if delia had been as sumptuous a beauty as cleopatra he would have been still more afraid of her. he had no more desire to possess her than to own the kohinoor. and delia, in her turn, was far more interested in the winks and flatteries of the grocer's boy and the milkman than in any conquest of the fussy little fat man, who ate whatever she slammed before him and never raised his eyes. pheeny, however, could not imagine this. she could not know how secure she was in eddie's heart, or how she had grown in and about his soul until she fairly permeated his being. so pheeny lay up in the prison of her bed and imagined vain things, interpreting the goings-on down-stairs with a fantastic cynicism that would have startled boccaccio. she did not openly charge eddie with these fancied treacheries. she found him guilty silently and silently acquitted him of fault, abjectly asking herself what right she had to deny him all acquaintance with beauty, hilarity, and health. she remembered her mother's eternal moan, "all men are alike." she dramatized her poor mouse of a husband as a devastating don juan; and then forgave him, as most of the victims of don juan's ruthless piracies forgave him. she suffered hideously, however. eddie, seeing the deep, sad look of her eyes as they studied him, wondered and wondered, and often asked her what the matter was; but she always smiled as a mother smiles at a child that is too sweet to punish for any mischief, and she always answered: "nothing! nothing!" but then she would sigh to the caverns of her soul. and sometimes tears would drip from her brimming lids to her pillow. still, she would tell him nothing but "nothing!" finally the long repose repaired her worn-out sinews and she grew well enough to move about the house. she prospered on the medicine of a new hope that she should soon be well enough to expel the third person who made a crowd of their little home. and then luella thickins came back to town. luella had married long before and moved away; but now she came back a widow, handsome instead of pretty, billowy instead of willowy, seductive instead of spoony, and with that fearsome menace a widow carries like a cloud about her. eddie spoke of meeting her "down-town," and in his fatuous innocence announced that she was "as pirty as ever." if he had hit pheeny with a hatchet he would have inflicted a less painful wound. xiii luella's presence cast pheeny into a profounder dismay than she had ever felt about the cook. after all, delia was only a hired girl, while luella was an old sweetheart. delia had put wicked ideas into eddie's head and now luella would finish him. as ellaphine's mother had always said, "men have to have novelty." the lord himself had never seen old mr. govers stray an inch aside from the straight path of fidelity; but his wife had enhanced him with a lifelong suspicion that eventually established itself as historical fact. pheeny could find some excuse for eddie's don juanity with the common clay of delia, especially as she never quite believed her own beliefs in that affair; but luella was different. luella had been a rival. the merest courtesy to luella was an unpardonable affront to every sacred right of successful rivalry. the submerged bitternesses that had gathered in her soul like bubbles at the bottom of a hot kettle came showering upward now, and her heart simmered and thrummed, ready to boil over if the heat were not removed. one day, soon, luella fastened on eddie as he left the factory to go home to dinner. she had loitered about, hoping to engage the eye of jabez, who was now the most important widower in town. luella had elected him for her next; but he was away, and she whetted her wits on eddie. she walked at his side, excruciating him with her glib memories of old times and the mad devotion he had cherished for her then. he felt that it was unfaithful of him even to listen to her, but he could not spur up courage enough to bolt and run. he welcomed the sight of his own gate as an asylum of refuge. to his horror, luella stopped and continued her chatter, draping herself in emotional attitudes and italicizing her coquetries. her eyes seemed to drawl languorous words that her lips dared not voice; and she committed the heinous offense of plucking at eddie's coat-sleeve and clinging to his hand. then she walked on like an erect cobra. eddie's very back had felt that pheeny was watching him from one of the windows or from all the windows; for when, at last, he achieved the rude victory of breaking away from luella and turned toward the porch, every window was a somber eye of reproach. he would not have looked so guilty if he had been guilty. he shuffled into the house like a boy who comes home late from swimming; and when he called aloud "pheeny! oh, pheeny!" his voice cracked and his throat was uncertain with phlegm. he found pheeny up-stairs in their room, with the door closed. he closed it after him when he went in. he feigned a care-free joy at the sight of her, and stumbled over his own foot as he crossed the room and put his arms about her, where she sat in the big rocking-chair; but she brushed his arms aside and bent her cheek away from his pursed lips. this startled him, and he gasped: "why, what's the matter, honey? why don't you kiss me?" "you don't want to kiss me," she muttered. "why don't i?" he exclaimed. "because i'm not pirty. i'm not young. i'm not round or tall. i haven't got nice clothes or those terrible manners that men like in women. you're tired of me. i don't blame you; but you don't have to kiss me, and you don't want to." it was a silly sort of contest for so old a couple; but their souls felt as young as childhood, or younger, and this debate was all-important. he caught at her again and tried to drag her head to his lips, pleading inanely: "of course i want to kiss you, honey! of course i do! please--please don't be this way!" but she evaded him still, and glared at him as from a great distance, sneering rather at herself than him and using that old byword of luella's: "what can you see in me?" suddenly she challenged him: "who do you kiss when you kiss me?" he stared at her for a while as if he were not sure who she was. then he sat down on the broad arm of her chair and took one of her hands in his--the hand with the wedding-ring on it--and seemed to talk to the hand more than to her, lifting the fingers one after another and studying each digit as though it had a separate personality--as perhaps it had. xiv "who do i kiss when i kiss you? that's a funny question!" he laughed solemnly. then he made a very long speech, for him; and she listened to it with the attention due to that most fascinating of themes, the discussion of oneself by another. "pheeny, when i was about knee-high to a grasshopper i went over to play in tim holdredge's father's orchard; and when i started for home there was a big dawg in old mrs. pittinger's front yard, and it jumped round and barked at me. i guess it was just playing, because, as i remember it now, it was wagging its tail, and afterward i found out it was only a cocker spaniel; but i thought it was a wolf and was going to eat me. i begun to cry, and i was afraid to go backward or to go forward. and by and by a little girl came along and asked me what i was crying about, and i said, 'about the dawg!' and the little girl said: 'o-oh! he's big, ain't he?' and i said, 'he's goin' to eat one of us all up!' and the little girl said: 'aw, don't you care! you take a-holt of my hand and i'll run past with you; and if he bites he'll bite me first and you can git away!' she was as scared as i was, but she grabbed my hand and we got by without being et up. do you remember who that little girl was?" the hand in his seemed to remember. the fingers of it closed on his a moment, then relaxed as if to listen for more. he mused on: "i wasn't very big for my size even then, and i wasn't very brave ever. i didn't like to fight, like the other boys did, and i used to rather take a lickin' than give one. well, one day i was playin' marbles with another boy, and he said i cheated when i won his big taw; but i didn't. he wanted to fight, though, and he hit me; and i wouldn't hit back. he was smaller than what i was, and he give me a lot of lip and dared me to fight; and i just couldn't. he said i was afraid, and so did the other boys; and i guess i was. it seemed to me i was more afraid of hurtin' somebody else than gettin' hurt myself; but i guess i was just plain afraid. the other boys began to push me round and call me a cowardy calf, and i began to cry. i wanted to run home, but i was afraid to start to run. and then a little girl came along and said: 'what's the matter, eddie? what you cryin' for?' and i said, 'they're all pickin' on me and callin' me cowardy calf!' and she said: 'don't you care! you come right along with me; and if one of 'em says another word to you i'll scratch their nasty eyes out!' do you remember that, pheeny?" her other hand came forward and embraced his wrist. "and another time you found me cryin'. i was a little older, and i'd studied hard and tried to get my lessons good; but i failed in the exam'nations, and i was goin' to tie a rock round my neck and jump in the pond. but you said: 'aw, don't you care, eddie! i didn't pass in mine, either!' "and when i wanted to go to college, and uncle loren wouldn't send me, i didn't cry outside, but i cried inside; and i told you and you said: 'don't you care! i don't get to go to boardin'-school myself.' "and when i was fool enough to think i liked that no-account luella thickins, and thought i'd go crazy because her wax-doll face wouldn't smile for me, you said: 'don't you care, eddie! you're much too good for her. i think you're the finest man in the country.' "and when the baby didn't come and i acted like a baby myself, you said: 'don't you care, eddie! ain't we got each other?' "seems like ev'ry time i been ready to lay down and die you've been there with your old 'don't you care! it's going to be all right!' "just last night i had a turrible dream. i didn't tell you about it for fear it would upset you. i dreamed i got awful sick at the office. i couldn't seem to add the figures right and the old desk wabbled. finally i had to leave off and start for home, though it was only a quarter of twelve; and i had to set down on doc noxon's horse-block and on holdredge's wall to rest; and i couldn't get our gate open. and you run out and dragged me in, and got me up-stairs somehow, and sent delia around for the doctor. "doc noxon made you have a trained nurse, but i couldn't stand her; and i wouldn't take medicine from anybody but you. i don't suppose i was dreamin' more 'n a few minutes, all told; but it seemed like i laid there for weeks, till one day doc noxon called you out of the room. i couldn't hear what he was saying, but i heard you let out one horrible scream, and then i heard sounds like he was chokin' you, and you kept sayin': 'oh no! no! no!' "i tried to go and help you, but i couldn't lift my head. by and by you come back, with your eyes all red. doc noxon was with you and he called the nurse over to him. you come to me and tried to smile; and you said: "'well, honey, how are you now?' "then i knew what the doctor had told you and i was worse scared than when the black dawg jumped at me. i tried to be brave, but i never could seem to be. i put out my hands to you and hollered: "'pheeny, i'm goin' to die! i know i'm goin' to die! don't let me go! i'm afraid to die!'" now the hands clenched his with a frenzy that hurt--but beautifully. and he kissed the wedding-ring as he finished: "and you dropped down to me on the floor by the bed and took my hands--just like that. and you whispered: 'don't you care, honey! i'll go with you. don't you care!' "and the fever seemed to cool out of me, and i kind of smiled and wasn't afraid any more; and i turned my face to you and kissed you--like this, pheeny. "why, you've been cryin', haven't you? you mustn't cry--you mustn't! all those girls i been tellin' you about are the girl i kiss when i kiss you, pheeny. there couldn't be anybody as beautiful as you are to me. "i ain't 'mounted to much; but it ain't your fault. i wouldn't have 'mounted to anything at all if it hadn't been for you, pheeny; and i been the happiest feller in all this world--or i have been up to now. i'm awful lonedsome just now. don't you s'pose you could spare me a kiss?" she spared him one. then the cook pounded on the door and called through in a voice that threatened to warp the panels: "ain't you folks ever comin' down to dinner? i've rang the bell three times. everything's all cold!" but it wasn't. everything was all warm. pop i they made a handsome family group, with just the one necessary element of contrast. father was the contrast. they were convened within and about the big three-walled divan which, according to the fashion, was backed up against a long library-table in what they now called the living-room. it had once been the sitting-room and had contained a what-isn't-it and a sofa like an enormous bald caterpillar, crowded against the wall so that you could fall off only one side of it. it was a family reunion and unexpected. father was not convened with the rest, but sat off in the shadow and counted the feet sticking out from the divan and protruding from the chairs. he counted fourteen feet, including his wife's and excluding his own. all the feet were expensively shod except his own. three of the children had come home for a visit, and father, glad as he was to see them, had a vague feeling that they had been brought in by some other motive than their loudly proclaimed homesickness. he was willing to wait until they disclosed it, for he had an idea what it was and he was always glad to postpone a payment. it meant so much less interest to lose. father was a business man. father was also dismally computing the addition to the grocery bills, the butchery bills, and livery bills, and the others. he was figuring out the added expense of the dinner, with roast beef now costing as much as peacocks' tongues. he had raised a large family and there was not a dyspeptic in the lot--not even a banter. they had been photographed together the day before and the proof had just come home. father was not in the picture. it was a handsome picture. they admitted it themselves. they had urged father to come along, but he had pleaded his business, as usual. as they studied the picture they would glance across at father and realize how little the picture lost by his absence. it lost nothing but the contrast. while they were engaged each in that most fascinating of employments--studying one's own photograph--they were all waiting for the dining-room maid to appear like a black-and-white sketch and crisply announce that dinner was served. they had not arrived yet at having a man. indeed, that room could still remember when a frowsy, blowsy hired girl was wont to stick her head in and groan, "supper's ready!" in fact, mother had never been able to live down a memory of the time when she used to put her own head in at a humbler dining-room door and call with all the anger that cooks up in a cook: "come on! what we got's on the table!" but mother had entirely forgotten the first few months of her married life, when she would sing out to father: "oh, honey, help me set the table, will you? i've a surprise for you--something you like!" this family had evolved along the cycles so many families go through--from pin feathers to paradise plumes--only, the male bird had failed to improve his feathers or his song, though he never failed to bring up the food and keep the nest thatched. the history of an american family can often be traced by its monuments in the names the children call the mother. mrs. grout had begun as--just one ma. eventually they doubled that and progressed from the accent on the first to the accent on the second ma. years later one of the inarticulate brats had come home as a collegian in a funny hat, and mama had become mater. this had lasted until one of the brattines came home as a collegienne with a swagger and a funny sweater. and then her latin title was frenchified to _mère_--which always gave father a shock; for father had been raised on a farm, where only horses' wives were called by that name. father had been dubbed pop at an early date. efforts to change this title had been as futile as the terrific endeavors to keep him from propping his knife against his plate. he had been browbeaten out of using the blade for transportation purposes, but at that point he had simply ceased to develop. names like pappah, pater, and _père_ would not cling to him; they fell off at once. pop he was always called to his face, whether he were referred to abroad as "the old man," "the governor," or "our dear father." the evolution of the grout family could be traced still more clearly in the names the parents had given the children. the eldest was a daughter, though when she grew up she dropped back in the line and became ever so much younger than her next younger brothers. she might have fallen still farther to the rear if she had not run up against another daughter who had her own age to keep down. the eldest daughter, born in the grim days of early penury, had been grimly entitled julia. the following child, a son, was soberly called by his father's given and his mother's maiden names--john pennock grout, or jno. p., as his father wrote it. a year or two later there appeared another hostage. labeling him was a matter of deep concern. john urged his own father's name, william; but the mother wafted this away with a gesture of airy disgust. there was a hired girl in the kitchen now and mother was reading a good many novels between stitches. she debated long and hard while the child waited anonymous. at length she ventured on gerald. she changed that two or three times and the boy had a narrow escape from sylvester. he came perilously near to carrying abélard through an amused world; but she harked back to gerald--which he spelled jerrold at times. then two daughters entered the family in succession and were stamped beatrice--pronounced bay-ah-treat-she by those who had the time and the energy--and consuelo, which pop would call counser-eller. by this time julia had grown up and was beginning at finishing-school. she soon saw that julia would never do--never! she had started with a handicap, but she caught up with the rest and passed them gracefully by ingeniously altering the final _a_ to an _e_, and pronouncing it zheelee. her father never could get within hailing distance of the french _j_ and _u_, and teetered awkwardly between jilly and jelly. he was apt to relax sickeningly into plain julia--especially before folks, when he was nervous anyway. only they did not say "before folks" now; the grouts never said "before folks" now--they said, "in the presence of guests." by the time the next son came the mother was shamelessly literary enough to name him ethelwolf, which his school companions joyously abbreviated to ethel, overlooking the wolf. ethelwolf was the last of the visitors. for by this time _mère_ had accumulated so many absolutely unforgivable grievances against her absolutely impossible husband that she felt qualified for that crown of comfortable martyrhood, that womanly ideal, "a wife in name only"--and only that "for the sake of the children." by this time the children, too, had acquired grievances against pop. the more refined they grew the coarser-grained he seemed. they could not pulverize him in the coffee-mill of criticism. he was as hopeless in ideas as in language. it was impossible to make him realize that the best is always the cheapest; that fine clothes make fine people; that petty economies are death to "the larger flights of the soul"; and that parents have no right to have children unless they can give them what other people's children have. if john grout complained that he was not a millionaire the younger grouts retorted that this was not their fault, but their misfortune; and it was "up to pop" to do the best he could during what _mère_ was now calling their "formative years." the children had liberal ideas, artistic and refined ideals; but pop was forever talking poor, always splitting pennies, always dolefully reiterating, "i don't know where the money is coming from!" it was so foolish of him, too--for it always came from somewhere. the children went to the best schools, traveled in europe, wore as good clothes as anybody--though they did not admit this, of course, within father's hearing, lest it put false notions into his head; and the sons made investments that had not yet begun to turn out right. parents cannot fool their children long, and the grout youngsters had learned at an early date that pop always forked over when he was nagged into it. any of the children in trouble could always write or telegraph home a "must have," and it was always forthcoming. there usually followed a querulous note about "sorry you have to have so much, but i suppose it costs a lot where you are. make it go as far as you can, for i'm a little pinched just now." but this was taken as a mere detail--an unfortunate paternal habit. that was pop's vice--his only one and about the least attractive of vices. it was harrowing to be the children of a miser--for he must have a lot hoarded away. his poor talk, his allusions to notes at the bank and mortgages and drafts to meet, were just bogies to frighten them with and to keep them down. it was most humiliating for high-spirited children to be so misunderstood. pop lacked refined tastes. it was a harsh thing to say of one's parent, but when you came right down to it pop was a hopeless plebeian. pop noticed the difference himself. he would have doubted that these magnificent youngsters could be his own if that had not implied a criticism of his unimpeachable wife. so he gave her all the credit. for _mère_ was different. she was well read; she entertained charmingly; she loved good clothes, up-to-the-minute hats; she knew who was who and what was what. she was ambitious, progressive. she nearly took up french once. but pop was shabby. pop always wore a suit until it glistened and his children ridiculed him into a new one. as for wearing evening dress, in the words of gerald they "had to blindfold him and back him into his soup-and-fish, even on the night the italian opera company came to town." pop never could take them anywhere. a vacation was a thing of horror to him. it was almost impossible to drag him to a lake or the sea, and it was quite impossible to keep him there more than a few days. his business always called him home. and such a business! dry-goods!--and in a small town. and such a town, with such a name! to the children who knew their paris and their london, their new york and their washington, a visit home was like a sentence to jail. it was humiliating to make a good impression on acquaintances of importance and then have to confess to a home town named waupoos. people either said, "i beg your pardon!" as if they had not heard it right, or they laughed and said, "honestly?" the children had tried again and again to pry pop out of waupoos, but he clung to it like a limpet. he had had opportunities, too, to move his business to big cities, but he was afraid to venture. he was fairly sure of sustenance in waupoos so long as he nursed every penny; but he could never find the courage to transplant himself to another place. the worst of his cowardice was that he blamed the children--at least, he said he dared not face a year or two of possible loss lest they might need something. so he stayed in waupoos and managed somehow to keep the family afloat and the store open. when _mère_ revolted and longed for a glimpse of the outer world he always advised her to take a trip and have a good time. he always said he could afford that much, and he took an interest in seeing that she had funds to buy some city clothes with; but he never had funds enough to go along. that was one of mother's grievances. pop bored her to death at home and she wanted to scream every time he mentioned his business--it was so selfish of him to talk of that at night when she had so much to tell him of the misbehavior of the servants. but, greatly as he annoyed her round the house, she cherished an illusion that she would like him in a hotel. she had tried to get him to read a certain novel--a wonderful book mercilessly exposing the curse of modern america; which is the men's habit of sticking to their business so closely that they give their poor wives no companionship. they leave their poor wives to languish at home or to go shopping or gossiping, while they indulge themselves in the luxuries of vibration between creditor and debtor. in this novel, and in several others she could have named, the poor wife naturally fell a prey to the fascinations of a handsome devil with dark eyes, a motor or two, and no office hours. _mère_ often wondered why she herself had not taken up with some handsome devil fully equipped for the entertainment of neglected wives. if she had not been a member of that stanch american womanhood to which the glory of the country and its progress are really due, she might have startled her husband into realizing too late, as the too-late husbands in the novels realized, that a man's business is a side issue and that the perpetuation of romance is the main task. her self-respect was all that held _mère_ to the home; that and--whisper!--the fact that no handsome devil with any kind of eyes ever tried to lure her away. when she reproached pop and threatened him he refused to be scared. he paid his wife that most odious of tributes--a monotonous trust in her loyalty and an insulting immunity to jealousy. almost worse was his monotonous loyalty to her and his failure to give her jealousy any excuse. they quarreled incessantly, but the wrangles were not gorgeously dramatic charges of intrigue with handsome men or painted women, followed by rapturous make-ups. they were quarrels over expenditures, extravagances, and voyages. _mère_ charged pop with parsimony and he charged her with recklessness. she accused him of trying to tie them down to a village; he accused her of trying to drive him to bankruptcy. she demanded to know whether he wanted his children to be like children of their neighbors--clerks in small stores, starveling tradespeople and wives of little merchants. he answered that she was breeding a pack of snobs that despised their father and had no mercy on him--and no use for him except as a lemon to squeeze dry. she answered with a laugh of scorn that lemon was a good word; and he threw up his hands and returned to the shop if the war broke out at noon, or slunk up to bed if it followed dinner. this was the pattern of their daily life. every night there was a new theme, but the duet they built on it ran along the same formulas. the children sided with _mère_, of course. in the first place, she was a poor, downtrodden woman; in the second, she was their broker. her job was to get them things. they gave her the credit for what she got them. they gave pop no praise for yielding--no credit for extracting somehow from the dry-soil of an arid town the money they extracted from him. they knew nothing of the myriad little agonies, the ingenuity, the tireless attention to detail, the exquisite finesse that make success possible in the mêlée of competition. their souls were above trade and its petty nigglings. jno. p., who was now known as j. pennock, was aiming at a million dollars in new york, and his mother was sure that he would get it next time if pop would only raise him a little more money to meet an irritating obligation or seize a glittering opportunity. pop always raised the money and j. pennock always lost it. yet pennock was a financier and pop was a village merchant. and now pen had come home unexpectedly. he was showing a great interest in pop's affairs. gerald was home also unexpectedly. he was an artist of the most wonderful promise. none of his promises was more wonderful than those he made his father to repay just one more loan--to tide him over until he sold his next picture; but it never sold, or it sold for a mere song. gerald solaced himself and _mère_ solaced him for being ahead of his time, unappreciated, too good for the public. she thanked heaven that gerald was a genius, not a salesman. one salesman in the family was enough! and gerald had beaten pen home by one train. he had greeted pen somewhat coldly--as if pen were a trespasser on his side of the street. and when it was learned that julie had telegraphed that she would arrive the next day, both the brothers had frowned. pop had sighed. he was glad to see his wonderful offspring, but he had already put off the grocer and the butcher--and even his life-insurance premium--because he had an opportunity by a quick use of cash to obtain the bankrupt stock of a rival dealer who had not nursed his pennies as pop had. it was by such purchases that pop had managed to keep his store alive and his brilliant children in funds. he had temporarily drawn his bank account down to the irreducible minimum and borrowed on his securities up to the insurmountable maximum. it was a bad time for his children to tap him. but here they were--jno. p., jerry, and julia--all very unctuous over the home-coming, and yet all of them evidently cherishing an ulterior idea. he watched them lounging in fashionable awkwardness. they were brilliant children. and he was as proud of them as he was afraid of them--and for them. ii if the children looked brilliant to pop he did not reflect their refulgence. as they glanced from the photographer's proof to pop they were not impressed. they were not afraid of him or for him. his bodily arrangement was pitifully gawky; he neither sat erect nor lounged--he slumped spineless. big spectacles were in style now, but pop's big spectacles were just out of it. his face was like a parchment that had been left out in the rain and had dried carelessly in deep, stiff wrinkles--with the writing washed off. ethelwolf, the last born, had no ulterior idea. he always spent his monthly allowance by the second tuesday after the first monday, and sulked through a period of famine and debt until the next month. it was now the third tuesday and he was disposed to sarcasm. "look at pop!" he muttered. "he looks just like the old boy they put in the cartoons to represent the common people." "he's the beau brummel of waupoos, all right!" said bayahtreatshe, who was soon returning to wellesley. and consuelo, who was preparing for vassar, added under her breath, "mère, can't you steal up on him and swipe that already-tied tie?" had pop overheard, he would have made no complaint. he had known the time when they had thrown things at him. the reverence of american children for their fathers is almost as famous as the meekness of american wives before their husbands. yet it might have hurt pop a little to see mother shake her head and hear her sigh: "he's hopeless, children! do take warning from my misfortune and be careful what you marry." poor _mère_ had absolutely forgotten how proud she had been when johnnie grout came courting her, and how she had extracted a proposal before he knew what he was about, and had him at the altar before he was ready to support a wife in the style she had been accustomed to hope for. she remembered only the dreams he had not brought true, the harsh realities of their struggle upward. she had worked and skimped with him then. now she was like a lolling passenger in a jinrikisha, who berates the shabby coolie because he stumbles where the roads are rough and sweats where they are steep. julie spoke up in answer to her mother's word of caution: "there's one thing better than being careful what you marry--and that's not marrying at all!" the rest of them were used to julie's views; but pop, who had paid little heed to them, almost collapsed from his chair. julie went on: "men are all alike, mère. they're very soft-spoken when they come to make love; but it's only a bluff to make us give up our freedom. before we know it they drag us up before another man, a preacher, and make us swear to love, honor, and obey. they kill the love, make the honor impossible, and the obey ridiculous. then they coop us up at home and expect us to let them run the world to suit themselves. they've been running it for thousands of years--and look at the botch they've made of it! it's time for us to take the helm." "go to it, sis," said ethelwolf. "i care not who makes the laws so long as i can break them." "let your sister alone!" said _mère_. "go on, julie!" "i've put it all in the address i read before the federation last week," said julie. "it was reported at length in one of the papers. i've got a clipping in my handbag here somewhere." she began to rummage through a little condensed chaos of handkerchiefs, gloves, powder-puff, powdery dollar bills, powdery coins, loose bits of paper, samples, thread, pins, buttons--everything--every-whichway. j. pennock laughed. "pipe what's going to run the world! better get a few pockets first." "don't be a brute, pen!" said _mère_. at last julie found the clipping she sought and, shaking the powder from it, handed it to her mother. "it's on the strength of this speech that i was elected delegate to the international convention at san francisco," she said. "you were!" _mère_ gasped, and beatrice and consuelo exclaimed, "ripsnorting!" "are you going?" said _mère_ when she recovered from her awe. "well, it's a pretty expensive trip. that's why i came home--to see if--well, we can take that up later. tell me how you like the speech." _mère_ mumbled the report aloud to the delighted audience. pop heard little of it. he was having a chill. it was very like plain ague, but he credited it to the terror of julie's mission home. all she wanted him to do was to send her on a little jaunt to san francisco! the tyrant, as usual, was expected to finance the rebellion. when _mère_ had finished reading everybody applauded julie except pop. _mère_ overheard his silence and rounded on him across the aristocratic reading-glass she wielded. "did you hear that?" pop was so startled that he answered, "uh-huh!" "didn't you think it was splendid?" _mère_ demanded. "uh-huh!" said pop. "what didn't you like about it?" "i liked it all first-rate. julie is a smart girl, i tell you." _mère_ scented his evasion, and she would never tolerate evasions. she repeated: "what didn't you like about it?" "i liked all i could understand." "understand!" snapped _mère_, who rarely wasted her culture on pop. "what didn't you understand? could anything be clearer than this? listen!" she read in an oratorical voice: "'woman has been for ages man's mere beast of burden, his household drudge. being a wife has meant being a slave--the only servant without wages or holiday. but the woman of to-day at last demands that the shackles be stricken off; she demands freedom to live her life her own way--to express her selfhood without the hampering restrictions imposed on her by the barbaric customs inherited from the time of the cave-man.'" _mère_ folded up the clipping and glared defiance at the cave-man slumped in the uneasy chair. "what's clearer than that?" she reiterated. pop was at bay. he was like a desperate rabbit. he answered: "it's clear enough, i guess; but it's more than i can take in. seems to me the women folks are hollering at the men folks to give 'em what the men folks have never been able to get for themselves." it was peevish. coming from pop, it amounted to an outburst, a riot, a mutiny. such a tendency was dangerous. he must be sharply repressed at once--as a new servant must be taught her place. _mère_ administered the necessary rebuke, aided and abetted by the daughters. the sons did not rally to their father's defense. he was soon reduced to submission, but his apology was further irritation: "i'm kind of rattled like. i ain't feeling as chipper as usual." "chipper" was bad enough, but "ain't" was unendurable! they rebuked him for that and he put in another irrelevant plea: "i had a kind of sick spell at the store. i had to lay down." "lie down!" beatrice corrected. "lie down," he accepted. "but as soon as i laid down--" "lay down!" "lay down--i had chills and shootin' pains; and i--" "it's the weather," _mère_ interrupted, impatiently. "i've had a headache all day--such a headache as never was known! it seemed as if hammers were beating upon my very brain. it was--" "i'm not feeling at all well myself," said consuelo. there was almost a tournament of rivalry in describing sufferings. pop felt as if he had wakened a sleeping hospital. he sank back ashamed of his own outburst. he rarely spoke of the few ailments he could afford. when he did it was like one of his new clerks pulling a bolt of goods from the shelf and bringing down a silken avalanche. the clinic was interrupted by the crisp voice of nora: "dinner is served!" everybody rose and moved to the door with quiet determination. pop alone failed to rise. _mère_ glowered at him. he pleaded: "i don't feel very good. i guess i'd better leave my stummick rest." the children protested politely, but he refused to be moved and _mère_ decided to humor him. "let him alone, children. it won't hurt him to skip a meal." they said: "too bad, pop!"--"you'll be all right soon," and went out and forgot him. pop heard them chattering briskly. it was polite talk. if slang were used it was the very newest. he gleaned that pen and gerald were opposing julie's mission to san francisco on the ground of the expense. he smiled bitterly to hear that word from them. he heard julie's retort: "i suppose you boys want the money yourselves! well, i've got first havers at pop. i saw him first!" at about this point the conversation lost its coherence in pop's ears. it was mingled with a curious buzzing and a dizziness that made him grip his chair lest it pitch him to the floor. chills, in which his bones were a mere rattlebox, alternated with little rushes of prairie fire across his skin. throes of pain wrung him. also, he was a little afraid--he was afraid he might not be able to get to the store in the morning. and important people were coming! he had to make the first payment on the invoice of that bankrupt stock. a semiannual premium was overdue on his life insurance. the month of grace had nearly expired, and if he failed to pay the policy would lapse--now of all times! he had kept it up all these years; it must not lapse now, for he was going to be right sick. he wanted somebody to nurse him: his mother--or that long-lost girl he had married in the far past. his shoes irked him; his vest--what they wanted called his waistcoat--was as tight as a corset. he felt that he would be safer in bed. he'd better go up to his own room and stretch out. he rose with extraordinary difficulty and negotiated a swimming floor on swaying legs. the laughter from the dining-room irritated him. he would be better off up-stairs, where he could not hear it. the noise in his ears was all he could stand. he attained the foot of the stairs and the flight of steps seemed as long and as misty as jacob's ladder. and he was no angel! the grouts lingered at dinner and over their black coffee and tobacco until it was time to dress for the reception at mrs. alvin mitnick's, at which waupoos society would pass itself in review. the later you got there the smarter you were, and most people put off dressing until the last possible minute in order to keep themselves from falling asleep before it was time to start. the grouts, however, were eager to go early and get it over with. they loved to trample on waupoos traditions. as they drifted into the hall they found it dark. they shook their heads in dismal recognition of a familiar phenomenon, and ethelwolf groaned: "pop has gone up-stairs. you can always trace pop. wherever he has passed by the lights are out." "he has figured out that by darkening the halls while we are at dinner he saves nearly a cent a day," _mère_ groaned. "if pop were dying he'd turn out a light somewhere because he wouldn't need it." and ethelwolf laughed. but _mère_ groaned again: "can you wonder that i get depressed? now, children, i ask you--" "poor old mère! it's awful!"--"ghastly!"--"maddening!" they gathered round her lovingly, echoing her moans. they started up the dark stairway, consuelo first and turning back to say to beatrice: "pop can cut a penny into more slices than--" then she screamed and started back. her agitation went down the stairway through the climbing grouts like a cold breeze. what was it? she looked close. a hand was just visible on the floor at the head of the stairs. she had stepped on it. iii pop had evidently reached the upper hall, when the ruling passion burning even through his fever had led him to grope about for the electric switch. his last remaining energy had been expended for an economy and he had collapsed. they switched the light on again; they were always switching on currents that he switched off--and paid for. they found him lying in a crumpled sprawl that was awkward, even for pop. they stared at him in bewilderment. they would have said he was drunk; but pop never drank--nor smoked--nor played cards. perhaps he was dead! this thought was like a thunderbolt. there was a great thumping in the breasts of the grouts. suddenly _mère_ strode forward, dropped to her knees and put her hand on pop's heart. it was not still--far from that. she placed her cold palm on his forehead. his brow was clammy, hot and cold and wet. "he has a high fever!" she said. then, with a curious emotion, she brushed back the scant wet hair; closed her eyes and felt in her bosom a sudden ache like the turning of a rusty iron. she felt young and afraid--a young wife who finds her man wounded. she looked up and saw standing about her a number of tall ladies and gentlemen--important-looking strangers. then she remembered that they had once been nobodies. she felt ashamed before them and she said, quickly: "he's going to be ill. telephone for the doctor to come right away. and you girls get his bed ready. no, you'd better put him in my room--it gets the sunlight. and you boys fill the ice-cap--and the hot-water bag and--hurry! hurry!" the specters vanished. she was alone with her lover. she was drying his forehead with her best lace handkerchief and murmuring: "john honey, what's the matter! why, honey--why didn't you tell me?" then a tall gentleman or two returned and one of them said: "better let us get him off the floor, mère." and the big sons of the frail little man picked him up and carried him into the room and pulled off his elastic congress gaiters, and his coat and vest, and his detached cuffs, and his permanently tied tie, and his ridiculous collar. then _mère_ put them out, and when the doctor arrived pop was in bed in his best nightshirt. the doctor made his way up through the little mob of terrified children. he found mrs. grout vastly agitated and much ashamed of herself. she did not wish to look sentimental. she had reached the indian-summer modesty of old married couples. the doctor went through the usual ritual of pulse-feeling and tongue-examining and question-asking, while pop lay inert, with a little thermometer protruding from his mouth like a most inappropriate cigarette. the doctor was uncertain yet whether it were one of the big fevers or pneumonia or just a bilious attack. blood-tests would show; and he scraped the lobe of the ear of the unresisting, indifferent old man, and took a drop of thin pink fluid on a bit of glass. the doctor tried to reassure the panicky family, but his voice was low and important. iv the brilliant receptions and displays that _mère_ and the children had planned were abandoned without regret. all minor regrets were lost in the one big regret for the poor old, worn-out man up-stairs. there was a dignity about pop now. the lowliest peasant takes on majesty when he is battling for his life and his home. there was dismay in all the hearts now--dismay at the things they had said and the thoughts and sneers; dismay at the future without this shabby but unfailing provider. the proofs of the family photograph lay scattered about the living-room. pop was not there. they had smiled about it before. now it looked ominous! what would become of this family if pop were not there? the house was filled with a thick sense of hush like a heavy fog; but thoughts seemed to be all the louder in the silence--jumbled thoughts of selfish alarm; filial terror; remorse; tenderness; mutual rebuke; dread of death, of the future, of the past. the day nurse and the night nurse were in command of the house. the only events were the arrivals of the doctor, his long stops, his whispered conferences with the nurses, and the unsatisfactory, evasive answers he gave as the family ambushed him at the foot of the stairs on his way out. meanwhile they could not help pop in his long wrestle. they had drained his strength and bruised his heart while he had his power, and now that he needed their help and their youth they could not lend him anything; they could not pay a single instalment on the mortgages they had incurred. they could only stand at the door now and then and look in at him. they could not beat off one of the invisible vultures of fever and pain that hovered over him, swooped, and tore him. they could not even get word to him--not a message of love or of repentance or of hope. his brain was in a turmoil of its own. his white lips were muttering delirious nonsense; his soul was fluttering from scene to scene and year to year, like a restless dragon-fly. he was young; he was old; he was married; he was a bachelor; he was at home; he was in his store; he was pondering campaigns of business, slicing pennies or making daring purchases; he was retrenching; he was advertising; but he was afraid always that he might sink in the bog of competition with rival merchants, with creditors, debtors, bankers, with his wife, his children, his neighbors, his ideals, his business axioms---- "ain't the moon pirty to-night, honey! gee! i'm scared of that preacher! what do i say when he says, 'do you take this woman for your'--the pay-roll? i can't meet it saturday. how am i going to meet the pay-roll? i don't see how we can sell those goods any cheaper, but we got to get rid of 'em. my premium! my premium! i haven't paid my premium! what'll become of the children? three cents a yard--it's robbery! eight cents a yard--that's givin' it away! don't misunderstand me, sally. it's my way of making love. i can't say pirty things like some folks can, but i can think 'em. my premium--the pay-roll--so many children! couldn't they do without that? i ain't a millionaire, you know. every time i begin to get ahead a little seems like one of the children gets sick or in trouble--the pay-roll! three cents a yard--the new invoice--i can't buy myself a noo soot. the doctor's bills! i ain't complaining of 'em; but i've got to pay 'em! let me stay home--i'd rather. i've had a hard day. my premium! don't put false notions in their heads! the pay-roll! don't scold me, honey! i got feelings, too. you haven't said a word of love to me in years! i'll raise the money somehow. i know i'm close; but somebody's got to be--the pay-roll--so many people depending on me. so many mouths to feed--the children--all the clerks--the delivery-wagon drivers--the advertising bills--the pay-roll--the children! i ain't as young as i was--honey, don't scold me!" the ceaseless babbling grew intolerable. then it ceased; and the stupor that succeeded was worse, for it meant exhaustion. the doctor grew more grave. he ceased to talk of hope. he looked ashamed. he tried to throw the blame from himself. and one dreadful day he called the family together in the living-room. once more they were all there--all those expensively shod feet; those well-clothed, well-fed bodies. in the chair where pop had slumped the doctor sat upright. he was saying: "of course there's always hope. while there's life there's always hope. the fever is pretty well gone, but so is the patient. the crisis left him drained. you see he has lived this american business man's life--no exercise, no vacations, no change. the worst of it is that he seems to have given up the fight. you know we doctors can only stand guard outside. the patient has to fight it out inside himself. it's a very serious sign when the sick man loses interest in the battle. mr. grout does not rally. his powerful mind has given up." in spite of themselves there was a general lifting of the brows of surprise at the allusion to pop's poor little footling brain as a powerful mind. perhaps the doctor saw it. he said: "for it was a powerful mind! mr. grout has carried that store of his from a little shop to a big institution; he has kept it afloat in a dull town through hard times. he has kept his credit good and he has given his family wonderful advantages. look where he has placed you all! he was a great man." when the doctor had gone they began to understand that the town had looked upon pop as a giant of industry, a prodigal of vicarious extravagance. they began to feel more keenly still how good a man he was. while they were flourishing like orchids in the sun and air, he had grubbed in the earth, sinking roots everywhere in search of moisture and of sustenance. through him, things that were lowly and ugly and cheap were gathered and transformed and sent aloft as sap to make flowers of and color them and give them velvet petals and exquisite perfume. they gathered silently in his room to watch him. he was white and still, hardly breathing, already the overdue chattel of the grave. they talked of him in whispers, for he did not answer when they praised him. he did not move when they caressed him. he was very far away and drifting farther. they spoke of how much they missed him, of how perfect a father he had been, competing with one another in regrets and in praise. back of all this belated tribute there was a silent dismay they did not give voice to--the keen, immediately personal reasons for regret. "what will become of us?" they were thinking, each in his or her own terrified soul. "i can't go back to school!" "this means no college for me!" "i'll have to stay in this awful town the rest of my life!" "i can't go to san francisco! the greatest honor of my life is taken from me just as i grasped it." "i had a commission to paint the portrait of an ambassador at washington--it would have been the making of me! it meant a lot of money, too. i came home to ask pop to stake me to money enough to live on until it was finished." "my business will go to smash! i'll be saddled with debts for the rest of my life. if i could have hung on a little longer i'd have reached the shore; but the bank wouldn't lend me a cent. nobody would. i came home to ask pop to raise me some cash. i counted on him. he never failed me before." "what will become of us all?" there was a stir on the pillow. the still head began to rock, the throat to swell, the lips to twitch. _mère_ ran to the bedside and knelt by it, laying her hand on the forehead. a miracle had been wrought in the very texture of his brow. he was whispering something. she put her ear to his lips. "yes, honey. what is it? i'm here." she caught the faint rustling of words. it was as if his hovering soul had been eavesdropping on their thoughts. perhaps it was merely that he had learned so well in all these years just what each of them would be thinking. for he murmured: "i've been figuring out--how much the--funeral will cost--you know they're awful expensive--funerals are--of course i wouldn't want anything fancy--but--well--besides--and i've been thinking the children have got to have so many things--i can't afford to--be away from the store any longer. i ain't got time to die! i've had vacation enough! where's my clothes at?" they held him back. but not for long. he was the most irritatingly impatient of convalescents. in due course of time the family was redistributed about the face of the earth. ethelwolf was at preparatory school; beatrice and consuelo were acquiring and lending luster at wellesley and vassar; gerald was painting a portrait at washington; and j. pennock was like a returned napoleon in wall street. pop was at his desk in the store. all his employees had gone home. he was fretfully twiddling a telegram from san francisco: julie's address sublime please telegraph two hundred more love mere. pop was remembering the words of the address: "woman has been for ages man's mere beast of burden.... being a wife has meant being a slave." pop could not understand it yet. but he told everybody he met about the first three words of the telegram, and added: "i got the smartest children that ever was and they owe it all to their mother, every bit." baby talk i the wisest thing prof. stuart litton was ever caught at was the thing he was most ashamed of. he had begun to accumulate knowledge at an age when most boys are learning to fight and to explain at home how they got their clothes torn. he wore out spectacles almost as fast as his brothers wore out copper-toed boots; but he did not begin to acquire wisdom until he was just making forty. up to that time, if the serpent is the standard, professor litton was about as wise as an angleworm. he submerged himself in books for nearly forty years; and then--in the words of leonard teed--then he "came up for air." this man teed was the complete opposite of litton. for one thing he was the liveliest young student in the university where litton was the solemnest old professor. teed had scientific ambitions and hated greek and latin, which litton felt almost necessary to salvation. teed regarded litton and his latin as the sole obstacles to his success in college; and, though litton was too much of a gentle heart to hate anybody, if he could have hated anybody it would have been teed. a girl was concerned in one of their earliest encounters, though litton's share in it was as unromantic as possible. teed, it seems, had violated one of the rules at webster university. he had chatted with miss fannie newman--a pretty student in the woman's college--after nine o'clock; nay, more, he had sat on a campus bench bidding her good night for half an hour, and, with that brilliant mathematical mind of his, had selected the bench at the greatest possible distance from the smallest cluster of lampposts. on this account he was haled before the disciplinary committee of the faculty. litton happened to be on that committee. teed made the best fight he could. he showed himself a greek--in argument at least--and, like an old sophist, he tried to prove, first, that he was not on the campus with the girl and never had spooned with her; second, that if he had been there and had spooned with her it was too dark for them to be seen; and third, that he was engaged to the girl, anyway, and had a right to spoon with her. the accusing witness was a janitor whom teed had played various jokes on and had neglected to appease with tips. teed submitted him to a fierce cross-examination; forced him to admit that he could not see the loving couple and had identified them solely by their voices. teed demanded the exact words overheard; and, as often happens to the too-ardent cross-examiner, he got what he asked for and wished he had not. the janitor, blushing at what he remembered, pleaded: "you don't vant i should say it exectly vat i heered?" "exactly!" teed answered in his iciest tone. "vell," the janitor mumbled, "it vas such a foolish talk as--but--vell, ven i come by i hear voman's voice says, 'me loafs oo besser as oo loafs me!'" teed flushed and the faculty sat forward. "den i hear man's voice says,'oozie-voozie, mezie-vezie--' must i got to tell it all?" "go on!" said teed, grimly; and the old german mopped his brow with anguish and snorted with rage: "'mezie-vezie loafs oozie-voozie bestest!'" the purple-faced members of the faculty were hanging on to their own safety-valves to keep from exploding--all save professor litton, who felt that his hearing must be defective. teed, fighting in the last ditch, said: "but such language does not prove the identity of the--er--participants. you said you knew positively." the janitor, writhing with disgust and indignation, went on: "ven i hear such nonsunse i stop and listen if it is two people escapet from de loonatic-houze. and den young voman says, 'it doesn't loaf its fannie-vannie one teeny-veeny mite!' and young man says, 'so sure my name is lennie teedie-veedie, little fannie newman iss de onliest gerl i ever loafed!'" the cross-examiner crumpled up in a chair, while the members of the faculty behaved like children bursting with giggles in church--all save litton, who had listened with increasing amazement and now leaned forward to demand of the janitor: "mr. kraus, you don't mean to say that two of our students actually disgraced this institution with conversation that would be appropriate only to a nursery?" mr. kraus thundered: "de talk of dose stoodents vould disgrace de nursery! it vas so sickenink i can't forget ut. i try to, but i keep rememberink oozie-voozie! mezie-vezie!" mr. kraus was excused in a state of hydrophobic rage and teed withdrew in all meekness. litton had fallen into a stupor of despair at the futility of learning. he remained in a state of coma while the rest of the committee laughed over the familiar idiocies and debated a verdict. two of the professors, touched by some reminiscence of romance, voted to ignore the incident as a trivial commonplace of youth. two others, though full of sympathy for teed--miss fannie was very pretty--voted for his suspension as a necessary example, lest the campus be overrun by duets in lovers' latin. the result was a tie and litton was roused from his trance to cast the deciding vote. now professor litton had read a vast amount about love. the classics are full of its every imaginable version or perversion; but litton had seen it expressed only in the polished phrases of anacreon, bion, propertius, and the others. he had not guessed that, however these men polished their verses, they doubtless addressed their sweethearts with all the imbecility of sincerity. litton's own experience gave him little help. in his late youth he had thought himself in love twice and had expressed his fiery emotions in a latin epistle, an elegy, and a number of very correct alcaics. they pleased his teacher, but frightened the spectacles off one bookish young woman, and drove the other to the arms of a prescription clerk, who knew no latin except what was on his drug bottles. litton had thenceforward been wedded to knowledge. he had read nearly everything ancient, but he must have forgotten the sentence of publilius syrus: "even a god could hardly love and be wise." he felt no mercy in his soft heart for the soft-headed teed. he was a worshiper of language for its own sake and cast a vote accordingly. "i do not question the propriety of the conduct of these young people," he said. "mr. teed claims to be engaged to the estimable young woman." "ah!" said professor mackail, delightedly. teed was the brightest pupil in his laboratory and he had voted for acquittal. his joy vanished as professor litton went on: "but"--he spoke the word with emphasis--"but waiving all questions of propriety, i do feel that we should administer a stinging rebuke to the use of such appallingly infantile language by one of our students. surely a man's culture should show itself, above all, in the addresses he pays to the young lady of his choice. what vanity to build and conduct a great institution of learning, such as this aims to be, and then permit one of its pupils to express his regard for a student from the annex in such language as even mr. kraus was reluctant to quote: 'mezie-wezie loves oozie-woozie bestest!'--if i remember rightly. really, gentlemen, if this is permitted we might as well change the university to a kindergarten. for his own sake i vote that mr. teed be given six months of meditation at home; and i trust that the faculty of the woman's college will have a similar regard for its ideals and the welfare of the misguided young woman." professor mackail protested furiously, but his advocacy only embittered litton--for mackail was the leader of the faction that had tried for years to place webster university in line with others by removing latin and greek from the position of required studies. mackail and his crew pretended that french and german, or science, were appropriate substitutes for the classic languages in the case of those whose tastes were not scholastic; but to litton it was a religion that no man should be allowed to spend four years in college without at least rubbing up against homer, �schylos, vergil, and horace. as litton put it: "no man has a right to an alma mater who doesn't know what the words mean; and nobody has a right to graduate without knowing at least enough latin to read his own diploma." this old war had been fought with all the bitterness and professional jealousies of scholarship, which rival those of religion and exceed those of the stage. for yet a while litton and his followers had vanquished opposition. he little dreamed what he was preparing for himself in punishing teed. teed accepted his banishment with poor grace, but a magnificent determination to come back and graduate. the effect of his punishment was shown when, after six months of rustic meditation, he set out for the university, leaving behind him his fannie, who had been too timid to return to the scene of her discomfiture. teed's good-by words ran something like this: "bess its ickle heartums! don't se care! soonie as teedle-weedle gets graduated he'll get fine job and marry his fansy-pansy very first sing." then he kissed her "goo'byjums"--and went back with the face of a regulus returning to be tortured by the enemy. ii teed had a splendid mind for everything material and modern, but he could not and would not master the languages he called dead. his mistranslations of the classics were themselves classics. they sent the other students into uproars; but litton saw nothing funny in them. when he received teed's examination papers he marked them with a pitiless exactitude. teed reached the end of his junior year with a heap of conditions in the classics. litton insisted that he should not be allowed to graduate until he cleaned them up. this meant that teed must tutor all through his last vacation or carry double work throughout his senior year--when he expected to play some patriotic or alma-matriotic football. teed had no intention of enduring either of these inconveniences; he trusted to fate to inspire him somehow with some scheme for attaining his diploma without delay. his future job depended on his diploma--and his girl depended on his job. he did not intend to be kept from either by any ancient authors. he had not the faintest idea how he was going to bridge that chasm--but, as he wrote his fansy-pansy, "love will find the way." while teed was taking thought for the beginning of his life-work litton was completing his--or at least he thought he was. with the splendid devotion of the scholar he had selected for his contribution to human welfare the best possible edition of the work least likely to be read by anybody. a firm of publishers had kindly consented to print it--at litton's expense. litton would donate a copy to his own university; two or three college libraries would purchase copies out of respect to the learned professor; and litton would give away a few more. the rest would stand in an undisturbed stack of increasing dust, there to remain unread as long perhaps as the myriads of babylonian classics that assurbani-pal had copied in brick volumes for his great library at nineveh. professor litton had chosen for his life-work a recension of the ponderous epic in forty-eight books that old nonnus wrote in egypt, the labyrinthine dionysiaka describing the voyage of bacchus to india and back. a pretty theme for an old water-drinker who had never tasted wine! but litton toiled over the greek text, added copious notes as to minute variants, appallingly learned prolegomena, an index, and finally an english version in prose. he had begun to translate it into hexameters, but he feared that he would never live to finish it. it was hard enough for a man like litton to express at all the florid spirit of an author whose theme was "the voluptuous phalanxes" of bacchus' army--"the heroic race of such unusual warriors; the shaggy satyrs; the breed of centaurs; the tribes of sileni, whose legs bristle with hair; and the battalions of bassarids." he had kept at it all these years, however, and it was ready now for the eyes of a world that would never see it. he had watched it through the compositors' hands, keeping a tireless eye on the infinite nuisance of greek accents. he had read the galley proofs, the page proofs, and now at last the black-bordered foundry proofs. he scorned to write the bastard "o. k." of approval and wrote, instead, a stately "imprimatur." he placed the proofs in their envelope and sealed it with lips that trembled like a priest's when giving an illuminated gospel a ritual kiss. the hour was late when professor litton finished. he stamped the brown-paper envelope and went down the steps of the boarding-house that had been for years his nearest approach to a home. he left the precious envelope on the hall-tree, whence it would be taken to the post-office for the first mail. feeling the need of a breath of air, he stepped out on the porch. it was a spring midnight and the college roofs were wonderful under the quivering moon--or _tremulo sub lumine_, as he remembered it. and he remembered how quintus smyrnæus had said that the amazon queen walked among her outshone handmaidens, "as when, on the wide heavens, among the stars, the divine selene moves pre-eminent among them all." he thought of everything in terms of the past; yet, when he heard, mingled with the vague murmur of the night, a distant song of befuddled collegians, among whose voices teed's soared pre-eminent above the key, he was not pleasantly reminded of the tipsy army of dionysus. he was revolted and, returning to his solitude, closed an indignant door on the disgrace. poor old litton! his learning had so frail a connection with the life about him! steeped in the classics and acquainted with the minutest details of their texts, he never caught their spirit; never seemed to realize that they are classics because their authors were so close to life and imbued them with such vitality that time has not yet rendered them obsolete. he had hardly suspected the mischief that is in them. a more innocent man could hardly be imagined or one more versed in the lore of evil. persons who believe that what is called immoral literature has a debasing effect must overlook such men as litton. he dwelt among those greek and roman authors who excelled in exploiting the basest emotions and made poems out of putridity. he read in the original those terrifying pages that nobody has ever dared to put into english without paraphrase--the polished infamies of martial; the exquisite atrocities of theocritus and catullus. yet these books left him as unsullied as water leaves a duck's back. they infected him no more than a medical work gives the doctor that studies it the diseases it describes. the appallingly learned professor litton was a babe in arms compared with many of his pupils, who read little--or with the janitor, who read nothing at all. and now, arrived at a scant forty and looking a neglected fifty, short-sighted, stoop-shouldered and absent-minded to a proverb, he cast a last fond look at the parcel containing his translation of the bacchic epic and climbed the stairs to his bachelor bedroom, took off his shabby garments, and stretched himself out in the illiterate sleep of a tired farm-hand. just one dream he had--a nightmare in which he read a printed copy of his work, and a wrongly accented enclitic stuck out from one of the pages like a sore thumb. he woke in a cold sweat, ran to his duplicate proofs, found that his text was correct--and went back to bed contented. of such things his terrors and his joys had consisted all his years. iii the next morning he felt like a laborer whose factory has closed. every day would be sunday hereafter until he got another job. in this unwonted sloth he dawdled over his porridge, his weak tea, and his morning paper. head-lines caught his eyes shouting the familiar name of joel brown--familiar to the world at large because of the man's tremendous success and relentless severity in business. brown fell in love with one of those shy, sly young women who make a business of millionaires. he fell out with a thud and his flossie entered a suit for breach of promise, submitting selected letters of brown's as proofs of his guile and of her weak, womanly trust. the newspapers pounced on them with joy, as cats pounce and purr on catnip. the whole country studied brown's letters with the rapture of eavesdropping. such letters! such oozing molasses of sentiment! such elephantine coquetry! joel weighed two hundred and eighteen pounds and called himself little brownie and pet chickie! this was the literature that the bewildered litton found in the first paper he had read carefully since he came up for air. one of the letters ran something like this: angel of the skies! my own flossie-dovelet! your little brownie has not seenest thee for a whole half a day, and he is pining, starving, famishing, perishing for a word from your blushing liplets. oh, my peaches and cream! oh, my sugar plum! how can your pet chickie live the eternity until he claspeths thee again this evening? when can your brownie-wownie call you all his ownest only one? ten billion kisses i send you from your own, owner, ownest pet chickie-brownie. x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x the x's, flossie explained, indicated kisses--a dozen to an x. the jury laughed little brownie out of court after pinning a twenty-five-thousand-dollar verdict to his coat-tail. the nation elected him the pantaloon of the hour and pounded him with bladders and slap-sticks. professor litton had heard nothing of the preliminary fanfare of the suit. as he read of it now he was too much puzzled to be amused. he read with the same incredulity he had felt when he heard the janitor quote teed's remarks to his fiancée. litton called his landlady's attention to the remarkable case. she had been reading it, with greedy glee, every morning. she had had such letters herself in her better days. she felt sorry for poor mr. brown and sorrier for the poor professor when he said: "poor mr. brown must have gone quite insane. nobody could have built up such wealth without brains; yet nobody with brains could have written such letters. ergo, he has lost his brains." "you'll be late to prayers," was all the landlady said. she treated litton as if he were a half-witted son. and he obeyed her, forsook his unfinished tea and hurried away to the chapel. thence he went to his class-room, where teed achieved some further miracles of mistranslation. litton thought how curious it was that this young man, of whom his scientific professor spoke so highly, should have fallen into the same delirium of amorous idiocy as the famous plutocrat, joel brown. when the class was dismissed he sank back in his chair by the class-room window. it was wide ajar to-day for the first time since winter. april, like an early-morning housemaid, was throwing open all the windows of the world. litton felt a delicious lassitude; he was bewildered with leisure. a kind of sweet loneliness fell on him. he had made no provision for times like these. he sat back and twiddled his thumbs. his eyes roved lazily about the campus. the wind that fluttered the sparse forelock on his overweening forehead hummed in his ears. it had a distance in it. it brought soft cadences of faint voices from the athletic field. they seemed to come from no place nearer than the athenian academe. along the paths of the campus a few women were sauntering, for the students and teachers in the women's annex had the privilege of the libraries, the laboratories, and lecture-rooms. across litton's field of view passed a figure that caught his eye. absently he followed it as it enlarged with approach. he realized that it was prof. martha binley, ph.d., who taught greek over there in the annex. "how well she is looking!" he mused. the very thought startled him, as if some one had spoken unexpectedly. he wondered that he had noticed her appearance. after the window-sill blotted her from view he still wondered, dallying comfortably with the reverie. iv there was a knock at his door and in response to his call the door opened--and she stood there. "may i come in?" she said. "certainly." before he knew it some impulse of gallantry hoisted him to his feet. he lifted a bundle of archeological reviews from a chair close to his desk and waited until she sat down. the chair was nearer his than he realized, and as professor binley dropped into it she was so close that professor litton pushed his spectacles up to his forehead. it was the first time she had seen his eyes except through glasses darkly. she noted their color instantly, woman-like. they were not dull, either, as she had imagined. a cloying fragrance saluted his nostrils. "what are the flowers you are wearing, may i ask?" he said. he hardly knew a harebell from a peony. "these are hyacinths," she said. "one of the girls gave them to me. i just pinned them on." "ah, hyacinths!" he murmured. "ah yes; i've read so much about them. so these are hyacinths! such a pretty story the greeks had. you remember it, no doubt?" she said she did; but, schoolmaster that he was, he went right on: "apollo loved young hyacinthus--or huakinthos, as the greeks called it--and was teaching him to throw the discus, when a jealous breeze blew the discus aside. it struck the boy in the forehead. he fell dead, and from his blood this flower sprang. the petals, they said, were marked with the letters ai, ai!--alas! alas! and the poet moschus, you remember, in his 'lament for bion,' says: "nun huakinthe lalei ta sa grammata kai pleon aiai! "or, as i once englished it--let me see, i put it into hexameters--it was a long while ago. ah, i have it!" and with the orotund notes a poet assumes when reciting his own words, he intoned: "now, little hyacinth, babble thy syllables--louder yet--aiai! whimper with all of thy petals; a beautiful singer has perished." professor binley stared at him in amazement and cried: "charming! beautiful! your own translation, you say?" and he, somewhat shaken by her enthusiasm, waved it aside. "a little exercise of my freshman year. but to get back to our--hyacinths: theocritus, you remember, speaks of the 'lettered hyacinth.' may i see whether we can find the words there?" he bent forward to take and she bent forward to give the flowers. her hair brushed his forehead with a peculiar influence; and when their fingers touched he noted how soft and warm her hand was. he flushed strangely. she was flushed a little, too, possibly from embarrassment--possibly from the warmth of the day, with its insinuation of spring. he pulled his spectacles over his eyes in a comfortable discomfiture and peered at the flowers closely. and she peered, too, breathing foolishly fast. when he could not find the living letters he shook his head and felt again the soft touch of her hair. "i can't find the words--can you? your eyes are brighter than mine." she bent closer and both their hands held the flowers. he looked down into her hair. it struck him that it was a remarkably beautiful idea--a woman's hair--especially hers, streaked as it was with white--silken silver. when she shook her head a snowy thread tickled his nose amusingly. "i can't find anything like it," she confessed. then he said: "i've just remembered. theocritus calls the hyacinth black--_melan_--and so does vergil. these cannot be hyacinths at all." he was bitterly disappointed. it would have been delightful to meet the flower in the flesh that he knew so well in literature. doctor martha answered with quiet strength: "these are hyacinths." "but the greeks--" "didn't know everything," she said; "or perhaps they referred to another flower. but then we have dark-purple hyacinths." "ah!" he said. "sappho speaks of the hyacinth as purple--_porphuron_." thus the modern world was reconciled with the greek and he felt easier; but there was a gentle forcefulness about her that surprised him. he wondered whether she would not be interested in hearing about his edition of nonnus. he assumed that she would be, being evidently intelligent. so he told her. he told her and told her, and she listened with almost devout interest. he was still telling her when the students in other classes stampeded to lunch with a many-hoofed clatter. when they straggled back from lunch he was still telling her. it was not until he was interrupted by an afternoon class of his own that he realized how long he had talked. he apologized to professor binley; but she said she was honored beyond words. she had come to ask him a technical question in prosody, as from one professor to another; but she had forgotten it altogether--at least she put it off to another visit. she hastened away in a flutter, feeling slightly as if she had been to a tryst. litton went without his lunch that day, but he was browsing on memories of his visitor. he had not talked so long to a woman since he could remember. this was the only woman who had let him talk uninterruptedly about himself--a very superior woman, everybody said. when he went to his room that night he was still thinking of hyacinths and of her who had brought them to his eyes. he knocked from his desk a book. it fell open at a page. as he picked it up he noted that it was a copy of the anonymous old spring rhapsody, the _pervigilium veneris_, with its ceaselessly reiterated refrain, "to-morrow he shall love who never loved before." as he fell asleep it was running through his head like a popular tune: _cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet_. it struck him as an omen; but it did not terrify him. v professor martha called again to ask her question in verse technic. the answer led to further talk and the consultation of books. she was a trifle nearsighted and too proud to wear glasses, so she had to bend close to the page; and her hair tickled his nose again foolishly. conference bred conference, and one day she asked him whether she would dare ask him to call. he rewarded her bravery by calling. she lived in a dormitory, with a parlor for the reception of guests. male students were allowed to call on only two evenings a week. litton did not call on those evenings; yet the fact that he called at all swept through the town like a silent thunderbolt. the students were mysteriously apprised of the fact that old professor litton and prof. martha binley were sitting up and taking notice. to the youngsters it looked like a flirtation in an old folks' home. litton's very digestion was affected; his brain was in a whirl. he was the prey of the most childish alarms; gusts of petulant emotion swept through him if martha were late when he called; he was mad with jealousy if she mentioned another professor. she was growing more careful of her appearance. a new youth had come to her. she took fifteen years off her looks by simply fluffing her hair out of its professorial constriction. professor mackail noticed it and mentioned to professor litton that professor binley was looking ever so much better. "she's not half homely for such an old maid!" he said. professor litton felt murder in his heart. he wanted to slay the reprobate twice--once for daring to observe martha's beauty and once for his parsimony of praise. that evening when he called on martha he was tortured with a sullen mood. she finally coaxed from him the astounding admission that he suspected her of flirting with mackail. she was too new in love to recognize the ultimate compliment of his distress. she was horrified by his distrust, and so hurt that she broke forth in a storm of tears and denunciation. their precious evening ended in a priceless quarrel of amazing violence. he stamped down the outer steps as she stamped up the inner. for three days they did not meet and the university wore almost visible mourning for its pets. poor litton had not known that the human heart could suffer such agony. he was fairly burned alive with loneliness and resentment--like another hercules blistering in the shirt of nessus. and martha was suffering likewise as jason's second wife was consumed in the terrible poisoned robe that medea sent her. one evening a hollow-eyed litton crept up the dormitory steps and asked the overjoyed maid for professor binley. when she appeared he caught her in his arms as if she were a spar and he a drowning sailor. they made up like young lovers and swore oaths that they would never quarrel again--oaths which, fortunately for the variety of their future existence, they found capable of infinite breaking and mending. each denied that the other could possibly love each. he decried himself as a stupid, ugly old fogy; and she cried him up as the wisest and most beautiful and best of men. since best sounded rather weak, she called him the bestest; and he did not charge the impossible word against her as he had against teed. he did not remember that teed had ever used such language. nobody could ever have used such language, because nobody was ever like her! and when she said that he could not possibly love a homely, scrawny old maid like her, he delivered a eulogy that would have struck aphrodite, rising milkily from the sea, as a slight exaggeration. and as for old maid, he cried in a curious blending of puerility and scholasticism: "old maid, do you say? and has my little margy-wargles forgotten what sappho said of an old maid? we'd have lost it if some old scholiast on the stupid old sophist hermogenes hadn't happened to quote it to explain the word glukumalon--an apple grafted on a quince. sappho said this old maid was like--let me see!--'like the sweet apple that blushes on the top of the bough--on the tip of the topmost; and the apple-gatherers forgot it--no, they did not forget it; they just could not get it!' and that's you, moggles mine! you're an old maid because you've been out of reach of everybody. i can't climb to you; so you're going to drop into my arms--aren't you?" she said she supposed she was. and she did. triumphantly he said, "hadn't we better announce our engagement?" this threw her into a spasm of fear. "oh, not yet! not yet! i'm afraid to let the students all know it. a little later--on commencement day will be time enough." he bowed to her decision--not for the last time. for a time litton had taken pleasure in employing his learning in the service of martha's beauty. he called her classic names--_meæ deliciæ_, or _glukutate_, or _melema_. a poem that he had always thought the last word in silliness became a modest expression of his own emotions--the poem in which catallus begs lesbia, "give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then a thousand more, then a second hundred; then, when we have made up thousands galore, we shall mix them up so that we shall not know--nor any enemy be able to cast a spell because he knows--how many kisses there are." his scholarship began to weary her, however, and it began to seem an affectation to him; so that he was soon mangling the english language in speech and in the frequent notes he found it necessary to send his idol on infinitely unimportant matters that could not wait from after lunch to after dinner. she coined phrases for him, too, and his heart rejoiced when she achieved the epoch-making revision of stuart into stookie-tookie! he had thought that toodie was wonderful, but it was a mere stepping-stone to stookie-tookie. her babble ran through his head like music, and it softened his heart, so that almost nothing could bring him to earth except the recitations of teed, who crashed through the classics like a bull in a china-shop or, as litton's greeks put it, like an ass among beehives. during those black days when litton had quarreled with martha he had fiercely reminded teed that only a month remained before his final examinations, and warned him that he would hold him strictly to account. no classics, no diploma! teed had sulked and moped while litton sulked and moped; but when litton was reconciled to martha the sun seemed to come out on teed's clouded world, too. he took a sudden extra interest in his electrical studies and obtained permission to work in the laboratory overtime. he obtained permission even to visit the big city for certain apparatus. and he wrote the despondent, distant fannie newman that there would "shortly be something doing in the classics." vi one afternoon professor litton, having dismissed his class--in which he was obliged to rebuke teed more severely than usual--fell to remembering his last communion with martha, the things he had said--and heard! he wondered, as a philologist, at the strange prevalence of the "oo" sound in his love-making. it was plainly an onomatopoeic word representing the soul's delight. oo! was what ah! is to the soul in exaltation and oh! to the soul in surprise. if the hyacinths babbled _ai, ai!_ the roses must murmur oo! oo! the more he thought it over, the more nonsense it became, as all words turn to drivel on repetition; but chiefly he was amazed that even love could have wrought this change in him. in his distress he happened to think of dean swift. had not that fierce satirist created a dialect of his own for his everlastingly mysterious love affairs? eager for the comfort of fellowship in disgrace he hurried to the library and sought out the works of the dean of st. patrick's. and in the "journal to stella" he found what he sought--and more. expressions of the most appalling coarseness alternated with the most insipid tendernesses. the old dean had a code of abbreviations: m.d. for "my dear," ppt. for "poppet," pdfr. for "poor dear foolish rogue," oo or zoo or loo stood for "you," deelest for "dearest," and rettle for "letter," and dallars for "girl," vely for "very," and hele and lele for "here and there." litton copied out for his own comfort and martha's this passage. do you know what? when i am writing in my own language i make up my mouth just as if i was speaking it: "zoo must cly lele and hele, and hele aden. must loo mimitate pdfr., pay? iss, and so la shall! and so leles fol ee rettle. dood mollow." and dean swift had written this while he was in london two hundred years before, a great man among great men. with such authority back of him litton returned to his empty class-room feeling as proud as gulliver in lilliput. a little later he was gulliver in brobdingnag. alone at his desk, with none of his students in the seats before him, he took from his pocket--his left pocket--a photograph of prof. martha binley. it had been taken one day on a picnic far from the spying eyes of pupils. her hair was all wind-blown, her eyes frowned gleamingly into the sun, and her mouth was curled with laughter. he sat there alone--the learned professor--and talked to this snapshot in a dialogue he would have recently accepted as a perfect examination paper for matriculation in an insane-asylum. "well, margy-wargy, zoo and stookie-tookie is dust like old dean swiffikins, isn't we?" there was a rap on the door and the knob turned as he shot the photograph into his pocket and pretended to be reading a volume of bacchylides--upside down. the intruder was teed. litton was too much startled and too throbbing with guilt to express his indignation. he stammered: "we-well, teed?" he almost called him teed-leums, his tongue had so caught the rhythm of love. teed came forward with an ominous self-confidence bordering on insolence. there was a glow in his eye that made his former tyrant quail. "professor, i'd like a word with you about those conditions. i wish you'd let me off on 'em." "let you off, t-teed?" "yes, sir. i can't get ready for the exams. i've boned until my skull's cracked and it lets the blamed stuff run out faster than i can cram it in. the minute i leave college i expect to forget everything i've learned here, anyway; so i'd be ever so much obliged if you'd just pass me along." "i don't think i quite comprehend," said litton, who was beginning to regain his pedagogical dignity. "all you've gotta do," said teed, "is to put a high enough mark on my papers. you gimme a special examination and i'll make the best stab i can at answering the questions; then you just shut one eye and mark it just over the failure line. that'll save you a lot o' time and fix me hunky-dory." litton was glaring at him, hearing the uncouth "gimme" and "gotta," and wondering that a man could spend four years in college and scrape off so little paint. then he began to realize the meaning of teed's proposal. his own honor was in traffic. he groaned in suffocation: "do you dare to ask me to put false marks on examination-papers, sir?" "aw, professor, what's the dif? you couldn't grind latin and greek into me with a steel-rolling machine. gimme a chance! there's a little girl waiting for me outside and a big job. i can't get one without the other--and i don't get either unless you folks slip me the sheepskin." "impossible, sir! astounding! insulting! impossible!" "have a heart, can't you?" "leave the room, sir, at once!" "all right!" teed sighed, and turned away. at the door he paused to murmur, "all right for you, stookie-tookie!" litton's spectacles almost exploded from his nose. "what's that?" he shrieked. teed turned and came back, with an intolerable smirk, straight to the desk. he leaned on it with odious familiarity and grinned. "say, prof, did you ever hear of the dictagraph?" "no! and i don't care to now." "you ought to read some of the modern languages, prof! dictagraph comes from two perfectly good latin words: dictum and graft--well, you'll know 'em. but the greeks weren't wise to this little device. i got part of it here." he took from his pocket the earpiece of the familiar engine of latter-day detective romance. he explained it to the horribly fascinated litton, whose hair stood on end and whose voice stuck in his throat in the best vergilian manner. before he quite understood its black magic litton suspected the infernal purpose it had been put to. his wrath had melted to a sickening fear when teed reached the conclusion of his uninterrupted discourse: "the other night i was calling on a pair of girls at the dormitory where your--where professor binley lives. they pointed out the sofa near the fireplace where you and the professoress sit and hold hands and make googoo eyes." there was that awful "oo" sound again! litton was in an icy perspiration; but he was even more afraid for his beloved, precious sweetheart than for himself--and that was being about as much afraid as there is. teed went on relentlessly, gloating like a satyric mask: "well, i had an idea, and the girls fell for it with a yip of joy. the next evening i called i carried a wire from my room across to that dormitory and nobody paid any attention while i brought it through a window and under the carpet to the back of the sofa. and there it waited, laying for you. and over at my digs i had it attached to a phonograph by a little invention of my own. "gosh! it was wonderful! it even repeated the creak of those old, rusty springs while you waited for her. and when she came--well, anyway, i got every word you said, engraved in wax, like one of those old poets of yours used to write on." litton was afraid to ask evidence in verification. teed supplied the unspoken demand: "for instance, the first thing she says to you is: 'oh, there you are, my little lover! i thought you'd never come!' and you says, 'did it miss its stupid old stookie?' and she says: 'hideously! sit down, honey heart.' and splung went the spring--and splung again! then she says: 'did it have a mis'ble day in hateful old class-room? put its boo'ful head on margy-wargy's shojer.' then you says--" "stop!" litton cried, raising the only missile he could find, an inkstand. "who knows of this infamy besides you?" "nobody yet--on my word of honor." "honor!" sneered litton, so savagely that teed's shameless leer vanished in a glare of anger. "nobody yet! the girls are dying to hear and some of the fellows knew what i was up to; but i was thinking that i'd tell 'em that the blamed thing didn't work, provided--provided--" "provided?" litton wailed, miserably. "provided you could see your way clear to being a little careless with your marks on my exam-papers." litton sat with his head whirling and roaring like a coffee-grinder. a multitude of considerations ran through and were crushed into powder--his honor; her honor; the standards of the university; the standards of a lover; the unimportance of teed; the all-importance of martha; the secret disloyalty to the faculty; the open disloyalty to his best-beloved. he heard teed's voice as from far off: "of course, if you can't see your way to sparing my sweetheart's feelings i don't see why i'm expected to spare yours--or to lie to the fellows and girls who are perishing to hear how two professors talk when they're in love." another long pause. then the artful teed moved to the door and turned the knob. litton could not speak; but he threw a look that was like a grappling-iron and teed came back. "how do i know," litton moaned, "how do i know that you will keep your word?" "how do i know that you'll keep yours?" teed replied, with the insolence of a conqueror. "sir!" litton flared, but weakly, like a sick candle. "well," teed drawled, "i'll bring you the cylinders. i'll have to trust you, as one gentleman to another." "gentleman!" litton snarled in hydrophobic frenzy. "well, as one lover to another, then," teed laughed. "do i get my diploma?" litton's head was so heavy he could not nod it. "it's my diploma in exchange for your records. come on, professor--be a sport! and take it from me, it's no fun having the words you whisper in a girl's ear in the dark shouted out loud in the open court. and mine were repeated in a dutch dialect! i got yours just as they came from your lips--and hers." that ended it. litton surrendered, passed himself under the yoke; pledged himself to the loathsome compact, and teed went to fetch the price of his degree of bachelor of arts. litton hung dejected beyond feeling for a long while. his heart was whimpering _ai, ai!_ he felt himself crushed under a hundred different crimes. he felt that he could never look up again. then he heard a soft tap at the door. he could not raise his eyes or his voice. he heard the door open and supposed it was teed bringing him the wages of his shame; but he heard another voice--an unimaginably beautiful, tragically tender voice--crooning: "oo-oo! stookie-tookie!" he looked up. how radiant she was! he could only sigh. she came across to him as gracefully and lightly as iris running down a rainbow. she was murmuring: "i just had to slip over and tell you something." "well, martha!" he sighed. she stopped short, as if he had struck her. "'martha'? what's the matter? you aren't mad at me, are you, stookie?" "how could i be angry with you, marg--er--martha?" "then why don't you call me margy-wargleums?" he stared at her. her whimsical smile, trembling to a piteously pretty hint of terror, overwhelmed him. he hesitated, then shoved back his chair and, rising, caught her to him so tightly that she gasped out, "oo!" there it was again! he laughed like an overgrown cub as he cried: "why don't i call you margy-wargleums? well, what a darned fool i'd be not to! margy-wargleums!" to such ruin does love--the blind, the lawless, the illiterate child--bring the noblest intelligences and the loftiest principles. the mouth of the gift horse i the town of wakefield was--is--suffering from growing pains--from ingrowing pains, according to its rival, gatesville. wakefield has long been guilty of trying to add a cubit to its stature by taking thought. established, like thousands of other pools left in the prairies by that tidal wave of humanity sweeping westward in the middle of the last century, it passed its tenth thousand with a rush; then something happened. for decades the decennial census dismally tolled the same knell of fifteen thousand in round numbers. the annual censuses but echoed the reverberations. a few more cases of measles one year, and the population lapsed a little below the mark; an easy winter, and it slipped a little above. no mandragora of bad times or bad health ever quite brought it so low as fourteen thousand. no fever of prosperity ever sent the temperature quite so high as sixteen thousand. the iteration got on people's nerves till a commercial association was formed under the name of the wide-a-wakefield club, with a motto of "boom or bust." many individuals accomplished the latter, but the town still failed of the former. the chief activity of the club was in the line of decoying manufacturers over into macedonia by various bribes. its first capture was a cutlery company in another city. though apparently prosperous, it had fallen foul of the times, and its president adroitly allowed the wide-a-wakefield club to learn that, if a building of sufficient size were offered rent free for a term of years, the cutlery company might be induced to move to wakefield and conduct its business there, employing at least a hundred laborers, year in, year out. there was not in all wakefield a citizen too dull to see the individual and collective advantage of this hundred increase. it meant money in the pocket of every doctor, lawyer, merchant, clothier, boarding-house-keeper, saloon-keeper, soda-water-vender--whom not? every establishment in town would profit, from the sanatorium to the "pantatorium"--as the institution for the replenishment of trousers was elegantly styled. commercial fervor rose to such heights in wakefield that in no time at all enough money was subscribed to build a convenient factory and to purchase as many of the shares of cutlery stock as the amiable president cared to print. in due season the manufacture of tableware and penknives began, and the pride of the town was set aglow by the trade-mark stamped on every article issued from the cutlery factory. it was an ingenious emblem--a glorious cupid in a sash marked "wakefield," stabbing a miserable cupid in a sash marked "sheffield." it was sheffield that survived. in fact, the stupid english city probably never heard of the wakefield cutlery company. nor did wakefield hear of it long. for the emery dust soon ceased to glisten in the air and the steel died of a distemper. it was a very real shock to wakefield, and many a boy that had been meant for college went into his father's store instead, and many a girl who had planned to go east to be polished stayed at home and polished her mother's plates and pans, because the family funds had been invested in the steel-engravings of the cutlery stock certificates. they were very handsome engravings. hope languished in wakefield until a company from kenosha consented to transport its entire industry thither if it could receive a building rent free. it was proffered, and it accepted, the cutlery works. for a season the neighboring streets were acrid with the aroma of the passionate pickles that were bottled there. and then its briny deeps ceased to swim with knobby condiments. a tin-foil company abode awhile, and yet again a tamale-canning corporation, which in its turn sailed on to the sargasso sea of missing industries. other factory buildings in wakefield fared likewise. they were but lodging-houses for transient failures. the population swung with the tide, but always at anchor. the lift which the census received from an artificial-flower company, employing seventy-five hands, was canceled by the demise of a more redolent pork-packing concern of equal pay-roll. people missed it when the wind blew from the west. but wakefield hoped on. one day the executive committee of the wide-a-wakefield club, having nothing else to do, met in executive session. there were various propositions to consider. all of them were written on letter-heads of the highest school of commercial art, and all of them promised to endow wakefield with some epoch-making advantage, provided merely that wakefield furnish a building rent free, tax free, water free, and subscribe to a certain amount of stock. the club regarded these glittering baits with that cold and clammy gaze with which an aged trout of many-scarred gills peruses some newfangled spoon. but if these letters were tabled with suspicion because they offered too much for too little, what hospitality could be expected for a letter which offered still more for still less? the chairman of the committee was ansel k. pettibone, whose sign-board announced him as a "practical house-painter and paper-hanger." he read this letter, head-lines and all: mark a. shelby     john r. shelby     luke b. shelby shelby paradise powder company springfield, mass., u. s. a. makes washday welcome. sidestep substitutes. wide-a-wakefield club, wakefield: dear sirs,--the undersigned was born in your city, and left same about twenty years ago to seek his fortune. i have finally found it after many ups and downs. us three brothers have jointly perfected and patented the famous paradise powder. it is generally conceded to be the grandest thing of its kind ever put on the market, and, in the words of the motto, "makes washday welcome." ladies who have used it agree that our statement is not excessive when we say, "once tried, you will use no other." it is selling at such a rate in the east that i have a personal profit of two thousand dollars a week. we intend to push it in the west, and we were talking of where would be the best place to locate a branch factory at. my brothers mentioned chicago, st. louis, omaha, denver, and such places, but i said, "i vote for wakefield." my brothers said i was cracked. i says maybe i am, but i'm going back to my old home town and spend the rest of my life there and my surplus money, too. i want to beautify wakefield, and as near as i can remember there is room for improvement. it may not be good business, but it is what i want to do. and also what i want to know is, can i rely on the co-operation of the wide-a-wakefield club in doing its share to build up the old town into a genuine metropolis? also, what would be the probable cost of a desirable site for the factory? hoping to receive a favorable reply from you at your earliest convenience, yours truly, luke b. shelby. the chairman's grin had grown wider as he read and read. when he had finished the letter he tossed it along the line. every member read it and shook with equal laughter. "i wonder what kind of green goods he sells?" said joel spate, the owner of the bon-ton grocery. "my father used to say to me," said forshay, of the one-price emporium, "whatever else you do, jake, always suspicion the fellow that offers you something for nothing. there's a nigger in the woodpile some'eres." "that's so," said soyer, the swell tailor, who was strong on second thought. "he says he's goin' to set up a factory here, but he don't ask for rent free, tax free, light free--nothin' free," said the practical house-painter. "what's the name again?" said spate. "shelby--luke b. shelby," answered pettibone. "says he used to live here twenty years ago. ever hear of him? i never did." spate's voice came from an ambush of spectacles and whiskers: "i've lived here all m' life--i'm sixty-three next month. i don't remember any such man or boy." "me, neither," echoed soyer, "and i'm here going on thirty-five year." the heads shook along the line as if a wind had passed over a row of wheat. "it's some new dodge for sellin' stock," suspicioned one-price forshay, who had a large collection of cutlery certificates. "more likely it's just a scheme to get us talking about his paradise powder. seems to me i've had some of their circulars," said bon-ton spate. pettibone, the practical chairman, silenced the gossip with a brisk, "what is the pleasure of the meeting as regards answering it?" "i move we lay it on the table," said eberhart of the furniture palace. "i move we lay it under the table," said forshay, who had a keen sense of humor. "order, gentlemen! order," rapped pettibone, as the room rocked with the laughter in which forshay led. when sobriety was restored it was moved, seconded, and passed that the secretary be instructed to send shelby a copy of the boom number of the wakefield _daily eagle_. and in due time the homesick ulysses, waiting a welcome from ithaca, received this answer to his letter: luke b. shelby, springfield, mass. sir,--yours of sixteenth inst. rec'd and contents noted. in reply to same, beg to state are sending last special number _daily eagle_, giving full information about city and sites. yours truly, joel spate, _secy. exec. comm._ shelby winced. the hand he had held out with pearls of price had been brushed aside. his brothers laughed. "we said you were cracked. they don't want your old money or your society. go somewheres where they do." but luke b. shelby had won his success by refusing to be denied, and he had set his heart on refurbishing his old home town. the instinct of place is stronger than any other instinct in some animals, and shelby was homesick for wakefield--not for anybody, any house, or any street in particular there, but just for wakefield. without further ado he packed his things and went. ii there was no brass band to meet him. at the hotel the clerk read his name without emotion. when he required the best two rooms in the hotel, and a bath at that, the clerk looked suspicious: "any baggage?" "three trunks and a grip." "what line do you carry? will you use the sample-room?" "don't carry any line. don't want any sample-room." he walked out to see the town. it had so much the same look that it seemed to have been embalmed. here were the old stores, the old signs, apparently the same fly-specked wares in the windows. he read doctor barnby's rusty shingle. wasn't that the same swaybacked horse dozing at the hitching-post? here was the rough hill road where he used to coast as a child. there stood mrs. hooker on the lawn with a hose, sprinkling the street, the trees, the grass, the oleander in its tub and the moon-flower on the porch. he seemed to have left her twenty years ago in that attitude with the same arch of water springing from the nozzle. he paused before the same gap-toothed street-crossing of yore, and he started across it as across the stepping-stones of a dry stream. a raw-boned horse whirled around the corner, just avoiding his toes. it was followed by a bouncing grocery-wagon on the side of whose seat dangled a shirt-sleeved youth who might have been shelby himself a score of years ago. shelby paused to watch. the horse drew up at the home of doctor stillwell, the dentist. before the wagon was at rest the delivery-boy was off and half-way around the side of the house. mrs. stillwell opened the screen door to take in the carrots and soap and washing-powder shelby used to bring her. shelby remembered that she used washing-powder then. he wondered if she had heard of the "paradise." as he hung poised on a brink of memory the screen door flapped shut, the grocery-boy was hurrying back, the horse was moving away, and the boy leaped to his side-saddle seat on the wagon while it was in motion. the delivery-wagons and their jehus were the only things that moved fast in wakefield, now as then. shelby drifted back to the main street and found the bon-ton grocery where it had been when he deserted the wagon. the same old vegetables seemed to be sprawling outside. the same flies were avid at the strawberry-boxes, which, he felt sure, the grocer's wife had arranged as always, with the biggest on top. he knew that some mrs. spate had so distributed them, if it were not the same who had hectored him, for old spate had a habit of marrying again. his wives lasted hardly so long as his hard-driven horses. shelby paused to price some of the vegetables, just to draw spate into conversation. the old man was all spectacles and whiskers, as he had always been. shelby thought he must have been born with spectacles and whiskers. joel spate, never dreaming who shelby was, was gracious to him for the first time in history. he evidently looked upon shelby as a new-comer who might be pre-empted for a regular customer before mrs. l. bowers, the rival grocer, got him. it somehow hurt shelby's homesick heart to be unrecognized, more than it pleased him to enjoy time's topsy-turvy. here he was, returned rich and powerful, to patronize the taskmaster who had worked him hard and paid him harder in the old years. yet he dared not proclaim himself and take his revenge. he ended the interview by buying a few of the grocer's horrible cigars, which he gave away to the hotel porter later. all round the town shelby wandered, trying to be recognized. but age and prosperity had altered him beyond recall, though he himself knew almost every old negro whitewash man, almost every teamster, he met. he was surer of the first names than of the last, for the first names had been most used in his day, and it surprised him to find how clearly he recalled these names and faces, though late acquaintances escaped his memory with ease. the women, too, he could generally place, though many who had been short-skirted tomboys were now heavy-footed matrons of embonpoint with children at their skirts, children as old as they themselves had been when he knew them. some of them, indeed, he recognized only by the children that lagged alongside like early duplicates. as he sauntered one street of homely homes redeemed by the opulence of their foliage, he saw coming his way a woman whose outlines seemed but the enlargement of some photograph in the gallery of remembrance. before she reached him he identified phoebe carew. her mother, he remembered, had been widowed early and had eked out a meager income by making chocolate fudge, which the little girl peddled about town on saturday afternoons. and now the child, though she must be thirty or thereabouts, had kept a certain grace of her youth, a wistful prettiness, a girlish unmarriedness, that marked her as an old maid by accident or choice, not by nature's decree. he wondered if she, at least, would pay him the compliment of recognition. she made no sign of it as she approached. as she passed he lifted his hat. "isn't this miss phoebe carew?" wakefield women were not in danger from strangers' advances; she paused without alarm and answered with an inquiring smile: "yes." "you don't remember me?" she studied him. "i seem to, and yet--" "i'm luke shelby." "luke shelby! oh yes! why, how do you do?" she gave him her beautiful hand, but she evidently lacked the faintest inkling of his identity. time had erased from recollection the boy who used to take her sliding on his sled, the boy who used to put on her skates for her, the boy who used to take her home on his grocery-wagon sometimes, pretending that he was going her way, just for the benizon of her radiant companionship, her shy laughter. "i used to live here," he said, ashamed to be so forgettable. "my mother was--my stepfather was a. j. stacom, who kept the hardware-store." "oh yes," she said; "they moved away some years ago, didn't they?" "yes; after mother died my stepfather went back to council bluffs, where we came from in the first place. i used to go to school with you, phoebe--er--miss carew. then i drove spate's delivery-wagon for a while before i went east." "oh yes," she said; "i think i remember you very well. i'm very glad to see you again, mr.--mr. stacom." "shelby," he said, and he was so heartsick that he merely lifted his hat and added, "i'm glad to see you looking so well." "you're looking well, too," she said, and smiled the gracious, empty smile one visits on a polite stranger. then she went her way. in his lonely eyes she moved with a goddess-like grace that made clouds of the uneven pavements where he stumbled as he walked with reverted gaze. he went back to the hotel lonelier than before, in a greater loneliness than ulysses felt ending his odyssey in ithaca. for, at least, ulysses was remembered by an old dog that licked his hand. once in his room, shelby sank into a patent rocker of most uncomfortable plush. the inhospitable garishness of a small-town hotel's luxury expelled him from the hateful place, and he resumed the streets, taking, as always, determination from rebuff and vowing within himself: "i'll make 'em remember me. i'll make the name of shelby the biggest name in town." on the main street he found one lone, bobtailed street-car waiting at the end of its line, its horse dejected with the ennui of its career, the driver dozing on the step. shelby decided to review the town from this seedy chariot; but the driver, surly with sleep, opened one eye and one corner of his mouth just enough to inform him that the next "run" was not due for fifteen minutes. "i'll change that," said shelby. "i'll give 'em a trolley, and open cars in summer, too." he dragged his discouraged feet back to the hotel and asked when dinner would be served. "supper's been ready sence six," said the clerk, whose agile toothpick proclaimed that he himself had banqueted. shelby went into the dining-room. a haughty head waitress, zealously chewing gum, ignored him for a time, then piloted him to a table where he found a party of doleful drummers sparring in repartee with a damsel of fearful and wonderful coiffure. she detached herself reluctantly and eventually brought shelby a supper contained in a myriad of tiny barges with which she surrounded his plate in a far-reaching flotilla. when he complained that his steak was mostly gristle, and that he did not want his pie yet, hebe answered: "don't get flip! think you're at the worldoff?" poor shelby's nerves were so rocked that he condescended to complain to the clerk. for answer he got this: "mamie's all right. if you don't like our ways, better build a hotel of your own." "i guess i will," said shelby. he went to his room to read. the gas was no more than darkness made visible. he vowed to change that, too. he would telephone to the theater. the telephone-girl was forever in answering, and then she was impudent. besides, the theater was closed. shelby learned that there was "a movin'-pitcher show going"! he went, and it moved him to the door. the sidewalks were full of doleful loafers and loaferesses. men placed their chairs in the street and smoked heinous tobacco. girls and women dawdled and jostled to and from the ice-cream-soda fountains. the streets that night were not lighted at all, for the moon was abroad, and the board of aldermen believed in letting god do all he could for the town. in fact, he did nearly all that the town could show of charm. the trees were majestic, the grass was lavishly spread, the sky was divinely blue by day and angelically bestarred at night. shelby compared his boyhood impressions with the feelings governing his mind now that it was adult and traveled. he felt that he had grown, but that the town had stuck in the mire. he felt an ambition to lift it and enlighten it. like the old builder who found rome brick and left it marble, shelby determined that the wakefield which he found of plank he should leave at least of limestone. everything he saw displeased him and urged him to reform it altogether, and he said: "i'll change all this. and they'll love me for it." and he did. but they--did they? iii one day a greater than shelby came to wakefield, but not to stay. it was no less than the president of these united states swinging around the circle in an inspection of his realm, with possibly an eye to the nearing moment when he should consent to re-election. as his special train approached each new town the president studied up its statistics so that he might make his speech enjoyable by telling the citizens the things they already knew. he had learned that those are the things people most like to hear. his encyclopædia informed him that wakefield had a population of about fifteen thousand. he could not know how venerable an estimate this was, for wakefield was still fifteen thousand--now and forever, fifteen thousand and insuperable. the president had a mental picture of just what such a town of fifteen thousand would look like, and he wished himself back in the white house. he was met at the train by the usual entertainment committee, which in this case coincided with the executive committee of the wide-a-wakefield club. it had seemed just as well to these members to elect themselves as anybody else. mr. pettibone, the town's most important paper-hanger, was again chairman after some lapses from office. joel spate, the bon-ton grocer, was once more secretary, after having been treasurer twice and president once. the one-price emporium, however, was now represented by the younger forshay, son of the founder, who had gone to the inevitable greenwood at the early age of sixty-nine. soyer, the swell tailor, had yielded his place to the stateliest man in town, amasa harbury, president of the wakefield building and loan association. and eberhart, of the furniture palace, had been supplanted by gibson shoals, the bank cashier. to the president's surprise the railroad station proved to be, instead of the doleful shed usual in those parts, a graceful edifice of metropolitan architecture. he was to ride in an open carriage, of course, drawn by the two spanking dapples which usually drew the hearse when it was needed. but this was tactfully kept from the president. there had been some bitterness over the choice of the president's companions in the carriage, since it was manifestly impossible for the entire committee of seven to pile into the space of four, though young forshay, who had inherited his father's gift of humor, volunteered to ride on the president's lap or hold him on his. the extra members were finally consoled by being granted the next carriage, an equipage drawn by no less than the noble black geldings usually attached to the chief mourners' carriage. as the president was escorted to his place he remarked that a trolley-car was waiting at the station. "i see that wakefield boasts an electric line," he beamed. "yes," said pettibone, "that's some of shelby's foolishness." a look from spate silenced him, but the president had not caught the slip. the procession formed behind the town band, whose symphony suffered somewhat from the effort of the musicians to keep one eye on the music and throw the other eye backward at the great visitor. "what a magnificent building!" said the president as the parade turned a corner. nobody said anything, and the president read the name aloud. "the shelby house. a fine hotel!" he exclaimed, as he lifted his hat to the cheers from the white-capped chambermaids and the black-coated waiters in the windows. they were male waiters. "and the streets are lighted by electricity! and paved with brick!" the president said. "splendid! splendid! there must be very enterprising citizens in gatesville--i mean wakefield." he had visited so many towns! "that's a handsome office-building," was his next remark. "it's quite metropolitan." the committee vouchsafed no reply, but they could see that he was reading the sign: the shelby block: shelby independent telephone company shelby's paradise powder company shelby artesian well company shelby pastime park company shelby opera house company shelby street railway company the committee was not used to chatting with presidents, and even the practical pettibone, who had voted against him, had an awe of him in the flesh. he decided to vote for him next time; it would be comforting to be able to say, "oh yes, i know the president well; i used to take long drives with him--once." there were heartaches in the carriage as the president, who commented on so many things, failed to comment on the banner of welcome over pettibone's shop, painted by pettibone's own practical hand; or the gaily bedighted bon-ton grocery with the wonderful arrangement of tomato-cans into the words, "welcome to wakefield." the building and loan association had stretched a streamer across the street, too, and the president never noticed it. his eyes and tongue were caught away by the ornate structure of the opera-house. "shelby opera house. so many things named after mr. shelby. is he the founder of the city or--or--" "no, just one of the citizens," said pettibone. "i should be delighted to meet him." three votes fell from the presidential tree with a thud. had the committee been able to imagine in advance how shelbyisms would obtrude everywhere upon the roving eye of the visitor, whose one aim was a polite desire to exclaim upon everything exclaimable, they might have laid out the line of march otherwise. but it was too late to change now, and they grew grimmer and grimmer as the way led to the stately pleasure-dome which shelby khan had decreed and which imported architects and landscape-gardeners had established. here were close-razored lawns and terraces, a lake with spouting fountains, statues of twisty nymphs, glaring, many-antlered stags and couchant lions, all among cedar-trees and flower-beds whose perfumes saluted the presidential nostril like a gentle hurrah. emerging through the trees were the roofs, the cupola and ivy-bowered windows of the home of shelby, most homeless at home. for, after all his munificence, wakefield did not like him. the only tribute the people had paid him was to boost the prices of everything he bought, from land to labor, from wall-paper to cabbages. and now on the town's great day he had not been included in any of the committees of welcome. he had been left to brood alone in his mansion like a prince in ill favor exiled to his palace. he did not know that his palace had delighted even the jaded eye of the far-traveled first citizen. he only knew that his fellow-townsmen sneered at it with dislike. shelby was never told by the discreet committeemen in the carriage that the president had exclaimed on seeing his home: "why, this is magnificent! this is an estate! i never dreamed that--er--wakefield was a city of such importance and such wealth. and whose home is this?" somebody groaned, "shelby's." "ah yes; shelby's, of course. so many things here are shelby's. you must be very proud of mr. shelby. is he there, perhaps?" "that's him, standing on the upper porch there, waving his hat," pettibone mumbled. the president waved his hat at shelby. "and the handsome lady is his wife, perhaps?" "yes, that's mrs. shelby," mumbled spate. "she was miss carew. used to teach school here." phoebe shelby was clinging to her husband's side. there were tears in her eyes and her hands squeezed mute messages upon his arm, for she knew that his many-wounded heart was now more bitterly hurt than in all his knowledge of wakefield. he was a prisoner in disgrace gazing through the bars at a festival. he never knew that the president suggested stopping a moment to congratulate him, and that it was his own old taskmaster spate who ventured to say that the president could meet him later. spate could rise to an emergency; the other committeemen thanked him with their eyes. as the carriage left the border of the shelby place the president turned his head to stare, for it was beautiful, ambitiously beautiful. and something in the silent attitude of the owner and his wife struck a deeper note in the noisy, gaudy welcome of the other citizens. "tell me about this mr. shelby," said the president. looks were exchanged among the committee. all disliked the task, but finally spate broke the silence. "well, mr. president, shelby is a kind of eccentric man. some folks say he's cracked. used to drive a delivery-wagon for me. ran away and tried his hand at nearly everything. finally, him and his two brothers invented a kind of washing-powder. it was like a lot of others, but they knew how to push it. borrowed money to advertise it big. got it started till they couldn't have stopped it if they'd tried. shelby decided to come back here and establish a branch factory. that tall chimney is it. no smoke comin' out of it to-day. he gave all the hands a holiday in your honor, mr. president." the president said: "well, that's mighty nice of him. so he's come back to beautify his old home, eh? that's splendid--a fine spirit. too many of us, i'm afraid, forget the old places when ambition carries us away into new scenes. mr. shelby must be very popular here." there was a silence. mr. pettibone was too honest, or too something, to let the matter pass. "well, i can't say as to that, mr. president. shelby's queer. he's very pushing. you can't drive people more 'n so fast. shelby is awful fussy. now, that trolley line--he put that in, but we didn't need it." "not but what wakefield is enterprising," spate added, anxiously. pettibone nodded and went on: "people used to think the old bobtailed horse-car--excuse my language--wasn't much, but the trolley-cars are a long way from perfect. service ain't so very good. people don't ride on 'em much, because they don't run often enough." the president started to say, "perhaps they can't run oftener because people don't ride on 'em enough," but something counseled him to silence, and pettibone continued: "same way with the electric light. people that had gas hated to change. he made it cheap, but it's a long way from perfect. he put in an independent telephone. the old one wasn't much good and it was expensive. now we can have telephones at half the old price. but result is, you've got to have two, or you might just as well not have one. everybody you want to talk to is always on the other line." the president nodded. he understood the ancient war between the simple life and the strenuous. he wished he had left the subject unopened, but pettibone had warmed to the theme. "shelby built an opery-house and brought some first-class troupes here. but this is a religious town, and people don't go much to shows. in the first place, we don't believe in 'em; in the second place, we've been bit by bad shows so often. so his opery-house costs more 'n it takes in. "then he laid out the pastime park--tried to get up games and things; but the vacant lots always were good enough for baseball. he tried to get people to go out in the country and play golf, too; but it was too much like following the plow. folks here like to sit on their porches when they're tired. "he brought an automobile to town--scared most of the horses to death. our women folks got afraid to drive because the most reliable old nags tried to climb trees whenever shelby came honking along. he built two or three monuments to famous citizens, but that made the families of other famous citizens jealous. "he built that big home of his, but it only makes our wives envious. it's so far out that the society ladies can't call much. besides, they feel uneasy with all that glory. "mrs. shelby has a man in a dress-suit to open the door. the rest of us--our wives answer the door-bell themselves. our folks are kind of afraid to invite mr. and mrs. shelby to their parties for fear they'll criticize; so mrs. shelby feels as if she was deserted. "she thinks her husband is mistreated, too; but--well, shelby's eccentric. he says we're ungrateful. maybe we are, but we like to do things our own way. shelby tried to get us to help boost the town, as he calls it. he offered us stock in his ventures, but we've got taken in so often that--well, once bit is twice shy, you know, mr. president. so wakefield stands just about where she did before shelby came here." "not but what wakefield is enterprising," mr. spate repeated. the president's curiosity overcame his policy. he asked one more question: "but if you citizens didn't help mr. shelby, how did he manage all these--improvements, if i may use the word?" "did it all by his lonesome, mr. president. his income was immense. but he cut into it something terrible. his brothers in the east began to row at the way he poured it out. when he began to draw in advance they were goin' to have him declared incompetent. even his brothers say he's cracked. recently they've drawn in on him. won't let him spend his own money." a gruesome tone came from among spate's spectacles and whiskers: "he won't last long. health's giving out. his wife told my wife, the other day, he don't sleep nights. that's a bad sign. his pride is set on keepin' everything going, though, and nothing can hold him. he wants the street-cars to run regular, and the telephone to answer quick, even if the town don't support 'em. he's cracked--there's nothing to it." amasa harbury, of the building and loan association, leaned close and spoke in a confidential voice: "he's got mortgages on 'most everything, mr. president. he's borrowed on all his securities up to the hilt. only yesterday i had to refuse him a second mortgage on his house. he stormed around about how much he'd put into it. i told him it didn't count how much you put into a hole, it was how much you could get out. you can imagine how much that palace of his would bring in this town on a foreclosure sale--about as much as a white elephant in a china-shop." "not but what wakefield is enterprising," insisted spate. the lust for gossip had been aroused and pettibone threw discretion to the winds. "shelby was hopping mad because we left him off the committee of welcome, but we thought we'd better stick to our own crowd of represent'ive citizens. shelby don't really belong to wakefield, anyway. still, if you want to meet him, it can be arranged." "oh no," said the president. "don't trouble." and he was politic--or politician--enough to avoid the subject thenceforward. but he could not get shelby out of his mind that night as his car whizzed on its way. to be called crazy and eccentric and to be suspected, feared, resisted by the very people he longed to lead--presidents are not unaware of that ache of unrequited affection. the same evening shelby and phoebe shelby looked out on their park. the crowds that had used it as a vantage-ground for the pageant had all vanished, leaving behind a litter of rubbish, firecrackers, cigar stubs, broken shrubs, gouged terraces. not one of them had asked permission, had murmured an apology or a word of thanks. for the first time phoebe shelby noted that her husband did not take new determination from rebuff. his resolution no longer made a springboard of resistance. he seemed to lean on her a little. iv the perennially empty cutlery-works gave the wide-a-wakefield club no rest. year after year the anxiously awaited census renewed the old note of fifteen thousand and denied the eloquent argument of increased population. the committee in its letters continued to refer to wakefield as "thriving" rather than as "growing." its ingeniously evasive circulars finally roused a curiosity in wilmer barstow, a manufacturer of refrigerators, dissatisfied with the taxes and freight rates of the city of clayton. barstow was the more willing to leave clayton because he had suffered there from that reward which is more unkind than the winter wind. he loved a woman and paid court to her, sending her flowers at every possible excuse and besetting her with gifts. she was not much of a woman--her very lover could see that; but he loved her in his own and her despite. she was unworthy of his jewels as of his infatuation, yet she gave him no courtesy for his gifts. she behaved as if they bored her; yet he knew no other way to win her. the more indifference she showed the more he tried to dazzle her. at last he found that she was paying court herself to a younger man--a selfish good-for-naught who made fun of her as well as of barstow, and who borrowed money from her as well as from barstow. when barstow fully realized that the woman had made him not only her own booby, but the town joke as well, he could not endure her or the place longer. he cast about for an escape. but he found his factory no trifling baggage to move. it was on such fertile soil that one of the wide-a-wakefield circulars fell. it chimed so well with barstow's mood that he decided at least to look the town over. he came unannounced to make his own observations, like the spies sent into canaan. the trolley-car that met his train was rusty, paintless, forlorn, untenanted. he took a ramshackle hack to the best hotel. its sign-board bore this legend: "the palace, formerly shelby house--entirely new management." he saw his baggage bestowed and went out to inspect the factory building described to him. the cutlery-works proved smaller than his needs, and it had a weary look. not far away he found a far larger factory, idle, empty, closed. the sign declared it to be the wakefield branch of the shelby paradise powder company. he knew the prosperity of that firm and wondered why this branch had been abandoned. in the course of time the trolley-car overtook him, and he boarded it as a sole passenger. the lonely motorman was loquacious and welcomed barstow as the ancient mariner welcomed the wedding guest. he explained that he made but few trips a day and passengers were fewer than trips. the company kept it going to hold the franchise, for some day wakefield would reach sixteen thousand and lift the hoodoo. the car passed an opera-house, with grass aspiring through the chinks of the stone steps leading to the boarded-up doors. the car passed the shelby block; the legend, "for rent, apply to amasa harbury," hid the list of shelby enterprises. the car grumbled through shabby streets to the outskirts of the town, where it sizzled along a singing wire past the drooping fences, the sagging bleachers, and the weedy riot of what had been a pleasure-ground. a few dim lines in the grass marked the ghost of a baseball diamond, a circular track, and foregone tennis-courts. barstow could read on what remained of the tottering fence: helby's past ark when the car had reached the end of the line barstow decided to walk back to escape the garrulity of the motorman, who lived a lonely life, though he was of a sociable disposition. barstow's way led him shortly to the edge of a curious demesne, or rather the débris of an estate. a chaos of grass and weeds thrust even through the rust of the high iron fence about the place. shrubs that had once been shapely grew raggedly up and swept down into the tall and ragged grass. a few evergreen trees lifted flowering cones like funeral candles in sconces. what had been a lake with fountains was a great, cracked basin of concrete tarnished with scabious pools thick with the dead leaves of many an autumn. barstow entered a fallen gate and walked along paths where his feet slashed through barbaric tangles clutching at him like fingers. as he prowled, wondering what splendor this could have been which was so misplaced in so dull a town and drooping into so early a neglect, birds took alarm and went crying through the branches. there were lithe escapes through the grass, and from the rim of the lake ugly toads plounced into the pool and set the water-spiders scurrying on their frail catamarans. two bronze stags towered knee-deep in verdure; one had a single antler, the other none. a pair of toothless lions brooded over their lost dignity. between their disconsolate sentry, mounted flight on flight of marble steps to the house of the manor. it lay like an old frigate storm-shattered and flung aground to rot. the hospitable doors were planked shut, the windows, too; the floors of the verandas were broken and the roof was everywhere sunken and insecure. at the portal had stood two nymphs, now almost classic with decay. one of them, toppling helplessly, quenched her bronze torch in weeds. her sister stood erect in grief like a daughter of niobe wept into stone. the scene somehow reminded barstow of one of poe's landscapes. it was the corpse of a home. eventually he noticed a tall woman in black, seated on a bench and gazing down the terraces across the dead lake. barstow was tempted to ask her whose place this had been and what its history was, but her mien and her crêpe daunted him. he made his way out of the region, looking back as he went. when he approached the most neighboring house a grocery-wagon came flying down the road. before it stopped the slanted driver was off the seat and half-way across the yard. in a moment he was back again. barstow called out: "whose place is that?" "shelby's." "did he move away?" but the horse was already in motion, and the youth had darted after, leaping to the side of the seat and calling back something which barstow could not hear. shelby, who had given the town everything he could, had even endowed it with a ruins. when barstow had reached the hotel again he went in to his supper. a head waitress, chewing gum, took him to a table where a wildly coiffed damsel brought him a bewildering array of most undesirable foods in a flotilla of small dishes. after supper barstow, following the suit of the other guests, took a chair on the sidewalk, for a little breeze loafed along the hot street. barstow's name had been seen upon the hotel register and the executive committee of the wide-a-wakefield club waited upon him in an august body. mr. pettibone introduced himself and the others. they took chairs and hitched them close to barstow, while they poured out in alternate strains the advantages of wakefield. barstow listened politely, but the empty factory and the dismantled home of shelby haunted him and made a dismal background to their advertisements. it was of the factory that he spoke first: "the building you wrote me about and offered me rent-free looks a little small and out of date for our plant. i saw shelby's factory empty. could i rent that at a reasonable figure, do you suppose?" the committee leaped at the idea with enthusiasm. spate laughed through his beard: "lord, i reckon the company would rent it to you for almost the price of the taxes." then he realized that this was saying just a trifle too much. they began to crawfish their way out. but barstow said, with unconviction: "there's only one thing that worries me. why did shelby close up his paradise powder factory and move away?" pettibone urged the reason hastily: "his brothers closed it up for him. they wouldn't stand any more of his extravagant nonsense. they shut down the factory and then shut down on him, too." "so he gave up his house and moved away?" said barstow. "he gave up his house because he couldn't keep it up," said amasa harbury. "taxes were pretty steep and nobody would rent it, of course. it don't belong in a town like wakefield. neither did shelby." "so he moved away?" "moved away, nothin'," sneered spate. "he went to a boardin'-house and died there. left his wife a lot of stock in a broken-down street-car line, and a no-good electric-light company, and an independent telephone system that the regulars gobbled up. she's gone back to teachin' school again. we used our influence to get her old job back. we didn't think we ought to blame her for the faults of shelby." "and what had shelby done?" they told him in their own way--treading on one another's toes in their anxiety; shutting one another up; hunching their chairs together in a tangle as if their slanders were wares they were trying to sell. but about all that barstow could make of the matter was that shelby had been in much such case as his own. he had been hungry for human gratitude, and had not realized that it is won rather by accepting than by bestowing gifts. barstow sat and smoked glumly while the committee clattered. he hardly heard what they were at such pains to emphasize. he was musing upon a philosophy of his father's: "there's an old saying, 'never look a gift horse in the mouth.' but sayings and doings are far apart. if you can manage to sell a man a horse he'll make the best of the worst bargain; he'll nurse the nag and feed him and drive him easy and brag about his faults. he'll overlook everything from spavin to bots; he'll learn to think that a hamstrung hind leg is the poetry of motion. but a gift horse--lord love you! if you give a man a horse he'll look him in the mouth and everywhere else. the whole family will take turns with a microscope. they'll kick because he isn't run by electricity, and if he's an arabian they'll roast him because he holds his tail so high. if you want folks to appreciate anything don't give it to 'em; make 'em work for it and pay for it--double if you can." * * * * * shelby had mixed poetry with business, had given something for nothing; had paid the penalty. the old folks at home i the old road came pouring down from the wooded hills to the westward, flowed round the foot of other hills, skirting a meadow and a pond, and then went on easterly about its business. almost overhanging the road, like a mill jutting upon its journeyman stream, was an aged house. still older were the two lofty oaks standing mid-meadow and imaged again in the pond. younger than oaks or house or road, yet as old as scripture allots, was the man who stalked across the porch and slumped into a chair. he always slumped into a chair, for his muscles still remembered the days when he had sat only when he was worn out. younger than oaks, house, road, or man, yet older than a woman wants to be, was the woman in the garden. "what you doin', maw?" the man called across the rail, though he could see perfectly well. "just putterin' 'round in the garden. what you been doin', paw?" "just putterin' 'round the barn. better come in out the hot sun and rest your old back." evidently the idea appealed to her, for the sunbonnet overhanging the meek potato-flowers like a flamingo's beak rose in air, as she stood erect, or as nearly erect as she ever stood nowadays. she tossed a few uprooted weeds over the lilac-hedge, and, clumping up the steps of the porch, slumped into a chair. chairs had once been her luxury, too. she carried a dish-pan full of green peas, and as her gaze wandered over the beloved scene her wrinkled fingers were busy among the pods, shelling them expertly, as if they knew their way about alone. the old man sighed, the deep sigh of ultimate contentment. "well, maw, as the fellow says in the circus, here we are again." "here we are again, paw." they always said the same thing about this time of year, when they wearied of the splendid home they had established as the capital of their estate and came back to the ground from which they had sprung. james coburn always said: "well, maw, as the fellow says in the circus, here we are again." and sarah gregg coburn always answered: "here we are again, paw." this place was to them what old slippers are to tired feet. here they put off the manners and the dignities their servants expected of them, and lapsed into shabby clothes and colloquialisms, such as they had been used to when they were first married, long before he became the master of a thousand acres, of cattle upon a hundred hills, of blooded thoroughbreds and patriarchal stallions, of town lots and a bank, and of a record as congressman for two terms. this pilgrimage had become a sort of annual elopement, the mischief of two white-haired runaways. now that the graveyard or the city had robbed them of all their children, they loved to turn back and play at an indian-summer honeymoon. this year, for the first time, maw had consented to the aid of a "hired girl." she refused to bring one of the maids or the cook from the big house, and engaged a woman from the village nearest at hand--and then tried to pretend the woman wasn't there. it hurt her to admit the triumph of age in her bones, but there was compensation in the privilege of hearing some one else faintly clattering over the dish-washing of evenings, while she sat on the porch with paw and watched the sunset trail its gorgeous banners along the heavens and across the little toy sky of the pond. it was pleasant in the mornings, too, to lie abed in criminal indolence, hearing from afar the racket of somebody else building the fire. after breakfast she made a brave beginning, only to turn the broom and the bedmaking over to susan and dawdle about after paw or celebrate matins in the green aisles of the garden. but mostly the old couple just pretended to do their chores, and sat on the porch and watched the clouds go by and the frogs flop into the pond. "mail come yet, maw?" "susan's gone for it." he glanced up the road to a sunbonneted figure blurred in the glare, and sniffed amiably. "humph! country's getting so citified the morning papers are here almost before breakfast's cleared off. remember when we used to drive eleven mile to get the _weekly tribune_, maw?" "i remember. and it took you about a week to read it. sometimes you got one number behind. nowadays you finish your paper in about five minutes." "nothing much in the papers nowadays except murder trials and divorce cases. i guess susan must have a mash on that mail-carrier." "i wish she'd come on home and not gabble so much." "expectin' a letter from the boy?" "ought to be one this morning." "you've said that every mornin' for three weeks. i s'pose he's so busy in town he don't realize how much his letters mean to us." "i hate to have him in the city with its dangers--he's so reckless with his motor, and then there's the temptations and the scramble for money. i wish stevie had been contented to settle down with us. we've got enough, goodness knows. but i suppose he feels he must be a millionaire or nothing, and what you've made don't seem a drop in the bucket." the old man winced. he thought how often the boy had found occasion to draw on him for help in financing his "sure things" and paying up the losses on the "sure things" that had gone wrong. those letters had been sent to the bank in town and had not been mentioned at home, except now and then, long afterward, when the wife pressed the old man too hard about holding back money from the boy. then he would unfold a few figures. they dazed her, but they never convinced her. who ever convinced a woman? persuaded? yes, since eve! convinced? not yet! it hurts a man's pride to hear his wife impliedly disparage his own achievements in contrast with his son's. not that he is jealous of his son; not that he does not hope and expect that the boy will climb to peaks he has never dared; not that he would not give his all and bend his own back as a stepping-stone to his son's ascension; but just that comparisons are odious. this disparagement is natural, though, to wives, for they compare what their husbands have done with what their sons are going to do. it was an old source of peevishness with paw coburn, and he was moved to say--answering only by implication what she had unconsciously implied, and seeming to take his theme from the landscape about them: "when my father died all he left me was this little--bungalow they'd call it nowadays, i suppose, and a few acres 'round it. you remember, maw, how, when the sun first came sneakin' over that knob off to the left, the shadow of those two oaks used to just touch the stone wall on the western border of father's property, and when the sun was just crawlin' into bed behind those woods off yonder the shadow of the oaks just overlapped the rail fence on the eastern border? that's all my father left me--that and the mortgage. that's all i brought you home to, maw. i'm not disparaging my father. he was a great man. when he left his own home in the east and came out here all this was woods, woods, woods, far as you can see. even that pond wasn't there then. my father cleared it all--cut down everything except those two oak-trees. he used to call them the twin oaks, but they always seemed to me like man and wife. i kind o' like to think that they're you and me. and like you and me they're all that's left standin' of the old trees. they were big trees, too, and those were big days." the greatness of his thoughts rendered him mute. he was a plain man, but he was hearing the unwritten music of the american epic of the ax and the plow, the more than trojan war, the more than ten years' war, against forests and savages. his wife brought him back from hyper-homeric vision to the concrete. "thank heaven, susan's finished gossipin' and started home." the mail-carrier in his little umbrellaed cart was vanishing up the hill, and the sunbonnet was floating down the road. the sky was an unmitigated blue, save for a few masses of cloud, like piles of new fleece on a shearing-floor. green woods, gray road, blue sky, pale clouds, all were steeped in heat and silence so intense it seemed that something must break. and something broke. appallingly, abruptly, came a shattering crash, a streak of blinding fire, an unendurable noise, a searing blast of blaze as if the sun had been dynamite exploded, splintering the very joists of heaven. the whole air rocked like a tidal wave breaking on a reef; the house writhed in all its timbers. then silence--unbearable silence. the old woman, made a child again by a paralytic stroke of terror, found herself on her knees, clinging frantically to her husband. the cheek buried in his breast felt the lurch and leap of his pounding heart. manlike, he found courage in his woman's fright, but his hand quivered upon her hair; she heard his shaken voice saying: "there, there, maw, it's all over." when he dared to open his eyes he was blinded and dazed like the stricken saul. when he could see again he found the world unchanged. the sky was still there, and still azure; the clouds swam serenely; the road still poured down from the unaltered hills. he tried to laugh; it was a sickly sound he made. "i guess that was what the fellow calls a bolt from the blue. i've often heard of 'em, but it's the first i ever saw. no harm's done, maw, except to susan's feelings. she's pickin' herself up out the dust and hurryin' home like two-forty. i guess the concussion must have knocked her over." the old woman, her heart still fluttering madly, rose from her knees with the tremulous aid of the old man and opened her eyes. she could hardly believe that she would not find the earth an apocalyptic ruin of uprooted hills. she breathed deeply of the relief, and her eyes ran along the remembered things as if calling the roll. suddenly her eyes paused, widened. her hand went out to clutch her husband's arm. "look, paw! the oaks, the oaks!" the lightning had leaped upon them like a mad panther, rending their branches from them, ripping off great strips of bark, and leaving long, gaping wounds, dripping with the white blood of trees. the lesser of the two oaks had felt the greater blow, and would have toppled to the ground had it not fallen across its mate; and its mate, though grievously riven, held it up, with branches interlocking like cherishing arms. to that human couple the tragedy of the trees they had looked upon as the very emblems of stability was pitiful. the old woman's eyes swam with tears. she made no shame of her sobs. the old man tried to comfort her with a commonplace: "i was readin' only the other day, maw, that oaks attract the lightning more than any other trees," and then he broke down. "father always called 'em the twin oaks, but i always called 'em you and me." the panic-racked susan came stumbling up the steps, gasping with experiences. but the aged couple either did not hear or did not heed. with old hand embracing old hand they sat staring at the rapine of the lightning, the tigerish atrocity that had butchered and mutilated their beloved trees. susan dropped into mrs. coburn's lap what mail she brought and hurried inside to faint. the old couple sat in a stupor long and long before mrs. coburn found that she was idly fingering letters and papers. she glanced down, and a familiar writing brought her from her trance. "oh, paw, here's a letter from the boy! here's a letter from stevie. and here's your paper." he took the paper, but did not open it, turning instead to ask, "what does the boy say?" with hands awkwardly eager she ripped the envelope, tore out the letter, and spread it open on her lap, then pulled her spectacles down from her hair, and read with loving inflection: "my darling mother and dad,--it is simply heinous the way i neglect to write you, but somehow the rush of things here keeps me putting it off from day to day. if remembrances were letters you would have them in flocks, for i think of you always and i am homesick for the sight of your blessed faces. "i should like to come out and see you in your little old nest, but business piles up about me till i can't see my way out at present. i do wish you could run down here and make me a good long visit, but i suppose that is impossible, too. there are two or three big deals pending that look promising, and if any one of them wins out i shall clean up enough to be a gentleman of leisure. the first place i turn will be home. my heart aches for the rest and comfort of your love. "write me often and tell me how you both are, and believe me, with all the affection in the world, "your devoted son, "stephen." she pushed her dewy spectacles back in her gray hair and pressed the letter to her lips; she was smiling as only old mothers smile over letters from their far-off children. the man's face softened, too, with the ache that battle-scarred fathers feel, thinking of their sons in the thick of the fight. then he unfolded his paper, set his glasses on his big nose, and pursed his lips to read what was new in the world at large. his wife sat still, just remembering, perusing old files and back numbers of the gazettes of her boy's past, remembering him from her first vague thrill of him to his slow youth, to manhood, and the last good-by kiss. nothing was heard from either of them for a long while, save the creak of her chair and the rustle of his paper as he turned to the page recording the results in the incessant gettysburgs over the prices of corn, pork, poultry, butter, and eggs. they were history to him. he could grow angry over a drop in december wheat, and he could glow at a sign of feverishness in oats. to-day he was profoundly moved to read that october ribs had opened at . and closed at . , and depressed to see that september lard had dropped from . to . . as he turned the paper his eye was caught by the head-lines of an old and notorious trial at law, and he was confirmed in his wrath. he growled: "good lord, ain't that dog hung yet?" "what you talkin' about, paw?" "i was just noticin' that the third trial of tom carey is in full swing again. it's cost the state a hundred thousand dollars already, and the scoundrel ain't punished yet." "what did he do, paw?" the old man blushed like a boy as he stammered: "you're too young to know all he did, maw. if i told you, you wouldn't understand. but it ended in murder. if he'd been a low-browed dago they'd have had him railroaded to jericho in no time. but the lawyers are above the law, and they've kept this fellow from his deserts till folks have almost forgot what it was he did. it's disgraceful. it makes our courts the laughing-stock of the world. it gives the anarchists an excuse for saying that there's one law for the poor and another for the rich." after the thunder of his ire had rolled away there was a gentle murmur from the old woman. "it's a terrible thing to put a man to death." "so it is, maw, and if this fellow had only realized it he'd have kept out of trouble." "he was excited, most likely, and out of his head. what i mean is, it's a terrible thing for a judge and a jury to try a man and take his life away from him." "oh, it's terrible, of course, maw, but we've got to have laws to hold the world together, ain't we? and if we don't enforce 'em, what's the use of havin' 'em?" silence and a far-away look on the wrinkled face resting on the wrinkled hand and then a quiet question: "suppose it was our steve?" "i won't suppose any such thing. thank god there's been no stain on any of our family, either side; just plain hard-workin' folks--no crazy ones, no criminals." "but supposing it was our boy, paw?" "oh, what's the use of arguin' with a woman! i love you for it, maw, but--well, i'm sorry i spoke." he returned to his paper, growling now and then as he read of some new quibble devised by the attorneys for the defense. as softly and as surreptitiously as it begins to rain on a cloudy day, she was crying. he turned again with mock indignation. "here, here! what you turning up about now?" "i want to see my boy. i'm worried. he may be sick. he'd never let us know." the old man tried to cajole her from her forebodings, tried to reason them away, laugh them away. at last he said, with a poor effort at gruffness: "well, for the lord's sake, why don't you go? he's always askin' us to come and see him. i'm kind o' homesick for a sight of the boy m'self. you haven't been to town for a month of sundays. throw a few things in a valise and i'll hitch up. we'll just about make the next train from the village." she needed no coercion from without. she rose at once. as she opened the squeaky screen-door he was clumping down the steps. he paused to call back: "oh, maw!" "yes, paw!" "better tuck in a jar of those preserves you been puttin' up. the boy always liked those better 'n most anything. don't wrap 'em in my nightshirt, though." she called out, "all right," and the slap of the screen-door was echoed a moment later by a similar sound in the barn, accompanied by the old man's voice: "give over, fan." ii the elevator-boy hesitated. "oh, yes-sum, i got a pass-key, all right, but i can't hahdly let nobody in mista coburn's 'pahtment 'thout his awdas." "but we're his mother and father." "of co'se i take yo' wud for that, ma'am, but, you see, i can't hahdly let nobody--er--um'm--thank you, sir--well, i reckon mista coburn might be mo' put out ef i didn't let you-all in than ef i did." the elevator soared silently to the eighth floor, and there all three debarked. the boy was so much impressed with the tip the old man had slipped him that he unlocked the door, put the hand-baggage into the room, snapped the switch that threw on all the lights, and said, "thank you, sir," again as he closed the door. paw opened it to give the boy another coin and say: "don't you let on that we're here. it's a surprise." the boy, grinning, promised and descended, like an imp through a trap. the old couple stood stock-still, hesitating to advance. so many feelings, such varied timidities, urged them forward, yet held them back. it was the home of the son they had begotten, conceived, tended, loved, praised, punished, feared, prayed for, counseled, provisioned, and surrendered. years of separation had made him almost a stranger, and they dreaded the intrusion into the home he had built for himself, remote from their influence. poor, weak, silly old things, with a boy-and-girlish gawkishness about them, the helpless feeling of uninvited guests! "you go first, paw." and paw went first. on the sill of the drawing-room he paused and swept a glance around. he would have given an arm to be inspired with some scheme for whisking his wife away or changing what she must see. but she was already crowding on his heels, pushing him forward. there was no retreat. he tried to laugh it off. "well, here we are at last, as the fellow doesn't say in the circus." there was nothing to do but sit down and wait. the very chairs were of an architecture and upholstery incongruous to them. they knew something of luxury, but not of this school. there was nowhere for them to look that something alien did not meet their eyes. so they looked at the floor. "it gets awful hot in town, don't it?" said paw, mopping his beaded forehead. "awful," said maw, dabbing at hers. eventually they heard the elevator door gride on its grooves. all the way in on the train they had planned to hide and spring out on the boy. they had giggled like children over the plot. it was rather their prearrangement than their wills that moved them to action. automatically they hid themselves, without laughter, rather with a sort of guilty terror. they found a deep wardrobe closet and stepped inside, drawing the door almost shut. they heard a key in the lock, the click of a knob, the sound of a door closed. then a pause. they had forgotten to turn off the lights. hurrying footsteps, loud on the bare floor, muffled on the rugs. how well they knew that step! but there was excitement in its rhythm. they could hear the familiar voice muttering unfamiliarly as the footsteps hurried here and there. he came into the room where they were. they could hear him breathe now, for he breathed heavily, as if he had been running. from place to place he moved with a sense of restless stealth. at length, just as they were about to sally forth, he hurried forward and flung open their door. standing among the hanging clothes, the light strong on their faces, they seemed to strike him at first as ghosts. he stared at them aghast, and recoiled. then the old ghosts smiled and stepped forward with open arms. but he recoiled again, and his welcome to his far-come, heart-hungry parents was a groan. they saw that he had a revolver in his hand. his eyes recurred to it, and he turned here and there for a place to lay it, but seemed unable to let it go. his mother flung forward and threw her arms about him, her lips pursed to kiss him, but he turned away with lowered eyes. his father took him by the shoulders and said: "why, what's the matter, boy? ain't you glad to see your maw--and me?" for answer he only breathed hard and chokingly. his eyes went to the revolver again, then roved here and there, always as if searching for a place to hide it. "give that thing to me, steve," the old man said. and he took it in his hands, forcing from the cold steel the colder fingers that clung as if frozen about the handle. once he was free of the weapon, the boy toppled into a chair, his mother still clasping him desperately. the old man knew something about firearms. he found the spring, broke the revolver, and looked into the cylinder. in every chamber was the round eye of a cartridge. three of them bore the little scar of the firing-pin. old coburn leaned hard against the wall. he looked about for a place to hide the horrible machine, but he, too, could not let go of it. his mouth was full of the ashes of life. he would have been glad to drop dead. but beyond the sick, clammy face of his son he saw the face of his wife, an old face, a mother's face, witless with bewilderment. the old man swallowed hard. "what's happened, steve? what's been goin' on?" the young man only shook his head, ran his dry tongue along his lips, tore a piece of loose skin from the lower one with his teeth, and breathed noisily through nostrils that worked like a dog's. he pushed his mother's hands away as if they irked him. the old man could have struck him to the ground for that roughness, but the prayers in the mother's eyes restrained him. "better tell us, steve. maybe we might help you." the young man's head worked as if he were gulping at a hard lump; his lips moved without sound, his gaze leaped from place to place, lighting everywhere but on his father's waiting, watching eyes, and always coming back to the revolver with a loathing fascination. at last he spoke, in a whisper like the rasp of chafed husks: "i had to do it. he deserved it." the mother had not seen the nicks on the cartridges, but she needed no such evidence. she wailed: "you don't mean that you--no--no--you didn't k-kill-ill-ill--" the word rattled in her throat, and she went to the floor like a toppling bolster. it was the old man that lifted her face from the rug, ran to fetch water, and knelt to restore her. the son just wavered in his chair and kept saying: "i had to do it. he was making her life a--" "her life?" the old man groaned, looking up where he knelt. "then there's a woman in it?" "yes, it was for her. she's had a hard time. she's been horribly misunderstood. she may have been indiscreet--still she's a noble woman at heart. her husband was a vile dog. he deserved it." but the old man's head had dropped as if his neck were cracked. he saw what it all meant and would mean. he would have sprawled to the floor, but he caught sight of the pitiful face of his old love still white with the half-death of her swoon. he clenched his will with ferocity, resolving that he must not break, could not, would not break. he laid a hand on his son's knee and said, appealingly, in a low tone, as if he were the suppliant for mercy: "better not mention anything about--about her--the woman you know, steve--before your mother, not just now. your mother's kind of poorly the last few days. understand, steve?" the answer was a nod like the silly nodding of a toy mandarin. it was a questionable mercy, restoring the mother just then from the bliss of oblivion, but she came gradually back through a fog of daze to the full glare of fact. her thoughts did not run forward upon the scandal, the horror of the public, the outcry of all the press; she had but one thought, her son's welfare. "did anybody see you, steve?" "no. i went to his room. i don't think anybody s-saw me--yes, maybe the man across the hall did. yes, i guess he saw me. he was at his door when i came out. he looked as if he sus-suspected-ed me. i suppose he heard the shots. and probably he s-saw the revol-ver. i couldn't seem to let it drop--to le-let it drop." the mother turned frantic. "they'll come here for you, stevie. they'll find it out. you must get away--somewhere--for just now, till we can think up something to do. father will find some way of making everything all right, won't you, paw? he always does, you know. don't be scared, my boy. we must keep very calm." her hands were wavering over him in a palsy. "where can he go, paw? where's the best place for him to go? i'll tell you, steve. is your--your car anywhere near?" "it's outside at the door. i came back in it." she got to her feet, and her urgency was ferocious. "then you get right in this minute and go up to the old place--the little old house opposite the pond. go as fast as you can. you know the place--where we lived before you were born. there's two big oak-trees st-standing there, and a pond just across the road. you go there and tell susan--what shall he tell susan, father? what shall he tell susan? we'll stay here, and--and we'll bribe the elevator-boy to say you haven't come home at all, and if the po-po-lice come here we'll say we're expecting you, but we haven't seen you for ever so long. won't we, paw? that's what we'll say, won't we, paw?" the old man stood up to the lightning like an old oak. trees do not run. they stand fast and take what the sky sends them. old coburn shook his white hair as a tree its leaves in a blast of wind before he spoke. "steve, my boy, i don't know what call you had to do this, but it's no use trying to run away and hide. they'll get you wherever you go. the telegraph and the cable and the detectives--no, it's not a bit of use. it only makes things look worse. put on your hat and come with me. we'll go to the police before they come for you. i'll go with you, and i'll see you through." but flight, not fight, was the woman's one hope. she was wild with resistance to the idea of surrender. her panic confirmed the young man in his one impulse--to get away. he dashed out into the hall, and when the father would have pursued, the mother thrust him aside, hurried past, and braced herself against the door. he put off her clinging, clutching hands as gently as he might, but she resisted like a tigress at bay, and before he could drag her aside they heard the iron-barred door of the elevator glide open and clang shut. and there they stood in the strange place, the old man staggered with the realization of the future, the old woman imbecile with fear. what harm is it the honest oaks do, that heaven hates them so and its lightnings search them out with such peculiar frenzy? iii having no arenas where captive gladiators and martyrs satisfy the public longing for the sight of bleeding flesh and twitching nerve, the people of our day flock to the court-rooms for their keenest excitements. the case of "the people _vs._ stephen coburn" had been an intensely popular entertainment. this day the room was unusually stuffed with men and women. at the door the officers leaned like buttresses against the thrust of a solid wall of humanity. outside, the halls, the stairs, and the sidewalk were jammed with the mob crushing toward the door for a sight of the white-haired mother pilloried in the witness-box and fighting with all her poor wits against the shrewdest, calmest, fiercest cross-examiner in the state. in the jury-box the twelve silent prisoners of patience sat in awe of their responsibilities, a dozen extraordinarily ordinary, conspicuously average persons condemned to the agony of deciding whether they should consign a fellow-man to death or release a murderer among their fellow-men. next the judge sat sarah coburn, her withered hands clenched bonily in the lap where, not so many years ago, she had cuddled the babe that was now the culprit hunted down and abhorred. the mere pressure of his first finger had sent a soul into eternity and brought the temple of his own home crashing about his head. next the prisoner sat his father, veteran now with the experience that runs back to the time when the first father and mother found the first first-born of the world with hands reddened in the blood of the earliest sacrifice on the altar of cain. people railed in the street and in the press against the law's delay with stephen coburn's execution and against the ability of a rich father to postpone indefinitely the vengeance of justice. old coburn had forced the taxpayers to spend vast sums of money. he had spent vaster sums himself. the public and the prosecution, his own enormously expensive lawyers, his son and his very wife, supposed that he still had vast sums to spend. it was solely his own secret that he had no more. he had built his fortune as his father had built the stone wall along his fields, digging each boulder from the ground with his hands, lugging it across the irregular turf and heaving it to its place. every dollar of his had its history of effort, of sweat and ache. and now the whole wall was gone, carried away in wholesale sweeps as by a landslide. in his business he had been so shrewd and so close that people had said, "old coburn will fight for five days for five minute's interest on five cents." when his son's liberty was at stake he signed blank checks, he told his lawyers to get the best counsel in the nation. he did not ask, "how much?" he asked, "how good?" every technical ruse that could be employed to thwart the prosecution he employed. he bribed everybody bribable whose silence or speech had value. dangerous witnesses were shipped to places whence they could not be summonsed. blackmailers and blackguards fattened on his generosity and his fear. the son, stephen coburn, had gone to the city, warm-hearted, young, venturesome, not vicious, had learned life in a heap, sowed his wild oats all at once, fallen among evil companions, and drifted by easy stages into an affair of inexcusable ugliness, whence he seemed unable to escape till a misplaced chivalry whispered him what to do. he had found himself like lancelot with "his honor rooted in dishonor" and "faith unfaithful kept him falsely true." but stephen coburn was no lancelot, any more than his siren was a guinevere or her slain husband a king arthur. he was simply a well-meaning, hot-headed, madly enamoured young fool. the proof of this last was that he took a revolver to his gordian knot. revolvers, as he found too late, do not solve problems. they make a far-reaching noise, and their messengers cannot be recalled. his parents had not known the city phase of their son. they had known the adorable babe he had been, the good boy weeping over a broken-winged robin tumbled from a nest, running down-stairs in his bare feet for one more good-night kiss, crying his heart out when he must be sent away to school, remembering their birthdays and abounding in gentle graces. this was the stephen coburn they had known. they believed it to be the real, the permanent, stephen coburn; the other was but the victim of a transient demon. they could not believe that their boy would harm the world again. they could not endure the thought that his repentance and his atonement should be frustrated by a dishonorable end. the public knew only the wicked stephen coburn. his crime had been his entrance into fame. all the bad things he had done, all the bad people he had known, all the bad places he had gone, were searched out and published by the detectives and the reporters. to blacken stephen coburn's repute so horribly that the jurors would feel it their inescapable duty to scavenge him from the offended earth, that was the effort of the prosecution. to prevent that blackening was one of the most vital and one of the most costly features of the defense. to deny the murder and tear down the web of circumstantial evidence as fast as the state could weave it was another. the coburn case had become a notorious example of that peculiarly american institution, the serial trial. the first instalment had ended in a verdict of guilty. it had been old coburn's task to hold up his wife and his son in the collapse of their mad despair, while he managed and financed the long, slow struggle with the upper courts till he wrung from them an order for a new trial. this had ended, after weeks of torment in the court-room and forty-eight hours of almost unbearable suspense, in a disagreement of the jury. the third trial found the prosecution more determined than ever, and acquainted with all the methods of the defense. the only flaw was the loss of an important witness, "the man across the hall," whom impatient time had carried off to the place where subpoenas are not respected. his deposition and his testimony at the previous trials were as lacking in vitality as himself. and now once more old coburn must carry everything upon his back, aching like a world-weary atlas who dares not shift his burden. but now he was three years weaker, and he had no more money to squander. his house, his acres, the cattle upon his hills, his blooded thoroughbreds, his patriarchal stallions, his town lots, his bank-building, his bonds and stocks, all were sold, pawned as collateral, or blanketed with mortgages. as he had comforted his wife when they had witnessed the bolt from the blue, so now he sat facing her in her third ordeal. only now she was not on the home porch, but in the arena. he could not hold her hands. now she dared not close her eyes and cry; it was not the work of one thunderbolt she had to see. now, under the darting questions of the court-examiner, she was like a frightened girl lost in the woods and groping through a tempest, with lightning thrusts pursuing her on every side, stitching the woods with fire like the needle in a sewing-machine stabbing and stabbing at the dodging shuttle. the old woman had gone down into the pit for her son. she had been led through the bogs and the sewers of vice. almost unspeakable, almost unthinkable wickedness had been taught to her till she had become deeply versed in the lore that saddens the eyes of the scarlet women of babylon. but still her love purified her, and almost sanctified the strategy she practised, the lies she told, the truths she concealed, the plots she devised with the uncanny canniness of an old peasant. people not only felt that it was her duty to fight for her young like a mad she-wolf, but they would have despised her for any failure of sacrifice. she sat for hours baffling the inquisitor, foreseeing his wiles by intuition, evading his masked pitfalls by instinct. she was terribly afraid of him, yet more afraid of herself, afraid that she would break down and become a brainless, weeping thing. it was the sincerity of her fight against this weakness that made her so dangerous to the prosecuting attorney. he wanted to compel her to admit that her son had confessed his deed to her. she sought to avoid this admission. she had not guessed that he was more in dread of her tears than of her guile. he was gentler with her than her own attorneys had been. at all costs he felt that he must not succeed too well with her. the whole trial had become by now as academic as a game of chess, to all but the lonely, homesick parents. the prosecuting attorney knew that the mother was not telling the truth; the judge and the jury knew that she was not telling the truth. but unless this could be geometrically demonstrated the jury would disregard its own senses. yet the prosecutor knew that if he succeeded in trapping the mother too abruptly into any admission dangerous to her son she would probably break down and cry her dreary old heart out, and then those twelve superhuman jurors would weep with her and care for nothing on earth except her consolation. the crisis came as crises love to come, without warning. the question had been simple enough, and the tone as gentle as possible: "you have just stated, mrs. coburn, that your son spoke to you in his apartment the day he is alleged to have committed this act, but i find that at the first and second trials you testified that you did not see him in his apartment at all. which, please, is the correct statement?" in a flash she realized what she had done. it is so hard to build and defend a fortress of lies, and she was very old and not very wise, tired out, confused by the stare of the mob and the knowledge that every word she uttered endangered the life she had borne. now she felt that she had undone everything. she blamed herself for ruining the work of years. she saw her son led to death because of her blunder. her answer to the question and the patient courtesy of the attorney was to throw her hands into the air, toss her white head to and fro, and give up the battle. the tears came like a gush of blood from a deep wound; they poured through the lean fingers she pressed against her gaunt cheeks, and she shook with the dry, weak weeping of senility and utter desolation. then her old arms yearned for him as when a babe. "i want my boy! i want my boy!" * * * * * the judge grew very busy among his papers, the prosecuting attorney swallowed hard. the jurymen thought no more of evidence and of the stability of the laws. they all had mothers, or memory-mothers, and they only resolved that whatever crime stephen coburn might have committed, it would be a more dastardly crime for them to drive their twelve daggers into the aching breast that had suckled him. on the instant the trial had resolved itself into "the people _vs._ one poor old mother." the jury's tears voted for them, and their real verdict was surging up in one thought: "this white haired saint wants her boy: he may be a black sheep, but she wants him, and she shall have him, by--" whatever was each juryman's favorite oath. when the judge had finished his charge the jury stumbled on one another's heels to get to their sanctum. there they reached a verdict so quickly that, as the saying is, the foreman was coming back into the court-room before the twelfth man was out of it. amazed at their own unanimity, they were properly ashamed, each of the other eleven, for their mawkish weakness, and their treachery to the stern requirements of higher citizenship. but they went home not entirely unconsoled by the old woman's cry of beatitude at that phrase, "not guilty." she went among them sobbing with ecstasy, and her tears splashed their hands like holy water. it was all outrageously illegal, and sentimental, and harmful to the sanctity of the law. and yet, is it entirely desirable that men should ever grow unmindful of the tears of old mothers? iv the road came pouring down from the wooded hills, and the house faced the pond as before. but there was a new guest in the house. up-stairs, in a room with a sloping wall and a low ceiling and a dormer window, sat a young man whose face had been prominent so long in the press and in the court-room that now he preferred to keep away from human eyes. so he sat in the little room and read eternally. he had acquired the habit of books in the whitewashed cell where he had spent the three of his years that should have been the happiest, busiest, best of all. he read anything he could find now--old books, old magazines, old newspapers. finally he read even the old family bible his mother had toted into his room for his comfort. it was a bulky tome with print of giant size and pictures of crude imagery, with here and there blank pages for recording births, deaths, marriages. here he found the names of all his brothers and sisters, and all of them were entered among the deaths. the manners of the deaths were recorded in the shaky handwriting of fresh grief: alice anne, scarlet fever; james arthur, jr., convulsions; andrew morton, whooping-cough; cicely jane, typhoid; amos turner, drowned while saving his brother stephen's life; edward john, killed in train wreck. sick at heart, he turned away from the record, but the book fell open of itself at a full-page insert of the decalogue, illuminated by some artless printer with gaudy splotches of gold, red and blue and green initials, and silly curlicues of arabesque, as if the man had been ignorant of what they meant, those ten pillars of the world. stephen smiled wanly at the bad taste of the decoration, till one line of fire leaped from the text at him, "thou shalt not kill." but he needed no further lessoning in that wisdom. he retreated from the accusing page and went to lean against the dormer window and look out upon the world from the jail of his past. no jury could release him from that. everywhere he looked, everywhere he thought, he saw evidence of the penalty he had brought upon his father and mother, more than upon himself and his future. he knew that his father's life-work had been ruined, and that his honorable career would be summed up in the remembrance that he was the old man who bankrupted himself to save his son from the gallows. he knew that this very house, which remained as the last refuge, was mortgaged again as when his father and mother had come into it before he was born. the ironic circle was complete. down-stairs he could hear the slow and heavy footsteps of his father, and the creak of the chair as he dropped heavily into it. then he heard the screen-door flap and heard his mother's rocking-chair begin its seesaw strain. he knew that their tired old hands would be clasped and that their tired old eyes would be staring off at the lightning-shattered oaks. he heard them say, just about as always: "what you been doin', paw?" "just putterin' 'round the barn. what you been doin', maw?" "just putterin' 'round the kitchen gettin' supper started. i went up-stairs and knocked at stevie's door. he didn't answer. guess he's asleep." "guess so." "it seems awful good, paw, to be back in this old place, don't it?--you and me just settin' here and our boy safe and sound asleep up-stairs." "that's so. as the fellow says in the circus, here we are again, maw." "here we are again, paw." and this is marriage his soul floated upward from the lowermost depths of oblivion, slowly, as a water-plant, broken beneath, drifts to the surface. and then he was awake and unutterably afraid. his soul opened, as it were, its eyes in terror and his fleshly eyelids went ajar. there was nothing to frighten him except his own thoughts, but they seemed to have waited all ready loaded with despair for the instant of his waking. the room was black about him. the world was black. he had left the window open, but he could not see outdoors. only his memory told him where the window was. never a star pinked the heavens to distinguish it. he could not tell casement from sky, nor window from wall, nor wall from ceiling or floor. he was as one hung in primeval chaos before light had been decreed. he could not see his own pillow. he knew of it only because he felt it where it was hot under his hot cheek. he could not see the hand he raised to push the hair from his wet brow. he knew that he had a hand and a brow only from their contact, from the sense of himself in them, from the throb of his pulse at the surface of himself. he felt almost completely disembodied, poised in space, in infinite gloom, alone with complete loneliness. as the old phrase puts it, he was all by himself. the only sound in his universe, besides the heavy surf of his own blood beating in his ears, was the faint, slow breathing of his wife, asleep in the same bed, yet separated from him by a sword of hostility that kept their souls as far apart as planets are. he laughed in bitter silence to think how false she was to the devoted love she had promised him, how harsh her last words had been and how strange from the lips that used to murmur every devotion, every love-word, every trust. he wanted to whirl on her, shake her out of the cowardly refuge of sleep, and resume the wrangle that had ended in exhaustion. he wanted to gag her so that she would hear him out for once and not break into every phrase. he wanted to tell her for her own good in one clear, cold, logical, unbroken harangue how atrocious she was, how futile, fiendish, heartless. but he knew that she would not listen to him. even if he gagged her mouth her mind would still dodge and buffet him. how ancient was the experience that warned a man against argument with a woman! and that wise old saw, "let sleeping dogs lie," referred even better to wives. he would not let her know that he was awake--awake, perhaps, for hours of misery. this had happened often of late. it had been a hard week, day after day of bitter toil wearing him down in body and fraying his every nerve. his business was in a bad way, and he alone could save it, and he could save it only by ingenuity and inspiration. but the inspiration, he was sure, would not come to him till he could rest throughout. sleep was his hope, his passion, food, drink, medicine. he was heavily pledged at the bank. he could borrow no more. the president had threatened him if he did not pay what was overdue. bigger businesses than his were being left to crash. a financial earthquake was rocking every tower in the world. though he needed cash vitally to further his business, there was a sharper and sharper demand upon him from creditors desperately harried by their own desperate creditors. he must find with his brain some new source of cash. he must fight the world. but how could he fight without rest? even pugilists rested between rounds. he had not slept a whole night for a week. to-night he had gone to bed sternly resolved on a while of annihilation. anything for the brief sweet death with the morning of resurrection. and then she had quarreled with him. and now he was awake, and he felt that he would not sleep. he wondered what the hour was. he was tempted to rise and make a light and look at his watch, but he felt that the effort and the blow of the glare on his eyes might confirm his insomnia. he lay and wondered, consumed with curiosity as to the hour--as if that knowledge could be of value. by and by, out of the stillness and the widespread black came the slumbrous tone of a far-off town clock. three times it rumored in the air as if distance moaned faintly thrice. three o'clock! he had had but two hours' sleep, and would have no more! and he needed ten! to-morrow morning--this morning!--he must join battle for his very existence. he lay supine, trying not to clench a muscle, seeking to force his surrender to inanition; but he could not get sleep though he implored his soul for it, prayed god for it. at length he ceased to try to compel slumber. he lay musing. it is a strange thing to lie musing in the dark. his soul seemed to tug and waver outside his body as he had seen an elephant chained by one leg in a circus tent lean far away from its shackles, and sway and put its trunk forth gropingly. his soul seemed to be under his forehead, pushing at it as against a door. he felt that if he had a larger, freer forehead he would have more soul and more room for his mind to work. then the great fear came over him again. in these wakeful moods he suffered ecstasies of fright. he was appalled with life. he felt helpless, bodyless, doomed. on his office wall hung a calendar with a colored picture showing fishermen in a little boat in a fog looking up to see a great atlantic liner just about to run them down. so the universe loomed over him now, rushed down to crush him. the other people of the world were asleep in their places; his creditors, his rivals were resting, gaining strength to overwhelm him on the morrow, and he must face them unrefreshed. he dreamed forward through crisis after crisis, through bankruptcy, disgrace, and mortal illness. he thought of his family, the children asleep in their beds under the roof that he must uphold like an atlas. poor little demanding, demanding things! what would become of them when their father broke down and was turned out of his factory and out of his home? how they would hamper him, cling to him, cry out to him not to let them starve, not to let them go cold or barefoot, not to turn them adrift. yet they did not understand him. they loved their mother infinitely more. she watched over them, played with them, cuddled and kissed them, while he had to leave the house before they were up, and came home at night too fagged to play their games or endure their noise. and if they were to be punished, she used him as a threat, and saved them up for him to torment and denounce. they loved her and were afraid of him. yet what had she done for them? she had conceived them, borne them, nourished them for a year at most. thereafter their food, their shelter, their clothes, their education, their whole prosperity must come from their father. yet the very necessities of the struggle for their welfare kept him from giving them the time that would win their favor. they complained because he did not buy them more. they were discontented with what they had, and covetous of what the neighbors' children had, even where it was less than their own. he busied himself awhile at figuring out how much, all told, his children's upbringing had cost him. the total was astounding. if he had half of that sum now he would not be fretting about his pay-roll or his notes. he would triumph over every obstacle. next he made estimate of what the children would cost him in the future. as they grew their expenses grew with them. he could not hope for the old comfort of sons, when they made a man strong, for nowadays grown sons must be started in business at huge cost with doubtful results and no intention of repaying the investment. and daughters have to be dressed up like holiday packages, expensive gifts that must be sent prepaid and may be returned, collect. he could see nothing but vanity back of him and a welter of cost ahead. he could see no hope of ever catching up, of ever resting. his only rest would come when he died. if he did not sleep soon he would assuredly die or go mad. perhaps he was going mad already. he had fought too long, too hard. he would begin to babble and giggle soon and be led away to twiddle his fingers and talk with phantoms. he saw himself as he had seen other witless, slavering spectacles that had once been human, and a nausea of fear crushed big sweat out of his wincing skin. better to die than to play the living burlesque of himself. better to die than to face the shame of failure, the shame of reproach and ridicule; the epitaph of his business a few lines in the small type of "business troubles." better to kill himself than risk the danger of going mad and killing perhaps his own children and his wife. he knew a man once, a faithful, devoted, gentle struggler with the world, whom a sudden insanity had led to the butchery of his wife and three little boys. they found him tittering among his mangled dead, and calling them pet names, telling the shattered red things that he had wrought god's will upon them. what if this should come to him! better to end all the danger of that by removing himself from the reach of mania or shame. it would be the final proof of his love for his flock. and they would not think bitterly of him. all things are forgiven the dead. they would miss him and remember the best of him. they would appreciate what they had cost him, too, when they no longer had him to draw on. he felt very sorry for himself. grown man as he was, he was driven back into infancy by his terrors, and like a pouting, supperless boy, he wanted to die to spite the rest of the family and win their apologies even if he should not hear them. he wondered if, after all, his wife would not be happier to be rid of him. no, she would regret him for one thing at least, that he left her without means. well, she deserved to be penniless. why should she expect a man to kill himself for her sake and leave her a wealthy widow to buy some other man? let her practise then some of the economies he had vainly begged of her before. if she had been worthy of his posthumous protection she would not have treated him so outrageously at a time of such stress as this. she knew he was dog-tired, yet she allowed him to be angered, and she knew just what themes were sure to provoke his wrath. so she had harped on these till she had rendered him to a frenzy. they had stood about or paced the floor or dropped in chairs and fought as they flung off their clothes piecemeal. she had combed and brushed her hair viciously as she raged, weeping the unbeautiful tears of wrath. but he had not had that comfort of tears; his tears ran down the inside of his soul and burned. she goaded him out of his ordinary self-control--knew just how to do it and reveled in it. no doubt he had said things to her that a gentleman does not say to a lady, that hardly any man would say to any woman. he was startled to remember what he had said to her. he abhorred the thought of such things coming from his lips--and to the mother of his children. but the blame for these atrocities was also hers. she had driven him frantic; she would have driven a less-dignified man to violence, to blows, perhaps. and she had had the effrontery to blame him for driving her frantic when it was she that drove him. finally they had stormed themselves out, squandered their vocabularies of abuse, and taken resort to silence in a pretended dignity. that is, she had done this. he had relapsed into silence because he realized how impervious to truth or justice she was. facts she would not deal in. logic she abhorred. reasoning infuriated her. and then in grim, mutual contempt they had crept into bed and lain as far apart as they could. he would have gone into another room, but she would have thought he was afraid to hear more of her. or she would have come knocking at the door and lured him back only to renew the war at some appeal of his to that sense of justice he was forever hoping to find in her soul. he was aligned now along the very edge of the mattress. it was childish of her to behave so spitefully, but what could he do except repay her in kind? she would not have understood any other behavior. she had turned her back on him, too, and stretched herself as thin as she could as close to the edge as she could lie without falling out. what a vixen she was! and at this time of all when she should have been gentle, soothing. even if she had thought him wrong and misinterpreted his natural vehemence as virulence, she should have been patient. what was a wife for but to be a helpmeet? she knew how easily his temper was assuaged, she knew the very words. why had she avoided them? and she was to blame for so many of his problems. her bills and her children's bills were increasing. she took so much of his time. she needed so much entertaining, so much waiting on, so much listening to. neither she nor the children produced. they simply spent. in a crisis they never gave help, but exacted it. in business, as in a shipwreck, strong and useful men must step back and sacrifice themselves that the women and children might be saved--for other men to take care of. and what frauds these women were! all allurement and gentleness till they had entrapped their victims, then fiends of exaction, without sympathy for the big work of men, without interest in the world's problems, alert to ridiculous suspicions, reckless with accusations, incapable of equity, and impatient of everything important. marriage was a trap, masking its steel jaws and its chain under flowers. what changelings brides were! a man never led away from the altar the woman he led thither. before marriage, so interested in a man's serious talk and the business of his life! after marriage, unwilling to listen to any news of import, sworn enemies of achievement, putting an ingrowing sentiment above all other nobilities of the race. and his wife was of all women the most womanish. she had lost what early graces she had. in the earlier days they had never quarreled. that is, of course, they had quarreled, but differently. they had left each other several times, but how rapturously they had returned. and then she had craved his forgiveness and granted hers without asking. she had always forgiven him for what he had not done, said, or thought, or for the things he had done and said most justly. but there had been a charm about her, a sweet foolishness that was irresistible. in the dark now he smiled to think how dear and fascinating she had been then. oh, she had loved him then, had loved the very faults she had imagined in him. perhaps after he was dead she would remember him with her earlier tenderness. she would blame herself for making him the irascible, hot-tempered brute he had been--perhaps--at times. and now he had slain and buried himself, and his woe could burrow no farther down. his soul was at the bottom of the pit. there was no other way to go but upward, and that, of course, was impossible. as he wallowed in the lugubrious comfort of his own post-mortem revenge he wished that he had left unsaid some of the things he had said. quelled by the vision of his wife weeping over him and repenting her cruelties, they began to seem less cruel. she was absolved by remorse. he heard her sobbing over his coffin and heard her recall her ferocious words with shame. his white, set face seemed to try to console her. he heard what he was trying to tell her in all the gentle understanding of the tomb: "i said worse things, honey. i don't know how i could have used such words to you, my sweetheart. a longshoreman wouldn't have called a fishwife what i called you, you blessed child. but it was my love that tormented me. if a man had quarreled with me, we'd have had a knock-down and drag-out and nothing more thought of it. if any woman but you had denounced me as you did i'd have shrugged my shoulders and not cared a--at all. "it was because i loved you, honey, that your least frown hurt me so. but i didn't really mean what i said. it wasn't true. you're the best, the faithfulest, the prettiest, dearest woman in all the world, and you were a precious wife to me--so much more beautiful, more tender, more devoted than the wives of the other men i knew. i will pray god to bring you to me in the place i'm going to. i could not live without you anywhere." this was what he was trying to tell her, and could not utter a word of it. he seemed to be lying in his coffin, staring up at her through sealed eyelids. he could not purse his cold lips to kiss her warm mouth. he could not lift an icy hand to bless her brow. they would come soon to lay the last board over his face and screw down the lid. she would scream and fight, but they would drag her away. and he could not answer her wild cries. he could not go to her rescue. he would be lifted in the box from the trestles and carried out on the shoulders of other men, and slid into the waiting hearse; and the horses would trot away with him, leaving her to penury, with her children and his at the mercy of the merciless world, while he was lowered into a ditch and hidden under shovelfuls of dirt, to lie there motionless, useless, hideously idle forever. this vision of himself dead was so vivid that his heart jumped in his breast and raced like a propeller out of water. the very pain and the terror were joyful, for they meant that he still lived. whatever other disasters overhung him, he was at least not dead. better a beggar slinking along the dingiest street than the wealthiest rothschild under the stateliest tomb. better the sneers and pity of the world in whispers about his path than all the empty praise of the most resounding obituary. the main thing was to be alive. before that great good fortune all misfortunes were minor, unimportant details. and, after all, he was not so pitiable. his name was still respected. his factory was still running. whatever his liabilities, he still had some assets, not least of them health and experience and courage. but where had his courage been hiding that it left him whimpering alone? was he a little girl afraid of the dark, or was he a man? there were still men who would lend him money or time. what if he was in trouble? were not the merchant princes of the earth sweating blood? there had been a rich men's panic before the poor were reached. now everybody was involved. after all, what if he failed? who had not failed? what if he fell bankrupt?--that was only a tumble down-stairs. could he not pick himself up and climb again? some of the biggest industries in the world had passed through temporary strain. the sun himself went into eclipse. if his factory had to close, it could be opened again some day. or even if he could not recover, how many better men than he had failed? to be crushed by the luck of things was no crime. there was a glory of defeat as well as of victory. the one great gleaming truth was that he was still alive, still in the ring. he was not dead yet. he was not going to die. he was going to get up and win. there was no shame in the misfortunes he had had. there was no disgrace in the fears he had bowed to. all the nations and all the men in them were in a night of fear. but already there was a change of feeling. the darker the hour, the nearer the dawn. the worse things were, the sooner they must mend. people had been too prosperous; the world had played the spendthrift and gambled too high. but economy would restore the balance for the toilers. what had been lost would soon be regained. fate could not down america yet. and he was an american. what was it "jim" hill had said to the scare-mongers: "the man who sells the united states short is a damned fool." and the man who sells himself short is a damneder fool. * * * * * thus he struggled through the bad weather of his soul. the clouds that had gathered and roared and shuttled with lightnings had emptied their wrath, and the earth still rolled. the mystery of terror was subtly altered to a mystery of surety. lying in the dark, motionless, he had wrought out the miracle of meditation. within the senate chamber of his mind he had debated and pondered and voted confidence in himself and in life. his eyes, still open, still battling for light, had found none yet. the universe was still black. he could not distinguish sky from window, nor casement from ceiling. yet the gloom was no longer terrible. the universe was still a great ship rushing on, but he was no longer a midget in a little cockleshell about to be crushed. he was a passenger on the ship. the night was benevolent, majestic, sonorous with music. the sea was glorious and the voyage forward. and now that his heart was full of good news, he had a wild desire to rush home with it to her who was his home. how often he had left her in the morning after a wrangle, and hurried back to her at night bearing glad tidings, the quarrel forgotten beyond the need of any treaty. and she would be there among their children, beaming welcome from her big eyes. and she was always so glad when he was glad. she took so much blame on herself; though how was she to blame for herself? yet she took no credit to herself for being all the sweet things she was. she was the flowers and the harvest, and the cool, amorous evening after the hard day was done. and he was the peevish, whining, swearing imbecile that chose a woman for wife because she was a rose and then clenched her thorns and complained because she was not a turnip. he felt a longing to tell her how false his croakings had been in that old dead time so long ago as last night. but she was asleep. and she needed sleep. she had been greatly troubled by his troubles. she had been anxious for him and the children. she had so many things to worry over that never troubled him. she had wept and been angry because she could not make him understand. her very wrath was a way of crying: "i love you! you hurt me!" he must let her sleep. her beauty and her graces needed sleep. it was his blessed privilege to guard her slumbers, his pride to house her well and to see that she slept in fabrics suited to the delicate fabric of her exquisite body. but if only she might chance to be awake that he might tell her how sorry he was that he had been weak and wicked enough to torment her with his baseless fears and his unreasonable ire. at least he must touch her with tenderness. even though she slept, he must give her the benediction of one light caress. he put his hand out cautiously toward her. he laid his fingers gently on her cheek. how beautiful it was even in the dark! but it was wet! with tears! suddenly her little invisible fingers closed upon his hand like grape tendrils. but this did not prove her awake. so habited they were to each other that even in their sleep their bodies gave or answered such endearments. he waited till his loneliness for her was unendurable, then he breathed, softly: "are you asleep, honey?" for answer she whirled into his bosom and clenched him in her arms and wept--in whispers lest the children hear. he petted her tenderly and kissed her hair and her eyelids and murmured: "did i wake you, honey?" "no, no!" she sobbed. "i've been awake for hours." "but you didn't move!" "i was afraid to waken you. you need your rest so much. i've been thinking how hard you work, how good you are. i'm so ashamed of myself for--" "but it was all my fault, honey." "oh no, no, my dear, my dear!" he let her have the last word; for an enormous contentedness filled his heart. he drew the covers about her shoulder and held her close and breathed deep of the companionship of the soul he had chosen. he breathed so deeply that his head drooped over hers, his cheek upon her hair. the night seemed to bend above them and mother them and say to them, "hush! hush! and sleep!" there are many raptures in the world, and countless beautiful moments, and not the least of them is this solemn marriage in sleep of the man and woman whose days are filled with cares, and under whose roof at night children and servants slumber aloof secure. while these two troubled spirits found repose and renewal, locked each in the other's arms, the blackness was gradually withdrawn from the air. in the sky there came a pallor that grew to a twilight and became a radiance and a splendor. and night was day. it would soon be time for the father to rise and go forth to his work, and for the mother to rise to the offices of the home. the man that might have been i in the tame little town of hillsdale he seemed the tamest thing of all, will rudd--especially appropriate to a kneeling trade, a shoe clerk by election. he bent the pregnant hinges to anybody soever that entered the shop, with its ingenious rebus on the sign-board: [illustration: clay kittredge and emporium nobby footwear] he not only untied the stilted oxfords or buttoned in the arching insteps of those who sat in the "ladies' and misses' dept.," which was the other side of the double-backed bench whose obverse was the "gents' dept.," but also he took upon the glistening surface of his trousers the muddy soles of merchants, the clay-bronzed brogans of hired men, the cowhide toboggans of teamsters, and the brass-toed, red-kneed boots of little boys ecstatic in their first feel of big leather. rudd was a shoe clerk to be trusted. he never revealed to a soul that miss clara lommel wore shoes two sizes too small, and when she bit her lip and blenched with agony as he pried her heel into the protesting dongola, he seemed not to notice that she was no cinderella. and one day, when it was too late, and miss lucy posnett, whose people lived in the big brick mansard, realized that she had a hole in her stocking, what did rudd do? why, he never let on. stanch methodist that he was, william rudd stifled _in petto_ the fact that the united presbyterian parson's wife was vain and bought little, soft black kids with the cuban heel and a patent-leather tip to the opera toe! the united presbyterian parson himself had salved his own vanity by saying that shoes show so plainly on the pulpit, and it was better to buy them a trifle too small than a trifle too large, but--umm!--er, hadn't you better put in a little more of that powder, mr. rudd? i have on--whew!--unusually thick socks to-day. clay kittredge, rudd's employer, valued him, secretly, as a man who brought in customers and sold them goods. but he never mentioned this to his clerk lest rudd be tempted to the sin of vanity, and incidentally to demanding an increase in that salary which had remained the same since he had been promoted from delivery-boy. kittredge found that rudd kept his secrets as he kept everybody's else. professing church member as he was, rudd earnestly palmed off shopworn stock for fresh invoices, declared that the obsolete piccadillies which kittredge had snapped up from a bankrupt sale were worn on all the best feet on fifth avenoo, and blandly substituted "just as good" for advertised wares that kittredge did not carry. besides, when no customer was in the shop he spent the time at the back window, doctoring tags--as the king of france negotiated the hill--by marking up prices, then marking them down. but when he took his hat from the peg and set it on his head, he put on his private conscience. whatever else he did, he never lied or cheated to his own advantage. and so everybody in town liked william rudd, and nobody admired him. he was treated with the affectionate contempt of an old family servant. but he had his ambitions and great ones, ambitions that reached past himself into the future of another generation. he felt the thrill that stirs the acorn, fallen into the ground and hidden there, but destined to father an oak. his was the ambition beyond ambition that glorifies the seed in the loam and ennobles the roots of trees thrusting themselves downward and gripping obscurity in order that trunks and branches, flowers and fruits, pods and cones, may flourish aloft. eventually old clay kittredge died, and the son chopped the "jr." curlicue from the end of his name and began a new régime. the old kittredge had sought only his own aggrandizement, and his son was his son. the new clay kittredge had gone to public school with rudd and they continued to be "clay" and "will" to each other; no one would ever have called rudd by so demonstrative a name as "bill." when clay second stepped into his father's boots--and shoes--he began to enlarge the business, hoping to efface his father's achievements by his own. the shop gradually expanded to a department store for covering all portions of the anatomy and supplying inner wants as well. rudd was so overjoyed at not being uprooted and flung aside to die that he never observed the shrewd irony of kittredge's phrase, "you may remain, will, with no reduction of salary." to have lost his humble position would have frustrated his dream, for he was doing his best to build for himself and for her a home where they could fulfil their destinies. he cherished no hope, hardly even a desire, to be a great or rich man himself. he was one of the nest-weavers, the cave-burrowers, the home-makers, who prepare the way for the greater than themselves who shall spring from themselves. he was of those who become the unknown fathers of great men. and so, on a salary that would have meant penury to a man of self-seeking tastes, he managed to save always the major part of his earning. at the bank he was a modest but regular visitor to the receiving-teller, and almost a total stranger to the paying-teller. his wildest dissipation being a second pipeful of tobacco before he went to bed--or "retired," as he would more gently have said it--he eventually heaped up enough money and courage to ask martha kellogg to marry him. martha, who was the plainest woman in plain hillsdale, accepted william, and they were made one by the parson. the wedding was accounted "plain" even in hillsdale. the groomy bridegroom and the unbridy bride spent together all the time that rudd could spare from the store. he bought for her a little frame house with a porch about as big as an upper berth, a patch of grass with a path through it to the back door, some hollyhocks of startling color, and a highly unimportant woodshed. it spelled home to them, and they were as happy as people usually are. he did all he could to please her. at her desire he even gave up his pipe without missing it--much. mrs. martha rudd was an ambitious woman, or at least restless and discontented. having escaped her supreme horror, that of being an old maid, she began to grow ambitious for her husband. she nagged him for a while about his plodding ways, the things that satisfied him, the salary he endured. but it did no good. will rudd was never meant to put boots and spurs on his own feet and splash around in gore. he was for carpet slippers, round-toed shoes, and on wet days, rubbers; on slushy days he even descended to what he called "ar'tics." not understanding the true majesty of her husband's long-distance dreams, and baffled by his unresponse to her ambitions for him, martha grew ambitious for the child that was coming. she grew frantically, fantastically ambitious. here was something william rudd could respond to. he could be ambitious as cæsar--but not for himself. he was a groundling, but his son should climb. husband and wife spent evenings and evenings debating the future of the child. they never agreed on the name--or the alternative names. for it is advisable to have two ready for any emergency. but the future was rosy. they were unanimous on that--president of the united states, mebbe; or at least the president's wife. mrs. rudd, who occasionally read the continued stories in the evening paper, had happened on a hero named "eric." she favored that name--or gwendolynne (with a "y"), as the case might be. in any event, the child's future was so glowing that it warmed mrs. rudd to asking one evening, forgetful of her earlier edict: "why don't you smoke your pipe any more, will?" "i'd kind o' got out of the habit, marthy," he said, and added, hastily, "but i guess i'll git back in." thereafter they sat of evenings by the lamp, he smoking, she sewing things--holding them up now and then for him to see. they looked almost too small to be convincing, until he brought home from the store a pair of shoes--"the smallest size made, marthy, too small for some of the dolls you see over at bostwick's." it was the golden period of his life. rudd never sold shoes so well. people could hardly resist his high spirits. anticipation is a great thing--it is all that some people get. to be a successful shoe clerk one must acquire the patience of job without his gift of complaint, and rudd was thoroughly schooled. so he waited with a hope-lit serenity the preamble to the arrival of his--her--their child. and then fate, which had previously been content with denying him comforts and keeping him from luxuries, dealt him a blow in the face, smote him on his patient mouth. the doctor told him that the little body of his son had been born still. after that it was rather a stupor of despair than courage that carried him through the vain struggle for life of the worn-out housewife who became only almost a mother. it seemed merely the logical completion of the world's cruelty when the doctor laid a heavy hand on his shoulder and walked out of the door, without leaving any prescription to fill. rudd stood like a wooden indian, too dazed to understand or to feel. he opened the door to the undertaker and waited outside the room, just twiddling his fingers and wondering. his world had come to an end and he did not know what to do. at the church, the offices of the parson, and the soprano's voice from behind the flowers, singing "rock of ages, cleft for me"--marthy's favorite hymn--brought the tears trickling, but he could not believe that what had happened had happened. he got through the melancholy honor of riding in the first hack in the shabby pageant, though the town looked strange from that window. he shivered stupidly at the first sight of the trench in the turf which was to be the new lodging of his family. he kept as quiet as any of the group among the mounds while the bareheaded preacher finished his part. he was too numb with incredulity to find any expression until he heard that awfulest sound that ever grates the human ear--the first shovelful of clods rattling on a coffin. then he understood--then he woke. when he saw the muddy spade spill dirt hideously above her lips, her cheeks, her brow, and the little bundle of futile flesh she cuddled with a rigid arm to a breast of ice--then a cry like the shriek of a falling tree split his throat and he dropped into the grave, sprawling across the casket, beating on its denying door, and sobbing: "you mustn't go alone, marthy. i won't let you two go all by yourselves. it's so fur and so dark. i can't live without you and the--the baby. wait! wait!" they dragged him out, and the shovels concluded their venerable task. he was sobbing too loudly to hear them, and the parson was holding him in his arms and patting his back and saying "'shh! 'shh!" as if he were a child afraid of the dark. the sparse company that had gathered to pay the last devoir to the unimportant woman in the box in the ditch felt, most of all, amazement at such an unexpected outburst from so expectable a man as william rudd. there was much talk about it as the horses galloped home, much talk in every carriage except his and the one that had been hers. up to this, the neighbors had taken the whole affair with that splendid philosophy neighbors apply to other people's woes. mrs. budd granger had said to mrs. ad. peck when they met in bostwick's dry-goods store, at the linen counter: "too bad about martha rudd, isn't it? plain little body, but nice. meant well. went to church regular. yes, it's too bad. i don't think they ought to put off the strawb'ry fest'val, though, just for that, do you? never would be any fun if we stopped for every funeral, would there? besides, the strawb'ry fest'val's for charity, isn't it?" the strawberry festival was not put off and the town paper said that "a pleasant time was had by all." most of the talk was about will rudd. the quiet shoe clerk had provided the town with an alarm, an astonishment. he was most astounded of all. as he rode back to the frame house in the swaying carriage he absolutely could not believe that such hopes, such plans, could be shattered with such wanton, wasteful cruelty. that he should have loved, married, and begotten, and that the new-made mother and the new-born child should be struck dead, nullified, returned to clay--such things were too foolish, too spendthrift, to believe. it is strange that people do not get used to death. it has come to nearly every being anybody has ever heard of; and whom it has not yet reached, it will. every one of the two billions of us on earth to-day expects it to come to him, and (if he have them) to his son, his daughter, his man-servant, his maid-servant, his ox, his ass, the stranger within his gates, the weeds by the road. kittens and kingdoms, potato-bugs, plants, and planets--all are on the visiting-list. death is the one expectation that never fails to arrive. but it comes always as a new thing, an unheard-of thing, a miracle. it is the commonest word in the lexicon, yet it always reads as a _hapax legomenon_. it is like spring, though so unlike. for who ever believed that may would emerge from march this year? and who ever remembers that violets were suddenly abroad on the hills last april, too? william rudd ought to have known better. in a town where funerals were social events dangerously near to diversion, he had been unusually frequent at them. for he belonged to the local chapter of the knights of pythias, and when a fellow-member in good standing was forced to resign, william rudd donned his black suit, his odd-looking cocked hat with the plume, and the anachronous sword, which he carried as one would expect a shoe clerk to carry a sword. the man in the hearse ahead went to no further funerals, stopped paying his dues, made no more noise at the bowling-alley, and ceased to dent his pew cushion. somebody got his job at once and, after a decent time, somebody else probably got his wife. the man became a remembrance, if that. rudd had long realized that people eventually become dead; but he had never realized death. he had been an oblivious child when his mother and father had taken the long trip whose tickets read but one way, and had left him to the grudging care of an uncle with a large enough family. and now his own family was obliterated. he was again a single man, that familiar thing called a widower. he could not accept it as a fact. he denied his eyes. he was as incredulous as a man who sees a magician play some old vanishing trick. he had seen it, but he could not understand it enough to believe it. when the hack left him at his house he found it emptier than he could have imagined a house could be. marthy was not on the porch, or in the settin'-room, the dinin'-room, the kitchen, or anywhere up-stairs. the bed was empty, the stove cold. the lamp had not been filled. the cruse of his life was dry, the silver cord loosened, the pitcher broken at the fountain, the wheel broken at the cistern. as he stumbled about filling the lamp, and covering his hands with kerosene, he wondered what he should do in those long hours between the closing of the shoe-shop of evenings and its opening of mornings. men behave differently in this recurring situation. some take to drink, or return to it. rudd did not like liquor; at least he did not think he would have liked it if he had ever tasted it. some take to gambling. rudd did not know big casino from little, though he had once almost acquired a passion for checkers--the give-away game. some submerge themselves in money-getting. rudd would not have given up the serene certainty of his little salary for a speculator's chance to clean up a million, or lose his margin. if only the child had lived, he should have had an industry, an ambition, a use. widowers have occasionally hunted consolation with the same sex that sent them grief. rudd had never known any woman in town as well as he had known martha, and it had taken him years to find courage to propose to her. the thought of approaching any other woman with intimate intention gave him an ague sweat. and how was he to think of taking another wife? even if he had not been so confounded with grief for his helpmeet as to believe her the only woman on earth for him, how could he have accosted another woman when he had only debts for a dowry? death is an expensive thing in every phase. the event that robbed rudd of his wife, his child, his hope, had taken also his companion, his cook, his chambermaid, his washerwoman, the mender of his things; and in their place had left an appalling monument of bills. the only people he had permitted himself to owe money to were the gruesome committee that brought him his grief; the doctor, the druggist, the casket-maker, the sexton, and the dealer in the unreal estate who sold the tiny lots in the sad little town. his soul was too bruised to grope its way about, but instinct told him that bills must be paid. instinct automatically set him to work clearing up his accounts. for their sakes he devoted himself to a stricter economy than ever. he engaged meals at mrs. judd's boarding-house. he resolved even to rent his home. but, mercifully, there was no one in town to take the place. in economy's name, too, he put away his pipe--for one horrible evening. the next day he remembered how marthy had sung out, "why don't you smoke your pipe any more, will?" and he had answered: "i'd kind o' got out of the habit, marthy, but i guess i'll git back in." and lordy, how she laughed! the laughter of the dead--it made a lonely echo in the house. gradually he found, as so many dismal castaways have found, that there is a mystic companionship in that weed which has come out of the vegetable world, as the dog from among the animals, to make fellowship with man. rudd and his pipe were robinson crusoe and his man friday on the desert island of loneliness. they stared out to sea; and imagined. remembering how martha and he used to dream about the child, in the tobacco twilight, and how they planned his future, rudd's soul learned to follow the pipe smoke out from the porch, over the fence and to disappear beyond the horizons of the town and the sharp definition of the graveyard fence. he became addicted to dreams, habituated to dealing in futurities that could never come to pass. being his only luxury on earth, by and by they became his necessities, realities more concrete than the shoes he sold or the board walk he plodded to and from his store. one sunday rudd was present at church when mr. and mrs. budd granger brought their fourth baby forward to be christened. the infant bawled and choked and kicked its safety-pins loose. rudd was sure that eric never would have misbehaved like that. yet eric had been denied the sacred rite. this reminded rudd how many learned theologians had proved by rigid logic that unbaptized babies are damned forever. he spent days of horror at the frightful possibility, and nights of infernal travel across gridirons where babies flung their blistered hands in vain appeal to far-off mothers. he could not get it from his mind until, one evening, his pipe persuaded him to erect a font in the temple of his imagination. he mused through all the ritual, and the little frame house seemed to thrill as the vague preacher enounced the sonorous phrase: "i baptize thee eric--in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy ghost." marthy was there, too, of course, but it was the father that held the baby. and the child did not wince when the pastor's fingers moistened the tiny brow. he just clasped a geranium-petal hand round rudd's thumb and stared at the sacrament with eyes of more than mortal understanding. the very next day mrs. ad. peck walked into the store, proud as a peahen. she wanted shoes for her baby. the soles of the old pair were intact, but the stubby toes were protruding. "he crawls all over the house, mr. rudd! and he cut his first tooth to-day, too. just look at it. ain't it a beauty?" in her insensate conceit she pried the child's mouth apart as if he were a pony, to disclose the minute peak of ivory. it was nothing to make such a fuss over, rudd thought, though he praised it as if it were a snow-capped fuji-yama. that night eric cut two teeth. and marthy nearly laughed her head off. rudd did not talk aloud to the family he had revened from the grave. he had no occult persuasions. he just sat in his rocker and smoked hard and imagined hard. he imagined the lives of his family not only as they might have been, but as they ought to have been. he was like a spectator at a play, mingling belief and make-belief inextricably, knowing it all untrue, yet weeping, laughing, thrilling as if it were the very image of fact. all mothers and some fathers have a sad little calendar in their hearts' cupboards where they keep track of the things that might have been. "october fifth," they muse. "why, it's ned's birthday! he'd have been twenty-one to-day if he'd lived. he'd have voted this year. december twenty-third? alice would have been coming home from boarding-school to-day if--july fourth? humph! how harry loved the fireworks! but he'd be a senator now and invited to his home town to make a speech in the park to-day if--" if! if! everybody must keep some such if-almanac, some such diary of prayers denied. that was all rudd did; only he wrote it up every evening. he would take from the lavender where he kept them the little things martha had sewed for the child and the little shoes he had bought. the warm body had never wriggled and laughed in the tiny trousseau, the little shoes had never housed pink toes, but they helped him to pretend until they became to him things outgrown by a living, growing child. he cherished them as all parents cherish the first shoes and the first linens and woolens of their young. marthy and eric rudd lived just behind the diaphanous curtain of the pipe smoke, or in the nooks of the twilight shadow, or in the heart of the settin'-room stove. the frame house had no fireplace, and in its lieu he was wont to open the door of the wood-stove, lean forward, elbows on knees, and gaze into the creamy core of the glow where his people moved unharmed and radiant, like the three youths conversing in the fiery furnace. in the brief period allotted them before bedtime they must needs live fast. the boy grew at an extraordinary rate and in an extraordinary manner, for sometimes rudd performed for him that feat which god himself seems not to achieve in his world; he turned back time and brought on yesterday again, or reverted the year before last, as a reaper may pause and return to glean some sheaf overlooked before. for instance, eric was already a strapping lad of seven spinning through school at a rate that would have given brain fever to a less-gifted youngster, when, one day, farmer stebbins came to the emporium with a four-year-old chub of a son who ran in ahead of his father, kicked his shoes in opposite directions and yelled, to the great dismay of an old maid in the "ladies' and misses' dept.": "hay, mister, gimme pair boots 'ith brass toes!" the father, after a formulaic pretense of reproving the lad, explained: "we'll have to excuse him, rudd; it's his first pair of boots." rudd's heart was sore within him, and he was oppressed with guilt. he had never bought eric his first pair of brass-toed boots! and he a shoe clerk! so that night eric had to be reduced several years, brought out of school, and taken to st. louis. rudd knew what an epoch-making event this was, and he wanted eric to select from a larger stock than the meager and out-of-date supply of kittredge's emporium--though this admission was only for rudd's own family. the thumb-screw could not have wrung it from him for the public. there was a similar mix-up about eric's first long trousers which rudd likewise overlooked. he accomplished the irish miracle of the tight boots. eric had worn his breeches a long while before he put them on for the first time. to the outer knowledge of the stranger or the neighbor, william rudd's employer had all the good luck that was coming to him, and all of rudd's besides. they were antitheses at every point. where rudd was without ambition, importance, family, or funds, kittredge was the richest man in town, the man of most impressive family, and easily the leading citizen. people began to talk him up for congressman, maybe for senator. he had held all the other conspicuous offices in his church, his bank, his county. you could hardly say that he had ever run for any office; he had just walked up and taken it. yet rudd did not envy him his record or his family. clay kittredge had children, real children. the cemetery lodged none of them. yet one of the girls or boys was always ill or in trouble with somebody; mrs. kittredge was forever cautioning her children not to play with mrs. so-and-so's children and mrs. so-and-so would return the compliment. the town was fairly torn up with these nursery guelph and ghibelline wars. rudd compared the wickednesses of other people's children with the perfections of eric. sometimes his evil genius whispered a bitter thought that if eric had lived to enter the world this side of the tobacco smoke, he, too, might have been a complete scoundrel in knee-breeches, instead of the clean-hearted, clear-skinned, studious, truthful little gentleman of light and laughter and love that he was. but rudd banished the thought. eric was never ill, or only ill enough at times to give the parents a little of the rapture of anxiety and of sitting by his bedside holding his hand and brushing his hair back from a hot forehead. eric never was impolite, or cruel to an animal, or impudent to a teacher, or backward in a class. and rudd's wife differed from kittredge's wife and wives in general--and indeed from the old martha herself--in staying young and growing more and more beautiful. the old martha had been too shy and too cognizant of the truth ever to face a camera; and rudd often regretted that he owned not even a bridal photograph such as the other respectable married folks of hillsdale had on the wall, or in a crayon enlargement on an uneasy easel. he had no likeness of martha except that in his heart. but thereby his fancy was unshackled and he was enabled to imagine her sweeter, fairer, every day. it was the boy alone that grew; the mother, having become perfect, remained stationary in charm like the blessed greeks in the asphodel-fields of hades. about the time eric rudd outgrew the public schools of hillsdale and graduated from the high school with a wonderful oration of his own writing called "night brings out the stars," kittredge announced that his eldest son would go to harvard in the fall. rudd determined that eric should go to yale. he even sent for catalogues. rudd was appalled to see how much a person had to know before he could even get into college. and then, this nearly omniscient intellect was called a freshman! the prices of rooms, of meals, of books, of extra fees, the estimated allowances for clothing and spending-money dazed the poor shoe clerk and nearly sent eric into business. but, fortunately, the brier pipe came to the rescue with an unexpected legacy from an unsuspected uncle. the four years of college life were imagined with a good deal of elision and an amount of guesswork that would have amused a janitor. but rudd and martha were chiefly interested in the boy's vacations at home, and their own trips to new haven, and the letters of approval from the professors. eric had an athletic career seldom equaled since the days of hercules. for eric was a champion tennis-player, hockey-player, baseballist, boxer, swimmer, runner, jumper, shot-putter. and he was the best quoit-thrower in the new haven town square. rudd had rather dim notions of some of the games, so that eric was established both as center rush of the football team and the cockswain in the crew. he was also a member of all the best fraternities. he was a "bones" man in his freshman year, and in his sophomore year added the other senior societies. and, of course, he stood at the head of all his classes--though he never condescended to take a single red apple to a professor. the boy's college life lasted rudd a thousand and one evenings. it was in beautiful contrast with the career of kittredge's children, some of whom were forever flunking their examinations, slipping back a year, requiring expensive tutors, acquiring bad habits, and getting into debt. almost the only joy kittredge had of them was in telegraphing them money in response to their telegrams for money--they never wrote. their vacations either sent them scurrying on house parties or other excursions. or if they came home they were discontented with house and parents. they corrected kittredge's grammar, though his state accounted him an orator. they corrected mrs. kittredge's etiquette, though hillsdale looked up to her as a social arbitrix. kittredge poured a deal of his disappointment into rudd's ear, because his hard heart was broken and breaking anew every day, and he had to tell somebody. he knew that his old clerk would keep it where he kept all the secrets of his business, but he never knew that rudd still had a child of his own, forging ahead without failure. rudd could give comfort, for he had it to spare, and he was empty of envy. it was a ghastly morning when kittredge showed rudd a telegram saying that his eldest son, thomas, had thrown himself in front of a train because of the discovery that his accounts were wrong. kittredge had found him a place in a new york bank, but the gambling fever had seized the young fellow. and now he was dead, in his sins, in his shame. dives cried out to lazarus: "it's hell to be a father, will. it's an awful thing to bring children into the world and try to carry 'em through it. it's not a man's job. it's god's." at times like these, and when rudd heard from the tattlers, or read in the printed gossip of the evening paper concerning the multifarious wickednesses of the children of men about the earth, he felt almost glad that his boy had never lived upon so plague-infected a world. but in the soothe of twilight the old pipe persuaded him to a pleasanter view of his boy, alive and always doing the right thing, avoiding the evil. his motto was, "eric would have done different." he was sure of that. it was his constant conclusion. after graduating from an imaginary yale eric went to an imaginary law-school in new york city--no less. then he was admitted to that imaginary bar where a lawyer never defends an unrighteous cause, never loses a case, yet grows rich. and, of course, like every other american boy that dreams or is dreamed of, in good time he had to become president. eric lived so exemplary a life, was so busy in virtue, so unblemished of fault, that he could not be overlooked by the managers of the quadrennial national performance, searching with demosthenes' lantern for a man against whom nothing could be said. they called eric from private life to be headliner in their vaudeville. rudd had watched kittredge clambering to his success, or rather wallowing to it through a swamp of mud. all the wrong things kittredge had ever done, and their name was legion, were hurled in his path. his family scandals were dug up by the double handful and splashed in his face. against his opponent the same methods were used. it was like a race through a marsh; and when kittredge reached his goal in the senate he was so muck-bemired, his heart had been so lacerated, the nakedness of his past so exposed, that his laurel seemed more like a wreath of poison ivy. and once mounted on his high post, he was an even better target than when he was on the wing. against eric's blameless life the arrows of slander were like darts shot toward the sun. they fell back upon the archers' heads. that was a lively night in the tobacco lagoon when the election returns came in and state after state swung to eric's column. rudd made it as nearly unanimous as he could without making it stupid. the solid south he left unbroken; he just brought it over to eric en bloc. for eric, it seems, had devised what everybody else has looked for in vain, a solution of the negro problem to satisfy both north and south--and the negroes. unfortunately the details have been lost. marthy was there, of course; she rode in the same hack with their boy. some of the politicians and the ex-president wanted to get in, but eric said: "my mother and father ride with me or i won't be president." that settled 'em. eric even wanted to ride backward, too, but will, as his father, insisted; and of course eric obeyed, though he was president. and the weather was more like june than march, no blizzards delaying trains and distributing pneumonia. once the administration was begun, the newspapers differed strangely in their treatment of eric from their attitude toward other chief magistrates, from washington down. realizing that eric was an honorable man trying to do the right thing by the people, no editor or cartoonist dreamed of accusing him of an unworthy motive or an unwise act. as for the tariff labyrinth, a matter of some trouble to certain presidents pulled in all directions at once by warring constituencies, eric settled that in a jiffy. and the best of it was that everybody was satisfied, importers and exporters; east, west, and middle; farmers, manufacturers, lumbermen, oilmen, painters--everybody. and when his first term was ended the democrats and republicans, realizing that they had at last found a perfectly wise and honorable ruler, nominated him by acclamation at both conventions. the result was delightful; both parties elected their candidate. marthy and will sat with eric in the carriage at the second inaugural, too. there was an argument again about who should ride backward. rudd said: "eric, your excellency, these here crowds came to see you, and you ought to face 'em. as your dad i order you to set there 'side of your mother." but eric said, "dad, your majesty, the people have seen me often enough, and as the president of these here united states i order you to set there 'side of your wife." and of course rudd had to do it. folks looked very much surprised to see him and there was quite a piece in the papers about it. to every man his day's work and his night's dream. will rudd has poor nourishment of the former, but he is richly fed of the latter. his failures and his poverty and the monotony of his existence are public knowledge; his dream is his own triumph and the greater for being his secret. the fates seemed to go out of their way to be cruel to will rudd, but he beat them at their own game. clotho, lachesis, and atropos kept jupiter himself in awe of their shears, and the old norns, urdur, verdandi, and skuld, ruined wotan's power and his glory. but they could not touch the shoe clerk. they shattered his little scheme of things to bits, but he rebuilt it nearer to his heart's desire. he spread a sky about his private planet and ruled his little universe like a tribal god. he, alone of all men, had won the oldest, vainest prayer that was ever said or sung: "o god, keep the woman i love young and beautiful, and grant our child happiness and success without sin or sorrow." if, sometimes, the imagination of the matter-of-fact man wavers, and the ugliness of his loneliness overwhelms him, thrusts through his dream like a hideous mountainside when an avalanche strips the barren crags of their fleece; and if he then breaks down and calls aloud for his child and his wife to be given back to him from out there--these panics are also his secret. only the homely sitting-room of the lonely frame house knows them. he opens the door of the wood-stove or follows his pipe smoke and rallies his courage, resumes his dream. the next morning sees him emerge from his door and go briskly to the shop as always, whether his path is through rain or sleet, or past the recurrent lilacs that have scattered many a purple snow across his sidewalk since the bankruptcy of his ambitions. he would have been proud to be the unknown father of a great man. he was not permitted to be the father even of a humble man. yet being denied the reality, he has taken sustenance in what might have been, and has turned "the saddest words of tongue or pen" into something almost sweet. if his child has missed the glories of what might have been, he has escaped the shames that might have been, and the bruises and heartaches and remorses that must have been, that always have been. that is the increasing consolation a bitter world offers to those who love and have lost. that was rudd's solace. and he made the most of it; added to it a dream. he was a wise man. after he paid his sorrowful debts his next slow savings went to the building of a monument for his family. it is one of the handsomest shafts in the cemetery. if rudd could brag of anything he would brag of that. the inscription took a long time to write. you could tell that by its simplicity. and you might notice the blank space left for his own name when all three shall be together again. rudd is now saving a third fund against the encroaching time when he shall be too feeble to get up from his knees after he has dropped upon them to unlace somebody's sandal. lonely old orphans like rudd must provide their own pensions. there is a will, however, which bequeaths whatever is left of his funds to an orphan home. being a sonless father, he thinks of the sons who have no fathers to do for them what he was so fain to do for his. it is not a large fund for these days when rich men toss millions as tips to posterity, but it is pretty good for a shoe clerk. and it will mean everything to some eric that gets himself really born. if you drop in at the emporium and ask for a pair of shoes or boots, or slippers or rubbers, or trees or pumps, and wait for old rudd to get round to you, you will be served with deference, yet with a pride of occupation that is almost priestly. and you will probably buy something, whether you want it or not. the old man is slightly shuffly in his gaiters. his own elastics are less resilient than once they were. if you ask for anything on the top shelf he is a trifle slow getting the ladder and rather ratchety in clambering up and down, and his eyes are growing so tired that he may offer you a d when you ask for a a. but, above all things, don't hurt his pride by offering to help him to his feet if he shows some difficulty in rising when he has performed his genuflexion before you. just pretend not to notice, as he would pretend not to notice any infirmity or vanity of yours. it is his vanity to be still the best shoe clerk in town--as he is. there is a gracious satisfiedness about the old man that radiates contentment and makes you comfortable for the time in most uncomfortable shoes. and as old rudd says: "you'll find that the best shoe is the one that pinches at first and hurts a little; in time it will grow very comfortable and still be becoming." that is what rudd says, and he ought to know. in these days he is so supremely comfortable in his old shoes that his own fellow-clerks hardly know what to make of him. if they only understood what is going on in his private world they would realize that eric is about to be married--in the white house. the boy was so busy for the country and loved his mother so that he had no time to go sparkin'. but marthy got after him and said: "eric, they're goin' to make you president for the third term. oh, what's that old tradition got to do with it? can't they change it? well, you mark my words, like as not you'll settle down and live in the white house the rest of your life. you'd ought to have a wife, eric, and be raisin' some childern to comfort your declining years. what would will and me have done without you? i'm gettin' old, eric, and i'd kind o' like to see how it feels to be a grandmother, before they take me out to the--" but that was a word rudd could never frame even in his thoughts. eric, being a mighty good boy, listened to his mother, as always. and marthy looked everywhere for an ideal woman, and when she found one, eric fell in love with her right away. it is not every child that is so dutiful as that. the marriage is to take place shortly and rudd is very busy with the details. he will go on to washington, of course--of evenings. in fact, the wedding is to be in the evening, so that he won't have to miss any time at the shop. there are so many people coming in every day and asking for shoes, that he wouldn't dare be away. martha is insisting on will's buying a dress soot for the festivities, but he is in doubt about that. martha, though, shall have the finest dress in the land, for she is more beautiful even than eric's bride, and she doesn't look a day older than she did when she was a bride herself. a body would never guess how many years ago that was. the white house is going to be all lit up, and a lot of big folks will be there--a couple of kings, like as not. there will be fried chicken for dinner and ice-cream--mixed, maybe, chocolate and vanella, and p'raps a streak of strawb'ry. and there will be enough so's everybody can have two plates. marthy will prob'ly bake the cake herself, if she can get that old white house stove to working right. rudd has a great surprise in store for her. he's going to tell a good one on marthy. at just the proper moment he's going to lean over--lord, he hopes he can keep his face straight--and say, kind of offhand: "do you remember, marthy, the time when you was makin' little baby-clothes for the president of the united states here, and you says to me--you see, eric, she'd made me quit smokin', herself, but she plumb forgot all about that--and she says to me, s'she, 'why don't you smoke your pipe any more, will?' she says. and i says, 'i'd kind o' got out of the habit, marthy,' s'i, 'but i guess i'll git back in,' s'i. i said it right off like that, 'i guess i'll git back in!' s'i. remember, marthy?" the happiest man in ioway jes' down the road a piece, 'ith dust so deep it teched the bay mare's fetlocks, an' the sun so b'ilin' hot, the peewees dassn't peep, seemed like midsummer 'fore the spring's begun! an' me plumb beat an' good-for-nothin'-like an' awful lonedsome fer a sight o' you ... i come to that big locus' by the pike, an' she was all in bloom, an' trembly, too, with breezes like drug-store perfumery. i stood up in my sturrups, with my head so deep in flowers they almost smothered me. i kind o' liked to think that i was dead ... an' if i hed 'a' died like that to-day, i'd 'a' b'en the happiest man in ioway. for what's the use't o' goin' on like this? your pa not 'lowin' me around the place ... well, fust i knowed, i'd give' them blooms a kiss; they tasted like good-night on your white face. i reached my arms out wide, an' hugged 'em--say, i dreamp' your little heart was hammerin' me! i broke this branch off for a love-bo'quet; 'f i'd b'en a giant, i'd 'a' plucked the tree! the blooms is kind o' dusty from the road, but you won't mind. so, as the feller said, "when this you see remember me"--i knowed another poem; but i've lost my head from seein' you! 'bout all that i kin say is--"i'm the happiest man in ioway." well, comin' 'long the road i seen your ma drive by to town--she didn't speak to me! an' in the farthest field i seen your pa at his spring-plowin', like i'd ought to be. but, knowin' you'd be here all by yourself, i hed to come; for now's our livin' chance! take off yer apern, leave things on the shelf-- our preacher needs what th' feller calls "romance." 'ain't got no red-wheeled buggy; but the mare will carry double, like we've trained her to. jes' put a locus'-blossom in your hair an' let's ride straight to heaven--me an' you! i'll build y' a little house, an' folks'll say: "there lives the happiest pair in ioway." prayers god leaned forward in his throne and bent his all-seeing gaze upon one of the least of the countless suns. a few tiny planets spun slowly about it like dead leaves around a deserted camp-fire. almost the smallest of these planets had named itself the earth. the glow of the central cinder brightened one side and they called that day. and where the shadow was was night. the creeping glimmer of day woke, as it passed, a jangle in shops and factories, a racket and hurry of traffic, war and business, which the coming of the gloom hushed in its turn. as god's eyes pierced the shadow they found, between the dotted lines of street-lamps and under the roofs where the windows glimmered--revelry or solemnity. in denser shadows there was a murmur of the voices of lovers and of families at peace or at war. the all-hearing heard no chaos in this discord, but knew each instrument and understood each melody, concord, and clash. loudest of all were the silences or the faint whimperings of those who knelt by their beds and bent their brows toward their own bosoms, communing with the various selves that they interpreted as the one god. he knew who prayed for what, and he answered each in his own wisdom, knowing that he would seem to have answered none and knowing why. among the multitudinous prayers one group arrived at his throne from separate places, but linked together by their contradictions. he heard the limping effort to be formal as before a king or a court of justice. he heard the anxious fear break through the petition; he heard the selfish eagerness trembling in the pious phrases of altruism. he understood. i. a man's voice our father which art in heaven let me come back to thy kingdom. bless my wife edith and our little marjorie and give them to me again. i am not worthy of them; i have sinned against them and against thee. i have been drunken, adulterous, heartless, but from this night i will be good again. i will try with all my soul, and with thy help i will succeed. teach me to be strong. forgive me my trespasses and help edith to forgive them. make my wife beautiful in my sight and make all those other beautiful faces ugly in my eyes so that i shall see only edith as i used to. grant me freedom from the wicked woman who will not let me go; don't let rose carry out her threats; don't let her wreck my home; make her understand that i am doing my duty; make her love some one else; make her forget me. how can i be true to my sin and true to thee! help me out of these depths, o lord, that i may walk in the narrow path and escape destruction. to-morrow i am going back to my wife and my child with words of love and humility on my lips. give me back my home again, o god. amen. ii. a woman's voice let me come to thee again, dear father, and do not reject my prayer. forgive me for what i shall do to-night. take care of my little marjorie and save her from the temptations that have overwhelmed me. thou alone knowest how hard i have tried to live without love, how long i have waited for john to come back to me. thou only hast seen me struggling against the long loneliness. thou alone canst forgive, for thou hast seen me refuse to be tempted with love. thou hast heard my cries in the long, long nights. thou knowest that i have been true to my husband who was not true to me. thou hast seen me put away the happiness that frank has offered me and asked of me. and now if i can endure no longer, if i give myself to him, more for his sake than mine, let me bear the punishment, not frank; let me bear even the punishment john has earned. i am what thou hast made me, lord. if it be thy pleasure that i shall burn in the fires forever, then let thy will be done; for i can live no longer without frank. thou mayest refuse to hear my prayers, but i cannot refuse to hear his. forgive me if i leave my beloved child alone. she is safer with thee than with me. perhaps her father will be good to her now. perhaps he will turn back to her if i am away. and help me through the coming years to be true to frank. he needs me, he loves me, he is braving the wrath of the world and of heaven for my sake. help us, lord, to find in our new life the peace and the virtue that was not in the old and bless and guard my motherless little marjorie, o god, and save her from the fate that overwhelmed her mother for her father's fault. i am leaving her asleep here in thy charge, o god. when she wakes in the morning let thy angels comfort her and dry her tears. let me not hear her crying for me, or i shall kill myself. i cannot bear everything. i have endured more than my strength can endure. help me, o lord, and forgive me for my sin--if sin it is. amen. iii. a man's voice god, if you are in heaven, hear me and help me. i have not prayed for many years. my voice is strange to you. my prayer may offend you, but it rushes from my heart. i am about to do what the world calls hideous crime--to steal another man's wife and carry her to another country where we may have peace. i loved edith before her husband loved her. i love her better than john ever loved her. i can't stand it. i can't stand it any longer to see her deserted in her beauty, and despised and weeping in loneliness, wasting her love on a dog who squandered his heart on a vile woman. i can't go on watching her die in a living hell. i have sold all my goods and gotten all i could save into my safe so that we may sever all ties with this heartless love. if what we are about to do offends thee, then let me suffer for her. she has suffered enough, enough, enough! and keep her husband from following us, lest i kill him. keep her from mourning too much for her child--his child. give her a little happiness, o god. take bitter toll from my heart afterward, but give us a little happiness now. grant us escape to-night and safety and a little happiness for her. and then i shall believe in thee again and live honorably in thy sight. amen. iv. a woman's voice dear god in heaven, what shall i do? he has abandoned me, john has turned against me at last. has denounced me as wicked, and hateful, has accused me of wrecking his life and breaking his wife's heart--as if she had a heart, as if i had not saved him from despair, as if i had not sacrificed my name, my hopes, on earth and in heaven to make him happy. o god, why hast thou persecuted me so fiercely always? what made you hate me so? why didn't you give me a decent home as a child? why did you throw me into the snares of those vile men? why did you make me beautiful and weak and trusting? why didn't you make me ugly and suspicious and hateful so that i could be good? and now, now that i am no longer a girl, now that the wrinkles are coming, and the fat and the dullness, why didst thou throw me into the way of this man who promised to love me forever, who promised me and praised me and called me his real wife, only to tire of me and tear my hands away and go back to her? but don't let him have her, don't let him be happy with her, while i grovel here in shame! i can't bear the thought of that, i can't imagine him in her arms telling her how good she is and how bad i was. i'd rather kill them both. isn't that best, o lord--to kill them both--to kill her, anyway? then i can kill myself and he will be sorry. don't let him have both of us, o god. am i going mad, or do i hear thy voice telling me to act? yes, it is thy voice. thou hast answered. i will do as thou dost command. perhaps he is going there to-night. i will go to the house and wait in the shadow and when he comes to the door and she comes to meet him i will shoot her and myself, and then he shall be punished as he should be. i thank thee, god, for showing me the way. guide my arm and my heart and don't let me be afraid to die or to make her die. forgive my sins and take me into thy peace, o god, for i am tired of life and the wickedness of the world. amen. amen. v. a child's voice our father which art in he'v'm, hallowed be dy name. dy king'm come. dy will be done in earf as it is in he'v'm. give us dis day our daily bread and forgive an'--an' forgive marjorie for bein' a bad chile an' getting so s'eepy, and b'ess papa an' b'ing him home to mamma an'--an' trespasses as--tres-passes 'gainst us. king'm, power, and glory forever. amen. vi. an old woman's voice --and give my poor edith strength and let her find happiness again in the return of her husband. let her forget his wrongs and forgive them and live happily in her old age as i have done with my husband. i thank thee for helping me through those cruel years. thou alone couldst have helped me and now all would be happiness if only edith had happiness, but for the mercies thou hast vouchsafed make me grateful. vii. an old woman's voice --and help my poor rose to be a good girl to her old mother and keep her out of trouble and make her send me some more money, for i'm so sick and tired and the rent's comin' due and i need a warm coat for the winter, and i've had a hard life and many's the curse you've put upon me, but i'm doing my best and i'm all wore out. viii. a man's voice fergimme, o gawd, if it makes thou mad fer to be prayed to by a sneakin' boiglar, but help me t'roo dis one job and i'll go straight from now on, so help me. don't let dis guy find me crackin' his safe, so's i won't have to kill 'im. help me make a clean getaway and i'll toin over a noo leaf, i will. i'll send money to me mudder, and i'll go to choich reg'lar and i'll never do nuttin' crooked again. on'y dis one time, o gawd. * * * * * god closed his eyes and smiled the sorrowful smile of the all-knowing, the all-pitying, the unknown, the unpitied, and he said to him who sat at his side: "they call these prayers! they will wonder why i have not finished the tasks they set me nor accepted the bribes they offered. and to-morrow they will rebuke me as a faithless, indolent servant who has disobeyed!" pain i "how much more bitter, dearly beloved, are the anguishes of the soul than any mere bodily distress! when the heart under conviction of sin for the violation of one of god's laws writhes and cries aloud in repentance and remorse, then, ah, then, is true suffering. what are the fleeting torments of this tenement of clay, mere bone and flesh, to the soul's despair? nothing! noth--" the clergyman's emphatic fist did not thump the scriptures the second time. he checked it in air; for a woman stood up straight and stared at him straight. her thin mouth seemed to twist with a sneer. he thought he read on her lips words not quite uttered. he read: "you fool! you fool!" then miss straley sidled from the family pew to the aisle and marched up it and out of the church. doctor crosson was shocked doubly. the woman's action was an outrage upon the holy composure of the sabbath, and it would remind everybody that he was an old lover of irene straley's. the neatly arranged congregational skulls were disordered now, some still tilted forward in sleep, some tilted back to see what the pastor would do, some craned round to observe the departer, some turned inward in whispering couples. such a thing had never happened before in all the parsoning of doctor crosson--the d.d. had been conferred on him by the small theological institute where he had imbibed enough dogmas in two years to last him a lifetime. some of his dogmas were so out of fashion that he felt them a trifle shabby even for village wear. he had laid aside the old red hell-fire dogma for a new one of hell-as-a-state-of-mind. he was expounding that doctrine this morning again. he had never heard any complaint of it. but his mind was so far from his memory that he hardly knew what he had just uttered. he wondered what he could have said to offend miss straley. but he must not stand there gaping and wondering before his gaping and wondering congregation. he must push on to his _lastly's_. his mind retraced his words, and he repeated: "what are the fleeting torments of this tenement of clay, mere bone and flesh, to the soul's despair? nothing! as i said before--nothing!" and then he understood why irene straley had walked out. the realization deranged him so that only the police-force every one has among his faculties coerced him into going on with his sermon. it was a good sermon. it was his own, too; for at last he had paid the final instalment on the clergyman's library which contained a thousand sermons as aids to overworked, underinspired evangelists. he had built this discourse from well-seasoned timbers. he had used it in two pulpits where he had visited, and now he was giving it to his own flock. he knew it well enough to trust his oratorical machinery with its delivery, while the rest of his mind meditated other things. often, while preaching, a portion of his brain would be watching the effect on his congregation, another watching the clock, another thinking of dinner, another musing over the scandals he knew in the lives of the parishioners. but now all his by-thoughts were scattered at the abrupt deed of irene straley. she was the traffic of his other brains now, while his lips went on enouncing the phrases of his discourse and his fists thudded the bible for emphasis. he was remembering his boyhood and his infatuation for irene straley. that was before he was sure of his call to the ministry. if he had married her, he might not have heard the call. doctor crosson hoped that he was not regretting that sacrament! sweat came out on his brow as he understood the blasphemy of noting (even here on the rostrum with his mouth pouring forth sacred eloquence) that irene straley as she marched out of the church was still slender and flexile, virginal. doctor crosson mopped his brow at the atrocity of his thoughts this morning. the springtime air was to blame. the windows were open for the first time. the breeze that lolled through the church had no right there. it was irreverent and frivolous. it was amused at the people. it rippled with laughter at the preacher's heavy effort to start a jealousy between the pangs of the flesh and the pangs of the soul. it brought into church a savor of green rushes growing in the warm, wet thickets where doctor crosson--once eddie crosson--had loved to go hunting squirrels and rabbits, and wild duck in season. those were years of depravity, but they were entrancing in memory. he felt a satanic whisper: "order these old fogies out into the fields and let them worship there. it is may, you fool!" "you fool!" that was what irene straley had seemed to whisper. only, the breeze made a soft, sweet coo of the word that had been so bitter on her lips. across the square of a window near the pulpit a venerable locust-tree brandished a bough dripping with blossoms. countless little censers of white spice swung frankincense and myrrh for pagan nostrils. there was a beckoning in the locust bough, and in the air an incantation that made a folly of sermons and souls and old maids' resentments and gossips' queries. the preacher fought on, another saint anthony in a cloud of witches. he could hear himself intoning the long sermon with the familiar pulpiteering rhythms and the final upsnap of the last syllable of each sentence. he could see that the congregation was already drowsily forgetful of irene straley's absence. but, to save his soul, he could not keep his mind from following her out into the leafy streets and on into the past where she had been the prize he and young drury boldin had contended for--a past in which he had never dreamed that his future was a pulpit in his home town. he was the manlier of the two, for drury was a delicate boy, too sensitive for the approval of his spartan fellows. they made fun of his gentleness. he hated to wreathe a fishing-worm on a hook! he loathed to wrench a hook from a fish's gullet! the nearest he had ever come to fighting was in defense of a thousand-legged worm that one of the boys had stuck a pin through, to watch it writhe and bite itself behind the pin. irene straley was a sentimental girl. that was right in a girl, but silly in a boy. once when eddie crosson stubbed his toe and it swelled up to great importance, irene straley wept when she saw it, while drury boldin turned pale and sat down hard. once when drury cut his thumb with a penknife he fainted at the sight of his own blood! eddie crosson was a real boy. he smoked cubeb cigarettes with an almost unprecedented precocity. he nearly learned to chew tobacco. he could snap a sparrow off a telegraph-wire with a nigger-shooter almost infallibly. he had the first air-gun in town and a shot-gun at fifteen. he thought that he was manlier than drury because he was wiser and stronger. it never occurred to him that drury might suffer more because he was more finely built, that his nerves were harp-strings while crosson's were fence-wire. so crosson called drury a milksop because he would not go hunting. he called himself one of the sons of nimrod. for a time he gained prestige with irene straley, especially as he gave her bright feathers now and then, an oriole's gilded mourning, or a tanager's scarlet vesture. one day drury boldin was at her porch when ed came in from across the river with a brace of duck. "you can have these for your dinner to-morrow, reny," he said, as he laid the limp, silky bodies on the porch floor. their bills and feet were grotesque, but there was something about their throats, stretched out in waning iridescence, that asked for regret. "oh, much obliged!" irene cried. "that's awful nice of you, eddie. duck cook awful good." and then her enthusiasm ebbed, for she caught the look of drury boldin as he bent down and stroked the glossy mantle of the birds, not with zest for their flavor, nor envy of the skill that had fetched them from the sky, but with sorrow for their ended careers, for the miracle gone out of their wings, and the strange fact that they had once quawked and chirruped in the high air and on hidden waters--and would never fly or swim again. "i wonder if they had souls," he mumbled. eddie crosson winked at irene. there was no use getting mad at drury. eddie only laughed: "'course not, you darn galoot!" "how do you know?" drury asked. "anybody knows that much," was crosson's sufficient answer, and drury changed to another topic. he asked: "did it hurt 'em much to die?" "'course not," eddie answered, promptly. "not the way i got 'em. they just stopped sailin' and dropped. i lost one, though. he was goin' like sixty when i drew bead on him. light wasn't any too good and i just nipped one wing. you ought to seen him turning somersets, reny. he lit in a swampy spot, though, and i couldn't find him. i hunted for an hour or more, but i couldn't find him and it was growin' dark, so i come home." drury spoke up quickly: "you didn't kill him?" "i don't guess so. he was workin' mighty hard when he flopped." "oh, that's terrible!" drury groaned. "he must be layin' out there now somewheres--sufferin'. oh, that's terrible!" "aw, what's it your business?" was crosson's gruff comment. but there was uneasiness in his tone, for drury had set irene to wringing her hands nervously, and crosson felt a trifle uncomfortable himself. twilight always made him susceptible to emotions that daylight blinded him to, as to the stars. he remembered that boyhood emotion now in his pulpit, and his shoulder-blades twitched; an icy finger seemed to have written something on them. he was casting up his eyes and his hands in a familiar gesture and quoting a familiar text: "'surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler and from the noisome pestilence. he shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust.'" from the roof of the church he seemed to see that wounded wild duck falling, turning in air, striking at the air frantically with his good wing and feebly with the one that bled. down he fell, struggling somewhere among the pews. a fantastic notion drifted into the preacher's mind--that satan had shot up a bullet from hell and it had lodged among the feathers of jehovah the protector, and he was falling and lost among that congregation in which so often the preacher had failed to find god. doctor crosson shook his head violently to fling away such madnesses, and he propounded his next "furthermore" with added energy. but he could not shake off the torment in the recollection of drury boldin's nagging interest in that wild duck. ii drury insisted on knowing where the wild duck fell, and crosson told him that it was "near where the crick emptied into the sluice, where the cat-tails grew extra high." he went on home to his supper, but the thought of the suffering bird had seized his mind; it flopped and twisted at the roots of his thoughts. a few days later drury met him and asked him again where the duck had fallen. "i can't find it where you said," he said. "you ain't been lookin' for it, have you?" "yes, for days." "what'd you do if you found it?" crosson asked. "kill it," drury answered. it was a most unexpectable phrase from him. "that sounds funny, comin' from you," crosson snickered. then he spoke gruffly to conceal his own misgivings. "aw, it's dead long ago." "i'd feel better if i was sure," said drury. crosson called him a natural-born idiot, but the next day crosson himself was across the river, dragged by a queer mood. he took his bearings from the spot where he had fired his shot-gun and then made toward the place where the duck fell. he stumbled about in slime and snarl for an hour in vain. suddenly he was startled by the sound of something floundering through the reeds. he was afraid that it might be a wild animal, a traditional bear or a big dog. but it was drury boldin. and irene straley was with him. they were covered with mud. crosson was jealous and suspicious and indignant. they told him that they were looking for the hurt bird. he was furious. he advised them to go along about their own business. it was his bird. "who gave it to you?" drury answered, with a battling look in his soft eyes. "the lord and my shot-gun." "what right you got to go shootin' wild birds, anyway?" drury demanded. crosson was even then devoted to the bible for its majestic music, if for nothing else. he quoted the phrase about the dominion over the fowls of the air given to man for his use. drury would not venture to contradict the scriptures, and so he turned away silenced. but he continued his search. and irene followed him. in sullen humor crosson also searched, till he heard drury cry out; then he ran to see what he had found. irene and drury were shrinking back from something that even the son of nimrod regarded with disquiet. the duck, one wing caked and festered, and busy with ants and adrone with flies, was still alive after all those many days. its flat bill was opening and shutting in hideous awkwardness, its hunger-emaciated frame rising and falling with a kind of lurching breath, and the film over its eyes drawing together and rolling back miserably. at the sight of the three visitors to its death-chamber it made a hopeless effort to lift itself again to the air of its security. it could not even lift its head. drury fell to one knee before it, and a swarm of flies zooned angrily away. he put out his hand, but he was afraid to touch, and he only added panic to the bird's wretchedness. he rose and backed away. the three stood off and stared. crosson felt the guilt of cain, but when irene moaned, "what you goin' to do?" he shook his head. he could not finish his task. it was drury boldin, weak-kneed and putty-faced, who went hunting now. he had to look far before he found a heavy rock. he lugged it back and said, "go on away, reny." she hurried to a distance, and even crosson turned his head aside. on the way home they were all three tired and sick, and drury had to stop every now and then to sit down and get strength into his knees. but there was a sense of grim relief that helped them all, and the bird, once safely dead, was rapidly forgotten. after that crosson seemed to lose his place in irene's heart, and drury won all that crosson lost, and more. before long it was understood that drury and irene had agreed to get married as soon as he could earn enough to keep them. all four parents opposed the match; irene's because drury was "no 'count," and drury's for much the same reason. old boldin allowed that irene would be added to his family, for meals and lodgin', if she married his son; and old straley guessed that it would be the other way round, and the boldin boy would come over to his house to live. also, drury could get no work in carthage. eventually he went to chicago to try his luck there. crosson seized the chance to try to get back to irene. one sunday he took his shot-gun out in the wilderness and brought down a duck whose throat had so rich a glimmer that he believed it would delight irene. he took it to her. she was out in her garden, and she looked at his gift with eyes so hurt by the pity of the bird's drooping neck that they were blind to its beauty. while crosson stood in sheepish dismay, recognizing that drury was present still in his absence, the minister appeared at his elbow. it was not the wrecked career of the fowl that shocked the pastor, but the broken sabbath. "it seems to me, eddie," he said, "that it is high time you were beginning to take life seriously. come to church to-night and make up for your ungodliness." crosson consented. it was a good way of making his escape from irene's haunted eyes. the service that night had little influence on his heart, but a month later a revivalist came into carthage with a great fanfare of attack on the hosts of lucifer. this man was an emotionalist of irresistible fire. he reasoned less than he sang. his voice was as thrilling as a trombone, and his words did not matter. it was his tone that made the heart resound like a smitten bell. the revivalist struck unsuspected chords of emotion in eddie crosson and made him weep! but he wept tears of a different sort from the waters of grief. his unusual tears were a tribute to eloquence. sonorous words and noble thoughts thrilled eddie crosson then as ever after. he had loved to speak pieces at school. whether it were spartacus exhorting his brawny slaves to revolt, or daniel webster upholding the union now and forever, one and inseparable, he had felt an exaltation, an exultation that enlarged him to the clouds. he loved the phrase more than the meaning. what was well worded was well reasoned. his passion for elocution had inclined him at first to be a lawyer, but when he visited the county courthouse the attorneys he listened to had such dull themes to expound that he felt no call to the law. what glory was there in pleading for the honor of an old darky chicken-thief when everybody knew at once that he was guilty of stealing the chickens in question, or would have been if he had known of their accessibility? what rapture was there in insisting that a case in an alabama court eight years before furnished an exact precedent in the matter of a mechanic's lien in carthage? so crosson chilled toward the legal profession. his father urged him to come into the crosson hardware emporium, but eddie hated the silent trades. the revivalist decided him, and he began to make his heart ready for the clerical life. his father opposed him heathenishly and would not pay for his seminary course. for several months crosson waited about, becalmed in the doldrums. there was little to interest him in town except a helpless espionage on irene's loyalty to drury boldin. her troth defied both time and space. she went every day to the post-office to mail a heavy letter and to receive the heavy letter she was sure to find there. she became a sort of tender joke at the post-office, and on the street as well, for she always read her daily letter on the way home. she would be so absorbed in the petty chronicles of drury's life that she would stroll into people and bump into trees, or fetch up short against a fence. she sprained her ankle once walking off the walk. and once she marched plump into the parson's horrified bosom. crosson often stood in ambush so that she would run into him. she was very soft and delicate, and she usually had flowers pinned at her breast. crosson would grin as she stumbled against him; then the lovelorn girl would stare up at him through the haze of the distance her letter had carried her to, and stammer excuses and fall back and blush, and glide round him on her way. crosson would laugh aloud, bravely, but afterward he would turn and stare at her solemnly enough when she resumed her letter and strolled on in the rosy cloud of her communion with her far-off "fellow." one day crosson had to run after her, because when she thought she was turning into her own yard her absent mind led her to unlatch the gate to a pasture where a muley cow with a scandalous temper was waiting for her with swaying head. irene laughed at her escape, with an unusual mirth for her. she explained it by seizing crosson's sleeve and exclaiming: "oh, eddie, such good news from drury you never heard! he's got a position with a jewelry-store, the biggest in chicago. and they put him in the designing department at ten dollars a week, and they say he's got a future. isn't it simply glorious?" she held crosson while she read the young man's hallelujahs. they sounded to crosson like a funeral address. irene's mother was even prouder of drury's success than the daughter was. she bragged now of the wedding she had dreaded before. finally irene proclaimed the glorious truth that drury's salary had been boosted again and they would wait no longer for wealth. he was awful busy, and so he'd just run down for a couple of days and marry her and run back with her to chicago and jewelry. this arrangement ended irene's mother's dreams of a fine wedding and relieved the townspeople of the expense of wedding-presents. the sudden announcement of the wedding shocked crosson. he endured a jealousy whose intensity surprised him in retrospect. he endured a good deal of humor, too, from village cut-ups, who teased him because his best girl was marrying the other fellow. crosson felt a need of solitude and a fierce desire to kill something. he got his abandoned gun and went hunting to wear out his wrath. he wore himself out, at least. he shot savagely at all sorts of life. he followed one flitting, sarcastic blue-jay with a voice like a village cut-up, all the way home without getting near enough to shoot. he came down the long hill with the sunset, bragging to himself that he was reconciled to irene's marriage with anybody she'd a mind to. he could see her from a distance, sitting on the porch alone. she was all dressed up and rocking impatiently. evidently the train was late again, as always. from where he was, crosson could see the track winding around the hills like a little metal brook. the smoke of the engine was not yet pluming along the horizon. the train could not arrive for some minutes yet. to prove his freedom from rancor and his emancipation from love, but really because he could not resist the chance to have a last word with irene, he went across lots to her father's back yard and came round to the porch. he forgot to draw the shells from his gun. in the sunset, with his weapon a-shoulder, he must have looked a bit wild, for irene jumped when he spoke to her. he sought an excuse for his visit and put at her feet the game he had bagged--a squirrel, a rabbit, and a few birds--the last he ever shot. the moment the dead things were there he regretted the impulse. he was reminded of his previous quarry and its ill success. irene was reminded, too, for she thanked him timidly and asked if he had left any wounded birds in the field. he laughed "no" with a poor grace. she said: "i'd better get these out of sight before drury comes. he doesn't like to see such things." she lifted them distastefully and went into the house. she came out almost at once, for she heard a train. but it was not the passenger swooping south; it was the freight trudging north. there was only a single track then, and no block system of signals. irene no sooner recognized the lumbering, jostling drove of cattle-cars and flats going by than she gasped: "that freight ought not to be on that track--now!" she was frozen with dread. crosson understood, too. then from the distance came the whistle of the express, the long hurrah of its approach to the station. the freight engineer answered it with short, sharp blasts of his whistle. he kept jabbing the air with its noise. there was the grind of the brakes on the wheels. the cars tried to stop, like a mob, but the rear cars bunted the front cars forward irresistibly. the cattle aboard lowed and bellowed. the brakemen, quaint silhouettes against the red sky, ran along the tops of the box-cars, twisting the brake-wheels. irene stumbled down the steps and dashed across the pastures toward the jutting hill that she had so often seen the express sweep round. crosson followed. they came to a fence. she could not climb, she was trembling so. crosson had to help her over. she ran on, and as he sprawled after, he nearly discharged the gun. he brought it along by habit as he followed irene, who ran and ran, waving her arms as if she would stop the express with her naked hands. but long before they reached the tracks the express roared round the headland and plunged into the freight. the two locomotives met and rose up and wrestled like two black bears, and fell over. the cars were scattered and jumbled like a baby's train. they were all of wood--heated by soft-coal stoves and lighted by coal-oil lamps. the wreck was the usual horror, the usual chaos of wanton destruction and mysterious escape. the engineers stuck to their engines and were involved in their ruin somewhere. the passenger-train was crowded, and destruction showed no favoritism: old men, women, children, sheep, horses, cows, were maimed, or killed, or left scot-free. some of those who were uninjured ran away. some stood weeping. some of the wounded began at once to rescue others. crosson stood gaping at the spectacle, but irene went into the wreckage, pawing and peering like a terrier. she could not find what she was looking for. she would bend and stare into a face glaring under the timbers and maundering for help, then pass on. she would turn over a twisted frame and let it roll back. she was not a sister of charity; she was drury boldin's helpmeet. she kept calling his name, "drury--drury--drury!" crosson watched her as she poised to listen for the answer that did not come. he gaped at her in stupid fascination till a brakeman shook him and ordered him to lend a hand. he rested his gun against a pile of ties and bowed his shoulder to the hoisting of a beam overhanging a woman and a suckling babe. the helpers dislodged other beams and finished the lives they had meant to save. there were no physicians on the train. but a doctor or two from the town came out and the others were sent for. a telegram was sent to summon a relief-train, but it could not arrive for hours. the doctors began at the beginning, but they could do little. their own lives were in constant danger from tumbling wreckage, for the rescuers were playing a game of tragic jackstraws. the least mistake brought down disaster. as he worked, crosson could hear irene calling, calling, "drury, drury, drury!" he left his task to follow her, his jealousy turned into a wild sorrow for her. at last he heard in her cry of "drury!" a note that meant she had found him. but such a welcome as it was for a bride to give! and such a trysting-place! the car drury was in had turned a somersault and cracked open across another. its inverted wheels on their trucks had made a bower of steel about the bridegroom. the flames from the stove and from the oil-lamps were blooming like hell-flowers everywhere. and the wind that fanned the blazes was blowing clouds of scalding steam from the crumpled boilers of the two engines. crosson ran to irene's side. she was trying to clamber through a trellis of iron and splintered wood. she was stretching her hand out to drury, where he lay unconscious, deep in the clutter. crosson dragged her away from a flame that swung toward her. she struck his hand aside and thrust her body into the danger again. crosson, finding no water, began to shovel loose earth on the blaze with a sharp plank from the side of a car. finding that she could not reach her lover, irene turned and begged crosson to run for help and for the doctors. he ran, but the doctors refused to leave the work they had in hand, and the other men growled: "everybody's got to take their turn." crosson ran back to irene with the news. drury had just emerged from the merciful swoon of shock to the frenzies of his splintered bones, lacerated flesh and blistered skin, and the threat of his infernal environment. the last exquisite fiendishness was the sight of his sweetheart as witness to his agony, her face lighted up by the flames that were ravening toward him, her hands hungering toward him, just beyond the stretch of his one free arm. crosson heard the lovers murmur to each other across that little abyss. he flung himself against the barriers like a madman. but his hands were futile against the tangle of joists and hot steel. irene saw him working alone and asked him where the others were, and the doctors. "they wouldn't come!" crosson groaned, ashamed of their ugly sense of justice. the girl's face took on a look of grim ferocity. she said to crosson: "your gun--where is it?" he pointed to where he had left it. it had fallen to the ground. she ran and seized it up, and holding it awkwardly but with menace, advanced on a doctor who toiled with sleeves rolled high, and face and beard and arms blotched with red grime. she thrust the muzzle into his chest and spoke hoarsely: "doctor lane, you come with me." "i'm busy here," he growled, pushing the gun aside, hardly knowing what it was. she jammed it against his heart again and cried, "come with me or i'll kill you!" he followed her, wondering rather than fearing, and she swept a group of men with the weapon, and commanded, "you men come, too." she marched them to the spot where drury was concealed, and pointed to him and snarled, "get him out!" the men tested their strength here and there without promise of success. one group started a heap of wheels to slewing downward and crosson shouted to them to stop. an inch more, and they would have buried drury from sight or hope. one man wormed through somehow and caught drury by the hand, but the first tug brought from him such a wail of anguish that the man fell back. he could not budge the body clamped with steel. he could only wrench it. so he came away. "there's nothing for me to do, reny," the doctor faltered, and, choked with pity for her and her lover and the helplessness of mankind, he turned away, and she let him go. the gun fell to the ground. the other men left the place. one of them said that the wrecking-crew would be along with a derrick in a few hours. "a few hours!" irene whimpered. she leaned against the lattice that kept her from the bridegroom and tried to tell him to be brave. but he had heard his sentence, and with his last hope went what little courage he had ever had. he began to plead and protest and weep. he gave voice to all the voices of pain, the myriad voices from every tormented particle of him. irene knelt down and twisted through the crevice to where she could hold his hand. but he snatched it away, babbling: "don't touch me! don't touch me!" crosson stayed near, dreading lest irene's skirts should catch fire. twice he beat them out with his hands. she had not noticed that they were aflame. she was murmuring love-words of odious vanity to one who almost forgot her existence, centered in the glowing sphere of his own hell. drury rolled and panted and gibbered, cursed even, with lips more used to gentle words and prayers. he prayed, too, but with sacrilege: "o lord, spare me this. o god, have a little mercy. send rain, send help, lift this mountain from me just till i can breathe. o god, if you have any mercy in your heart--but no, no--no, no, you let your own son hang on the cross, didn't you? he asked you why you had deserted him, and you didn't answer, did you?" crosson looked up to see a thunderbolt split the dark sky, but the stars were agleam now, twinkling about the moon's serenity. irene put her fingers across drury's lips to hush his blasphemy. she tore her face with her nails, and tried for his sake to stifle the sobs that smote through her. by and by drury's voice grew hoarse, and he whispered. she bent close and heard. she called to crosson: "run get the doctor to give him something--some morphine or something--quick. every second is agony for my poor boy." crosson ran to the doctor. he stood among writhing bodies and shook his head dismally. he was saying as crosson came up: "i'm sorry, i'm awful sorry, folks, but the last grain of morphine is gone. the drug-stores haven't got any more. we've telegraphed to the next town. you'll just have to stand it." crosson went back slowly with that heavy burden of news. he whispered it to irene, but drury heard him, and a shriek of despair went from him like a flash of fire. new blazes sprang up with an impish merriment. crosson, fearing for irene's safety, fought at them with earth and with water that boys fetched from distances, and at last extinguished the immediate fire. the bystanders worked elsewhere, but crosson lingered to protect irene. in the dark he could hear drury whispering something to her. he pleaded, wheedled, kissed her hand, mumbled it like a dog, reasoned with her insanely, while she trembled all over, a shivering leaf on a blown twig. crosson could hear occasional phrases: "if you love me, you will--if you love me, reny. what do you want me to suffer for, honey? you don't want me just to suffer--just to suffer, do you--you don't, do you? reny honey, reny? you say you love me, and you won't do the thing that will help me. you don't love me. that's it, you don't really love me!" she turned to crosson at last and moaned: "he wants me to kill him! what can i do? oh, what is there to do?" crosson could not bear to look in her eyes. he could not bear the sound of drury's voice. he could not even debate that problem. he was cravenly glad when somebody's hand seized him and a rough voice called him away to other toil. he slunk off. there were miseries enough wherever he went, but they were the miseries of strangers. he could not forget irene and the riddle of duty that was hers. he avoided the spot where she was closeted with grief, and worked remote in the glimmer from bonfires lighted in the fields alongside. the fire in the wreck was out now, save that here and there little blazes appeared, only to be quenched at once. but smoldering timbers crackled like rifle-shots, and there were thunderous slidings of wreckage. irene's mother and father had stood off at a distance for a long time, but at length they missed irene and came over to question crosson. he knew that irene would not wish them present at such obsequies, and he told them she had gone home. after a time, curiosity nagged him into approaching her hiding-place. he listened, and there was no sound. he peered in and dimly descried drury. he was not moving; he might have been asleep. irene might have been asleep, too, for she lay huddled up in what space there was. crosson knelt down and crawled in. she was unconscious. he touched drury with a dreading hand, which drew quickly back as from a contact with ice. a kind of panic seized crosson. he backed out quickly and dragged irene away with him in awkward desperation. as her body came forth, his gun came too. he thought it had lain outside. he caught it and broke it at the breech, ejecting the two shells; one of them was empty. he threw it into the wreck and pocketed the other shell and tossed the gun under a stack of wreckage. he was trying to revive irene when her father and mother came back anxiously to say that she was not at home. her mother dropped down at her side. crosson left irene with her own people. he did not want to see her or hear her when she came back to this miserable world. he did not want her even to know what he knew. iii crosson had tried afterward to forget. it had been hard at first, but in time he had forgotten. he had gone to a theological school and learned to chide people for their complaints and to administer well-phrased anodynes. during his vacations he had avoided irene. when he had been graduated he had been first pulpited in a far-off city. years afterward he had been invited to supply an empty pulpit in his home town. he had not succeeded with life. he lacked the flame or the luck or the tact--something. he had come back to the place he started from. he had renewed old acquaintances, laughed over the ancient jokes, and said he was sorry for those who had had misfortune. when he met irene straley he hardly recalled his love, except to smile at it as a boyish whim. he had forgotten the pangs of that as one forgets almost all his yester aches. he had forgotten the pains he had seen others suffer, even more easily than he forgot his own. to-day his sermon on the triviality of bodily discomfort had flung irene straley back into the caldron of that old torment. she had made that silent protest against the iniquitous cruelty of his preachment. she had dragged him backward into the living presence of his past. she had not forgotten. she had been faithful to drury boldin while he was working in a distant city. she was faithful to him still in that farthest country. she had the genius of remembrance. these were doctor crosson's ulterior thoughts while he harangued his flock visibly and audibly. his thoughts had not needed the time their telling requires. they gave him back his scenes in pictures, not in words; in heartaches and heartbreaks and terrors and longings, not in limping syllables that mock the vision with their ineptitude. he felt anew what he had felt and seen, and he could not give any verve to the peroration of his sermon. he could not even change it. it had been effective when he had preached it previously. but now he parroted with unconscious irony the phrases he had once so admired. he came to the last word. "and so, to repeat: how much more bitter, dearly beloved, are the anguishes of the soul than any mere bodily distress! what are the fleeting torments of this tenement of clay, mere bone and flesh, to the soul's despair? nothing, nothing." his congregation felt a lack of warmth in his tone. his hand fell limply on the bible and the sermon was done. the only stir was one of relief at its conclusion. he gave out the final hymn, and he sat through it while the people dragged it to the end. he gave forth the benediction "in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy ghost," and he made short work of the dawdlers who waited to exchange stupidities with him. he took refuge from his congregation in his study, locked the door, and gave himself up to meditation. somehow pain had suddenly come to mean more to him than it had yet meant. he had known it, groaned under it, lived it down, and let it go. he had felt sorry for other people and got rid of their woes as best as he could with the trite expressions in use, and had forgotten whether they were hushed by health or by death. and so he had let the old-fashioned hell go by with other dogmas out of style. he had fashioned a new hades to frighten people with, that they might not find sin too attractive and imperilous. now he was suddenly convinced that if there must be hell, it must be such as dante set to rhyme and the old hard-shell preachers preached: a region where flames sear and demons pluck at the frantic nerves, playing upon them fiendish tunes. yet he could not reconcile that hell with the god that made the lilac-bush whose purple clusters shook perfume and little flowers against his window-sill, while the old locust in rivalry bent down and flaunted against the lilacs its pendants of ivory grace and heavenly fragrance. against that torment of beauty came glimpses of drury and irene in the lurid cavern under the wreck. beyond those delicate blossoms he imagined the battle-fields of europe and the ruined vessels where hurt souls writhed in multitudes. he could not be satisfied with any theory of the world. he could not find that pain was punishment here, or see how it could follow the soul after the soul had left behind it the fleshly instrument of torture. the why of it escaped his reason utterly; for drury had been good, and he had come upon an honorable errand when he fell into the pit. doctor crosson stood at his window and begged the placid sky for information. he looked through the lilacs and the locusts and all the green wilderness where beauty beat and throbbed like a heart in bliss. it was the sabbath, and he was not sure. but he was sure of a melting tenderness in his heart for irene straley, and he felt that her power to feel sorry for her lover--sorry enough to defy all the laws in his behalf--was a wonderful power. he longed for her sympathy. by and by he began to feel a pain, the pain of drury boldin. he was glad. he groaned. "i hurt! i hope that i may hurt terribly." suddenly it seemed that he actually was drury boldin in the throes of every fierce and spasmic thrill. again he most vividly was irene straley watching her lover till she could not endure his torture or her own, and with one desperate challenge sent him back to the mystery whence he came. doctor crosson, when he came back to himself, could not solve that mystery or any mystery. he knew one reality, that it hurts to be alive; that everybody is always hurting, and that human heart must help human heart as best it can. pain is the one inescapable fact; the rest is theory.... he prayed with a deeper fervor than he had ever known: "god give me pain, that i may understand, that i may understand!" the beauty and the fool there was once a beautiful woman, and she lived in a small town, though people said that she belonged rather in a great city, where her gifts would bring her glory, riches, and a brilliant marriage. in repose, she was superb; in motion, quite perfectly beautiful of form and carriage, with all the suave rhythms of a beautiful being. her beauty was her sole opulence; the boast of her friends; the confession of her enemies; the magnet of many lovers; the village's one statue. she had an ordinary heart, quite commonplace brains, but beauty that lined the pathway where she walked with eyes of admiration and delight. in her town, among her suitors, was one that was a fool--not a remarkable fool; a simple, commonplace fool of the sort that abounds even in villages. he was foolish enough to love the beauty so completely that when he made sure that she would not love him he could not endure to remain in the village, but went far away in the west to get the torment of her beauty out of his sight. the other suitors, who were wiser than he, when they found that she was not for them, gave her up with mild regret as one gives up a fabulous dream, saying: "there was no hope for us, anyway. if the fool had stayed at home he would have been saved from the sight of her, for she is going east, where there are great fortunes for the very beautiful." and this she made ready to do, since the praise she had received had bred ambition in her--a reasonable and right ambition, for why should a light be hidden under a bushel when it might be set up on high to illumine a wide garden? besides, she had not learned to love any of the unimportant men who loved her important beauty, yet promised it nothing more than a bushel to hide itself in. so she made ready to take her beauty to the larger market-place. but the night before she was to leave the village her father's house took fire mysteriously. the servant, rushing to her door to waken her, died, suffocated there before she could cry out. the beauty woke to find her bed in flames. she rose with hair and gown ablaze, and, agonizing to a window, leaped blindly out upon the pavement. there the neighbors quenched the fire and saved her life--but nothing more. thereafter she was a cripple, and her vaunted beauty was dead; it had gone into the flames, and she had only the ashes of it on her seared face. now she had only pity where she had had envy and adulation. now there was a turning away of eyes when she hurried abroad on necessary errands. now her enemies were tenderly disposed toward her, and everybody forbore to mention what she had been. everybody spared her feelings and talked of other things and looked at the floor or at the sky when she must be spoken to. one day the fool, having heard only that the beauty was to leave the village, and having heard nothing of the fire, and not having prospered where he was, returned to his old home. the first person he saw he asked of the beauty, and that one told him of the holocaust of her graces, and warned him, remembering that the fool had always spoken his thoughts without tact or discretion--warned the fool to disguise when he saw her the shock he must feel and make no sign that he found her other than he left her. and the fool promised. when he saw her he made a pretense indeed of greeting her as before, but he was like a man trying to look upon a fog as upon a sunrise; for the old beauty of her face did not strike his eyes full of its own radiance. she saw the struggle of his smile and the wincing of his soul. but she did not wince, for she was by now bitterly accustomed to this reticence and self-control. he walked along the street with her, and looked always aside or ahead and talked of other things. he walked with her to her own gate, and to her porch, trying to find some light thing to say to leave her. but the cruelty of the world was like a rusty nail in his heart, and when he put out his hand and she set in his hand what her once so exquisite fingers were now, his heart broke in his breast; and when he lifted his eyes to what her once so triumphant face was now, they refused to withhold their tears, and his lips could not hold back his thoughts, and he groaned aloud: "oh, you were so beautiful! no one was ever so beautiful as you were then. but now--i can't stand it! i can't stand it! i wish that i might have died for you. you were so beautiful! i can see you now as you were when i told you good-by." then he was afraid for what he had said, and ashamed, and he dreaded to look at her again. he would have dashed away, but she seized him by the sleeve, and whispered: "how good it is to hear your words! you are the only one that has told me that i ever was beautiful since i became what i am. tell me, tell me how i looked when you bade me good-by!" and he told her. looking aside or at the sky, he told her of her face like a rose in the moonlight, of her hair like some mist spun and woven in shadows and glamours of its own, of her long creamy arms and her hands that a god had fashioned lovingly. he told her of her eyes and their deeps, and their lashes and the brows above them. he told her of the strange rhythm of her musical form when she walked or danced or leaned upon the arm of her chair. he dared not look at her lest he lose his remembrance of them; but he heard her laughing, softly at first, then with pride and wild triumph. and she crushed his hand in hers and kissed it, murmuring: "god bless you! god bless you!" for even in poverty it is sweet to know that once we were rich. the ghostly counselors i in a little hall bedroom in a big city lay a little woman in a big trouble. she had taken the room under an assumed name, and a visitor had come to her there--to little her in the big city, from the bigger unknown. she had taken the room as "mrs. emerton." the landlady, mrs. rotch, had had her doubts. but then she was liberal-minded--folks had to be in that street. still, she made it an invariable rule that "no visitors was never allowed in rooms," a parlor being kept for the purpose up to ten o'clock, when the landlady went to bed in it, "her having to have her sleep as well as anybody." but, in spite of the rules, a visitor had come to "mrs. emerton's" room--a very, very young man. his only name as yet was "the baby." she dared not give the young man his father's name, for then people would know, and she had come to the city to keep people from knowing. she had come to the wicked city from the sweet, wholesome country, where, according to fiction, there is no evil, but where, according to fact, people are still people and moonlight is still madness. in the country, love could be concealed but not its consequence. her coadjutor in the ceremony of summoning this little spirit from the vasty deep had not followed her to the city where the miracle was achieved. he was poor, and his parents would have been brokenhearted; his employer in the village would have taken away his seven-dollar-a-week job. so the boy sent the girl to town alone, with what money he had saved up and what little he could borrow; and he stayed in the village to earn more. the girl's name was lightfoot--hilda lightfoot--a curiously prophetic name for her progress in the primrose path, though she had gone heavy-footed enough afterward. and now she could hardly walk at all. hilda lightfoot had come to the city in no mood to enjoy its frivolities, and with no means. she had climbed the four flights to her room a few days ago for the last time. in all the weeks and weeks she had never had a caller, except, the other day, a doctor and a nurse, who had taken away most of her money and left her this little clamorous youth, whose victim she was as he was hers. to-night she was desperately lonely. even the baby's eternal demands and uproars were hushed in sleep. she felt strong enough now to go out into the wonderful air of the city; the breeze was as soft and moonseeped as the blithe night wind that blew across the meadows at home. the crowds went by the window and teased her like a circus parade marching past a school. but she could not go to circuses--she had no money. all she had was a nameless, restless baby. she grew frantically lonely. she went almost out of her head from her solitude, the jail-like loneliness, with no one to talk to except her little fellow-prisoner who could not talk. her homesick heart ran back to the home life she was exiled from. she was thinking of the village. it was prayer-meeting night, and the moon would wait outside the church like mary's white-fleeced lamb till the service was over, and then it would follow the couples home, gamboling after them when they walked, and, when they paused, waiting patiently about. the moon was a lone white lamb on a shadowy hill all spotted with daisies. everything in the world was beautiful except her fate, her prison, her poverty, and her loneliness. if only she could go down from this dungeon into the streets! if only she had some clothes to wear and knew somebody who would take her somewhere where there was light and music! it was not much to ask. hundreds of thousands of girls were having fun in the theaters and the restaurants and the streets. hundreds of thousands of fellows were taking their best girls places. if only webster edie would come and take her out for a walk! she had been his best girl, and he had been her fellow. why must he send her here, alone? it was his duty to be with her, now of all times. a woman had a right to a little petting, now of all times. she had written him so yesterday, begging him to come to her at any cost. but her letter must have crossed his letter, and in that he said that he could not get away and could not send her any money for at least another week, and then not much. she was doomed to loneliness--indefinitely. if only some one would come in and talk to her! the landlady never came except about the bill. the little slattern who brought her meals had gone to bed. she knew nobody--only voices, the voices of other boarders who went up and down the stairs and sometimes paused outside her door to talk and laugh or exchange gossip. she had caught a few names from occasional greeting or exclamation: "good morning, miss marland!" "why, mrs. elsbree!" "how was the show last night, miss bessett?" "oh, mrs. teed, would you mind mailing these letters as you go out?" "not at all, mrs. braywood." they were as formless to her as ghosts, but she could not help imagining bodies and faces and clothes to fit the voices. she could not help forming likes and dislikes. she would have been glad to have any of them come to see her, to ask how she was or admire the baby, or to borrow a pin or lend a book. if somebody did not come to see her she would go mad. if only she dared, she would leave the baby and steal down the stairs and out of the front door and slip along the streets. they called her; they beckoned to her and promised her happiness. she was like a little yacht held fast in a cove by a little anchor. the breeze was full of summons and nudgings; the water in the bay was dancing, every ripple a giggle. only her anchor held her, such a little anchor, such a gripping anchor! if only some one would come in! if only the baby could talk, or even listen with understanding! she was afraid to be alone any longer, lest she do something insane and fearful. she sat at the window, with one arm stretched out across the sill and her chin across it, and stared off into the city's well of white lights. then she bent her head, hid her hot face in the hollow of her elbow, and clenched her eyelids to shut away the torment. she was loneliest staring at the city, but she was unendurably lonely with her eyes shut. she would go crazy if somebody did not come. there was a knock at the door. it startled her. she sat up and listened. the knock was repeated softly. she turned her head and stared at the door. then she murmured, "come in." the door whispered open, and a woman in soft black skirts whispered in. the room was lighted only by the radiance from the sky, and the mysterious woman was mysteriously vague against the dimly illuminated hall. she closed the door after her and stood, a shadow in a shadow. even her face was a mere glimmer, like a patch of moonlight on the door, and her voice was stealthy as a breeze. it was something like the voice she heard called "mrs. elsbree." hilda started to rise, but a faint, white hand pressed her back and the voice said: "don't rise, my dear. i know how weak you are, what you have gone through, alone, here in this dreary place. i know what pain you have endured, and the shame you have felt, the shame that faces you outside in the world. it is a cruel world. to women--oh, but it is cruel! it has no mercy for a woman who loves too well. "if you had a lot of money you might fight it with its own weapon. money is the one weapon it respects. but you haven't any money, have you, my dear? if you had, you wouldn't be here in the dark alone, would you? "i'm afraid there is nothing ahead of you, either, but darkness, my dear. the man you loved has deserted you, hasn't he? he is a poor, weak thing, anyway. even if he married you, you would probably part. he'd always hate you. nobody else will want you for a wife, you poor child; you know that, don't you? and nobody will help you, because of the baby. you couldn't find work and keep the baby with you, could you? and you couldn't leave it. it is a weight about your neck; it will drown you in deep waters. "even if it lived, it would have only misery ahead of it, for your story would follow it through life. the older it grew, the more it would suffer. it would despise you and itself. how much happier you would be not to be alive at all, both of you, you poor, unwelcome things! "there are many problems ahead of you, my dear; and you'll never solve them, except in one way. if you were dead and asleep in your grave with your poor little one at your breast, all your troubles would be over then, wouldn't they? people would feel sorry for you; they wouldn't sneer at you then. and you wouldn't mind loneliness or hunger or pointing fingers or anything. "take my advice, dearie, and end it now. there are so many ways; so many things to buy at drug-stores. and that's the river you can just see over there. it is very peaceful in its depths. its cool, dark waters will wash away your sorrows. or if that is too far for you to go, there's the window. you could climb out on the ledge with your baby in your arms and just step off into--peace. take my advice, poor, lonely, little thing. it's the one way; i know. the world will forgive you, and heaven will be merciful. didn't christ take the magdalen into his own company and his mother's? he will take you up into heaven, if you go now. good-by. don't be afraid. good-by. don't be afraid." she was gone so softly that hilda did not see her go. she had been staring off into that ocean of space, and when she turned her head the woman was gone. but her influence was left in the very air. her words went on whispering about the room. under their influence the girl rose, tottered to the bed, gathered the sleeping baby to her young bosom, kissed his brow without waking him, and stumbled to the window. she pushed it as high as it would go and knelt on the ledge, peering down into the street. it was a fearful distance to the walk. she hoped she would not strike the stone steps or the area rail. and yet what difference would it make? it would only assure her peace the quicker. she must wait for those people below to walk past. but they were not gone before others were there. she could not hurl herself upon them. as she waited, it grew terrible to take the plunge. she had always been afraid of high places. she grew dizzy now, and must cling hard to keep from falling before she said her prayers and was ready. and, now the pavement was clear. she kissed her baby again. she drew in a deep breath, her last sip of the breath of life. how good it was, this clear, cool air flowing across this great, beautiful, heartless city that she should never see again! and now-- there was a knock at the door. it checked her. she lost impulse and impetus and crept back and sank into a chair. she was pretending to be rocking the baby to sleep when she murmured, "come in." perhaps it would be mrs. elsbree, returned to reproach her for her cowardice and her delay. but when she dared to look up it was another woman. at least it was another voice--perhaps miss marland's. "i've been meaning to call on you, mrs. emerton, but i haven't had a free moment. of course i've known all along why you were here. we all have. there's been a good deal of backbiting. but that's the boarding-house of it. this evening, at dinner, there was some mention of you at the table, and some of the women were ridiculing you and some were condemning you. oh, don't wince, my dear; everybody is always being ridiculed or condemned or both for something. if you were one of the saints they would burn you at the stake or put you to the torture. "anyway, i spoke up and told them that the only one who had a right to cast a stone at you was one without sin, and i despaired of finding such a person in this boarding-house--or outside, either, for that matter. i spoke up and told them that you were no worse than the others. they all had their scandals, and i know most of them. there's some scandal about everybody. we're all sinners--if you want to call it sin to follow your most sacred instincts. "why should you be afraid of a little gossip or a few jokes or a little abuse from a few hypocrites? they're all sinners--worse than you, too, most of them, if the truth were known. "why blame yourself and call yourself a criminal? you loved the boy--loved him too much, that's all. if you had been really wicked you would have refused to love him or to give yourself up to his plea. if you had been really bad you'd have known too much to have this child. you'd have got rid of it at all costs. "you are really a very good little woman with a passion for being a mother. it's the world outside that's bad. don't be ashamed before it. hold your head up. the world owes you a living, and it will pay it if you demand it. it will pay for you and your child, too. just demand your rights. you'll soon find a place. you're too young and beautiful to be neglected. you're young and beautiful and passionate. you can make some man awfully happy. he'll be glad to have your baby and you--disgrace and all. he may be very rich, too. go find him. the baby may grow up to be a wonderful man. you could make enough to give the boy every advantage and a fine start in the world. "the world is yours, if you'll only take it. remember the bible, 'ask and it shall be given unto you.' think it over, my dear. don't do anything foolish or rash. you're too young and too beautiful. and now i must ran along. good-by and good luck." while hilda was breathing deep of this wine of hope and courage the woman was gone. hilda glanced out of the window again. she shuddered. a moment more and she would have been lying below there, broken, mangled, unsightly--perhaps not dead, only crippled for life and arrested as a suicide that failed; perhaps as a murderess, since the fall would surely have killed her child--her precious child. she held him close, her great man-baby, her son; he laughed, beat the air with his hands, chuckled, and smote her cheek with palms like white roses. she would take him from this gloomy place. she would go out and demand money, fine clothes, attention. she put on her hat, a very shabby little hat. she began to wrap the baby in a heavy shawl. they would have finer things soon. she grew dizzy with excitement and the exertion, and sank back in the chair a moment, to regain her strength. the chair creaked. no, it was a knock at the door. it proved what the last woman had said. "ask, and it shall be given unto you." she had wished for some one to call on her. the whole boarding-house was coming. she was giving a party. this time it was another voice out of the darkness. it must have been miss bessett's. she spoke in a cold, hard, hasty tone. "going out, my dear? alone, i hope? no, the baby's wrapped up! you're not going to be so foolish as to lug that baby along? he brands you at once. nobody will want you round with a squalling baby. oh, of course he's a pretty child; but he's too noisy. he'll ruin every chance you have. "you're really very pretty, my dear. the landlady said so. if she noticed it, you must be a beauty, indeed. this is a great town for pretty girls. there's a steady market for them. "the light is poor here, but beauty like yours glows even in darkness, and that's what they want, the men. the world will pay anything for beauty, if beauty has the brains to ask a high price and not give too much for it. "think of the slaves who have become queens, the mistresses who have become empresses. there are rich women all over town who came by their money dishonestly. you should see some of them in the park with their automobiles. you'd be ashamed even to let them run over you. yet, if you were dressed up, you'd look better than any of the automobile brigade. "you might be a great singer. i've heard you crooning to the baby. you find a rich man and make him pay for your lessons, and then you make eyes at the manager and, before you know it, you'll be engaged for the opera and earning a thousand dollars a night--more than that, maybe. "think how much that means. it would make you mighty glad you didn't marry that young gawp at home. he's a cheap skate to get you into this trouble and not help you out. "but i'll set you in the way of making a mint of money. there's only one thing: you must give up the baby and never let anybody know you ever had it. don't freeze up and turn away. there are so many ways of disposing of a baby. send it to a foundling asylum. no questions will be asked. the baby will have the best of care and grow so strong that some rich couple will insist on adopting it, or you could come back when you are married to a rich man and pretend you took a fancy to it and adopt it yourself. "and there's a lot of other ways to get rid of a baby. you could give it the wrong medicine by mistake, or just walk out and forget it. and there's the river; you could drop it into those black waters. and then you're free--baby would never know. he would be ever so much better off. and you would be free. "you must be free. you must get a little taste of life. you've a right to it. you lived in a little stupid village all your years--and now you're in the city. listen to it! it would be yours for the asking. and it gives riches and glory to the pretty girls it likes. but you must go to it as a girl, not as a poor, broken, ragged thing, lugging a sickly baby with no name. get rid of the baby, my dear. it will die, anyway. it will starve and sicken. put it out of its misery. that medicine on your wash-stand--an overdose of that and you can say it was a mistake. who can prove it wasn't? then you are free. you'll have hundreds of friends, and a career, and a motor of your own, and servants, and a beautiful home. don't waste your youth, my dear. invest your beauty where it will bring big proceeds. "see those lights off there--the big lights with the name of that woman in electric letters? she came to town poorer than you and with a worse name. now she is rich and famous. and the countess of--what's-her-name? she was poor and bad, but she didn't let any old-fashioned ideas of remorse hold her back. go on; get rid of the brat. go on!" hilda clutched the baby closer and moved away to shield her from this grim counselor. when she turned again she was alone. the woman had gone, but the air trembled with her fierce wisdom. she was ruthless, but how wise! the lights flaring up into the sky carried that other woman's name. her picture was everywhere. she had been poor and wicked. now she was a household word, respected because she was rich. she had succeeded. there came a lilting of music on a breeze. they were dancing, somewhere. the tango "coaxed her feet." her body swayed with it. if she were there, men would quarrel over her, rush to claim her--as they had done even in the village before she threw herself away on the most worthless, shiftless of the lot, who got her into trouble and deserted her. it was not her business to starve for his baby. the baby began to fret again, to squawk with vicious explosions of ugly rage; it puled and yowled. it was a nuisance. it caught a fistful of her hair and wrenched till the tears of pain rushed to her eyes. she unclasped the little talons, ran to the wash-stand, took up an ugly bottle and poured out enough to put an end to that nauseating wail. she bent over to lift the baby to the glass. its lips touched her bosom. its crying turned to a little chortle like a brook's music. it pommeled her with hands like white roses. the moon rested on its little head and made its fuzz of hair a halo. she paused, adoring it sacredly like another madonna. a soft tap at the door. she put the fatal glass away and turned guiltily. a dark little woman was there, and a soft, motherly voice spoke. it must be mrs. braywood's. she could not have suspected, for her tone was all of affection. "i heard your child laughing, my dear--and crying. i don't know which went to my heart deeper. i just had to come to see it. it is so marvelous to be a mother. i've been married for ten years, and my husband and i have prayed and waited. but god would not send us a baby. he saved that honor for you. and such an honor and glory and power! to be a mother! to be a rose-bush and have a white bud grow upon your stem, and bloom! oh, you lucky child, to be selected for such a privilege! you must have suffered; you must be suffering now; but there's nothing worth while that doesn't cost pain. "it occurred to me that--don't misunderstand me, my child, but--well, the landlady said you were poor; she was in doubt of the room rent; so i thought--perhaps you might not want the baby as much as i do. "i hoped you might let me take him. i'd be such a good mother to him. i'd love him as if he were my own, and my husband would pay you well for him. we'd give him our own name, and people should never know that he--that you--that we weren't really his parents. give him to me, won't you? please! i beg you!" hilda whirled away from her pleading hands and clenched the baby so hard that it cried a little. the sound was like that first wail of his she had ever heard. again it went into her heart like a little hand seizing and wringing it. mrs. braywood--if it were mrs. braywood--was not angry at the rebuff, though she was plainly disheartened. she tried to be brave, and sighed. "oh, i don't wonder you turn away. i understand. i wouldn't give him up if i were in your place. the father must come soon. he won't stay away long. just let him see the baby and hear its voice and know it is his baby, and he will stand by you. "he will come to you. he will hear the voice wherever he is, and he will make you his wife. and the baby will make a man of him and give him ambition and inspiration. babies always provide for themselves, they say. you will have trouble, and you will suffer from the gibes of self-righteous people, and you will be cruelly blamed; but there is only one way to expiate sin, my child, and that is to face its consequences and pay its penalties in full. the only way to atone for a wrong deed is to do the next right thing. take good care of your precious treasure. good-by. his father will come soon. he will come. good-by. oh, you enviable thing, you mother!" and now she was gone. but she had left the baby's value enhanced, and the mother's, too. she had offered a price for the baby, and glorified the mother. the lonely young country girl felt no longer utterly disgraced. she did not feel that the baby was a mark of heaven's disfavor, but rather of its favor. she felt lonely no longer. the streets interested her no more. let those idle revelers go their way; let them dance and laugh. they had no child of their own to adore and to enjoy. if the baby's father came they would be married. if he delayed--well, she would stumble on alone. the baby was her cross. she must carry it up the hill. hilda felt entirely content, but very tired, full of hope that webster edie would come to her, but full of contentment, too. she talked to the baby, and he seemed to understand her now. she could not translate his language, but he translated hers. she slipped out of her day clothes and into her nightgown--and so to bed. she fell asleep with her baby in her arms. her head drooped back and her parted lips seemed to pant and glow. the moon reached her window and sent in a long shaft of light. it found a great tear on her cheek. it gleamed on her throat bent back; it gleamed on one bare shoulder where the gown was torn; it gleamed on her breast where the baby drowsily clung. there was a benediction in the moonlight. daughters of shiloh i mrs. serina pepperall had called her husband twice without success. it was at that hatefulest hour of the whole week when everybody that has to get up is getting up and realizing that it is monday morning, and raining besides. it is bad enough for it to be monday, but for it to be raining is inexcusable. young horace pepperall used to say that that was the reason the world didn't improve much. people got good on sunday, and then it had to go and be monday. he had an idea that if sunday could be followed by some other day, preferably saturday, there would be more happiness and virtue in the world. mrs. pepperall used to say that her boy was quite a ph'losopher in his way. mr. pepperall said he was a hopeless loafer and spent more time deciding whether he'd ought to do this or that than it would have taken to do 'em both twice. whereupon mrs. pepperall, whose maiden name was boody--daughter of mrs. ex-county-clerk boody--would remind her husband that he was only a pepperall, after all, while her son was at least half boody. whereupon her husband would remind her of certain things about the boodys. and so it would go. but that was other mornings. this was this morning. among all the homes that the sun looked upon--or would have looked upon if it could have looked upon anything and if it hadn't been raining and the pepperall roof had not been impervious to light, though not to moisture--among them all, surely the pepperall reveille would have been the least attractive. homer never got his picture of rosy-fingered aurora smilingly leaping out of the couch of night from any such home as the pepperalls' in carthage. serina was as unlike aurora as possible. aurora is usually poised on tiptoe, with her well-manicured nails gracefully extended, and nothing much about her except a chariot and more or less chiffon, according to whether the picture is for families or bachelors. serina was entirely surrounded by flannelette, of simple and pitilessly chaste design--a hole at the top for her head to go through and a larger one at the other extreme for her feet to stick out at. but it was so long that you couldn't have seen her feet if you had been there. and papa pepperall, who was there, was no longer interested in those once exciting ankles. they had been more interesting when there had been less of them. but we'd better talk about the sleeves. the sleeves were so long that they kept falling into the water where serina was making a hasty toilet at the little marble-topped altar to cleanliness which the pepperalls called the "worsh-stand"--that is, the "hand-wash-basin," as mrs. hippisley called it after she came back from her never-to-be-forgotten trip to england. but then serina's sleeves had always been falling into the suds, and ever since she could remember she had rolled them up again with that peculiar motion with which people roll up sleeves. this morning, having failed to elicit papa from the bed by persuasion, she made such a racket about her ablutions that he lifted his dreary lids at last. he realized that it was morning, monday, and raining. it irritated him so that he glared at his faithful wife with no fervor for her unsullied and unwearied--if not altogether unwearisome--devotion. he watched her roll up those sleeves thrice more. somehow he wanted to scream at the futility of it. but he checked the impulse partly, and it was with softness that he made a comment he had choked back for years. "serina--" he began. "well," she returned, pausing with the soap clenched in one hand. he spoke with the luxurious leisureliness and the pauses for commas of a nearly educated man lolling too long abed: "serina, it has just occurred to me that, since we have been married, you have expended, on rolling back those everlastingly relapsing sleeves of yours, enough energy to have rolled the sphinx of egypt up on top of the pyramid of cheops." serina was so surprised that she shot the slippery soap under the wash-stand. she went right after it. there may be nymphs who can stalk a cake of soap under a wash-stand with grace, but serina was not one of them. her indolent spouse made another cynical comment: "don't do that! you look like the goddess of liberty trying to peek into the subway." but she did not hear him. she was rummaging for the soap and for an answer to his first remark. at length she emerged with both. she stood up and panted. "well, i can't see as it would 'a' done me any good if i had have!" "had have what?" her husband yawned, having forgotten his original remark. "got the sphinnix on top of the cheops. and besides, i've been meaning to hem them up; but now that you've gone bankrupt again, and i have to do my own cooking and all--" "but, my dear serina, you've said the same thing ever since we were married. what frets me is to think of the terrible waste of labor with nothing to show for it." she sniffed, and retorted with all the superiority of the unsuccessful wife of an unsuccessful husband: "well, i can't see as you're so smart. ever since we been married you been goin' to that stationery-store of yours, and you never learned enough to keep from going bankrupt three times. and now they've shut the shop, and you've nothing better to do than lay in bed and make fun of me that have slaved for you and your children." they were always his children when she talked of the trouble they were. her all too familiar oration was interrupted by the eel-like leap of the soap. this time it described a graceful arc that landed it under the middle of the bed--a double bed at that. pepperall had the gallantry to pursue it. he went head first over the starboard quarter of the deck, leaving his feet aboard. just as he tagged the soap with his fingers his feet came on over after him, and he found himself flat on his back, with his head under the bed and his feet under the bureau. when the thunder of his downfall had subsided he heard serina say, "now that you're up you better stay up." so he wriggled out from under and got himself aloft, rubbing his indignant back. if serina was no aurora rising from the sea, her husband was no phoebus apollo. his gown looked like hers, only younger. it had a frivolous little pocket, and the slit-skirt effect on both sides; and it was cut what is called "misses' length," disclosing two of the least attractive shins in carthage. he was aching all over and he was angry, and he snarled as he stood at the wash-stand: "have you finished with this water?" "yes," she said, muffledly, from the depths of a face-towel. "why don't you ever empty the bowl then?" he growled, and viciously tilted the contents into the--must i say the awful word?--the slop-jar--what other word is there? the water splashed over and struck the bare feet of both icily. they yowled and danced like piute indians, and glared at each other as they danced. they glared in a nagged rage that would have turned into an ugly quarrel if a great sorrow had not suddenly overswept them. they saw themselves as they were and by a whim of memory they remembered what they had been. he laughed bitterly: "it's the first time we've danced together in a long time, eh?" her lower lip began to quiver and swell quite independently and she sighed: "not much like the dances we used to dance. oh dear!" she dropped into a chair and stared, not at her husband, but at the bridegroom of long ago he had shriveled from. she remembered those honeymoon mornings when they had awakened like eager children and laughed and romped and been glad of the new day. the mornings had been precious then, for it was a tragedy to let him go to his shop, as it was a festival to watch from the porch in the evening till he came round the corner and waved to her. she looked from him to herself, to what she could see of herself--it was not all, but more than enough. she saw her heavy red hands and the coarse gown over her awkward knees, and the dismal slovenliness of her attitude. she felt that he was remembering the slim, wild, sweet girl he had married. and she was ashamed before his eyes, because she had let the years prey upon her and had lazily permitted beauty to escape from her--from her body, her face, her motions, her thoughts. she felt that for all her prating of duty she had committed a great wickedness lifelong. she wondered if this were not "the unpardonable sin," whose exact identity nobody had seemed to decide--to grow strangers with beauty and to forget grace. ii whatever her husband may have been thinking, he had the presence of mind to hide his eyes in the water he had poured from the pitcher. he scooped it up now in double handfuls. he made a great splutter and soused his face in the bowl, and scrubbed the back of his neck and behind his ears and his bald spot, and slapped his eminent collar-bones with his wet hand. and then he was bathed. serina pulled on her stockings, and hated them and the coarser feet they covered. she opened the wardrobe door as a screen, less from modesty for herself than from sudden disgust of her old corset and her all too sober lingerie. she resolved that she would hereafter deck herself with more of that coquetry which had abruptly returned to her mind as a wife's most solemn duty. then she remembered that they were poorer than they ever had been. now they could not even run into debt again; for who would give them further credit, since their previous bills had been canceled by nothing more satisfactory than the grim "received payment" of the bankruptcy court? it was too late for her to reform. her song was sung. and as for buying frills and fallals, there were two daughters to provide for and a son who was growing into the stratum of foppery. with a sigh of dismissal she flung on her old wrapper, whose comfortableness she suddenly despised, and made her escape, murmuring, "i'll call the childern." she pounded on the boy's door, and horace eventually answered with his regular program of uncouth noises, like some one protesting against being strangled to death. these were followed by moans of woe, and then by far-off-sounding promises of "oh, aw ri', i'm git'nup." serina moved on to her youngest daughter's door. she had tapped but once when it was opened by "the best girl that ever lived," according to her father; and according to her mother, "a treasure; never gave me a bit of trouble--plain, of course, but so willing!" ollie was fully dressed and so was her room, except for the bed, the covers of which were thrown back like a wave breaking over the footboard. in fact, after ollie had kissed her mother she informed her that the kitchen fire was made, the wash-boiler on, and the breakfast going. "you are a treasure!" serina sighed. she passed on to the door of prue. prue was the second daughter. rosie, the eldest, had married tom milford and moved away. she was having troubles of her own, and children with a regularity that led serina to dislike tom milford more than ever. serina knocked several times at prue's door without response. then she went in as she always had to. prue was still asleep, and her yesterday's clothes seemed to be asleep, too, in all sorts of attitudes and all sorts of places. the only regularity about the room was the fact that every single thing was out of place. the dressing-table held a little chaos, including one stocking. the other stocking was on the floor. one silken garter glowed in the southeast corner and one in the northwest. one shoe reclined in the southwest corner and the other gaped in the northeast. but they were pretty shoes. her frock was in a heap, but it suggested a heap of flowers. hair-ribbons and ribboned things and a crumpled sash bedecked the carpet. but the prettiest thing of all was the head half fallen from the pillow and half smothered in the tangled skeins of hair. one arm was bent back over her brow to shut out the sunlight and the other arm dangled to the floor. there was something adorable about the round chin nestling in the soft throat. her chin seemed to frown with a lovable sullenness. there was a mysterious grace in the very sprawl vaguely outlined by the long wrinkles and ridges of the blankets. serina shook her head over prue in a loving despair. she was the bad boy of the family, impatient, exacting, hot-tempered, stormy, luxurious, yet never monotonous. "you can always put your hand on ollie," serina would say; "but you never know where prue is from one minute to the next." consequently ollie was not interesting and prue was. they were all afraid of prue and afraid for her. they all toadied to her and she kept them excited--alarmed, perhaps; angry, oh yes; but never bored. and there were rewards in her service, too, for she could be as stormy with affection as with mutiny. sometimes she would attack serina with such gusts of gratitude or admiration that her mother would cry for help. she would squeeze her father's ribs till he gasped for breath. when she was pleased she would dance about the house like a whirling mænad with ululations of ecstasy. these crises were sharp, but they left a sweet taste in the memory. so prue had the best clothes and did the least work. prue was sent off to boarding-school in chicago, though she had never been able to keep up with her classes in carthage; while ollie--who took first prizes till even the goody-goody boys hated her--stayed at home. she had dreamed of being a teacher in the high, but she never mentioned it, and she studied bookkeeping and stenography in the business college so that she could help her father. prue had not been home long and had come home with bad grace. when her father had found it impossible to borrow more money even to pay his clerks, to say nothing of boarding-school bills, he had to write the truth to prue. he told her to come again to carthage. she did not come back at once and she refused to explain why. as a matter of fact, she had desperately endeavored to find a permanent job in chicago. it was easy for so attractive a girl to get jobs, but it was hard for so domineering a soul to keep one. she was regretfully bounced out of three department stores in six days for "sassing" the customers and the aisle-manager. she even tried the theater. she was readily accepted by a stage-manager, but when he found that he could not teach her the usual figures or persuade her to keep in step or line with the rest he regretfully let her go. it was the regularity of it that stumped prue. she could dance like a ballerina by herself, but she could not count "one-two-three-four" twice in succession. the second time it was "o-o-one-t'threeee-f'r" and next it would be "onety-thry-fo-o-our." prue hung about chicago, getting herself into scrapes by her charm and fighting her way out of them by her ferocious pride. finally she went hungry and came home. when she learned the extent of her father's financial collapse she delivered tirades against the people of carthage and she sang him up as a genius. and then she sought escape from the depression at home by seeking what gaiety carthage afforded. she made no effort to master the typewriter and she declined to sell dry-goods. serina stood and studied the sleeping girl, that strange wild thing she had borne and had tried in vain to control. she thought how odd it was that in the mystic transmission of her life she had given all the useful virtues to ollie and none of them to prue. she wondered what she had been thinking of to make such a mess of motherhood. and what could she do to correct the oversight? ollie did not need restraint, and prue would not endure it. she stood aloof, afraid to waken the girl to the miseries of existence in a household where every day was blue monday now. ollie had not waited to be called. ollie had risen betimes and done all the work that could be done, and stood ready to do whatever she could. prue was still aloll on a bed of ease. even to waken her was to waken a march wind. the moment she was up she would have everybody running errands for her. she would be lavish in complaint and parsimonious of help. and yet she was a dear! she did enjoy her morning sleep so well. it would be a pity to disturb her. the rescuing thought came to serina that prue loved to take a long hot bath on monday mornings, because on wash-day there was always a plenty of hot water in the bathroom. on other mornings the hot-water faucet suffered from a distressing cough and nothing more. so she tiptoed out and closed the door softly. iii at breakfast ollie waited on the table after compelling serina to sit down and eat. there was little to tempt the appetite and no appetite to be tempted. papa was in the doldrums. he had always complained before of having to gulp his breakfast and hurry to the shop. and now he complained because there was no hurry; indeed, there was no shop. he must set out at his time of years, after his life of independent warfare, to ask for enlistment as a private in some other man's company--in a town where vacancies rarely occurred and where william pepperall would not be welcome. the whole town was mad at him. he had owed everybody, and then suddenly he owed nobody. by the presto-change-o of bankruptcy his debts had been passed from the hat of unpaid bills to the hat of worthless accounts. serina was as dismal as any wife is when she is faced with the prospect of having her man hanging about the house all day. a wife in a man's office hours is a nuisance, but a man at home in household office hours is a pest. this was the newest but not the least of serina's woes. horace was even glummer than ever, as soggy as his own oatmeal. at best he was one of those breakfast bruins. now he was a bear that has been hit on the nose. he, too, must seek a job. school had seemed confining before, but now that he must go to work, school seemed like one long recess. even ollie was depressed. hers was the misery of an active person denied activity. she had prepared herself as an aid in her father's business, and now he had no business. in this alkali desert of inanition prue's vivacious temper would have been welcome. "where's prue?" said papa for the fifth time. serina was about to say that she was still asleep when prue made her presence known. everybody was apprised that the water had been turned on in the bathroom; it resounded throughout the house. it seemed to fall about one's head. prue was filling the tub for her monday morning siesta. she was humming a strange tune over the cascade like another minnehaha. and from the behavior of the dining-room chandelier and the plates on the sideboard she was evidently dancing. "what's that toon she's dancing to?" papa asked, after a while. "i don't know," said serina. "i never heard it," said ollie. "ah," growled horace, "it's the argentine tango." "the tango!" gasped papa. "isn't that the new dance i've been reading about, that's making a sensation in new york?" "ah, wake up, pop!" said horace. "it's a sensation here, too." "in carthage? they're dancing the tango in our home town?" "surest thing you know, pop. the whole burg's goin' bug over it." "how is it done? what is it like?" "something like this," said horace, and, rising, he indulged in the prehistoric turkey-trot of a year ago, with burlesque hip-snaps and poultry-yard scrapings of the foot. "stop it!" papa thundered. "it's loathsome! do you mean to tell me that my daughter does that sort of thing?" "sure! she's a wonder at it." "what scoundrel taught my poor child such--such--who taught her, i say?" "gosh!" sniffed horace, "sis don't need teachin'. she's teachin' the rest of 'em. they're crazy about her." "teaching others! my g-g-goodness! where did she learn?" "chicago, i guess." "oh, the wickedness of these cities and the foreigners that are dragging our american homes down to their own level!" "i guess the foreigners got nothin' on us," said horace. "it's a namerican dance." "what are we coming to? go tell prue to come here at once. i'll put a stop to that right here and now." serina gave him one searing glance, and he understood that he could not deliver his edict to prue yet awhile. he heard her singing even more barbaric strains. the chandelier danced with a peculiar savagery, then the dance was evidently quenched and subdued. awestruck yowls from above indicated that prue was in hot water. "this is the last straw!" groaned papa, with all the wretchedness of a father learning that his daughter was gone to the bad. iv prue did not appear below-stairs for so long that her father had lost his magnificent running start by the time she sauntered in all sleek and shiny and asked for her food. she brought a radiant grace into the dull gray room; and serina whispered to will to let her have her breakfast first. she and ollie waited on prue, while the father paced the floor, stealing sidelong glances at her, and wondering if it were possible that so sweet a thing should be as vicious as she would have to be to tango. when she had scoured her plate and licked her spoon with a child-like charm her father began to crank up his throat for a tirade. he began with the reluctant horror of a young attorney cross-examining his first murderer: "prue--i want to--to--er--prue, do you--did you--ever--this--er--this tango business--prue--have you--do you--er--what do you know about it?" "well, of course, papa, they change it so fast on you it's hard to keep up with it, but i was about three days ahead of chicago when i left there. i met with a man who had just stepped off the twenty-hour train and i learned all he knew before i turned him loose." in a strangled tone the father croaked, "you dance it, then?" "you bet! papa, stand up and i'll show you the very newest roll. it's a peach. put your weight on your right leg. say, it's a shame we haven't a phonograph! don't you suppose you could afford a little one? i could have you all in fine form in no time. and it would be so good for mamma." papa fell back into a chair with just strength enough to murmur, "i want you to promise me never to dance it again." "don't be foolish, you dear old bump-on-a-log!" "i forbid you to dance it ever again." she laughed uproariously: "listen at the old skeezicks! get up here and i'll show you the cutest dip." when at last he grew angry, and made her realize it, she flared into a tumult of mutiny that drove him out into the rain. he spent the day looking for a job without finding one. horace came home wet and discouraged with the same news. ollie, the treasure, however, announced that she had obtained a splendid position as typist in judge hippisley's office, at a salary of thirty dollars a month. william was overjoyed, but serina protested bitterly. she and mrs. judge hippisley had been bitter social rivals for twenty years. they had fought each other with teas and euchre parties and receptions from young wifehood to middle-aged portliness. and now her daughter was to work in that hateful anastasia hippisley's old fool of a husband's office? well, hardly! "it's better than starving," said ollie, and for once would not be coerced, though even her disobedience was on the ground of service. after she had cleared the table and washed the dishes she set out for her room, lugging a typewriter she had borrowed to brush up her speed on. prue had begged off from even wiping the dishes, because she had to dress. as ollie started up-stairs to her task she was brought back by the door-bell. she ushered young orton hippisley into the parlor. he had come to take prue to a dance. when papa heard this mamma had to hold her hand over his mouth to keep him from making a scene. he was for kicking young hippisley out of the house. "and lose me my job?" gasped ollie. the overpowered parent whispered his determination to go up-stairs and forbid prue to leave. he went up-stairs and forbade her, but she went right on binding her hair with ollie's best ribbon. in the midst of her father's peroration she kissed him good-by and danced down-stairs in ollie's new slippers. her own had been trotted into shreds. papa sat fuming all evening. he would not go to bed till prue came home to the ultimatum he was preparing for her. from above came the tick-tock-tock of ollie's typewriter. it got on his nerves, like rain on a tin roof. "to think of it--ollie up-stairs working her fingers to the bone to help us out, and prue dancing her feet off disgracing us! to think that one of our daughters should be so good and one so bad!" "i can't believe that our little prue is really bad," serina sighed. "yet girls do go wrong, don't they?" her husband groaned. "this morning's paper prints a sermon about the tango. reverend doctor what's-his-name, the famous new york newspaper preacher, tears the whole tango crowd to pieces. he points out that the tango is the cause of the present-day wickedness, the ruin of the home!" serina was dismal and terrified, but from force of habit she took the opposite side. "oh, they were complaining of divorces long before the tango was ever heard of. that same preacher used to blame them on the bicycle, then on the automobile and the movies. and now it's the tango. it'll be flying-machines next." papa was used to fighting with mamma, and he roared with fine leoninity: "are you defending your daughter's shamelessness? do you approve of the tango?" "i've never seen it." "then it must be just because you always encourage your children to flout my authority. i never could keep any discipline because you always fought for them, encouraged them to disobey their father, to--to--to--" she chanted her responses according to the familiar family antipathy antiphony. they talked themselves out eventually; but prue was not home. ollie gradually typewrote herself to sleep and prue was not home. horace came in from the y. m. c. a. bowling-alley and went to bed, and prue was not home. the old heads nodded. the sentinels slept. at some dimly distant time papa woke with a start and inquired, "huh?" mamma jumped and gasped, "who?" they were shivering with the after-midnight chill of the cold room, and prue was not home. papa snapped his watch open and snapped it shut; and the same to his jaw: "two o'clock! and prue not home. i'm going after her!" he thrust into his overcoat, slapped his hat on his aching head, flung open the door. and prue came home. she was alone! and in tears! v as papa's overcoat slid off his arms and his hat off his head she tore down her gloves, tossed her cloak in the direction of the hat-tree and stumbled up the stairs, sobbing. her mother caught her hand. "what's the matter, honey?" prue wrenched loose and went on up. father and mother stared at her, then at each other, then at the floor. each read the same unspeakable fear in the other's soul. serina ran up the stairs as fast as she could. william automatically locked the doors and windows, turned out the lights, and followed. he paused in the upper hall to listen. prue was explaining at last. "it's that orton hippisley," prue sobbed. "what--what has he done?" serina pleaded, and prue sobbed on: "oh, he got fresh! some of these fellas in this town think that because a girl likes to have a good time and knows how to dance they can get fresh with her. i didn't like the way ort hippisley held me and i told him. finally i wouldn't dance any more with him. i gave his dances to grant beadle till the last; then ort begged so hard i said all right. and he danced like a gentleman. but on the way home he--he put his arm round me. and when i told him to take it away he wouldn't. he said i had been in his arms half the evening before folks, and if i hadn't minded then i oughtn't to mind now. and i said: 'is that so? well, it's mighty different when you're dancing.' and he said, 'oh no, it isn't,' and i said, 'oh yes, it is.' and he tried to kiss me and i hauled off and smashed him right in the nose. it bloodied all over his dress soot, and i'm glad of it." somehow papa pepperall felt such an impulse to give three cheers that he had to put his own hand over his mouth. he tiptoed to his room, and when mamma appeared to announce with triumph, "i guess prue hasn't gone to the bad yet," papa said: "who said she had? prue is the finest girl in america!" "i thought you were saying--" "why can't you ever once get me right? i was saying that prue is too fine a girl to be allowed to mingle with that tango set. i'm going to cowhide that hippisley cub. and prue's not going to another one of those dances." but he didn't. and she did. vi ollie was up betimes the next morning to get breakfast and make haste to her office. she was so excited that she dropped a stove-lid on the coalscuttle just as her mother appeared. "for mercy's sake, less noise!" serina whispered. "you'll wake poor prue!" ollie next dropped the tray she had just unloaded on the table. serina was furious. ollie whispered: "i'm so nervous for fear i've lost my job at judge hippisley's, now that prue had to go and slap orton." "always thinking of yourself," was serina's rebuke. "don't be so selfish!" but ollie's fears were wasted. orton hippisley might have boasted of kisses he did not get, but not of the slaps that he did. he had gained a new respect for prue, and at the first opportunity pleaded for forgiveness, eying her little fist the while. he begged her to go with him to a dance at his home that evening. she forgave him for the sake of the invitation--and she glided and dipped at the judge's house while ollie spent the evening in his office trying to finish the day's work. her speed was not yet up to requirements. prue's speed was. other girls watched prue manipulating her members in the intricate mechanisms of the latest dances. they begged her to teach them, but she laughed and said: "it's easy. just watch what i do and do the same." so raphael told his pupils and napoleon his subordinates. that night ollie and prue reached home at nearly the same time. ollie told how well she was getting along in the judge's office. prue told how she had made wall-flowers of everybody else in mrs. hippisley's parlor. let those who know a mother's heart decide which daughter serina was the prouder of, the good or the bad. she told william about it--how ollie had learned to type letters with both hands and how prue got there with both feet. and papa said, "she's a great girl!" and that was singular. vii a few mornings later judge hippisley stopped william on the street and spoke in his best bench manner: "will, i hate to speak about your daughter, but i've got to." "why, judge, what's ollie done? isn't she fast enough?" "ollie's all right. i'm speaking of prue. she's entirely too fast. i want you to tell her to let my son alone." "why, i--you--he--" "my boy was clerking in beadle's hardware-store, learning the business and earning twelve dollars a week. and now he spends half his time dancing with that dam--daughter of yours. and beadle is going to fire him if he doesn't 'tend to business better." "i--i'll speak to prue," was all pepperall dared to say. the judge had too many powers over him to be talked back to. papa spoke to prue and it amused her very much. she said that old mr. beadle had better speak to his own boy, who was orton's fiercest rival at the dances. and as for the fat old judge, he'd better take up dancing himself. the following sunday three of the carthage preachers attacked the tango. one of them used for his text matthew xiv: , and the other used mark vi: . both told how john the baptist had lost his head over salome's dancing. doctor brearley chose isaiah lix: "their feet run to evil ... their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths." mr. and mrs. pepperall and ollie sat under doctor brearley. prue had slept too late to be present. doctor brearley blamed so many of the evils of the world on the tango craze that if a visitor from mars had dropped into a pew he might have judged that the world had been an eden till the tango came. but then doctor brearley had always blamed old things on new things. it was a ferocious sermon, however, and the wincing pepperalls felt that it was aimed directly at them. when doctor brearley denounced modern parents for their own godlessness and the irreligion of their homes, william took the blame to himself. on his way home he announced his determination to resume the long-neglected family custom of reading from the bible. after the heavy sabbath dinner had been eaten--prue was up in time for this rite--he gathered his little flock in the parlor for a solemn while. it had been his habit to choose the reading of the day at random--he called it "letting the lord decide." the big rusty-hinged bible fell open with a loud puff of dust several years old. papa adjusted his spectacles and read what he found before him: "nehemiah x: 'now those that sealed were, nehemiah, the tirshatha, the son of hachaliah, and zidkijah, seraiah, azariah, jeremiah, pashur, amariah, malchijah, hattush ...'" he began to breathe hard. he was lost in an impenetrable forest of names, and he could not pronounce one of them. he sneaked a peek ahead, dimly made out "bunni, hizkijah, magpiash and hashub," and choked. it looked like sacrilege, but he ventured to close the book and open it once more. this time he happened on the last chapter of the book of judges, wherein is the chronicle of the plight of the tribe of benjamin, which could not get women to marry into it. the wife famine of the benjamites was not in the least interesting to mr. pepperall, but he would not tempt the lord again. so he read on, while the children yawned and shuffled, prue especially. suddenly prue sat still and listened, and papa's cough grew worse. he was reading about the "feast of the lord in shiloh yearly," and how the elders of the congregation ordered the children of benjamin to go and lie in wait in the vineyards. "'and see, and behold, if the daughters of shiloh come out to dance in dances, then come ye out of the vineyards and catch you every man his wife of the daughters of shiloh.... "'and the children of benjamin did so, and took them wives, according to their number, of them that danced, whom they caught: and they went and returned unto their inheritance, and repaired the cities, and dwelt in them.... "'in those days there was no king in israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes." he closed the book and stole a glance at prue. her eyes were so bright with triumph that he had to say: "of course that proves nothing about dancing. it doesn't say that the shiloh girls made good wives." prue had the impudence to add, "and it doesn't say that the sons of benjamin were good dancers." her father silenced her with a scowl of horror. then he made a long prayer, directed more at his family than at the lord. it apparently had an equal effect on each. after a hymn had been mumbled through the family dispersed. prue lingered just long enough to capture the bible and carry it off to her room in a double embrace. serina and william tried to be glad to see her sudden interest, but they were a little afraid of her exact motive. she made no noise at all and did not come down in time to help get supper--the sad, cold supper of a sunday evening. she slipped into the dining-room just before the family was called. papa found at his plate a neat little stack of cards, bearing each a carefully lettered legend in prue's writing. he picked them up, glanced at them, and flushed. "i dare you to read them," said prue. so he read: "'to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven ... a time to mourn and a time to dance.... he hath made every thing beautiful in his time.' ecclesiastes iii. "'let them praise his name in the dance ... for the lord taketh pleasure in his people.... praise him with the timbrel and dance.... praise him upon the loud cymbals.' psalms cxlix, cl. "'o virgin of israel ... thou shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry.... then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together.' jeremiah xxxi. "'we have piped unto you, and ye have not danced.' matthew xi: . "'michal, saul's daughter, looked through a window, and saw king david leaping and dancing before the lord; and she despised him in her heart.... therefore michal the daughter of saul had no child unto the day of her death.' ii samuel vi: , ." papa did not fall back upon the shakesperean defense that the devil can quote scripture to his purpose. he choked a little and filled his hand with the apple-butter he was spreading on his cold biscuit. then he said: "it's not that i don't believe in dancing. i don't say all dances are immor'l." "you better not," said serina, darkly. "you met me at a dance. we used to dance all the time till you got so's you wouldn't take me to parties any more. and you got so clumsy and i began to take on flesh, and ran short of breath like." "oh, there's mor'l dances as well as immor'l dances," william confessed, not knowing the history of the opposition every dance has encountered in its younger days. "the waltz now, or the lancers or the virginia reel. even the two-step was all right. but this turkey-trot-tango business--it's goin' to be the ruination of the home. it isn't fit for decent folks to look at, let alone let their daughters do. i want you should quit it, prue. if you need exercise help your mother with the housework. you go and tango round with a broom awhile. i don't see why you don't try to help your sister, too, and make something useful of yourself. i tell you, in these days a woman ought to be able to earn her own living same's a man. you could get a good position in shillaber's dry-goods store if you only would." prue wriggled her shoulders impatiently and said: "i guess i'm one of those shiloh girls. i'll just dance round awhile, and maybe some rich benjamin gent'man will grab me and take me off your hands." viii one evening prue came home late to supper after a session at bertha appleby's. an informal gathering had convened under the disguise of a church-society meeting, only to degenerate into a dancing-bee after a few perfunctory formalities. prue had just time to seize a bite before she went to dress for a frankly confessed dancing-bout at eliza erf's. as she ate with angry voracity she complained: "i guess i'll just quit going to dances. i don't have a bit of fun any more." her father started from his chair to embrace the returned prodigal, but he dropped into ollie's place as prue exclaimed: "everybody is always at me for help. 'prue, is this right?' 'prue, teach me that.' 'oh, what did you do then?' 'is it the inside foot or the outside you start on?' 'do you drop on the front knee or the hind?' 'do you do the innovation?' why, it's worse than teaching school!" "why don't you teach school?" said william, feebly. "there's going to be a vacancy in the kindergarten." prue sniffed. "i see myself!" and went to her room to dress. her father sank back discouraged. what ailed the girl? she simply would not take life seriously. she would not lift her hand to help. when they were so poor and the future so dour, how could she keep from earning a little money? was she condemned to be altogether useless, shiftless, unprofitable? a weight about her father's neck till he could shift her to the neck of some unhappy husband? he remembered the fable of the ant and the locust. prue was the locust, frivoling away the summer. at the first cold blast she would be pleading with the industrious ant, ollie, to take her in. in the fable the locust was turned away to freeze, but you couldn't do that with a human locust. the ants just have to feed them. poor ollie! munching this quinine cud of thought, he went up to bed. he was footsore from tramping the town for work. he had covered almost as much distance as prue had danced. he was all in. she was just going out. she kissed him good night, but he would not answer. she went to kiss her mother and ollie and horace. ollie was practising shorthand, and kissed prue with sorrowing patience. horace dodged the kiss, but called her attention to an article in the evening paper: "say, prue, if you want to get rich quick whyn't you charge for your tango advice? says here that teachers are springing up all over noo york and chicawgo, and they get big, immense prices." "how much?" said prue, indifferently. "says here twenty-five dollars an hour. some of 'em's earning a couple of thousand dollars a week." this information went through the room like a projectile from a coast-defense gun. serina listened with bated breath as horace read the confirmation. she shook her head: "it beats all the way vice pays in this world." horace read on. the article described how some of the most prominent women in metropolitan society were sponsoring the dances. a group of ladies, whose names were more familiar to serina than the christian martyrs, had rented a whole dwelling-house for a dancing couple to disport in, so that the universal amusement could be practised exclusively. that settled serina. whatever mrs. ---- and miss ---- and the mother of the duchess of ---- did was better than right. it was swell. prue's frown now was the frown of meditation. "if they charge twenty-five dollars an hour in new york, what ought to be the price in carthage?" "about five cents a week," said serina, who did not approve of carthage. "nobody in this town would pay anything for anything." "we used to pay old professor durand to teach us to waltz and polka," said horace, "in the good old days before pop got the bankruptcy habit." that night prue made an experiment. she danced exclusively with ort hippisley and grant beadle, the surest-footed bipeds in the town. when members of the awkward squad pleaded to cut in she danced away impishly, will-o'-the-wispishly. when the girls lifted their skirts and asked her to correct their footwork she referred them to the articles in the magazines. she was chiefly pestered by idalene brearley, daughter of the clergyman, and his chief cross. finally idalene brearley tore prue from the arms of ort hippisley, backed her into a corner, and said: "say, prue, you've got to listen! i'm invited to visit the swellest home in council bluffs for a house-party. they call it a week-end; that shows how swell they are. they're going to dance all the time. when it comes to these new dances i'm weak at both ends, head and feet." she laughed shamelessly at her own joke, as women do. "i don't want to go there like i'd never been any place, or like carthage wasn't up to date. i'm just beginning to get the hang of the maxixe and the hesitation, and i thought if you could give me a couple of days' real hard work i wouldn't be such an awful gump. could you? do you suppose you could? or could you?" prue looked such astonishment at this that idalene hastened to say: "o' course i'm not asking you to kill yourself for nothing. how much would you charge? of course i haven't much saved up; but i thought if i took two lessons a day you could make me a special rate. how much would it be, d'you s'pose? or what do you think?" prue wondered. this was a new and thrilling moment for her. a boy is excited enough over the first penny he earns, but he is brought up to earn money. to a girl, and a girl like prue, the luxury was almost intolerably intense. she finally found voice to murmur: "how much you gettin' for the lessons you give?" idalene had, for the sake of pin money, been giving a few alleged lessons in piano, voice, water-colors, bridge whist, fancy stitching, brass-hammering, and things like that. she answered prue with reluctance: "i get fifty cents an hour. but o' course i make a specialty of those things." "i'm making a specialty of dancing," said prue, coldly. idalene was torn between the bitterly opposite emotions of getting and giving. prue tried to speak with indifference, but she looked as greedy as the old miser in the "chimes of normandy." "fifty cents suits me, seeing it's you." idalene gasped: "well, o' course, two lessons a day would be a dollar. could you make it six bits by wholesale?" prue didn't see how she could. teaching would interfere so with her amusements. finally idalene sighed: "oh, well, all right! call it fifty cents straight. when can i come over to your house?" "to my house?" gasped prue. "papa doesn't approve of my dancing. i'll come to yours." "oh no, you won't," gasped idalene. "my father doesn't dream that i dance. i'm going to let him sleep as long as i can." here was a plight! mrs. judge hippisley strolled up and demanded, "what's all this whispering about?" they explained their predicament. mrs. hippisley thought it was a perfectly wonderful idea to take lessons. she would let prue teach idalene in her parlor if prue would teach her at the same time for nothing. "unless you think i'm too old and stupid to learn," she added, fishingly. prue put a catfish on her hook: "oh, mrs. hippisley, i've seen women much older and fatter and stupider than you dancing in chicago." while the hours of tuition were being discussed bertha appleby tiptoed up to eavesdrop, and pleaded to be accepted as a pupil. and she forced on the timorous prue a quarter as her matriculation fee. orton hippisley beau'd prue home that night, and they paused in an arcade of maples to practise a new step she had been composing in the back of her head. he was an apt pupil, and when they had resumed their homeward stroll she neglected to make him take his arm away. encouraged, he tried to kiss her when they reached the gate. she cuffed him again, but this time her buffet was almost a caress. she sighed: "i can't get very mad at you, you're such a quick student. i hope your mother will learn as fast." "my mother!" he exclaimed. "yes. she wants me to teach her the one-step." "don't you dare!" "and why not?" she asked, with sultry calm. "do you think i'll let my mother carry on like that? well, hardly!" "oh, so what i do isn't good enough for your mother!" "i don't mean just that; but can't you see--wait a minute--" she slammed the gate on his outstretched fingers and he went home fondling his wound. the next day he strolled by the parlor door at his own home, but prue would not speak to him and his mother was too busy to invite him in. it amazed him to see how humble his haughty mother was before the hitherto neglected prue. prue would have felt sorrier for him if she had not been so exalted over her earnings. she had not let on at home about her class till she could lay the proof of her success on the supper-table. when she stacked up the entire two dollars that she had earned by only a few miles of trotting, it looked like the loot the mercenaries captured in that old carthage which the new carthage had never heard of. the family was aghast. it was twice as much as ollie had earned that day. ollie's money "came reg'lar," of course, and would total up more in the long run. but for prue to earn anything was a miracle. and in carthage two dollars is two dollars, at the very least. ix the news that carthage had a tango-teacher created a sensation rivaling the advent of its first street-car. it gave the place a metropolitan flavor. if it only had a slums district, now, it would be a great and gloriously wicked city. prue was fairly besieged with applicants for lessons. those who could dance a few steps wanted the new steps. those who could not dance at all wanted to climb aboard the ark. mrs. hippisley's drawing-room did not long serve its purpose. on the third day the judge stalked in. he came home with a chill. at the sight of his wife with one knee up, trying to paw like a horse, his chill changed to fever. his roar was heard in the kitchen. he was so used to domineering that he was not even afraid of his wife when he was in the first flush of rage. prue and idalene and bertha he would have sentenced to deportation if he had had the jurisdiction. he could at least send them home. he threatened his wife with dire punishments if she ever took another step of the abominable dance. prue was afraid of the judge, but she was not afraid of her own father. she told him that she was going to use the parlor, and he told her that she wasn't. the next day he came home to find the class installed. he peeked into the parlor and saw bertha appleby dancing with idalene brearley. prue was in the arms of old "tawm" kinch, the town scoundrel, a bald and wealthy old bachelor who had lingered uncaught like a wise old trout in a pool, though generations of girls had tried every device, from whipping the' stream to tickling his sides. he had refused every bait and lived more or less alone in the big old mansion he had inherited from his skinflint mother. at the sight of tawm kinch in his parlor embracing his daughter and bungling an odious dance with her, william pepperall saw red. he would throw the old brute out of his house. as he made his temper ready mrs. judge hippisley hurried up the hall. she had walked round the block, crossed two back yards and climbed the kitchen steps to throw the judge off the scent. william could hardly make a scene before these women. he could only protest by leaving the house. he found that, having let the outrage go unpunished, once, it was hard to work up steam to drive it out the second day. also he remembered that he had asked tawm kinch for a position in his sash-and-blind factory and tawm had said he would see about it. attacking tawm kinch would be like assaulting his future bread and butter. he kept away from the house as much as he could, sulking like a punished boy. one evening as he went home to supper, purposely delaying as long as possible, he saw tawm kinch coming from the house. he ran down the steps like an urchin and seized william's hand as if he had not seen him for a long time. "take a walk with me, bill," he said, and led william along an unfrequented side street. after much hemming and hawing he began: "bill, i got a proposition to make you. i find there's a possibility of a p'sition openin' up in the works and maybe i could fit you into it if you'd do something for me." william tried not to betray his overweening joy. "i'd always do anything for you, tawm," he said. "i always liked you, always spoke well of you, which is more 'n i can say of some of the other folks round here." tawm was flying too high to note the raw tactlessness of this; he went right on: "bill--or mr. pepperall, i'd better say--i'm simply dead gone on that girl of yours. she's the sweetest, smartest, gracefulest thing that ever struck this town, and when i--well, i'm afraid to ask her m'self, but i was thinkin' if you could arrange it." "arrange what?" "i want to marry her. i know i'm no kid, but she could have the big house, and i can be as foolish as anybody about spending money when i've a mind to. prue could have 'most anything she wanted and i could give you a good job. and then ever'body would be happy." x papa did his best to be dignified and not turn a handspring or shout for joy. he was like a boy trying to look sad when he learns that the school-teacher is ill. he managed to hold back and tell tawm kinch that this was kind of sudden like and he'd have to talk to the wife about it, and o' course the girl would have to be considered. he was good salesman enough not to leap at the first offer, and he left tawm kinch guessing at the gate of the big house. to tawm it looked as lonely and forlorn as it looked majestic and desirable to papa pepperall, glancing back over his shoulder as he sauntered home with difficult deliberation. his heart was singing, "what a place to eat sunday dinners at!" once out of tawm kinch's range, he broke into a walk that was almost a lope, and he rounded a corner into the portico that judge hippisley carried ahead of him. when the judge had regained his breath he seized papa by both lapels and growled: "look here, pepperall, i told you to keep your daughter away from my boy, and you didn't; and now ort has lost his job. beadle fired him to-day. and jobs ain't easy to get in this town, as you know. and now what's going to happen?" william pepperall was so exultant that he tried to say two things at the same time; that orton's job or loss of it was entirely immaterial and a matter of perfect indifference. what he said was, "it's material of perfect immaterence to me." he spurned to correct himself and stalked on, leaving the judge gaping. a few paces off william's knees weakened at the thought of how he had jeopardized ollie's position; but he tossed that aside with equal "immaterence," for when prue became mrs. kinch she could take ollie to live with her, or send her to school, or something. when he reached home he drew his wife into the parlor to break the glorious news to her. she was more hilarious than he had been. all their financial problems were solved and their social position enhanced, as if the family had suddenly been elevated to the peerage. she was on pins and needles of impatience because prue was late for supper. she came down at last when the others had heard all about it and nearly finished their food. she had her hat on, and she was in such a hurry that she paid no attention to the fluttering of the covey, or the prolonged throat-clearing of her father, who had difficulty in keeping serina from blurting out the end of the story first. at length he said: "well, prue, i guess the tango ain't as bad as i made out." "you going to join the class, poppa?" said prue, round the spoonful of preserved pears she checked before her mouth. her father went on: "i guess you're one of those daughters of shiloh like you said you was. and the son of benjamin has come right out after you. and he's the biggest son of a gun in the whole tribe." prue put down the following spoonful and turned to her mother: "what ails poppa, momma? he talks feverish." serina fairly gurgled: "prepare yourself for the grandest surprise. you'd never guess." and william had to jump to beat her to the news: "tawm kinch wants to marry you." "what?" "yep." "what makes you think so?" "he asked me." "asked you!" serina clasped her hands and her eyes filled with tears of the rescued. "oh, prue, ain't it wonderful? ain't the lord good to us?" prue did not catch fire from the blaze. she sniffed, "he wasn't very good to tawm kinch." william, bitter with disappointment, snapped: "what do you mean? he's the richest man in town. some folks say he's as good as worth a hundred thousand dollars." "well, what of it? he'll never learn to dance. his feet interfere." "what's dancing got to do with it? you'll stop all that foolishness after you've married tawm." "oh, will i? ort hippisley can dance better with one foot than tawm kinch could dance if he was a centipede." "ort hippisley! humph! he's lost his job and he'll never get another. you couldn't marry him." "i'm not in any hurry to marry anybody." the reaction from hope to confusion, the rejection of the glittering gift he proffered, infuriated the hen-pecked, chickpecked father. he shrieked: "well, you're going to marry tawm kinch or you're going to get out of my house!" "papa!" gasped ollie. "here, dad!" growled horace. "william!" cried serina. william thumped the table and rose to his full height. he had not often risen to it. and his voice had an unsuspected timbre: "i mean it. i've been a worm in this house long enough. here's where i turn. this girl has made me a laughing-stock and a despising-stock long enough. she can take this grand opportunity i got for her or she can pack up her duds and clear out--for good!" he thumped the table again and sat down trembling with spent rage. serina was so crushed under the crumbled wall of her air-castles that she could not protest. olive and horace felt that since prue was so indifferent to their happiness they need not consider hers. there was a long, long silence. the sound of a low whistle outside stole into the silence. prue rose and said, quietly: "ollie, would you mind packing my things for me? i'll send over for them when i know where i'll be." ollie tried to answer, but her lips made no sound. prue kissed each of the solemn faces round the table, including her father's. they might have been dead in their chairs for all their response. she paused with prophetic loneliness. that low whistle shrilled again. she murmured a somber, "good-by, everybody," and went out. the door closed like a dull "good-by." they heard her swift feet slowly crossing the porch and descending the steps. they imagined them upon the walk. they heard the old gate squeal a rusty, "good-by-y--prue-ue!" xi it was ort hippisley, of course, that waited for prue outside the gate. they swapped bad news. she had heard that he had lost his job, but not that his father had forbidden him to speak to prue. her evil tidings that she had been compelled to choose between marrying tawm kinch and banishment from home threw ort into a panic of dismay. he was a natural-born dancer, but not a predestined hero. he had no inspirations for crises like these. he was as graceful as a manly man could be, but he was not at his best when the hour was darkest. he was at his best when the band was playing. in him prue found somebody to support, not to lean on. but his distress at her distress was so complete that it endeared him to her war-like soul more than a braver quality might have done. they stood awhile thus in each other's arms like a pierrot and his columbine with winter coming on. finally orton sighed: "what in heaven's name is goin' to become of us? what you goin' to do, prue? where can you go?" prue's resolution asserted itself. "the first place to go is mrs. prosser's boardin'-house and get me a room. then we can go on to the dance and maybe that'll give us an idea." "but maybe mrs. prosser won't want you since your father's turned you out." "in the first place it was me that turned me out. in the second place mrs. prosser wants 'most anybody that's got six dollars a week comin' in. and i've got that, provided i can find a room to teach in." mrs. prosser welcomed prue, not without question, not without every question she could get answered, but she made no great bones of the family war. "the best o' families quar'ls," she said. "and half the time they take their meals with me till they quiet down. i'll be losin' you soon." prue broached the question of a room to teach in. to mrs. prosser, renting a room had always the joy of renting a room. she said that her "poller" was not used much and she'd be right glad to get something for it. she would throw in the use of the pianna. prue touched the keys. it was an old boarding-house piano and sounded like a wire fence plucked; but almost anything would serve. so prue and orton hastened away to the party, and danced with the final rapture of doing the forbidden thing under an overhanging cloud of menace. several more pupils enlisted themselves in prue's classes. another problem was solved and a new danger commenced by mr. norman maugans. the question of music had become serious. it was hard to make progress when the dancers had to hum their own tunes. prue could not buy a phonograph, and the prosser piano dated from a time when pianos did not play themselves. prue could "tear off a few rags," as she put it, but she could not dance and teach and play her own music all at once. mrs. hippisley was afraid to lend her phonograph lest the judge should notice its absence. and now like a sent angel came mr. norman maugans, who played the pipe-organ at the church, and offered to exchange his services as musician for occasional lessons and the privilege of watching prue dance, for which privilege, he said, "folks in new york would pay a hundred dollars a night if they knew what they was missin'." prue grabbed the bargain, and the next morning began to teach him to play such things as "some smoke" and "leg of mutton." at first he played "girls, run along" so that it could hardly be told from "where is my wandering boy to-night?" and his waltzes were mostly hesitation; but by and by he got so that he fairly tangoed on the pedals, and he was so funny bouncing about on the piano-stool to "something seems tingle-ingle-ingle-ingling so queer" that the pupils stopped dancing to watch him. the tango was upon the world like a mississippi at flood-time. the levees were going over one by one; or if they stood fast they stood alone, for the water crept round from above and backed up from below. in carthage, as in both portlands, maine and oregon, and the two cairos, illinois and egypt, the parises of kentucky and france, the yorks and londons, old and new; in germany, italy, and japan, fathers, monarchs, mayors, editors stormed against the new dance; societies passed resolutions; police interfered; ballet-girls declared the dances immoral and ungraceful. the army of the dance went right on growing. doctor brearley called a meeting of the chief men of his congregation to talk things over and discipline, if not expel, all guilty members. deacon luxton was in a state of mind. he dared not vote in favor of the dance and he dared not vote against it. he and his wife were taking lessons from prue surreptitiously at their own home. judge hippisley's voice would have been louder for war if he had not discovered that his wife was secretly addicted to the one-step. old doctor brearley was walking about rehearsing a sermon against it when he happened to enter a room where idalene was practising. he wrung from her a confession of the depth of her iniquity. this knowledge paralyzed his enthusiasm. sour old deacon flugal was loudly in favor of making an example of prue. his wife was even more violent. she happened to mention her disgust to mrs. deacon luxton: "i guess this'll put an end to the tango in carthage!" "oh, i hope not!" mrs. luxton cried. "you hope not!" "yes, i do. it has done my husband no end of good. it's taken pounds and pounds of fat off him. it brings out the prespiration on him something wonderful. and it's taken years off his age. he's that spry and full of jokes and he's gettin' right spoony. he used to be a tumble cut-up, and then he settled down so there was no livin' with him. but now he keeps at me to buy some new clothes and he's thinkin' of gettin' a tuxeda. his old disp'sition seems to have come back and he's as cheerful and, oh, so affectionate! it's like a second honeymoon." mrs. luxton gazed off into space with rapture. mrs. flugal was so silent that mrs. luxton turned to see if she had walked away in disgust. but there was in her eyes that light that lies in woman's eyes, and she turned a delicious tomato-red as she murmured: "how much, do you s'pose, would a term of lessons cost for my husband?" xii somehow the church failed to take official action. there was loud criticism still, but phonographs that had hitherto been silent or at least circumspect were heard to blare forth dance rhythms, and not always with the soft needle on. mrs. prosser's boarders were mainly past the age when they were liable to temptation. at first the presence and activities of prue had added a tang of much-needed spice to this desert-island existence. they loved to stare through the door or even to sit in at the lessons. but at the first blast of the storm that the church had set up they scurried about in consternation. mrs. prosser was informed that her boarding-house was no longer a fit place for church-fearing ladies. she was warned to expurgate prue or lose the others. mrs. prosser regretfully banished the girl. and now prue felt like the locust turned away from ant-hill after ant-hill. she walked the streets disconsolately. her feet from old habit led her past her father's door. she paused to gaze at the dear front walk and the beloved frayed steps, the darling need of paint, the time-gnawed porch furniture, the empty hammock hooks. she sighed and would have trudged on, but her mother saw her and called to her from the sewing-room window, and ran out bareheaded in her old wrapper. they embraced across the gate and serina carried on so that prue had to go in with her to keep the neighbors from having too good a time. prue told her story, and serina's jaw set in the kind of tetanus that mothers are liable to. she sent horace to fetch prue's baggage from "old prosser's," and she re-established prue in her former room. when william came slumping up the steps, still jobless, he found the doors locked, front and back, and the porch windows fastened. serina from an upper sill informed him that prue was back, and he could either accept her or go somewhere else to live. william yielded, salving his conscience by refusing to speak to the girl. prue settled down with the meekness of returned prodigals for whom fatted calves are killed. according to the old college song, "the prod.," when he got back, "sued father and brother for time while away." that was the sort of prodigal prue was. prue brought her classes with her. papa pepperall gave up the battle. he dared not lock his daughter in or out or up. he must not beat her or strangle her with a bowstring or drop her into the bosporus. he could not sell her down the river. a modern father has about as much authority as a chained watch-dog. he can jump about and bark and snap, but he only abrades his own throat. there were pepperall feuds all over town. one by one the most conservative were recruited or silenced. william pepperall, however, still fumed at home and abroad, and judge hippisley would have authorized raids if there had been any places to raid. thus far the orgies had been confined to private walls. there was, indeed, no place in carthage for public dancing except the big room in the westcott block over jake meyer's restaurant, and that room was rented to various secret societies on various nights. prue's class outgrew the parlor, spread to the dining-room, and trickled into the kitchen. here the growth had to stop, till it was learned that if mr. maugans played very loud he could be heard in the bedrooms up-stairs. and there a sort of university extension was practised for ladies only. and still the demand for education increased. the benighted held out hands pleading for help. young men and old offered fabulous sums, a dollar a lesson, two dollars! prue decided that if her mother would stay up-stairs as a chaperon it would be proper to let the men dance there, too. "but how am i going to cook the meals?" said mamma. "we'll hire a cook," said prue. and it was done. she even bought mamma a new dress, and established her above-stairs as a sort of grand duenna. mamma watched prue with such keenness that now and then, when prue had to rush down-stairs, mamma would sometimes solve a problem for one of prue's "scholars," as she called them. one day papa came home to his pandemonium, jostled through the couple-cluttered hall, stamped up-stairs, and found mamma showing deacon flugal how to do the drop-step. "you trot four short steps backward," mamma was saying, "then you make a little dip; but don't swing your shoulders. prue says if you want to dance refined you mustn't swing your shoulders or your--your--the rest of you." papa was ready to swing his shoulders and drop the deacon through the window, but as he was about to protest the deacon caught mamma in his arms and swept backward, dropping his fourth step incisively on papa's instep, rendering papa _hors de combat_. by the time william had rubbed witch-hazel into the deacon's heel-mark, the deacon in a glorious "prespiration" had gone home with his own breathless wife ditto. william dragged serina into the bathroom, the only room where dancing was not in progress. he warned her not to forget that she had sworn to be a faithful wife. she pooh-poohed him and said: "you'd better learn to dance yourself. come on, i'll show you the jedia luna. it's very easy and awful refined. do just like i do." she put her hands on her hips and began to sidle. she had him nearly sidled into the bathtub before he could escape with the cry of a hunted animal. at supper he thumped the table with another of his resolutions, and cried: "my house was not built for a dance-hall!" "that's right, poppa," said prue; "and it shakes so i'm afraid it'll come down on us. i've been thinking that you'll have to hire me the lodge-room in the westcott block. i can give classes there all day." he refused flatly. so she persuaded deacon flugal and several gentlemen who were on the waiting-list of her pupils to arrange it for her. and now all day long she taught in the westcott block. the noise of her music interfered with business--with lawyers and dentists and insurance agents. at first they were hostile, then they were hypnotized. lawyer and client would drop a title discussion to quarrel over a step. the dentist's forceps would dance along the teeth, and many an uncomplaining bicuspid was wrenched from its happy home, many an uneasy molar assumed a crown. the money prue made would have been scandalous if money did not tend to become self-sterilizing after it passes certain dimensions. by and by the various lodge members found their meetings and their secret rites to be so stupid, compared with the new dances, that almost nobody came. quorums were rare. important members began to resign. everybody wanted to be past grand master of the tango. the next step was the gradual postponement of meetings to permit of a little informal dancing in the evening. the lodges invited their ladies to enter the precincts and revel. gradually the room was given over night and day to the worship of saint vitus. xiii the solution of every human problem always opens another. people danced themselves into enormities of appetite and thirst. it was not that food was attractive in itself. far from it. it was an interruption, a distraction from the tango; a base streak of materialism in the bacon of ecstasy. but it was necessary in order that strength might be kept up for further dancing. deacon flugal put it happily: "eating is just like stoking. when i'm giving a party at our house i hate to have to leave the company and go down cellar and throw coal in the furnace. but it's got to be did or the party's gotter stop." carthage had one good hotel and two bad ones, but all three were "down near the deepo." almost the only other place to eat away from home was "jake meyer's place," an odious restaurant where the food was ill chosen and ill cooked, and served in china of primeval shapes as if stone had been slightly hollowed out. prue was complaining that there was no place in carthage where people could dance with their meals and give "teas donsons." horace was smitten with a tremendous idea. "why not persuade jake meyer to clear a space in his rest'runt like they do in chicawgo?" prue was enraptured, and horace was despatched to jake with the proffer of a magnificent opportunity. horace cannily tried to extract from jake the promise of a commission before he told him. jake promised. then horace sprang his invention. now jake was even more bitter against the tango than doctor brearley, judge hippisley, or mr. pepperall. the bar annex to his restaurant, or rather the bar to which his restaurant was annexed, had been almost deserted of evenings since the vicious dance mania raged. the bowling-alley where the thirst-producing dust was wont to arise in clouds was mute. over his head he heard the eternal maugans and the myriad-hoofed shuffle of the unceasing dance. when he understood what horace proposed he emitted the roar of an old uhlan, and the only commission he offered horace was the commission of murder upon his person. horace retreated in disorder and reported to prue. prue called upon jake herself, smilingly told him that all he needed to do was to crowd his tables together round a clear space, revolutionize his menu, get a cook who would cook, and spend about five hundred dollars on decorations. "five hundret thalers!" jake howled. "i sell you de whole shop for five hundret thalers." "i'll think it over," said prue as she walked out. she could think over all of it except the five hundred dollars. she had never thought that high. she told horace, and he said that the way to finance anything was to borrow the money from the bank. prue called on clarence dolge, the bank president she knew best. he asked her a number of personal questions about her earnings. he was surprised at their amount and horrified that she had saved none of them. he advised her to start an account with him; but she reminded him that she had not come to put in, but to take out. he said that he would cheerfully lend her the money if she could get a proper indorsement on her note. she knew that her father did not indorse her dancing, but perhaps he might feel differently about her note. "i might get poppa to sign his name," she smiled. mr. dolge exclaimed, "no, thank you!" without a moment's hesitation. he already had a sheaf of papa's autographs, all duly protested. she went to another bank, whose president announced that he would have to put the very unusual proposal before the directors. judge hippisley was most of the directors. the president did not report exactly what the directors said, for prue, after all, was a woman. but she did not get the five hundred. prue had set her heart on providing carthage with a _café dansant_. she determined to save her money. prue saving! it was hard, too, for shoes gave out quickly and she could not wear the same frock all the time. and sometimes at night she was so tired she just could not walk home and she rode home in a hack. a number of young men offered to buggy-ride her home or to take her in their little automobiles. but they, too, seemed to confuse art and business with foolishness. sometimes she would ask ort to ride home with her, but she wouldn't let him pay for the hack. indeed he could not if he would. his devotion to prue's school had cost him his job, and the judge would not give him a penny. sometimes in the hack prue would permit ort to keep his arm round her. sometimes when he was very doleful she would have to ask him to put it round her. but it was all right, because they were going to get married when orton learned how to earn some money. he was afraid he would have to leave carthage. but how could he tear himself from prue? she would not let him talk about it. xiv now the fame of prue and her prancing was not long pent up in carthage. visitors from other towns saw her work and carried her praises home. sometimes farmers, driving into town, would hear mr. maugans's music through the open windows. their daughters would climb the stairs and peer in and lose their taste for the old dances, and wistfully entreat prue to learn them them newfangled steps. in the towns smaller than carthage the anxiety for the tango fermented. a class was formed in oscawanna, and prue was bribed to come over twice a week and help. clint sprague, the manager of the carthage opera house, which was now chiefly devoted to moving pictures, with occasional interpolations of vaudeville, came home from chicago with stories of the enormous moneys obtained by certain tango teams. he proposed to book prue in a chain of small theaters round about, if she could get a dancing partner. she said she had one. sprague wrote glowing letters to neighboring theater-managers, but, being theater-managers, they were unable to know what their publics wanted. they declined to take any risks, but offered sprague their houses at the regular rental, leaving him any profits that might result. clint glumly admitted that it wouldn't cost much to try it out in oscawanna. he would guarantee the rental and pay for the show-cards and the dodgers; prue would pay the fare and hotel bills of herself, her partner, and mr. maugans. prue hesitated. it was an expense and a risk. prue cautious! she would take nobody for partner but orton hippisley. perhaps he could borrow the money from his father. she told him about it, and he was wild with enthusiasm. he loved to dance with prue. to invest money in enlarging her fame would be divine. he saw the judge. then he heard him. he came back to prue and told her in as delicate a translation as he could manage that it was all off. the judge had bellowed at him that not only would he not finance his outrageous escapade with that shameless pepperall baggage, but if the boy dared to undertake it he would disown him. "now you'll have to go," said prue, grimly. "but i have no money, honey," he protested, miserably. "i'll pay your expenses and give you half what i get," she said. he refused flatly to share in the profits. his poverty consented to accept the railroad fare and food enough to dance on. and he would pay that back the first job he got. then prue went to clint sprague and offered to pay the bills if he would give her three-fourths of the profits. he fumed; but she drove a good bargain. prue driving bargains! at last he consented, growling. when prue announced the make-up of her troupe there was a cyclone in her own home. papa was as loud as the judge. "you goin' gallivantin' round the country with that maugans idiot and that young hippisley scoundrel? well, i guess not! you've disgraced us enough in our own town, without spreading the poor but honorable name of pepperall all over oscawanna and perkinsville and athens and thebes." the worn-out, typewritten-out ollie pleaded against prue's lawlessness. it would be sure to cost her her place in the judge's office. it was bad enough now. even serina, who had become a mere echo of prue, herself went so far as to say, "really, prue, you know!" prue thought awhile and said: "i'll fix that all right. don't you worry. there'll be no scandal. i'll marry the boy." xv and she did! took ten dollars from the hiding-place where she banked her wealth, and took the boy to an oscawanna preacher, and telegraphed home that he was hers and she his and both each other's. the news spread like oil ablaze on water. mrs. hippisley had consented to take lessons of prue, but she had never dreamed of losing her eldest son to her. she and serina had quite a "run-in" on the telephone. william and the judge almost had a fight-out--and right on main street, too. each accused the other of fathering a child that had decoyed away and ruined the life of the other child. both were so scorched with helpless wrath that each went home to his bed and threatened to bite any hand that was held out in comfort. judge hippisley had just strength enough to send word to poor olive that she was fired. xvi the next news came the next day. oscawanna had been famished for a sight of the world-sweeping dances. it turned out in multitudes to see the famous carthage queen in the new steps. the opera-house there had not held such a crowd since william j. bryan spoke there--the time he did not charge admission. according to the oscawanna _eagle_: "this enterprising city paid one thousand dollars to see peerless prue pepperall dance with her partner otto hipkinson. what you got to say about that, ye scribes of carthage?" like the corpse in ben king's poem, judge hippisley sat up at the news and said: "what's that?" and when the figures were repeated he "dropped dead again." the next day word was received that perkinsville, jealous of oscawanna, had shoveled twelve hundred dollars into the drug-store where tickets were sold. two sick people had nearly died because they couldn't get their prescriptions filled for twelve hours, and the mayor of the town had had to go behind the counter and pick out his own stomach bitters. the athens theater had been sold out so quickly that the town hall was engaged for a special matinée. athens paid about fifteen hundred dollars. the athenians had never suspected that there was so much money in town. people who had not paid a bill for months managed to dig up cash for tickets. indignant oscawanna wired for a return engagement, so that those who had been crowded out could see the epoch-making dances. those who had seen them wanted to see them again. in the mornings prue gave lessons to select classes at auction prices. wonderful as this was, unbelievable, indeed, to carthage, it was not surprising. this blue and lonely dispeptic world has always been ready to enrich the lucky being that can tempt its palate with something it wants and didn't know it wanted. other people were leaping from poverty to wealth all over the world for teaching the world to dance again. prue caught the crest of the wave that overswept a neglected region. the influence of her success on her people and her neighbors was bound to be overwhelming. the judge modulated from a contemptuous allusion to "that pepperall cat" to "my daughter-in-law." prue's father, who had never watched her dance, had refused to collaborate even that far in her ruination, could not continue to believe that she was entirely lost when she was so conspicuously found. perhaps he was right. perhaps the world is so wholesome and so well balanced that nobody ever attained enormous prosperity without some excuse for it. people who contribute the beauty, laughter, thrills, and rhythm to the world may do as much to make life livable as people who invent electric lights and telephones and automobiles. why should they not be paid handsomely? prue, the impossible, unimaginable prue, triumphed home safely with several thousands of dollars in her satchel. orton bought a revolver to guard it with, and nearly shot one of his priceless feet off with it. they dumped the money upon the shelf of the banker who had refused to lend prue five hundred dollars. he had to raise the steel grating to get the bundle in. the receiving teller almost fainted and had to count it twice. clint sprague alone was disconsolate. he had refused to risk prue's expenses, had forced her to take the lioness's share of the actual costs and the imaginary profits. he almost wept over what he might have had, despising what he had. prue ought to have been a wreck; but there is no stimulant like success. in a boat-race the winning crew never collapses. prue's mother begged her to rest; her doctor warned her that she would drop dead. but she smiled, "if i can die dancing it won't be so bad." even more maddeningly joyful than the dancing now was the rhapsody of income. to be both salome and hetty green! mr. dolge figured out her income. at any reasonable rate of interest it represented a capital far bigger than tawm kinch's mythical hundred thousand. mr. dolge said to william pepperall: "bill, your daughter is the richest man in town. any time you want to borrow a little money, get her name on your note and i'll be glad to let you have it." somehow his little pleasantry brought no smile to william's face. he snapped: "you mind your own business and i'll mind mine." "oh, i suppose you don't have to borrow it," dolge purred; "she just gives it to you." william almost wept at this humiliation. prue bought out jake meyer's restaurant. she spent a thousand dollars on its decoration. she consoled ollie with a position as her secretary at twenty-five dollars a week and bought her some new dresses. her mother scolded poor ollie for being such a stick as not to be able to dance like her sister and having to be dependent on her. there was something hideously immoral and disconcerting about this success. but then there always is. prue was whisked from the ranks of the resentful poor to those of the predatory rich. prue established horace as cashier of the restaurant. she wanted to make her father manager, but he could not bend his pride to the yoke of taking wages from his child. if she had come home in disgrace and repentance he could have been a father to her. the blossoming of what had been jake meyer's place into what carthage called the "palais de pepperall" was a festival indeed. the newspapers, in which at horace's suggestion prue advertised lavishly, gave the event head-lines on the front page. the article included a complete catalogue of those present. this roster of forty "mesdames" was thereafter accepted as the authorized beadroll of the carthage four hundred. mrs. hippisley was present and as proud as judy. but the judge and william pepperall were absent, and prue felt an ache in a heart that should have been so full of pride. she and orton rode home in a hack and she cried all the way. in fact, he had to stick his head out and tell the driver to drive round awhile until she was calm enough to go home. a few days later, as prue was hurrying along the street looking over a list of things she had to purchase for her restaurant, she encountered old doctor brearley, who was looking over a list of subscribers to the fund for paying the overdue interest on the mortgage on the new steeple. he was afraid the builders might take it down. in trying to pass each other prue and the preacher fell into an involuntary tango step that delighted the witnesses. when doctor brearley had recovered his composure, and before he had adjusted his spectacles, he thought that prue was bertha appleby, and he said: "ah, my dear child, i was just going to call on you and see if you couldn't contribute a little to help us out in this very worthy cause." prue let him explain, and then she said: "tell you what i'll do, doctor: i'll give you the entire proceeds of my restaurant for one evening. and i'll dance for you with my husband." doctor brearley was aghast when he realized the situation. he was afraid to accept; afraid to refuse. he was in an excruciating dilemma. prue had mercy on him. she said: "i'll just announce it as an idea of my own. you needn't have anything to do with it." the townspeople were set in a turmoil over prue's latest audacity. half the church members declared it an outrage; the other half decided that it gave them an opportunity to see her dance under safe auspices. foxy prue! xvii the restaurant was crowded with unfamiliar faces, terrified at what they were to witness. doctor brearley had not known what to do. it seemed so mean to stay away and so perilous to go. his daughter solved the problem by telling him that she would say she had made him come. he went so far as to let her drag him in. "but just for a moment," he explained. "he really must leave immediately after mr. and mrs. hippisley's--er--exercises." he apparently apologized to the other guests, but really to an outraged heaven. he trembled with anxiety on the edge of his chair. the savagery of the music alarmed him. when prue walked out with her husband the old doctor was distressed by her beauty. then they danced and his heart thumped; but subtly it was persuaded to thump in the measure of that unholy maxixe. he did not know that outside in the street before the two windows stood two exiled fathers watching in bitter loneliness. he saw a little love drama displayed, and reminded himself that, after all, some critics said that the song of solomon was a kind of wedding drama or dance. after all, mrs. hippisley was squired by her perfectly proper and very earnest young husband--though orton in his black clothes was hardly more than her shifting shadow. the old preacher had been studying his cruden, and bolstering himself up, too, with the very scriptural texts that prue had written out for her stiff-necked father. he had met other texts that she had not known how to find. the idea came to the preacher that, in a sense, since god made everything he must have made the dance, breathed its impulse into the clay. this daughter of shiloh was an extraordinarily successful piece of workmanship. there was nothing very wicked surely about that coquettish bending of her head, those playful escapes from her husband's embrace, that heel-and-toe tripping, that lithe elusiveness, that joyous psalmody of youth. prue was so pretty and her ways so pretty that the old man felt the pathos of beauty, so fleet, so fleeting, so lyrical, so full of--alas! the tears were in his eyes, and he almost applauded with the others when the dance was finished. he bowed vaguely in the direction of the anxious prue and made his way out. she felt rebuked and condemned and would not be comforted by the praise of others. she did not know that the old preacher had encountered on the sidewalk judge hippisley. doctor brearley had forgotten that the judge had not yet ordered his own decision reversed, and he thought he was saying the unavoidable thing when he murmured: "ah, judge, how proud you must be of your dear son's dear wife. i fancy that miriam, the prophetess, must have danced something like that on the banks of the red sea when the egyptians were overthrown." then he put up the umbrella he always carried and stumbled back to his parsonage under the star-light. his heart was dancing a trifle, and he escaped the scene of wrath that broke out as soon as he was away. for william pepperall had a lump in his throat made up of equal parts of desire to cry and desire to fight, and he said to judge hippisley with all truculence: "look here, judge! i understand you been jawin' round this town about my daughter not being all she'd ought to be. now i'm goin' to put a stop to that jaw of yours if i have to slam it right through the top of your head. if you want to send me to jail for contemp' of court, sentence me for life, because that's the way i feel about you, you fat old--" judge hippisley put up wide-open hands and protested: "why, bill, i--i just been wonderin' how i could get your daughter to make up with me. i been afraid to ask her for fear she'd just think i was toadyin' to her. i think she's the finest girl ever came out of carthage. do you suppose she'd make up and--and come over to our house to dinner sunday?" "let's ask her," said william, and they walked in at the door. xviii early one morning about six months from the first dismal monday morning after william pepperall's last bankruptcy, serina wakened to find that william was already up. she had been oversleeping with that luxury which a woman can experience only in an expensive and frilly nightie combined with hemstitched linen sheets. she opened her heavy and slumber-contented eyes to behold her husband in a suit of partly-silk pajamas. he was making strange motions with his feet. "what on earth you doing there?" she yawned, and william grinned. "yestiddy afternoon the judge was showin' me a new step in this max hicks dance. it's right cute. goes like this." mamma pepperall watched him cavort a moment, then sniffed contemptuously, and rolled out like a fireman summoned. "not a bit like it! it goes like this." a few minutes later the door opened and ollie put her head in. "for heaven's sake be quiet! you'll wake prue, and she's all wore out; and she's only got an hour more before they have to get up and take the train for des moines." the old rascals promised to be good, but as soon as she had gone they wrangled in whispers and danced on tiptoes. suddenly prue put her head in at the door and gasped: "what in heaven's name are you and poppa up to? do you want to wake orton?" papa had to explain: "i got a new step, prue. goes like this. come on, momma." serina shyly took her place in his arms; but they had taken only a few strides when prue hissed: "sh-h! don't do it! stop it!" "why?" "in the first place it's out of date. and in the second place it's not respectable." then the hard-working locust, having rebuked the frivolous ants, went back to bed. "a" as in "father" i for two years life at harvard was one long siesta to orson carver, d. and then he fell off the window-seat. orson carver, st, ordered him to wake up and get to work at once. orson announced to his friends that he was leaving college to pay an extensive visit to "carthage" and it sounded magnificent until he added, "in the middle west." a struggling young railroad had succumbed to hard times out there, and orson senior had been appointed receiver. it was the carthage, thebes & rome railroad, connecting three towns whose names were larger than their populations. since orson had seemed unable to decide what career to choose, if any, his father decided for him--decided that he should take up railroading and begin at the beginning, which was the office at carthage. and orson went west to "grow up young man with the country." carthage bore not the faintest resemblance to the moving-picture life of the west; he didn't see a single person on horseback. yet his mother thought of him as one who had vanished into the mojave desert. she wrote to warn him not to drink the alkali water. young orson, regarding the villagers with patient disdain, was amazed to find that they were patronizing him with amusement. they spoke of his adored boston as an old-fogy place with "no git-up-and-git." orson's mother was somewhat comforted when he wrote her that the young women of carthage were noisy rowdies dressed like frumps. she was a trifle alarmed when she read in his next letter that some of them were not half bad-looking, surprisingly well groomed for so far west, and fairly attractive till they opened their mouths. then, he said, they twanged the banjo at every vowel and went over the letter "r" as if it were a bump in the road. he had no desire for blinders, but he said that he would derive comfort from a pair of ear-muffs. by and by he was writing her not to be worried about losing him, for there was safety in numbers, and carthage was so crowded with such graces that he could never single out one siren among so many. the word "siren" forced his mother to conclude that even their voices had ceased to annoy him. she expected him to bring home an indian squaw or a cowgirl bride on any train. and so orson carver was by delicate degrees engulfed in the life of carthage. he was never assimilated. he kept his own "dialect," as they called it. the girl that orson especially attended in carthage was tudie litton, as pretty a creature as he could imagine or desire. for manifest reasons he affected an interest in her brother arthur. and arthur, with a characteristic brotherly feeling, tried to keep his sister in her place. he not only told her that she was "not such a much," but he also said to orson: "you think my sister is some girl, but wait till you see em terriberry. she makes tudie look like something the pup found outside. just you wait till you see em. she's been to boarding-school and made some swell friends there, and they've taken her to europe with 'em. just you wait." "i'll wait," said orson, and proceeded to do so. but em remained out of town so long that he had begun to believe her a myth, when one day the word passed down the line that she was coming home at last. that night tudie murmured a hope that orson would not be so infatuated with the new-comer as to cast old "friends" aside. she underlined the word "friends" with a long, slow sigh like a heavy pen-stroke, and not without reason, for the word by itself was mild in view of the fact that the "friends" were seated in a motionless hammock in a moon-sheltered porch corner and holding on to each other as if a comet had struck the earth and they were in grave danger of being flung off the planet. orson assured tudie: "no woman exists who could come between us!" and a woman must have been supernaturally thin to achieve the feat at that moment. but even tudie, in her jealous dread, had no word to say against the imminent em. everybody spoke so well of her that orson had a mingled expectation of seeing an aphrodite and a sister of charity rolled into one. now carthage was by no means one of those petty towns where nearly everybody goes to the station to meet nearly every train. but nearly everybody went down to see em arrive. foremost among the throng was arthur litton. before em left town he and she had been engaged "on approval." while she was away he kept in practice by taking liddy sovey to parties and prayer-meetings and picnics. now that em was on the way home arthur let liddy drop with a thud and groomed himself once more to wear the livery of em's fiancé. when the crowd met the train it was recognized that arthur was next in importance to em's father and mother. nobody dreamed of pushing up ahead of him. on the outskirts of the mêlée stood orson carver. he gave railroad business as the pretext for his visit to the station, and he hovered in the offing. as the train from the east slid in, voices cried, "hello, em!" "woo-oo!" "oh, em!" "oh, you emma!" and other carthage equivalents for "_ave!_" and "all hail!" orson saw that a girl standing on the pullman platform waved a handkerchief and smiled joyously in response. this must be em. when the train stopped with a pneumatic wail she descended the steps like a young queen coming down from a dais. she was gowned to the minute; she carried herself with metropolitan poise; her very hilarity had the city touch. orson longed to dash forward and throw his coat under her feet, to snatch away the porter's hand-step and put his heart there in its place. but he could not do these things unintroduced. he hung back and watched her hug her mother and father in a brief wrestling-match while arthur stood by in simpering homage. when she reached out her hand to arthur he wrung it and clung to it with the dignity of proprietorship and a smirk that seemed to say: "i own this beautiful object, and i could kiss her if i wanted to. and she would like it. but i am too well bred to do such a thing in the presence of so many people." orson was not close enough to hear what he actually said. the glow in his eyes, however, was enough. then em visibly spoke. when her lips moved arthur stared at her aghast; seemed to ask her to repeat what she said. she evidently did. now arthur looked askance as if her words shocked him. her father and mother, too, exchanged glances of dismay and chagrin. the throng of friends pressing forward in noisy salutation was silenced as if a great hand were clapped over every murmurous mouth. orson wondered what terrible thing the girl could have spoken. there was nothing coarse in her manner. delicacy and grace seemed to mark her. and whatever it was she said she smiled luminously when she said it. the look in her eyes was incompatible with profanity, mild soever. yet her language must have been appalling, for her father and mother blushed and seemed to be ashamed of bringing her into the world, sorry that she had come home. the ovation froze away into a confused babble. what could the girl have said? ii orson was called in by the station agent before he could question any of the greeters. when he was released the throng had dispersed. the terriberrys had clambered into the family surrey and driven home with their disgrace. but that night there was a party at the littons', planned in emma's honor. tudie had invited orson to be present. he found that the one theme of conversation was emma. everybody said to him, "have you seen emma?" and when he said "yes," everybody demanded, "have you heard her?" and when he said "no" everybody said, "just you wait!" orson was growing desperate over the mystery. he seized newt elkey by the arm and said, "what does she do?" "what does who do?" "this miss em terriberry. everybody says, 'have you heard her?'" "well, haven't you?" "no! what under the sun does she say?" "just you wait. 'shh!" then emma came down the stairs like a slowly swooping angel. she had seemed a princess in her traveling-togs; in her evening gown--! orson had not seen such a gown since he had been in paris. he imagined this girl poised on the noble stairway of the opéra there. em came floating down upon these small-town girls with this fabric from heavenly looms, and reduced them once for all to a chorus. but there was no scorn in her manner and no humility in her welcome. the carthage girls frankly gave her her triumph, yet when she reached the foot of the stairs and the waiting arthur she murmured something that broke the spell. the crowd rippled with suppressed amusement. arthur flushed. orson was again too remote to hear. but he could feel the wave of derision, and he could see the hot shame on arthur's cheeks. emma bent low for her train, took arthur's arm, and disappeared into the parlor where the dancing had begun. orson felt his arm pinched, and turned to find tudie looking at him. "this is our dance," she said, "unless you'd rather dance with her." "with her? with miss terriberry, you mean?" "naturally. you were staring at her so hard i thought your eyes would roll out on the floor." there was only one way to quell this mutiny, and that was to soothe it away. he caught tudie in his arms. it was strenuous work bumping about in that little parlor, and collisions were incessant, but he wooed tudie as if they were afloat in interstellar spaces. they collided oftenest with arthur and his emma, for the lucky youth who held that drifting nymph seemed most unhappy in his pride. the girl was talking amiably, but the man was grim and furtive and as careless of his steering as a tipsy chauffeur. orson forgot himself enough to comment to tudie, "your brother doesn't seem to be enjoying himself." "poor boy, he's heartbroken." "why?" "he's so disappointed with em." "i can't see anything wrong with her." "evidently not; but have you heard her?" in a sudden access of rage orson stopped short in the middle of the swirl, and, ignoring the battery of other dancers, demanded, "in heaven's name, what's the matter with the girl?" "nothing, i should judge from the look on your face after your close inspection." "oh, for pity's sake, don't begin on me; but tell me--" "talk to her and find out," said tudie, with a twang that resounded as the music came to a stop. "oh, em--miss terriberry, this is mr. carver; he's dying to meet you." she whirled around so quickly that he almost fell into the girl's arms. she received him with a smile of self-possession: "chahmed, mr. cahveh." orson's eastern ears, expecting some horror of speech, felt delight instead. she did not say "charrmed" like an alarm-clock breaking out. she did not trundle his name up like a wheelbarrow. she softened the "a" and ignored the "r." tudie rolled the "r" on his ear-drums as with drum-sticks, and by contrast the sound came to him as: "misterr carrverr comes from harrvarrd. he calls it havvad." "oh," said em, with further illumination, "i woah the hahvahd colohs the lahst time i went to a game." orson wanted to say something about her lips being the perfect havvad crimson, but he did not quite dare--yet. and being of new england, he would always be parsimonious with flatteries. tudie hooked her brother's arm and said with an angelic spitefulness, "we'll leave you two together," and swished away. orson immediately asked for the next dance and em granted it. while they were waiting for the rheumatic piano to resume they promenaded. orson noted that everybody they passed regarded them with a sly and cynical amusement. it froze all the language on his lips, and the girl was still breathing so fast from the dance that she apologized. orson wanted to tell her how glorious she looked with her cheeks kindled, her lips parted, and her young bosom panting. but he suppressed the feverish impulse. and he wondered more and more what ridiculous quality the carthaginians could have found in her who had returned in such splendor. the piano exploded now with a brazen impudence of clamor. orson opened his arms to her, but she shook her head: "oh, i cahn't dahnce again just yet. you'd bettah find anothah pahtnah." she said it meekly, and seemed to be shyly pleased when he said he much preferred to sit it out. and they sat it out--on the porch. moonlight could not have been more luscious on cleopatra's barge than it was there. the piazza, which needed paint in the daylight, was blue enameled by the moon. the girl's voice was in key with the harmony of the hour and she brought him tidings from the east and from europe. they were as grateful as home news in exile. he expected to have her torn from him at any moment. but, to his amazement, no one came to demand her. they were permitted to sit undisturbed for dance after dance. she was suffering ostracism. the more he talked to her the more he was puzzled. even arthur did not appear. even the normal jealousy of a fiancé was not evident. orson's brain grew frantic for explanation. the girl was not wicked, nor insolent. she plainly had no contagious disease, no leprosy, no plague, not even a cold. then why was she persecuted? he was still fretting when the word was passed that supper was ready, and they were called in. plates and napkins were handed about by obliging young gallants; chicken salad and sandwiches were dealt out with a lavish hand, and ice-cream and cake completed the banquet. arthur had the decency to sit with em and to bring her things to eat, but he munched grimly at his own fodder. orson tagged along and sat on the same sofa. it was surprising how much noise the guests made while they consumed their food. the laughter and clatter contrasted with the soft speech of em, all to her advantage. when the provender was gone, and the plates were removed, tudie whisked orson away to dance with her. as he danced he noted that em was a wall-flower, trying to look unconcerned, but finally seeking shelter by the side of tudie's mother, who gave her scant hospitality. tudie began at once, "well, have you found out?" "no, i haven't." "didn't you notice how affected she is?" "no more than any other girl." "oh, thank you! so you think i'm affected." "not especially. but everybody is, one way or another--even the animals and the birds." "really! and what is my affectation?" "i don't know, and i wouldn't tell you if i did. what's miss terriberry's?" "didn't you dahnce with her?" "yes." "well, that's it." "what's that?" "she says 'dahnce,' doesn't she?" "i believe she does." "well, she used to say 'dannce' like the rest of us." "what of it? is it a sin to change?" "it's an affectation." "why? is education an affectation?" "oh! so you call the rest of us uneducated?" "for heaven's sake, no! you know too much, if anything. but what has that to do with miss terriberry?" because their minds were at such loggerheads their feet could not keep measure. they dropped out of the dance and sought the porch, while tudie raged on: "she has no right to put on airs. her father is no better than mine. who is she, anyway, that she should say 'dahnce' and 'cahn't' and 'chahmed'?" orson was amazed at the depths of bitterness stirred up by a mere question of pronunciation. he answered, softly: "some of the meekest people in the world use the soft 'a.' i say 'dahnce.'" "oh, but you can't help saying it." "yes, i could if i tried." "but you were born where everybody talks like that. em was born out here." "she has traveled, though." "so have i. and i didn't come back playing copy-cat." "it's natural for some people to mimic others. she may not be as strong-minded as you are." he thought that rather diplomatic. "besides 'dannce' and 'cann't' aren't correct." "oh yes, they are!" "oh no, they're not! not by any dictionary ever printed." "then they'd better print some more. dictionaries don't know everything. they're very inconsistent." "naturally." "now you say 'tomahto' where i say 'tomayto.'" "yes." "why don't you say 'potahto'?" "because nobody does." "well, nobody that was born out here says 'dahnce' and 'cahn't.'" "but she's been east and in europe, and--where's the harm of it, anyway? what's your objection to the soft 'a'?" "it's all right for those that are used to it." "but you say 'father.' why don't you say 'rather' to rhyme with it?" "don't be foolish." "i'm trying not to be." "well, then, don't try to convince me that em terriberry is a wonderful creature because she's picked up a lot of foreign mannerisms and comes home thinking she's better than the rest of us. we'll show her--the conceited thing! her own father and mother are ashamed of her, and arthur is so disgusted the poor boy doesn't know what to do. i think he ought to give her a good talking to or break off the engagement." orson sank back stunned at the ferocity of her manner. he beheld how great a matter a little fire kindleth. it was so natural to him to speak as miss terriberry spoke that he could not understand the hatred the alien "a" and the suppressed "r" could evoke among those native to the flat vowel and the protuberant consonant. he was yet to learn to what lengths disputes could go over quirks of speech. iii the very "talking to" that tudie believed her brother ought to give his betrothed he was giving her at that moment at the other end of the porch. arthur had hesitated to attempt the reproof. it was not pleasant to broach the subject, and he knew that it was dangerous, since em was high-spirited. even when she expressed a wonder at the coolness of everybody's behavior he could not find the courage for the lecture seething in his indignant heart. he was worrying through a perfunctory consolation: "oh, you just imagine that people are cold to you, em. everybody's tickled to death to have you home. you see, em--" "i wish you wouldn't call me em," she said. "it's your name, isn't it?" "it's a part of my old name; but i've changed emma to amélie. after this i want to be called amélie." if she had announced her desire to wear trousers on the street, or to smoke a pipe in church, or even to go in for circus-riding, he could not have been more appalled than he was at what she said. "amélie?" he gasped. "what in the name of--of all that's sensible is that for?" "i hate em. it's ugly. it sounds like a letter of the alphabet. i like amélie better. it's pretty and i choose it." "but look here, em--" "amélie." "this is carrying things too blamed far." he was not entirely heedless of her own welfare. he had felt the animosity and ridicule that had gathered like sultry electricity in the atmosphere when emma had murmured at the station those words that orson had not heard. orson, seated with tudie at one end of the porch, heard them now at the other end of the porch as they were quoted with mockery by arthur. orson and tudie forgot their own quarrel in the supernal rapture of eavesdropping somebody's else wrangle. "when you got off the train," arthur groaned, "you knocked me off my pins by what you said to your father and mother." "and what did i say?" said em in innocent wonder. "you said, 'oh, my dolling m'mah, i cahn't believe it's you'!" "what was wrong with that?" "you used to call her 'momma' and you called me 'darrling.' and you wouldn't have dared to say 'cahn't'! when i heard you i wanted to die. then you grabbed your father and gurgled, 'oh, p'pah, you deah old angel!' i nearly dropped in my tracks, and so did your father. and then you turned to me and i knew what was coming! i tried to stop you, but i couldn't. and you said it! you called me 'ahthuh'!" "isn't that your name, deah?" "no, it is not! my name is 'arrthurr' and you know it! 'ahthuh'! what do you think i am? my name is good honest 'arrthurr.'" he said it like a good honest watch-dog, and he gnarred the "r" in the manner that made the ancients call it the canine letter. amélie, born emma, laughed at his rage. she tried to appease him. "i think 'ahthuh' is prettiah. it expresses my tendah feelings bettah. the way you say it, it sounds like garrgling something." but her levity in such a crisis only excited her lover the more. "everybody at the station was laughing at you. to-night when you traipsed down the stairs, looking so pretty in your new dress, you had to spoil everything by saying: 'what a chahming pahty. shall we dahnce, ahthuh?' i just wanted to die." the victim of his tirade declined to wither. she answered: "i cahn't tell you how sorry i am to have humiliated you. but if it's a sin to speak correctly you'll have to get used to it." "no, i won't; but you'll get over it. you can live it down in time; but don't you dare try to change your name to amélie. they'd laugh you out of carthage." "oh, would they now? well, amélie is my name for heahaftah, and if you don't want to call me that you needn't call me anything." "look here, em." "amélie." "emamélie! for heaven's sake don't be a snob!" "you're the snob, not i. there's just as much snobbery in sticking to mispronunciation as there is in being correct. and just as much affectation in talking with a burr as in dropping it. you think it's all right for me to dress as they do in new york. why shouldn't i talk the same way? if it's all right for me to put on a pretty gown and weah my haiah the most becoming way, why cahn't i improve my name, too? you cahn't frighten me. i'm not afraid of you or the rest of your backwoods friends. beauty is my religion, and if necessary i'll be a mahtah to it." "you'll be a what?" "a mahtah." "do you mean a motto?" "i mean what you'd call a marrtyrr. but i won't make you one. i'll release you from our engagement, and you can go back to liddy sovey. i understand you've been rushing her very hahd. and you needn't take me home. i'll get back by the gahden pahth." she rose and swept into the house, followed by her despairing swain. orson and tudie eavesdropped in silence. tudie was full of scorn. amélie's arguments were piffle or worse to her, and her willingness to undergo "martyrdom" for them was the most arrant pigheadedness, as the martyrdom of alien creeds usually is. orson, the alien, was full of amazement. here was a nice young man in love with a beautiful young woman. he had been devoted for years, and now, because she had slightly altered her habits in one vowel and one consonant, their love was curdled. iv greater wars have begun from less causes and been waged more fiercely. they say that an avalanche can be brought down from a mountain by a whispered word. small wonder, then, that the murmur of a vowel and the murder of a consonant should precipitate upon the town of carthage the stored-up snows of tradition. business was dull in the village and any excitement was welcome. before emma's return there had been a certain slight interest in pronunciation. orson carver had for a time stimulated amusement by his droll talk. he had been suspected for some time of being an impostor because he spoke of his university as "havvad." the carthaginians did not expect him to call it "harrvarrd," as it was spelled, but they had always understood that true graduates called it "hawvawd," and local humorists won much laughter by calling it "haw-haw-vawd." orson had bewildered them further by a sort of cockneyism of misappropriated letters. he used the flat "a" in words where carthaginians used the soft, as in his own name and his university's. he saved up the "r" that he dropped from its rightful place and put it on where it did not belong, as in "idear." he had provoked roars of laughter one evening when a practical joker requested him to read a list of the books of the bible, and he had mentioned "numbas, joshuar, ezrar, nehemiar, estha, provubbs, isaiar, jeremiar." eventually he was eclipsed by another young man sent to a post in the c., t. & r. railroad by an ambitious parent--jefferson digney, of yale. digney, born and raised in virginia and removed to georgia, had taken his accent to new haven and taken it away with him unsullied. his southern speech had given carthage acute joy for a while. arthur litton had commented once on the contrast between orson and jefferson. "neither of you can pronounce the name of his state," said arthur. "he calls it 'jawja' and you call it 'jahjar.'" "what should it be?" "jorrjuh." "really!" "you can't pronounce your own name." "oh, cahn't i?" "no, you cahn't i. you call it 'cavveh.' he calls it 'cyahvah.'" "what ought it to be?" "carrvurr--as it's spelt." yet another new-comer to the town was an englishman, anthony hopper, a younger son of a stock-holder abroad. he was not at all the englishman of the stage, and the carthaginians were astonished to find that he did not drop his "h's" or misapply them. and he never once said "fawncy," but flat "fancy." he did not call himself "hanthony 'opper," as they expected. but he did take a "caold bahth in the mawning." with a new englander, an old englander, and an atlantan in the town, carthage took an astonishing interest in pronunciation that winter. when conversation flagged anybody could raise a laugh by referring to their outlandish pronunciations. quoting their remarks took the place of such parlor games as trying to say "she sells sea shells," or "the sea ceaseth and it sufficeth us." the foreigners entered into the spirit of it and retorted with burlesques of carthagese. they were received with excellent sportsmanship. one might have been led to believe that the carthaginians took the matter of pronunciation lightly, since they could laugh tolerantly at foreigners. this, however, was because the foreigners had missed advantages of carthaginian standards. emma terriberry's crime was not in her pronunciation, but in the fact that she had changed it. having come from carthage, she must forever remain a carthagenian or face down a storm of wrath. her quarrel with her lover was the beginning of a quarrel with the whole town. arthur litton became suddenly a hero, like the first man wounded in a war. the town rallied to his support. emma was a heartless wretch, who had insulted a faithful lover because he would not become as abject a toady to the hateful east as she was. her new name became a byword. her pronunciations were heard everywhere in the most ruthless parody. she was accused of things that she never had said, things that nobody could ever say. they inflicted on her the impossible habit of consistency. she was reported as calling a hat a "hot," a rat a "rot," of teaching her little sister to read from the primer, "is the cot on the mot?" pronunciation became a test of character. the soft "r" and the hard "a" were taken as proofs of effeminate hypocrisy. carthage differed only in degree, not in kind, from old italy at the time of the "sicilian vespers," when they called upon everybody to pronounce the word "ciceri." the natives who could say "chee-cheree" escaped, but the poor french who could come no nearer than "seeseree" were butchered. gradually now in carthage the foreigners from massachusetts, georgia, england, and elsewhere ceased to be regarded with tolerance. their accents no longer amused. they gave offense. in the railroad office there were six or seven of these new-comers. they were driven together by indignation. they took up amélie's cause; made her their queen; declined invitations in which she was not included; gave parties in her honor: took her buggy-riding. each had his day. a few girls could not endure her triumph. they broke away from the fold and became renegades, timidly softening their speech. this infuriated the others, and the town was split into guelph and ghibelline. amélie enjoyed the notoriety immensely. she flaunted her success. she ridiculed the carthage people as yokels. she burlesqued their jargon as outrageously as they hers. the soda-water fountains became battle-fields of backbiting and mockery. the feuds were as bitter, if not as deadly, as those that flourished around the fountains in medieval italian towns. two girls would perch on the drug-store stools back to back, and bicker in pretended ignorance of each other's presence. tudie litton would order "sahsahpahrillah," which she hated, just to mock amélie's manner; and amélie, assuming to be ignorant of tudie's existence, would retort by ordering "a strorrburry sody wattur." then each would laugh recklessly but miserably. the church at which the terriberrys worshiped was almost torn apart by the matter. the more ardent partisans felt that amélie's unrepentant soul had no right in the sacred edifice. others urged that there should be a truce to factions there, as in heaven. one sunday dear old dr. brearley, oblivious of the whole war, as of nearly everything else less than a hundred years away, chose as his text judges xii: : "then said they unto him, say now shibboleth: and he said sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. then they took him, and slew him at the passages of jordan: and there fell at that time of the ephraimites forty and two thousand." if the anti-amélites had needed any increase of enthusiasm they got it now. they had scripture on their side. if it were proper for the men of gilead, where the well-known balm came from, to slay forty-two thousand people for a mispronunciation, surely the carthaginians had authority to stand by their "alturrs" and their "fi-urs" and protect them from those who called them "altahs" and "fiahs." no country except ours could foster such a feud. no language except the chaos we fumble with could make it possible. by and by the war wore out of its own violence. people ceased to care how a thing was said, and began to take interest again in what was said. those who had mimicked amélie had grown into the habit of mimicry until they half forgot their scorn. the old-time flatness and burr began to soften from attrition, to be modified because they were conspicuous. you would have heard arthur subduing his twang and unburring the "r." if you had asked him he would have told you his name was either "arthuh" or "ahthur." amélie and her little bodyguard, on the other hand, grew so nervous of the sacred emblems that they avoided their use. when they came to a word containing an "a" or a final "r" they hesitated or sidestepped and let it pass. amélie fell into the habit of saying "couldn't" for "cahn't," and "a. m." for "mawning." people began to smile when they met her, and she smiled back. slowly everybody that had "not been speaking" began speaking, bowing, chatting. now, when one of the disputed words drifted into the talk, each tried to concede a little to the other's belief, as soldiers of the blue and the gray trod delicately on one another's toes after peace was decreed. everybody was now half and half, or, as tudie vividly spoke it, "haff and hahf." you would hear the same person say "haff-pahst ten," "hahf-passt eleven," and "hahf-pahst twelve." carthage became as confused in its language as alsace-lorraine. v all through this tremendous feud orson carver had been faithful to amélie. whether he had given tudie the sack or she him was never decided. but she was loyal to her dialect. he ceased to call; tudie ceased to invite him. they smiled coldly and still more coldly, and then she ceased to see him when they met. he was simply transparent. orson was amélie's first cavalier in carthage. he found her mightily attractive. she was brisk of wit and she adored his boston and his ways. she was sufficiently languorous and meek in the moonlight, too--an excellent hammock-half. but when the other outlanders had begun to gather to her standard it crowded the porch uncomfortably. dissension rose within the citadel. orson's father had fought jefferson's father in - . the great-grandfathers of both of them had fought anthony hopper's forefathers in ' - . the pronunciations of the three grew mutually distasteful, and dreadful triangular rows took place on matters of speech. amélie sat in silence while they wrangled, and her thoughts reverted to arthur litton. he had loved her well enough to be ashamed of her and rebuke her. she was afraid that she had been a bit of a snob, a trifle caddish. she had aired her new accent and her new clothes a trifle too insolently. old customs grew dear to her like old slippers. she remembered the littons' shabby buggy and the fuzzy horse, and the drives arthur and she had taken under the former moons. her father and mother had shocked her with their modes of speech when she came home, and she had ventured to rebuke them. she felt now that they ought to have spanked her. a great tenderness welled up in her heart for them and their homely ways. she wanted to be like them. the village was taking her back into its slumberous comfortableness. she would waken from her reveries to hear the aliens arguing their alien rules of speech. it suddenly struck her that they were all wrong, anyway. she felt an impulse to run for a broom and sweep them off into space. she grew curt with them. they felt the chill and dropped away, all but orson. at last his lonely mother bullied his father into recalling him from the western wilds. he called on amélie to bid a heartbreaking good-by. he was disconsolate. he asked her to write to him. she promised she would. he was excited to the point of proposing. she declined him plaintively. she could never leave the old folks. "my place is here," she said. he left her and walked down the street like a moving elegy. he suffered agonies of regret till he met a girl on the east-bound train. she was exceedingly pretty and he made a thrilling adventure of scraping acquaintance with her mother first, and thus with her. they were returning to boston, too. they were his home folks. when at last the train hurtled him back into massachusetts he had almost forgotten that he had ever been in carthage. he had a sharp awakening. when he flung his arms about his mother and told her how glad he was to see her, her second exclamation was: "but how on uth did you acquiah that ghahstly weste'n accent?" * * * * * one evening in the far-off middle west the lonely amélie was sitting in her creaking hammock, wondering how she could endure her loneliness, plotting how she could regain her old lover. she was desperately considering a call upon his sister. she would implore forgiveness for her sin of vanity and beg tudie's intercession with arthur. she had nearly steeled herself to this glorious contrition when she heard a warning squeal from the front gate, a slow step on the front walk, and hesitant feet on the porch steps. and there he stood, a shadow against the shadow. in a sorrowful voice he mumbled, "is anybody home?" "i am!" she cried. "i was hoping you would come." "no!" "yes. i was just about ready to telephone you." there was so much more than hospitality in her voice that he stumbled forward. their shadows collided and merged in one embrace. "oh, amélie!" he sighed in her neck. and she answered behind his left ear: "don't call me amélie any more. i like em betterr from you! it's so shorrt and sweet--as you say it. we'll forget the passt forreverr." "am! my dolling!" "oh, arrthurr!" the end recent books of travel * * * * * _in vacation america_ by harrison rhodes _in this book of leisurely wanderings the author journeys among the various holiday resorts of the united states from maine to atlantic city, newport, bar harbor, the massachusetts beaches, long island sound, the great lakes, niagara, ever-young greenbriar white and other virginia springs, saratoga, white mountains, the winter resorts of florida, the carolinas and california._ illustrated in color * * * * * _along new england roads_ by william c. prime _all those who are on the lookout for an unusual way to spend a vacation will find suggestions here. this book of leisurely travel in new hampshire and vermont has been reprinted to meet the demand for a work that has never failed to charm since its first publication more than a decade ago._ illustrated * * * * * _australian byways_ by norman duncan _in this book the author gives a chatty account of his trip along the outskirts of australian civilization. the big cities were merely passed through, and the journeying was principally by stage-coach, on camel-back, or by small coastal steamers from western australia to new guinea._ illustrated in tint * * * * * _california: an intimate history_ by gertrude atherton _the california of to-day and the california of yesterday with its picturesque story, are set forth in this book by the one writer who could bring to it the skill united with that love for the task of a californian-born, gertrude atherton. this story of california covers the varied history of the state from its earliest geological beginnings down to the california of ._ illustrated * * * * * recent books of verse _poems_ by dana burnet _poems of to-day, of living persons, of present hopes and fears. there are stirring poems on the great war: "the battle of liège," "dead on the field of honor," "sunk by a mine," "the glory of war," etc., poems of panama, of its ancient swashbuckler pirates and its modern canal-builders; poems about town and dialect poems._ post vo, cloth * * * * * _dreams and dust_ by don marquis _a book of lyrics and other poems written in the major key of cheerfulness and hope. "i sting too hot with life to whine," says the author. mr. marquis has filled successfully many different verse forms with the wine of his interest in life._ post vo, cloth * * * * * _the laughing muse_ by arthur guiterman _a book of humorous verses on various subjects ranging from prehistoric beasts to bernard shaw. the ballads are mock-heroic, parodies of the ballads of chivalry. in other verses the puritans, the dutch inhabitants of new amsterdam are gently satirized._ post vo, cloth * * * * * harper & brothers new york established london note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h.zip) david dunne a romance of the middle west by belle kanaris maniates with illustrations by john drew [illustration: "_he stood as if at bay, his face pale, his eyes riveted on those floating banners_" page ] rand mcnally & company chicago--new york copyright, , by rand, mcnally & company to milly and gardner list of illustrations "_he stood as if at bay, his face pale, his eyes riveted on those floating banners_" _frontispiece_ facing page "'_dave's little gal!_'" "_with proudly protective air, david walked beside the stiffly starched little girl_" "_david's friends were surprised to receive an off-hand invitation from him to 'drop in for a little country spread'_" "_he kept his word. jud was cleared_" "_it was a relief to find carey alone_" "_'carey, will you make the dream a reality?'_" [illustration: "'_dave's little gal!_'"] part one chapter i across lots to the brumble farm came the dusty apparition of a boy, a tousle-headed, freckle-faced, gaunt-eyed little fellow, clad in a sort of combination suit fashioned from a pair of overalls and a woman's shirtwaist. in search of "miss m'ri," he looked into the kitchen, the henhouse, the dairy, and the flower garden. not finding her in any of these accustomed places, he stood still in perplexity. "miss m'ri!" rang out his youthful, vibrant treble. there was a note of promise in the pleasant voice that came back in subterranean response. "here, david, in the cellar." the lad set down the tin pail he was carrying and eagerly sped to the cellar. his fondest hopes were realized. m'ri brumble, thirty odd years of age, blue of eye, slightly gray of hair, and sweet of heart, was lifting the cover from the ice-cream freezer. "well, david dunne, you came in the nick of time," she said, looking up with kindly eyes. "it's just frozen. i'll dish you up some now, if you will run up to the pantry and fetch two saucers--biggest you can find." fleetly david footed the stairs and returned with two soup plates. "these were the handiest," he explained apologetically as he handed them to her. "just the thing," promptly reassured m'ri, transferring a heaping ladle of yellow cream to one of the plates. "easy to eat out of, too." "my, but you are giving me a whole lot," he said, watching her approvingly and encouragingly. "i hope you ain't robbing yourself." "oh, no; i always make plenty," she replied, dishing a smaller portion for herself. "here's enough for our dinner and some for you to carry home to your mother." "i haven't had any since last fourth of july," he observed in plaintive reminiscence as they went upstairs. "why, david dunne, how you talk! you just come over here whenever you feel like eating ice cream, and i'll make you some. it's no trouble." they sat down on the west, vine-clad porch to enjoy their feast in leisure and shade. m'ri had never lost her childish appreciation of the delicacy, and to david the partaking thereof was little short of ecstasy. he lingered longingly over the repast, and when the soup plate would admit of no more scraping he came back with a sigh to sordid cares. "mother couldn't get the washing done no-ways to-day. she ain't feeling well, but you can have the clothes to-morrow, sure. she sent you some sorghum," pointing to the pail. m'ri took the donation into the kitchen. when she brought back the pail it was filled with eggs. not to send something in return would have been an unpardonable breach of country etiquette. "your mother said your hens weren't laying," she said. the boy's eyes brightened. "thank you, miss m'ri; these will come in good. our hens won't lay nor set. mother says they have formed a union. but i 'most forgot to tell you--when i came past winterses, ziny told me to ask you to come over as soon as you could." "i suppose zine has got one of her low spells," said barnabas brumble, who had just come up from the barn. "most likely bill's bin gittin' tight agin. he--" "oh, no!" interrupted his sister hastily. "bill has quit drinking." "bill's allers a-quittin'. trouble with bill is, he can't stay quit. i see him yesterday comin' down the road zig-zaggin' like a rail fence. fust she knows, she'll hev to be takin' washin' to support him. sometimes i think 't would be a good idee to let him git sent over the road onct. mebby 't would learn him a lesson--" he stopped short, noticing the significant look in m'ri's eyes and the two patches of color spreading over david's thin cheeks. he recalled that four years ago the boy's father had died in state prison. "you'd better go right over to zine's," he added abruptly. "i'll wait till after dinner. we'll have it early." "hev it now," suggested barnabas. "now!" ejaculated david. "it's only half-past ten." "i could eat it now jest as well as i could at twelve," argued the philosophical barnabas. "jest as leaves as not." there were no iron-clad rules in this comfortable household, especially when pennyroyal, the help, was away. "all right," assented m'ri with alacrity. "if i am going to do anything, i like to do it right off quick and get it over with. you stay, david, if you can eat dinner so early." "yes, i can," he assured her, recalling his scanty breakfast and the freezer of cream that was to furnish the dessert. "i'll help you get it, miss m'ri." he brought a pail of water from the well, filled the teakettle, and then pared the potatoes for her. "when will jud and janey get their dinner?" he asked barnabas. "they kerried their dinner to-day. the scholars air goin' to hev a picnic down to spicely's grove. how comes it you ain't to school, dave?" "i have to help my mother with the washing," he replied, a slow flush coming to his face. "she ain't strong enough to do it alone." "what on airth kin you do about a washin', dave?" "i can draw the water, turn the wringer, hang up the clothes, empty the tubs, fetch and carry the washings, and mop." barnabas puffed fiercely at his pipe for a moment. "you're a good boy, dave, a mighty good boy. i don't know what your ma would do without you. i hed to leave school when i wa'n't as old as you, and git out and hustle so the younger children could git eddicated. by the time i wuz foot-loose from farm work, i wuz too old to git any larnin'. you'd orter manage someway, though, to git eddicated." "mother's taught me to read and write and spell. when i get old enough to work for good wages i can go into town to the night school." in a short time m'ri had cooked a dinner that would have tempted less hearty appetites than those possessed by her brother and david. "you ain't what might be called a delikit feeder, dave," remarked barnabas, as he replenished the boy's plate for the third time. "you're so lean i don't see where you put it all." david might have responded that the vacuum was due to the fact that his breakfast had consisted of a piece of bread and his last night's supper of a dish of soup, but the dunne pride inclined to reservation on family and personal matters. he speared another small potato and paused, with fork suspended between mouth and plate. "mother says she thinks i am hollow inside like a stovepipe." "well, i dunno. stovepipes git filled sometimes," ruminated his host. "leave room for the ice cream, david," cautioned m'ri, as she descended to the cellar. the lad's eyes brightened as he beheld the golden pyramid. another period of lingering bliss, and then with a sigh of mingled content and regret, david rose from the table. "want me to hook up for you, mr. brumble?" he asked, moved to show his gratitude for the hospitality extended. "why, yes, dave; wish you would. my back is sorter lame to-day. land o' livin'," he commented after david had gone to the barn, "but that boy swallered them potaters like they wuz so many pills!" "poor mrs. dunne!" sighed m'ri. "i am afraid it's all she can do to keep a very small pot boiling. i am glad she sent the sorghum, so i could have an excuse for sending the eggs." "she hain't poor so long as she hez a young sprout like dave a-growin' up. we used to call peter dunne 'old hickory,' but dave, he's second-growth hickory. he's the kind to bend and not break. jest you wait till he's seasoned onct." after she had packed a pail of ice cream for david, gathered some flowers for ziny, and made out a memorandum of supplies for barnabas to get in town, m'ri set out on her errand of mercy. the "hooking up" accomplished, david, laden with a tin pail in each hand and carrying in his pocket a drawing of black tea for his mother to sample, made his way through sheep-dotted pastures to beechum's woods, and thence along the bank of the river rood. presently he spied a young man standing knee-deep in the stream in the patient pose peculiar to fishermen. "catch anything?" called david eagerly. the man turned and came to shore. he wore rubber hip boots, dark trousers, a blue flannel shirt, and a wide-brimmed hat. his eyes, blue and straight-gazing, rested reminiscently upon the lad. "no," he replied calmly. "i didn't intend to catch anything. what is your name?" "david dunne." the man meditated. "you must be about twelve years old." "how did you know?" "i am a good guesser. what have you got in your pail?" "which one?" "both." "thought you were a good guesser." the youth laughed. "you'll do, david. let me think--where did you come from just now?" "from brumble's." "it's ice cream you've got in your pail," he said assuredly. "that's just what it is!" cried the boy in astonishment, "and there's eggs in the other pail." "let's have a look at the ice cream." david lifted the cover. "it looks like butter," declared the stranger. "it don't taste like butter," was the indignant rejoinder. "miss m'ri makes the best cream of any one in the country." "i knew that, my young friend, before you did. it's a long time since i had any, though. will you sell it to me, david? i will give you half a dollar for it." half a dollar! his mother had to work all day to earn that amount. the ice cream was not his--not entirely. miss m'ri had sent it to his mother. still-- "'t will melt anyway before i get home," he argued aloud and persuasively. "of course it will," asserted the would-be purchaser. david surrendered the pail, and after much protestation consented to receive the piece of money which the young man pressed upon him. "you'll have to help me eat it now; there's no pleasure in eating ice cream alone." "we haven't any spoons," commented the boy dubiously. "we will go to my house and eat it." "where do you live?" asked david in surprise. "just around the bend of the river here." david's freckles darkened. he didn't like to be made game of by older people, for then there was no redress. "there isn't any house within two miles of here," he said shortly. "what'll you bet? half a dollar?" "no," replied david resolutely. "well, come and see." david followed his new acquaintance around the wooded bank. the river was full of surprises to-day. in midstream he saw what looked to him like a big raft supporting a small house. "that's my shanty boat," explained the young man, as he shoved a rowboat from shore. "jump in, my boy." "do you live in it all the time?" asked david, watching with admiration the easy but forceful pull on the oars. "no; i am on a little fishing and hunting expedition." "can't kill anything now," said the boy, a derisive smile flickering over his features. "i am not hunting to kill, my lad. i am hunting old scenes and memories of other days. i used to live about here. i ran away eight years ago when i was just your age." "what is your name?" asked david interestedly. "joe forbes." "oh," was the eager rejoinder. "i know. you are deacon forbes' wild son that ran away." "so that's how i am known around here, is it? well, i've come back, to settle up my father's estate." "what did you run away for?" inquired david. "combination of too much stepmother and a roving spirit, i guess. here we are." he sprang on the platform of the shanty boat and helped david on board. the boy inspected this novel house in wonder while his host set saucers and spoons on the table. "would you mind," asked david in an embarrassed manner as he wistfully eyed the coveted luxury, "if i took my dishful home?" "what's the matter?" asked forbes, his eyes twinkling. "eaten too much already?" "no; but you see my mother likes it and she hasn't had any since last summer. i'd rather take mine to her." "there's plenty left for your mother. i'll put this pail in a bigger one and pack ice about it. then it won't melt." "but you paid me for it," protested david. "that's all right. your mother was pretty good to me when i was a boy. she dried my mop of hair for me once so my stepmother would not know i'd been in swimming. tell her i sent the cream to her. say, you were right about miss m'ri making the best cream in the country. it used to be a chronic pastime with her. that's how i guessed what you had when you said you came from there. whenever there was a picnic or a surprise party in the country she always furnished the ice cream. isn't she married yet?" "no." "doesn't she keep company with some lucky man?" "no," again denied the boy emphatically. "what's the matter? she used to be awfully pretty and sweet." "she is now, but she don't want any man." "well, now, david, that isn't quite natural, you know. why do you think she doesn't want one?" "i heard say she was crossed once." "crossed, david? and what might that be?" asked forbes in a delighted feint of perplexity. "disappointed in love, you know." "yes; it all comes back now--the gossip of my boyhood days. she was going with a man when barnabas' wife died and left two children--one a baby--and miss m'ri gave up her lover to do her duty by her brother's family. so barnabas never married again?" "no; miss m'ri keeps house and brings up jud and janey." "i remember jud--mean little shaver. janey must be the baby." "she's eight now." "i remember you, david. you were a little toddler of four--all eyes. your folks had a place right on the edge of town." "we left it when i was six years old and came out here," informed david. forbes' groping memory recalled the gossip that had reached him in the far west. "dunne went to prison," he mused, "and the farm was mortgaged to defray the expenses of the trial." he hastened back to a safer channel. "miss m'ri was foolish to spoil her life and the man's for fancied duty," he observed. david bridled. "barnabas couldn't go to school when he was a boy because he had to work so she and the other children could go. she'd ought to have stood by him." "i see you have a sense of duty, too. this county was always strong on duty. i suppose they've got it in for me because i ran away?" "mr. brumble says it was a wise thing for you to do. uncle larimy says you were a brick of a boy. miss rhody says she had no worry about her woodpile getting low when you were here." "poor miss rhody! does she still live alone? and uncle larimy--is he uncle to the whole community? what fishing days i had with him! i must look him up and tell him all my adventures. i have planned a round of calls for to-night--miss m'ri, miss rhody, uncle larimy--" "tell me about your adventures," demanded david breathlessly. he listened to a wondrous tale of western life, and never did narrator get into so close relation with his auditor as did this young ranchman with david dunne. "i must go home," said the boy reluctantly when joe had concluded. "come down to-morrow, david, and we'll go fishing." "all right. thank you, sir." with heart as light as air, david sped through the woods. he had found his hero. chapter ii david struck out from the shelter of the woodland and made his way to his home, a pathetically small, rudely constructed house. the patch of land supposed to be a garden, and in proportion to the dimensions of the building, showed a few feeble efforts at vegetation. it was not positively known that the widow dunne had a clear title to her homestead, but one would as soon think of foreclosing a mortgage on a playhouse, or taking a nest from a bird, as to press any claim on this fallow fragment in the midst of prosperous farmlands. some discouraged looking fowls picked at the scant grass, a lean cow switched a lackadaisical tail, and in a pen a pig grunted his discontent. david went into the little kitchen, where a woman was bending wearily over a washtub. "mother," cried the boy in dismay, "you said you'd let the washing go till to-morrow. that's why i didn't come right back." she paused in the rubbing of a soaped garment and wrung the suds from her tired and swollen hands. "i felt better, david, and i thought i'd get them ready for you to hang out." david took the garment from her. "sit down and eat this ice cream miss m'ri sent--no, i mean joe forbes sent you. there was more, but i sold it for half a dollar; and here's a pail of eggs and a drawing of tea she wants you to sample. she says she is no judge of black tea." "joe forbes!" exclaimed his mother interestedly. "i thought maybe he would be coming back to look after the estate. is he going to stay?" "i'll tell you all about him, mother, if you will sit down." he began a vigorous turning of the wringer. the patient, tired-looking eyes of the woman brightened as she dished out a saucer of the cream. the weariness in the sensitive lines of her face and the prominence of her knuckles bore evidence of a life of sordid struggle, but, above all, the mother love illumined her features with a flash of radiance. "you're a good provider, david; but tell me where you have been for so long, and where did you see joe?" he gave her a faithful account of his dinner at the brumble farm and his subsequent meeting with joe, working the wringer steadily as he talked. "there!" he exclaimed with a sigh of satisfaction, "they are ready for the line, but before i hang them out i am going to cook your dinner." "i am rested now, david. i will cook me an egg." "no, i will," insisted the boy, going to the stove. a few moments later, with infinite satisfaction, he watched her partake of crisp toast, fresh eggs, and savory tea. "did you see jud and janey?" she asked suddenly. "no; they were at school." "david, you shall go regularly to school next fall." "no," said david stoutly; "next fall i am going to work regularly for some of the farmers, and you are not going to wash any more." her eyes grew moist. "david, will you always be good--will you grow up to be as good a man as i want you to be?" "how good do you want me to be?" he asked dubiously. a radiant and tender smile played about her mouth. "not goodygood, david; but will you always be honest, and brave, and kind, as you are now?" "i'll try, mother." "and never forget those who do you a kindness, david; always show your gratitude." "yes, mother." "and, david, watch your temper and, whatever happens, i shall have no fears for your future." his mother seldom talked to him in this wise. he thought about it after he lay in his little cot in the sitting room that night; then his mind wandered to joe forbes and his wonderful tales of the west. he fell asleep to dream of cowboys and prairies. when he awoke the sun was sending golden beams through the eastward window. "mother isn't up," he thought in surprise. he stole quietly out to the kitchen, kindled a fire with as little noise as possible, put the kettle over, set the table, and then went into the one tiny bedroom where his mother lay in her bed, still--very still. "mother," he said softly. there was no response. "mother," he repeated. then piercingly, in excitement and fear, "mother!" at last he knew. he ran wildly to the outer door. bill winters, fortunately sober, was driving slowly by. "bill!" "what's the matter, dave?" looking into the boy's white face. "your ma ain't sick, is she?" david's lips quivered, but seemed almost unable to articulate. "she's dead," he finally whispered. "i'll send zine right over," exclaimed bill, slapping the reins briskly across the drooping neck of his horse. very soon the little house was filled to overflowing with kind and sympathetic neighbors who had come to do all that had to be done. david sat on the back doorstep until m'ri came; before the expression in his eyes she felt powerless to comfort him. "the doctor says your mother died in her sleep," she told him. "she didn't suffer any." he made no reply. oppressed by the dull pain for which there is no ease, he wandered from the house to the garden, and from the garden back to the house throughout the day. at sunset barnabas drove over. "i shall stay here to-night, barnabas," said m'ri, "but i want you to drive back and get some things. i've made out a list. janey will know where to find them." "sha'n't i take dave back to stay to-night?" he suggested. m'ri hesitated, and looked at david. "no," he said dully, following barnabas listlessly down the path to the road. barnabas, keen, shrewd, and sharp at a bargain, had a heart that ever softened to motherless children. "dave," he said gently, "your ma won't never hev to wash no more, and she'll never be sick nor tired agen." it was the first leaven to his loss, and he held tight to the horny hand of his comforter. after barnabas had driven away there came trudging down the road the little, lithe figure of an old man, who was carrying a large box. his mildly blue, inquiring eyes looked out from beneath their hedge of shaggy eyebrows. his hair and his beard were thick and bushy. joe forbes maintained that uncle larimy would look no different if his head were turned upside down. "david," he said softly, "i've brung yer ma some posies. she liked my yaller roses, you know. i'm sorry my laylocks are gone. they come early this year." "thank you, uncle larimy." a choking sensation warned david to say no more. "things go 'skew sometimes, dave, but the sun will shine agen," reminded the old man, as he went on into the house. later, when sundown shadows had vanished and the first glimmer of the stars radiated from a pale sky, joe came over. david felt no thrill at sight of his hero. the halo was gone. he only remembered with a dull ache that the half dollar had brought his mother none of the luxuries he had planned to buy for her. "david," said the young ranchman, his deep voice softened, "my mother died when i was younger than you are, but you won't have a stepmother to make life unbearable for you." the boy looked at him with inscrutable eyes. "don't you want to go back with me to the ranch, david? you can learn to ride and shoot." david shook his head forlornly. his spirit of adventure was smothered. "we'll talk about it again, david," he said, as he went in to consult m'ri. "don't you think the only thing for the boy to do is to go back with me? i am going to buy the ranch on which i've been foreman, and i'll try to do for david all that should have been done for me when i, at his age, felt homeless and alone. he's the kind that takes things hard and quiet; life in the open will pull him up." "no, joe," replied m'ri resolutely. "he's not ready for that kind of life yet. he needs to be with women and children a while longer. barnabas and i are going to take him. barnabas suggested it, and i told mrs. dunne one day, when her burdens were getting heavy, that we would do so if anything like this should happen." joe looked at her with revering eyes. "miss m'ri, you are so good to other people's children, what would you be to your own!" the passing of m'ri's youth had left a faint flush of prettiness like the afterglow of a sunset faded into twilight. she was of the kind that old age would never wither. in the deep blue eyes was a patient, reflective look that told of a past but unforgotten romance. she turned from his gaze, but not before he had seen the wistfulness his speech had evoked. after he had gone, she sought david. "i am going to stay here with you, david, for two or three days. then barnabas and i want you to come to live with us. i had a long talk with your mother one day, and i told her if anything happened to her you should be our boy. that made her less anxious about the future, david. will you come?" the boy looked up with his first gleam of interest in mundane things. "i'd like it, but would--jud?" "i am afraid jud doesn't like anything, david," she replied with a sigh. "that's one reason i want you--to be a big brother to janey, for i think that is what she needs, and what jud can never be." the boy remembered what his mother had counseled. "i'll always take care of janey," he earnestly assured her. "i know you will, david." two dreary days passed in the way that such days do pass, and then david rode to his new home with barnabas and m'ri. jud brumble, a refractory, ungovernable lad of fifteen, didn't look altogether unfavorably upon the addition to the household, knowing that his amount of work would thereby be lessened, and that he would have a new victim for his persecutions and tyrannies. janey, a little rosebud of a girl with dimples and flaxen curls, hung back shyly and looked at david with awed eyes. she had been frightened by what she had heard about his mother, and in a vague, disconnected way she associated him with death. m'ri went to the child's bedside that night and explained the situation. "poor davey is all alone, now, and very unhappy, so we must be kind to him. i told him you were to be his little sister." then m'ri took david to a gabled room, at each end of which was a swinging window--"one for seeing the sun rise, and one for seeing it set," she said, as she turned back the covers from the spotless white bed. she yearned to console him, but before the mute look of grief in his big eyes she was silent. "i wish he would cry," she said wistfully to barnabas, "he hasn't shed a tear since his mother died." no sooner had the sound of her footsteps ceased than david threw off his armor of self-restraint and burst into a passion of sobs, the wilder for their long repression. he didn't hear the patter of little feet on the floor, and not until two mothering arms were about his neck did he see the white-robed figure of janey. "don't cry, davey," she implored, her quivering red mouth against his cheek. "i'm sorry; but i am your little sister now, so you must love me, davey. aunt m'ri told me so." chapter iii the lilac-scented breeze of early morning blowing softly through the vine-latticed window and stirring its white draperies brought david to wakefulness. with the first surprise at the strangeness of his surroundings came a fluttering of memory. the fragrance of lilacs was always hereafter to bring back the awfulness of this waking moment. he hurriedly dressed, and went down to the kitchen where m'ri was preparing breakfast. "good morning, david. janey has gone to find some fresh eggs. you may help her hunt them, if you will." knowing the haunts of hens, he went toward the currant bushes. it was one of those soft days that link late spring and dawning summer. the coolness of the sweet-odored air, the twitter of numberless dawn birds, the entreating lowing of distant cattle--all breathing life and strength--were like a resurrection call to david. on the east porch, which was his retreat for a smoke or a rest between the intervals of choring and meals, barnabas sat, securely wedged in by the washing machine, the refrigerator, the plant stand, the churn, the kerosene can, and the lawn mower. he gazed reflectively after david. "what are you going to hev dave do to help, m'ri?" m'ri came to the door and considered a moment. "first of all, barnabas, i am going to have him eat. he is so thin and hungry looking." barnabas chuckled. his sister's happiest mission was the feeding of hungry children. after breakfast, when janey's rebellious curls were again being brushed into shape, m'ri told david he could go to school if he liked. to her surprise the boy flushed and looked uncomfortable. m'ri's intuitions were quick and generally correct. "it's so near the end of the term, though," she added casually, as an afterthought, "that maybe you had better wait until next fall to start in." "yes, please, miss m'ri, i'd rather," he said quickly and gratefully. when janey, dinner pail in hand and books under arm, was ready to start, david asked in surprise where jud was. "oh, he has gone long ago. he thinks he is too big to walk with janey." david quietly took the pail and books from the little girl. "i'll take you to school, janey, and come for you this afternoon." "we won't need to git no watch dog to foller janey," said barnabas, as the children started down the path. "david," called m'ri, "stop at miss rhody's on your way back and find out whether my waist is finished." with proudly protective air, david walked beside the stiffly starched little girl, who had placed her hand trustfully in his. they had gone but a short distance when they were overtaken by joe forbes, mounted on a shining black horse. he reined up and looked down on them good-humoredly. [illustration: "_with proudly protective air, david walked beside the stiffly starched little girl_"] "going to school, children?" "i am. davey's just going to carry my things for me," explained janey. "well, i can do that and carry you into the bargain. help her up, david." janey cried out in delight at the prospect of a ride. david lifted her up, and joe settled her comfortably in the saddle, encircling her with his arm. then he looked down whimsically into david's disappointed eyes. "i know it's a mean trick, dave, to take your little sweetheart from you." "she's not my sweetheart; she's my sister." "has she promised to be that already? get up, firefly." they were off over the smooth country road, forbes shouting a bantering good-by and janey waving a triumphant dinner pail, while david, trudging on his way, experienced the desolate feeling of the one who is left behind. across fields he came to the tiny, thatched cottage of miss rhody crabbe, who stood on the crumbling doorstep feeding some little turkeys. "come in, david. i suppose you're after m'ri's waist. thar's jest a few stitches to take, and i'll hev it done in no time." he followed her into the little house, which consisted of a sitting room "with bedroom off," and a kitchen whose floor was sand scoured; the few pieces of tinware could be used as mirrors. miss rhody seated herself by the open window and began to ply her needle. she did not sew swiftly and smoothly, in feminine fashion, but drew her long-threaded needle through the fabric in abrupt and forceful jerks. a light breeze fluttered in through the window, but it could not ruffle the wisp-locked hair that showed traces of a water-dipped comb and was strained back so taut that a little mound of flesh encircled each root. her eyes were bead bright and swift moving. everything about her, to the aggressively prominent knuckles, betokened energy and industry. she was attired in a blue calico shortened by many washings, but scrupulously clean and conscientiously starched. her face shone with soap and serenity. miss rhody's one diversion in a busy but monotonous life was news. she was wretched if she did not receive the latest bulletins; but it was to her credit that she never repeated anything that might work harm or mischief. david was one of her chosen confidants. he was a safe repository of secrets, a sympathetic listener, and a wise suggester. "i'm glad m'ri's hevin' a blue waist. she looks so sweet in blue. i've made her clo'es fer years. my, how i hoped fer to make her weddin' clo'es onct! it wuz a shame to hev sech a good match spiled. it wuz too bad she hed to hev them two chillern on her hands--" "and now she has a third," was what david thought he read in her eyes, and he hastened to assert: "i am going to help all i can, and i'll soon be old enough to take care of myself." "land sakes, david, you'd be wuth more'n yer keep to any one. i wonder," she said ruminatingly, "if martin thorne will wait for her till janey's growed up." "martin thorne!" exclaimed david excitedly. "judge thorne? why, was he the one--" "he spent his sunday evenings with her," she asserted solemnly. in the country code of courtships this procedure was conclusive proof, and david accepted it as such. "he wuz jest plain lawyer thorne when he wuz keepin' company with m'ri, but we all knew mart wuz a comin' man, and m'ri wuz jest proud of him. you could see that, and he wuz sot on her." her work momentarily neglected, rhody was making little reminiscent stabs at space with her needle as she spoke. "'t wuz seven years ago. m'ri wuz twenty-eight and mart ten years older. it would hev ben a match as sure as preachin', but eliza died and m'ri, she done her duty as she seen it. sometimes i think folks is near-sighted about their duty. there is others as is queer-sighted. bein' crossed hain't spiled m'ri though. she's kep' sweet through it all, but when a man don't git his own way, he's apt to curdle. mart got sort of tart-tongued and cold feelin'. there wa'n't no reason why they couldn't a kep' on bein' friends, but mart must go and make a fool vow that he'd never speak to m'ri until she sent him word she'd changed her mind, so he hez ben a-spitin' of his face ever sence. it's wonderful how some folks do git in their own way, but, my sakes, i must git to work so you kin take this waist home." this was david's first glimpse of a romance outside of story-books, but the name of martin thorne evoked disturbing memories. six years ago he had acted as attorney to david's father in settling his financial difficulties, and later, after peter dunne's death, the judge had settled the small estate. it was only through his efforts that they were enabled to have the smallest of roofs over their defenseless heads. "miss rhody," he asked after a long meditation on life in general, "why didn't you ever marry?" miss rhody paused again in her work, and two little spots of red crept into her cheeks. "'tain't from ch'ice i've lived single, david. i've ben able to take keer of myself, but i allers hed a hankerin' same as any woman, as is a woman, hez fer a man, but i never got no chanst to meet men folks. i wuz raised here, and folks allers hed it all cut out fer me to be an old maid. when a woman onct gets that name fixt on her, it's all off with her chances. no man ever comes nigh her, and she can't git out of her single rut. i never could get to go nowhars, and i wa'n't that bold kind that makes up to a man fust, afore he gives a sign." david pondered over this wistful revelation for a few moments, seeking a means for her seemingly hopeless escape from a life of single blessedness, for david was a sympathetic young altruist, and felt it incumbent upon him to lift the burdens of his neighbors. then he suggested encouragingly: "miss rhody, did you know that there was a paper that gets you acquainted with men? that's the way they say zine winters got married." "yes, and look what she drawed!" she scoffed. "bill! i don't know how they'd live if zine hadn't a-gone in heavy on hens and turkeys. she hez to spend her hull time a-traipsin' after them turkeys, and thar ain't nuthin' that's given to gaddin' like turkeys that i know on, less 't is chubbses' hired gal. no, david, it's chance enough when you git a man you've knowed allers, but a stranger! well! i want to know what i'm gittin'. thar, the last stitch in m'ri's waist is took, and, david, you won't tell no one what i said about mart thorne and her, nor about my gittin' merried?" david gave her a reproachful look, and she laughed shamefacedly. "i know, david, you kin keep a secret. it's like buryin' a thing to tell it to you. my, this waist'll look fine on m'ri. i jest love the feel of silk. i'd ruther hev a black silk dress than--" "a husband," prompted david slyly. "david dunne, i'll box yer ears if you ever think again of what i said. i am allers a-thinkin' of you as if you wuz a stiddy grown man, and then fust thing i know you're nuthin' but a teasin' boy. here's the bundle, and don't you want a nutcake, david?" "no, thank you, miss rhody. i ate a big breakfast." a fellow feeling had prompted david even in his hungriest days to refrain from accepting miss rhody's proffers of hospitality. he knew the emptiness of her larder, for though she had been thrifty and hard-working, she had paid off a mortgage and had made good the liabilities of an erring nephew. when david returned he found miss m'ri in the dairy. it was churning day, and she was arranging honey-scented, rose-stamped pats of butter on moist leaves of crisp lettuce. "david," she asked, looking up with a winning smile, "will you tell me why you didn't want to go to school?" the boy's face reddened, but his eyes looked frankly into hers. "yes, miss m'ri." "before you tell me, david," she interposed, "i want you to remember that, from now on, barnabas and i are your uncle and aunt." "well, then, aunt m'ri," began david, a ring of tremulous eagerness in his voice, "i can read and write and spell, but i don't know much about arithmetic and geography. i was ashamed to start in at the baby class. i thought i'd try and study out of jud's books this summer." "that's a good idea, david. we'll begin now. you'll find an elementary geography in the sitting room on the shelf, and you may study the first lesson. this afternoon, when my work is done, i'll hear you recite it." david took the book and went out into the old orchard. when m'ri went to call him to dinner he was sprawled out in the latticed shadow of an apple tree, completely absorbed in the book. "you have spent two hours on your first lesson, david. you ought to have it well learned." he looked at her in surprise. "i read the whole book through, aunt m'ri." "oh, david," she expostulated, "that's the way barnabas takes his medicine. instead of the prescribed dose after each meal he takes three doses right after breakfast--so as to get it off his mind and into his system, he says. we'll just have one short lesson in geography and one in arithmetic each day. you mustn't do things in leaps. it's the steady dog trot that lasts, and counts on the long journey." when david was on his way to bring janey from school that afternoon he was again overtaken by joe forbes. "dave, i am going to chicago in a few days, and i shall stop there long enough to buy a few presents to send back to some of my friends. here's my list. let me see, uncle larimy, a new-fangled fishing outfit; barnabas, a pipe; miss m'ri--guess, dave." "you're the guesser, you know," reminded david. "it's a new kind of ice-cream freezer, of course." "she's going to freeze ice to-night," recalled david anticipatingly. "freeze ice! what a paradoxical process! but what i want you to suggest is something for miss rhody--something very nice." "what she wants most is something you can't get her," thought david, looking up with a tantalizing little smile. then her second wish occurred to him. "i know something she wants dreadfully; something she never expects to have." "that is just what i want to get for her." "it'll cost a lot." joe disposed of that consideration by a munificent wave of the hand. "what is it?" "a black silk dress," informed the boy delightedly. "she shall have it. how many yards does it take, i wonder?" "we can ask janey's teacher when we get to school," suggested the boy. "so we can. i contrived to find out that janey's heart is set on a string of beads--blue beads. i suppose, to be decent, i shall have to include jud. what will it be?" "he wants a gun. he's a good shot, too." they loitered on the way, discussing joe's gifts, until they met janey and little teacher coming toward them hand in hand. david quickly secured the pail and books before joe could appropriate them. he wasn't going to be cut out a second time in one day. "miss williams," asked the young ranchman, "will your knowledge of mathematics tell me how many yards of black silk i must get to make a dress, and what kind of fixings i shall need for it?" "you don't have to know," she replied. "just go into any department store and tell them you want a dress pattern and the findings. they will do the rest." "shopping made easy. you shall have your reward now. my shanty boat is just about opposite here. suppose the four of us go down to the river and have supper on board?" little teacher, to whom life was a vista of blackboards dotted with vacations, thought this would be delightful. a passing child was made a messenger to the farm, and they continued their way woodward to the river, where the shanty boat was anchored. little teacher set the table, joe prepared the meal, while david sat out on deck, beguiling janey with wonderful stories. "this seems beautifully domestic to a cowboy," sighed joe, looking around the supper table, his gaze lingering on little teacher, who was dimpling happily. imaginative david proceeded to weave his third romance that day, with a glad little beating of the heart, for he had feared that joe might be planning to wait for janey, as the judge was doubtless waiting for m'ri. the children went directly home after supper, joe accompanying little teacher. despite the keenness of david's sorrow the day had been a peaceful, contented one, but when the shadows began to lengthen to that most lonesome hour of lonesome days, when from home-coming cows comes the sound of tinkling bells, a wave of longing swept over him, and he stole away to the orchard. again, a soft, sustaining little hand crept into his. "don't, davey," pleaded a caressing voice, "don't make me cry." chapter iv outside of the time allotted for the performance of a wholesome amount of farm work and the preparation of his daily lessons, david was free for diversions which had hitherto entered sparingly into his life. after school hours and on saturdays the barnabas farm was the general rendezvous for all the children within a three-mile radius. the old woods by the river rang with the gay treble of childish laughter and the ecstatic barking of dogs dashing in frantic pursuit. there was always an open sesame to the cookie jar and the apple barrel. david suffered the common fate of all in having a dark cloud. jud was the dark cloud, and his silver lining had not yet materialized. in height and physical strength jud was the superior, so he delighted in taunting and goading the younger boy. there finally came a day when instinctive self-respect upheld david in no longer resisting the call to arms. knowing barnabas' disapproval of fighting, and with his mother's parting admonition pricking his conscience, he went into battle reluctantly and half-heartedly, so the fight was not prolonged, and jud's victory came easily. barnabas, hurrying to the scene of action, called jud off and reprimanded him for fighting a smaller boy, which hurt david far more than did the pummeling he had received. "what wuz you fighting fer, anyway?" he demanded of david. "nothing," replied david laconically, "just fighting." "jud picks on davey all the time," was the information furnished by the indignant janey, who had followed her father. "well, i forbid either one of you to fight again. now, jud, see that you leave dave alone after this." emboldened by his easily won conquest and david's apparent lack of prowess, jud continued his jeering and nagging, but david set his lips in a taut line of finality and endured in silence until there came the taunt superlative. "your mother was a washerwoman, and your father a convict." there surged through david a fierce animal hate. with a tight closing of his hardy young fist, he rushed to the onslaught so swiftly and so impetuously that jud recoiled in fear and surprise. with his first tiger-like leap david had the older boy by the throat and bore him to the ground, maintaining and tightening his grip as they went down. "i'll kill you!" david's voice was steady and calm, but the boy on the ground underneath felt the very hairs of his head rising at the look in the dark eyes above his own. fortunately for both of them barnabas was again at hand. he jerked david to his feet. "fightin' again, are you, after i told you not to!" "it was him, david, that began it. i never struck him," whimpered jud, edging away behind his father. "did you, david?" asked barnabas bluntly, still keeping his hold on the boy, who was quivering with passion. "yes." his voice sounded odd and tired, and there was an ache of bafflement in his young eyes. "what fer? what did he do to make you so mad?" "he said my mother was a washerwoman and my father a convict! let me go! i'll kill him!" with a returning rush of his passion, david struggled in the man's grasp. "wait, dave, i'll tend to him. go to the barn, jud!" he commanded his son. jud quailed before this new, strange note in his father's voice. "david was fighting. you said neither of us was to fight. 't ain't fair to take it out on me." fairness was one of barnabas' fixed and prominent qualities, but jud was not to gain favor by it this time. "well, you don't suppose i'm a-goin' to lick dave fer defendin' his parents, do you? besides, i'm not a-goin' to lick you fer fightin', but fer sayin' what you did. i guess you'd hev found out that dave could wallop you ef he is smaller and younger." "he can't!" snarled jud. "i didn't have no show. he came at me by surprise." barnabas reflected a moment. then he said gravely: "when it's in the blood of two fellers to fight, why thar's got to be a fight, that's all. thar won't never be no peace until this ere question's settled. dave, do you still want to fight him?" a fierce aftermath of passion gleamed in david's eyes. "yes!" he cried, his nostrils quivering. "and you'll fight fair? jest to punish--with no thought of killin'?" "i'll fight fair," agreed the boy. "i'll see that you do. come here, jud." "i don't want to fight," protested jud sullenly. "he's afraid," said david gleefully, every muscle quivering and straining. "i ain't!" yelled jud. "come on, then," challenged david, a fierce joy tugging at his heart. jud came with deliberate precision and a swing of his left. he was heavier and harder, but david was more agile, and his whole heart was in the fight this time. they clutched and grappled and parried, and finally went down; first one was on top, then the other. it was the wage of brute force against elasticity; bluster against valor. jud fought in fear; david, in ferocity. at last david bore his oppressor backward and downward. jud, exhausted, ceased to struggle. "thar!" exclaimed barnabas, drawing a relieved breath. "i guess you know how you stand now, and we'll all feel better. you've got all that's comin' to you, jud, without no more from me. you can both go to the house and wash up." uncle larimy had arrived at the finish of the fight. "what's the trouble, barnabas?" he asked interestedly, as the boys walked away. the explanation was given, but they spoke in tones so low that david could not overhear any part of the conversation from the men following him until, as they neared the house, uncle larimy said: "i was afeerd dave hed his pa's temper snoozin' inside him. mebby he'd orter be told fer a warnin'." "i don't want to say nuthin' about it less i hev to. i'll wait till the next time he loses his temper." david ducked his head in the wash basin on the bench outside the door. after supper, when barnabas came out on the back porch for his hour of pipe, he called his young charge to him. since the fight, david's face had worn a subdued but contented expression. "looks," thought barnabas, "kinder eased off, like a dog when he licks his chops arter the taste of blood has been drawed." "set down, dave. i want to talk to you. you done right to fight fer yer folks, and you're a good fighter, which every boy orter be, but when i come up to you and jud i see that in yer face that i didn't know was in you. you've got an orful temper, dave. it's a good thing to hev--a mighty good thing, if you kin take keer of it, but if you let it go it's what leads to murder. your pa hed the same kind of let-loose temper that got him into heaps of trouble." "what did my father do?" he asked abruptly. instinctively he had shrunk from asking his mother this question, and pride had forbidden his seeking the knowledge elsewhere. "some day, when you are older, you will know all about it. but remember, when any one says anything like what jud did, that yer ma wouldn't want fer you to hev thoughts of killin'. you see, you fought jest as well--probably better--when you hed cooled off a mite and hed promised to fight fair. and ef you can't wrastle your temper and down it as you did jud, you're not a fust-class fighter." "i'll try," said david slowly, unable, however, to feel much remorse for his outbreak. "jud'll let you alone arter this. you'd better go to bed now. you need a little extry sleep." m'ri came into his room when he was trying to mend a long rent in his shirt. he flushed uncomfortably when her eye fell on the garment. she took it from him. "i'll mend it, david. i don't wonder that your patience slipped its leash, but--never fight when you have murder in your heart." when she had left the room, janey's face, pink and fair as a baby rose, looked in at the door. "it's very wicked to fight and get so mad, davey." "i know it," he acknowledged readily. it was useless trying to make a girl understand. there was a silence. janey still lingered. "davey," she asked in an awed whisper, "does it feel nice to be wicked?" david shook his head non-committally. chapter v the rather strained relations between jud and david were eased the next day by the excitement attending the big package barnabas brought from town. it was addressed to david, but the removal of the outer wrapping disclosed a number of parcels neatly labeled, also a note from joe, asking him to distribute the presents. david first selected the parcel marked "janey" and handed it to her. "blue beads!" she cried ecstatically. "let me see, janey," said m'ri. "why, they're real turquoises and with a gold clasp! i'll get you a string of blue beads for now, and you can put these away till you're grown up." "i didn't tell joe what to get for you, aunt m'ri; honest, i didn't," disclaimed david, with a laugh, as he handed the freezer to her. "we'll initiate it this very day, david." david handed barnabas his pipe and gave jud a letter which he opened wonderingly, uttering a cry of pleasure when he realized the contents. "it's an order on harkness to let me pick out any rifle in his store. how did he know? did you tell him, dave?" "yes," was the quiet reply. "thank you, dave. i'll ride right down and get it, and we'll go to the woods this afternoon and shoot at a mark." "all right," agreed david heartily. the atmosphere was now quite cleared by the proposed expenditure of ammunition, and m'ri experienced the sensation as of one beholding a rainbow. david then turned his undivided attention to his own big package, which contained twelve books, his name on the fly-leaf of each. robinson crusoe, swiss family robinson, andersen's fairy tales, arabian nights, life of lincoln, black beauty, oliver twist, a thousand leagues under the sea, the pathfinder, gulliver's travels, uncle tom's cabin, and young ranchers comprised the selection. his eyes gleamed over the enticing titles. "you shall have some book shelves for your room, david," promised m'ri, "and you can start your library. joe has made a good foundation for one." his eyes longed to read at once, but there were still the two packages, marked "uncle larimy" and "miss rhody," to deliver. "i can see that uncle larimy has a fishing rod, but what do you suppose he has sent rhody?" wondered m'ri. "a black silk dress. i told him she wanted one." "take it right over there, david. she has waited almost a lifetime for it." "let me take uncle larimy's present," suggested jud, "and then i'll ask him to go shooting with us this afternoon." david amicably agreed, and went across fields to miss rhody's. "land sakes!" she exclaimed, looking at the parcel. "m'ri ain't a-goin' to hev another dress so soon, is she?" "no, miss rhody. some one else is, though." "who is it, david?" she asked curiously. "you see joe forbes sent some presents from chicago, and this is what he sent you." "a calico," was her divination, as she opened the package. "david dunne!" she cried in shrill, piping tones, a spot of red on each cheek. "just look here!" and she stroked lovingly the lustrous fold of shining silk. "and if here ain't linings, and thread, and sewing silk, and hooks and eyes! why, david dunne, it can't be true! how did he know--david, you blessed boy, you must have told him!" impulsively she threw her arms about him and hugged him until he ruefully admitted to himself that she had jud "beat on the clutch." "and say, david, i'm a-goin' to wear this dress. i know folks as lets their silks wear out a-hangin' up in closets. don't get half as many cracks when it hangs on yourself. i b'lieve as them episcopals do in lettin' yer light shine, and i never wuz one of them as b'lieved in savin' yer best to be laid out in. oh, lord, david, i kin jest hear myself a-rustlin' round in it!" "maybe you'll get a husband now," suggested david gravely. "mebby. i'd orter ketch somethin' with this. i never see sech silk. it's much handsomer than the one homer bisbee's bride hed when she come here from the city. it's orful the way she wastes. would you b'lieve it, david, the fust batch of pies she made, she never pricked, and they all puffed up and bust. david, look here! what's in this envylope? forever and way back, ef it hain't a five-doller bill and a letter. i hain't got my glasses handy. read it." "dear miss rhody," read the boy in his musical voice, "silk is none too good for you, and i want you to wear this and wear it out. if you don't, i'll never send you another. i thought you might want some more trimmings, so i send you a five for same. sincerely yours, joe." "i don't need no trimmin's, excep' fifty cents for roochin's." "i'll tell you what to do, miss rhody. when you get your dress made we'll go into town and you can get your picture taken in the dress and give it to joe when he comes back." "that's jest what i'll do. i never hed my likeness took. david, you've got an orful quick mind. is joe coming home? i thought he callated to go west." "not until fall. he's going to spend the summer in his shanty boat on the river." "i'll hurry up and get it made up afore he comes. tell me what he sent all your folks." "joe's a generous boy, like his ma's folks," she continued, when he had enumerated their gifts. "i am glad fer him that his pa and his stepmother was so scrimpin'. david, would you b'lieve it, in that great big house of the forbeses thar wa'n't never a tidy on a chair, and not a picter on the wall! it was mighty lucky for joe that his stepmother died fust, so he got all the money." david hastened home and sought his retreat in the orchard with one of his books. m'ri, curious to know what his selection had been, scanned the titles of the remaining eleven volumes. "well, who would have thought of a boy's preferring fairy tales!" david read until dinner time, but spent the afternoon with uncle larimy and jud in the woods, where they received good instruction in rifle practice. after supper he settled comfortably down with a book, from which he was recalled by a plaintive little wail. "i haven't had a bit of fun to-day, davey, and it's saturday, and you haven't played with me at all!" the book closed instantly. "come on out doors, janey," he invited. the sound of childish laughter fell pleasantly on m'ri's ears. she recalled what joe forbes had said about her own children, and an unbidden tear lingered on her lashes. this little space between twilight and lamplight was m'ri's favorite hour. in every season but winter it was spent on the west porch, where she could watch the moon and the stars come out. maybe, too, it was because from here she had been wont to sit in days gone by and watch for martin's coming. the time and place were conducive to backward flights of memory, and m'ri's pictures of the past were most beguiling, except that last one when martin thorne, stern-faced, unrelenting, and vowing that he would never see her again, had left her alone--to do her duty. when the children came in she joined them. janey, flushed and breathless from play, was curled up on the couch beside david. he put his arm caressingly about her and began to relate one of andersen's fairy tales. m'ri gazed at them tenderly, and was weaving a future little romance for her two young charges when janey said petulantly: "i don't like fairy stories, davey. tell a real one." m'ri noted the disappointment in the boy's eyes as he began the narrating of a more realistic story. "david, where did you read that story?" she asked when he had finished. "i made it up," he confessed. "why, david, i didn't know you had such a talent. you must be an author when you are a man." late that night she saw a light shining from beneath the young narrator's door. "i ought to send him to bed," she meditated, "but, poor lad, he has had so few pleasures and, after all, childhood is the only time for thorough enjoyment, so why should i put a feather in its path?" david read until after midnight, and went to bed with a book under his pillow that he might begin his pastime again at dawn. after breakfast the next morning m'ri commanded the whole family to sit down and write their thanks to joe. david's willing pen flew in pace with his thoughts as he told of miss rhody's delight and his own revel in book land. janey made most wretched work of her composition. she sighed and struggled with thoughts and pencil, which she gnawed at both ends. finally she confessed that she couldn't think of anything more to say. m'ri came to inspect her literary effort, which was written in huge characters. "dear joe--" "oh," commented m'ri doubtfully, "i don't know as you should address him so familiarly." "i called him 'joe' when we rode to school. he told me to," defended janey. "he's just like a boy," suggested david. so m'ri, silenced, read on: "i thank you for your beyewtifull present which i cannot have." "oh, janey," expostulated m'ri, laughing; "that doesn't sound very gracious." "well, you said i couldn't have them till i was grown up." "i was wrong," admitted m'ri. "i didn't realize it then. we have to see a thing written sometimes to know how it sounds." "may i wear them?" asked janey exultingly. "may i put them on now?" "yes," consented m'ri. janey flew upstairs and came back wearing the adored turquoises, which made her eyes most beautifully blue. "now i can write," she affirmed, taking up her pencil with the impetus of an incentive. under the inspiration of the beads around her neck, she wrote: "dear joe: "i am wareing the beyewtifull beeds you sent me around my neck. aunt m'ri says they are terkwoyses. i never had such nice beeds and i thank you. i wish i cood ride with you agen. good bye. from your frend, "janey." chapter vi the next day being town day, david "hooked up" old hundred and drove to the house. after the butter crock, egg pails, and kerosene and gasoline cans had been piled in, barnabas squeezed into the space beside david. m'ri came out with a memorandum of supplies for them to get in town. to david she handed a big bunch of spicy, pink june roses. "what shall i do with them?" he asked wonderingly. "give them to some one who looks as if he needed flowers," she replied. "i will," declared the boy interestedly. "i will watch them all and see how they look at the roses." at last m'ri had a kindred spirit in her household. jud would have sneered, and janey would not have understood. to barnabas all flowers looked alike. it had come to be a custom for barnabas to take david to town with him at least once a week. the trip was necessarily a slow one, for from almost every farmhouse he received a petition to "do a little errand in town." as the good nature and accommodating tendency of barnabas were well known, they were accordingly imposed upon. he received commissions of every character, from the purchase of a corn sheller to the matching of a blue ribbon. he also stopped to pick up a child or two en route to school or to give a lift to a weary pedestrian whom he overtook. while barnabas made his usual rounds of the groceries, meatmarket, drug store, mill, feed store, general store, and a hotel where he was well known, david was free to go where he liked. usually he accompanied barnabas, but to-day he walked slowly up the principal business street, watching for "one who needed flowers." many glances were bestowed upon the roses, some admiring, some careless, and then--his heart almost stopped beating at the significance--judge thorne came by. he, too, glanced at the roses. his gaze lingered, and a look came into his eyes that stimulated david's passion for romance. "he's remembering," he thought joyfully. he didn't hesitate even an instant. he stopped in front of the judge and extended the flowers. "would you like these roses, judge thorne?" he asked courteously. then for the first time the judge's attention was diverted from the flowers. "your face is familiar, my lad, but--" "my name is david dunne." "yes, to be sure, but it must be four years or more since i last saw you. how's your mother getting along?" the boy's face paled. "she died three weeks ago," he answered. "oh, my lad," he exclaimed in shocked tones, "i didn't know! i only returned last night from a long journey. but with whom are you living?" "with aunt m'ri and uncle barnabas." "oh!" the impressive silence following this exclamation was broken by the judge. "why do you offer me these flowers, david?" "aunt m'ri picked them and told me to give them to some one who looked as if they needed flowers." the judge eyed him with the keen scrutiny of the trained lawyer, but the boy's face was non-committal. "come up into my office with me, david," commanded the judge, turning quickly into a near-by stairway. david followed up the stairs and into a suite of well-appointed offices. a clerk looked up in surprise at the sight of the dignified judge carrying a bouquet of old-fashioned roses and accompanied by a country lad. "good morning, mathews. i am engaged, if any one comes." he preceded david into a room on whose outer door was the deterrent word, "private." while the judge got a pitcher of water to hold the flowers david crossed the room. on a table near the window was a rack of books which he eagerly inspected. to his delight he saw a volume of andersen's fairy tales. instantly the book was opened, and he was devouring a story. "david," spoke the judge from the other end of the room, "didn't these roses grow on a bush by the west porch?" there was no answer. the judge, remarking the boy's absorption, came to see what he was reading. "andersen's fairy tales! my favorite book. i didn't know that boys liked fairy stories." david looked up quickly. "i didn't know that lawyers did, either." "well, i do, david. they are my most delightful diversion." "girls don't like fairy stories," mused david. "anyway, janey doesn't. i have to tell true stories to please her." "oh, you are a yarner, are you?" "yes," admitted david modestly. "aunt m'ri thinks i will be a writer when i grow up, but i think i should like to be a lawyer." "david," asked the judge abruptly, "did miss brumble tell you to give me those roses?" with a wild flashing of eyes the dunne temper awoke, and the boy's under jaw shot forward. "no!" he answered fiercely. "she didn't know that i know--" he paused in mid-channel of such deep waters. "that you know what?" demanded the judge in his cross-examining tone. david was doubtful of the consequences of his temerity, but he stood his ground. "i can't tell you what, because i promised not to. some one was just thinking out loud, and i overheard." there was silence for a moment. "david, i remember your father telling me, years ago, that he had a little son with a big imagination which his mother fed by telling stories every night at bedtime." "will you tell me," asked david earnestly, "about my father? what was it he did? uncle barnabas told me something about his trouble last saturday." "how did he come to mention your father to you?" david reddened. "jud twitted me about my mother taking in washing and about my father being a convict, and i knocked him down. i told him i would kill him. uncle barnabas pulled me off." "and then?" "then he let us fight it out." "and you licked?" "yes, sir," replied the boy, with proud modesty. "you naturally would, with that under jaw, but it's the animal in us that makes us want to kill, and the man in us should rise above the animal. i think i am the person to tell you about your father. he had every reason to make good, but he was unfortunate in his choice of associates and he acquired some of their habits. he had a violent temper, and one night when he was--" "drunk," supplied david gravely. "he became angry with one of his friends and tried to kill him. your father was given a comparatively short sentence, which he had almost served when he died. you must guard against your temper and cultivate patience and endurance--qualities your mother possessed." it suddenly and overwhelmingly flashed across david what need his mother must have had for such traits, and he turned away to force back his tears. the judge saw the heaving of the slender, square, young shoulders, and the gray eyes that were wont to look so coldly upon the world and its people grew soft and surprisingly moist. "it's past now, david, and can't be helped, but you are going to aim to be the kind of man your mother would want you to be. you must learn to put up with jud's tyranny because his father and his aunt are your benefactors. i have been away the greater part of the time since your father's death, or i should have kept track of you and your mother. every time you come to town i want you to come up here and report to me. will you?" "thank you, sir. and i will bring you some more flowers." chapter vii "whar wuz you, dave, all the time we wuz in town?" asked barnabas, as they drove homeward. "in judge thorne's office." "judge thorne's office! what fer?" "he asked me there, uncle barnabas. he was my father's lawyer once, you know." "so he wuz. i hed fergot." "he warned me against my temper, as you did, and he told me--all about my father." "i am glad he did, dave. he wuz the one to tell you." "he says that every time i come to lafferton i must come up and report to him." "wal, dave, it does beat all how folks take to you. thar wuz joe wanted you, and now mart thorne's interested. mebby they could do better by you than we could. joe's rich, and the jedge is well fixed and almighty smart." "no," replied david stoutly. "i'd rather stay with you, uncle barnabas. there's something you've got much more of than they have." "what's that, dave?" asked barnabas curiously. "horse sense." barnabas looked pleased. "wal, dave, i callate to do my best fer you, and thar's one thing i want _you_ to git some horse sense about right off." "all right, uncle barnabas. what is it?" "feedin' on them fairy stories all day. they hain't hullsome diet fer a boy." "the judge reads them," protested david. "he has that same book of fairy stories that joe gave me." "when you've done all the jedge has, and git to whar you kin afford to be idle, you kin read any stuff you want ter." "can't i read them at all?" asked david in alarm. "of course you kin. i meant, i didn't want you stickin' to 'em like a pup to a root. you're goin' down to the fields to begin work with me this arternoon, and you won't feel much like readin' to-night. i wuz lookin' over them books of your'n last night. thar's one you'd best start in on right away, and give the fairies a rest." "which one?" "life of lincoln. that'll show you what work will do." "i'll read it aloud to you, uncle barnabas." when they reached the bridge that spanned the river old hundred dropped the little hurrying gait which he assumed in town, and settled down to his normal, comfortable, country jog. "uncle barnabas," said david thoughtfully, "what is your religion?" barnabas meditated. "wal, dave, i don't know as i hev what you might call religion exackly. i b'lieve in payin' a hundred cents on the dollar, and a-helpin' the man that's down, and--wal, i s'pose i come as nigh bein' a unitarian as anything." the distribution of the purchases now began. sometimes the good housewife, herself, came out to receive the parcels and to hear the latest news from town. oftener, the children of the household were the messengers, for barnabas' pockets were always well filled with candy on town days. at one place barnabas stopped at a barn by the roadside and surreptitiously deposited a suspicious looking package. when he was in front of the next farmhouse a man came out with anxious mien. "all right, fred!" hailed barnabas with a knowing wink. "i was afeerd you'd not be on the watchout. i left it in the manger." they did not reach the farm until the dinner hour, and the conversation was maintained by m'ri and barnabas on marketing matters. david spent the afternoon in being initiated in field work. at supper, m'ri asked him suddenly: "to whom did you give the flowers, david?" "i've made a story to it, aunt m'ri, and i'm going to tell it to janey. then you can hear." m'ri smiled, and questioned him no further. when the day was done and the "still hour" had come, janey and david, hand in hand, came around the house and sat down at her feet. it was seldom that any one intruded at this hour, but she knew that david had come to tell his story. "begin, davey," urged janey impatiently. "one day, when a boy was going to town, his aunt gave him a big bouquet of pink roses. she told him to give them to some one who looked as if they needed flowers. so when the boy got to town he walked up main street and looked at every one he met. he hoped to see a little sick child or a tired woman who had no flowers of her own; but every one seemed to be in a hurry, and very few stopped to look at flowers or anything else. those that did look turned away as if they did not see them, and some seemed to be thinking, 'what beautiful flowers!' and then forgot them. "at last he met a tall, stern man dressed in fine clothes. he looked very proud, but as if he were tired of everything. when he saw the flowers he didn't turn away, but kept his eyes on them as if they made him sad and lonesome in thinking of good times that were over. so the boy asked him if he would not like the flowers. the man looked surprised and asked the boy what his name was. when he heard it, he remembered that he had been attorney for the boy's father. he took him up into an office marked private, and he gave the boy some good advice, and talked to him about his mother, which made the boy feel bad. but the man comforted him and told him that every time he came to town he was to report to him." m'ri had sat motionless during the recital of this story. at its close she did not speak. "that wasn't much of a story. let's go play," suggested janey, relieving the tension. they were off like a flash. david heard his name faintly called. m'ri's voice sounded far off, and as if there were tears in it, but he lacked the courage to return. chapter viii two important events calendared the next week. the school year ended and pennyroyal, the "hired help," who had been paying her annual visit to her sister, came back to the farm. there are two kinds of housekeepers, the "make-cleans" and the "keep-cleans." pennyroyal was a graduate of both classes. her ruling passions in life were scrubbing and "redding" up. on the day of her return, after making onslaught on house and porches, she attacked the pump, and planned a sand-scouring siege for the morrow on the barn. in appearance she was a true exponent of soap and water, and always had the look of being freshly laundered. at first pennyroyal looked with ill favor on the addition that had been made to the household in her absence, but when david submitted to the shampooing of his tousled mass of hair, and offered no protest when she scrubbed his neck, she became reconciled to his presence. on a "town day" david, carrying a huge bunch of pinks, paid his second visit to the judge. "did she tell you," asked the tall man, gazing very hard at the landscape without the open window, "to give these flowers to some one who needed them?" there was a perilous little pause. then there flashed from the boy to the man a gaze of comprehension. "she picked them for you," was the response, simply spoken. the judge carefully selected a blossom for his buttonhole, and then proceeded to draw david out. under the skillful, schooled questioning, david grew communicative. "she's always on the west porch after supper." he added naïvely: "that's the time when uncle barnabas smokes on the east porch, jud goes off with the boys, and i play with janey in the lane." "thank you, david," acknowledged the judge gratefully. "you are quite a bureau of information, and," in a consciously casual tone, "will you take a note to your aunt? i think i will ride out to the farm to-night." david's young heart fluttered, and he went back to the farm invested with a proud feeling of having assisted the fates. the air was filled with mystery and an undercurrent of excitement that day. after david had delivered the auspicious note, a private conference behind closed doors had been held between m'ri and barnabas in the "company parlor." david's shrewd young eyes noted the weakening of the lines of finality about m'ri's mouth when she emerged from the interview. throughout the long afternoon she performed the usual tasks in nervous haste, the color coming and going in her delicately contoured face. when she appeared at the supper table she was adorned in white, brightened by touches of blue at belt and collar. david's young eyes surveyed her appraisingly and approvingly, and later he effected a thorough effacing of the family. he obtained from barnabas permission for jud to go to town with the gardner boys. his next diplomatic move was to persuade pennyroyal to go with himself and janey to uncle larimy's hermit home. when she wavered, he commented on the eclipse of uncle larimy's windows the last time he saw them. that turned the tide of pennyroyal's resistance. equipped with soft linen, a cake of strong soap, and a bottle of ammonia, she strode down the lane, accompanied by the children. the walk proved a trying ordeal for pennyroyal. she started out at her accustomed brisk gait, but david loitered and sauntered, janey of course setting her pace by his. pennyroyal, feeling it incumbent upon herself to keep watch of her young companions, retraced her steps so often that she covered the distance several times. at uncle larimy's she found such a fertile field for her line of work that david was quite ready to return when she pronounced her labors finished. she was really tired, and quite willing to walk home slowly in the moonlight. it was very quiet. here and there a bird, startled from its hiding place, sought refuge in the higher branches. a pensive quail piped an answer to the trilling call from the meadows. a tree toad uttered his lonely, guttural exclamation. the air, freshening with a coming covey of clouds, swayed the tops of the trees with mournful sound. david, full of dreams, let his fancy have full play, and he made a little story of his own about the meeting of the lovers. he pictured the judge riding down the dust-white road as the sunset shadows grew long. he knew the exact spot--the last bit of woodland--from where martin, across level-lying fields, could obtain his first glimpse of the old farmhouse and porch. his moving-picture conceit next placed m'ri, dressed in white, with touches of blue, on the west porch. he had decided that in the long ago days she had been wont to wear blue, which he imagined to be the judge's favorite color. then he caused the unimpressionable judge to tie his horse to the hitching post at the side of the road and walk between the hedges of sweet peas that bordered the path. their pink and white sweetness was the trumpet call sounding over the grave of the love of his youth. (david had read such a passage in a book at miss rhody's and thought it very fine and applicable.) his active fancy took martin thorne around the house to the west porch. the white figure arose, and in the purple-misted twilight he saw the touches of blue, and his heart lighted. "marie!" the old name, the name he had given her in his love-making days, came to his lips. (david couldn't make m'ri fit in with the settings of his story, so he re-christened her.) she came forward with outstretched hand and a gentle manner, but at the look in his eyes as he uttered the old name, with the caressing accent on the first syllable, she understood. a deep sunrise color flooded her face and neck. "martin!" she whispered as she came to him. david threw back his head and shut his eyes in ecstatic bliss. he was rudely roused from his romantic weaving by the sound of barnabas' chuckle as they came to the east porch. "you must a washed every one of larimy's winders!" "yes," replied janey, "and she mopped his floors, washed and clean-papered the shelves, and wanted to scrub the old gray horse." "pennyroyal," exclaimed barnabas gravely, "i wonder you ain't waterlogged!" "pennyroyal'd rather be clean than be president," averred david. "where's m'ri?" demanded pennyroyal, ignoring these thrusts. "on the west porch, entertaining company," remarked barnabas. "who?" pennyroyal never used a superfluous word. joe forbes said she talked like telegrams. barnabas removed his pipe from his mouth, and paused to give his words greater dramatic force. "mart thorne!" the effect was satisfactory. pennyroyal stood as if petrified for a moment. than she expressed her feelings. "hallelujah!" her tone made the exclamation as impressive as a benediction. m'ri visited the bedside of each of her charges that night. jud and janey were in the land of dreams, but david was awake, expecting her coming. there was a new tenderness in her good-night kiss. "aunt m'ri," asked the boy, looking up with his deep, searching eyes and a suspicion of a smile about his lips, "did you and judge thorne talk over my education? he said that he was going to speak to you about it." her eyes sparkled. "david, the judge is coming to dinner sunday. we will talk it over with you then." "aunt m'ri," a little note of wistfulness chasing the bantering look from his eyes, "you aren't going to leave us now?" "not for a year, david," she said, a soft flush coming to her face. "he's waited seven," thought david, "so one more won't make so much difference. anyway, we need a year to get used to it." after all, david was only a boy. his flights of romantic fancy vanished in remembrance of the blissful certainty that there would be ice cream for dinner on sunday next and on many sundays thereafter. chapter ix the little trickle of uneven days was broken one morning by a message which was brought by the "hired man from randall's." "we've got visitors from the city tew our house," he announced. "they want you to send janey over tew play with their little gal." befitting the honor of the occasion, janey was attired in her blue-sprigged muslin and allowed to wear the turquoises. david drove her to maplewood, the pretentious home of the randalls, intending to call for her later. when they came to the entrance of the grounds at the end of a long avenue of maples a very tiny girl, immaculate in white, with hair of gold and eyes darkly blue, came out from among the trees. she regarded david with deep, grave eyes as he stepped from the wagon to open the gate. "you've come to play with me," she stated in a tone of assurance. "i've brought janey to play with you," he rejoined, indicating his little companion. "if you'll get in the wagon, i'll drive you up to the house." she held up her slender little arms to him, and david felt as if he were lifting a doll. "my name in carey winthrop. what is yours?" she demanded of janey as they all rode up the shaded, graveled road. "janey brumble," replied the visitor, gaining ease from the ingenuousness of the little girl and from the knowledge that she was older than her hostess. "and he's your brother?" indicating david. "he's my adopted brother," said janey; "he's david dunne." "i wish i had a 'dopted brother," sighed the little girl, eying david wistfully. david drove up to the side entrance of the large, white-columned, porticoed house, on the spacious veranda of which sat a fair-haired young woman with luminous eyes and smiling mouth. the smile deepened as she saw the curiously disfigured horse ambling up to the stone step. "whoa, old hundred!" commanded david, whereupon the smile became a rippling laugh. david got out, lifted the little girl to the ground very carefully, and gave a helping hand to the nimble, independent janey. "mother," cried carey delightedly, "this is janey and her 'dopted brother david." david touched his cap gravely in acknowledgment of the introduction. he had never heard his name pronounced as this little girl spoke it, with the soft "a." it sounded very sweet to him. "i'll drive back for you before sundown, janey," said david, preparing to climb into the wagon. "no," objected carey, regarding him with apprehension, "i want you to stay and play with me. tell him to stay, mother." there was a regal carriage to the little head and an imperious note--the note of an only child--in her voice. "maybe david has other things to do than to play with little girls," said her mother, "but, david, if you can stay, i wish you would." "i should like to stay," replied david earnestly, "but they expect me back, and old hundred is needed in the field." "luke can drive your horse back, and we will see that you and janey ride home." so carey, with a hand to each of her new playmates, led them across the driveway to the rolling stretch of shaded lawn. the lady watched david as he submitted to be driven as a horse by the little girls and then constituted himself driver to his little team of ponies as he called them. later, when they raced to the meadow, she saw him hold janey back that carey might win. presently the lady was joined by her husband. "where is carey?" he asked. "she is having great sport with a pretty little girl and a guardian angel of a boy. here they come!" they were trooping across the lawn, the little girls adorned with blossom wreaths which david had woven for them. "may we go down to the woods--the big woods?" asked carey. "it's too far for you to walk, dear," remonstrated her mother. "david says he'll draw me in my little cart." "who is it that was afraid to go into the big woods, and thought it was a forest filled with wild beasts and scary things?" demanded mr. winthrop. the earnest eyes fixed on his were not at all abashed. "with him, with david," she said simply, "i would have no afraidments." "afraidments?" he repeated perplexedly. "i am not sure i understand." "don't tease, arthur; it's a very good word," interposed mrs. winthrop quickly. "it seems to have a different meaning from fear." "come up here, david," bade mr. winthrop, "and let me see what there is in you to inspire one with no 'afraidments'." the boy came up on the steps, and did not falter under the keen but good-humored gaze. "do you like to play with little girls, david?" "i like to play with these little girls," admitted david. "and what do you like to do besides that?" "i like to shoot." "oh, a hunter?" "no; i like to shoot at a mark." "and what else?" "i like to read, and fish, and swim, and--" "eat ice cream!" finished janey roguishly, showing her dimples. the man caught her up in his arms. "you are a darling, and i wish my little girl had such rosy cheeks. david, can you show me where there is good fishing?" "uncle larimy can show you the best places. he knows where the bass live, and how to coax them to bite." "and will you take me to this wonderful person to-morrow?" "yes, sir." carey now came out of the hall with her cart, and david drew her across the lawn, janey dancing by his side. down through the meadows wound a wheel-tracked road leading to a patch of dense woods which, to a little girl with a big imagination, could easily become a wild forest infested with all sorts of nameless terrors--terrors that make one draw the bedclothes snugly over the head at night. she gave a little frightened cry as they came into the cool, olive depths. "i am afraid, david. take me!" he lifted her to his shoulder, and her soft cheek nestled against his face. "now you are not afraid," he said persuasively. "no; but i would be if you put me down." they went farther into the oak depths, until they came to a fallen tree where they rested. janey, investigating the forestry, finally discovered a bush with slender red twigs. "oh," she cried, "now david will show you what beautiful things he can make for us." "i have no pins," demurred david. "i have," triumphantly producing a paper of the needful from her pocket. "i always carry them now." david broke up the long twigs into short pieces, from which he skillfully fashioned little chairs and tables, discoursing the while to carey on the beauty and safety of the woods. finally carey acquired courage to hunt for wild flowers, though her hand remained close in david's clasp. when they returned to the house carey gave a glowing account of the expedition. "sit down on the steps and rest, children," proposed mrs. winthrop, "while lucy prepares a little picnic dinner for you." "what will we do now, david?" appealed carey, when they were seated on the porch. "you mustn't do anything but sit still," admonished her mother. "you've done more now than you are used to doing in one day." "davey will tell us a story," suggested janey. "yes, please, david," urged carey, coming to him and resting her eyes on his inquiringly, while her little hand confidently sought his knee. instinctively and naturally his fingers closed upon it. embarrassed as he was at having a strange audience, he could not resist the child's appeal. "she'll like the kind that you don't," he said musingly to janey, "the kind about fairies and princes." "yes," rejoined carey. so he fashioned a tale, partly from recollections of andersen but mostly from his own fancy. as his imagination kindled, he forgot where he was. inspired by the spellbound interest of the dainty little girl with the worshiping eyes, he achieved his masterpiece. "upon my word," exclaimed mr. winthrop, "you are a veritable scheherazade! you didn't make up that story yourself?" "only part of it," admitted david modestly. when he and janey started for home david politely delivered m'ri's message of invitation for carey to come to the farm on the morrow to play. "it is going to be lovely here," said the little girl happily. "and we are going to come every summer." janey kissed her impulsively. "good-by, carey." "good-by, janey. good-by, david." "good-by," he returned cheerily. looking back, he saw her lips trembling. his gaze turned in perplexity to mrs. winthrop, whose eyes were dancing. "she expects you to bid her good-by the way janey did," she explained. "oh!" said david, reddening, as two baby lips of scarlet were lifted naturally and expectantly to his. as they drove away, the light feet of the horse making but little sound on the smooth road, mrs. winthrop's clear treble was wafted after them. "one can scarcely believe that his father was a convict and his mother a washerwoman." a lump came into the boy's throat. janey was very quiet on the way home. when they were alone she said to him, with troubled eyes: "davey, is carey going to be your sweetheart?" his laugh was reassuring. "why, janey, i am just twice her age." "she is like a little doll, isn't she, david?" "no; like a little princess." the next morning little teacher came to show them her present from joe. "i am sure he chose a camera so i could take your pictures to send to him," she declared. "miss rhody wants her picture taken in the black silk joe gave her. if you will take it, she won't have to spend the money he sent her," said the thoughtful david. little teacher was very enthusiastic over this proposition, and offered to accompany him at once to secure the picture. miss rhody was greatly excited over the event. ever since the dress had been finished she had been a devotee at the shrine of two hooks in her closet from which was suspended the long-coveted garment, waiting for an occasion that would warrant its débût. she nervously dressed for the "likeness," for which she assumed her primmest pose. a week later david sent joe a picture of miss rhody standing stiff and straight on her back porch and arrayed, with all the glory of the lilies of the field, in her new silk. chapter x when the hot, close-cropped fields took on their first suggestion of autumn and a fuller note was heard in the requiem of the songbirds, when the twilights were of purple and the morning skies delicately mackereled in gray, david entered the little, red, country schoolhouse. m'ri's tutelage and his sedulous application to jud's schoolbooks saved him from the ignominy of being classified with the younger children. when he sat down to the ink-stained, pen-scratched desk that was to be his own, when he made compact piles of his new books and placed in the little groove in front of the inkwell his pen, pencils, and ruler, he turned to little teacher such a glowing face of ecstasy that she was quite inspired, and her sympathies and energies were at once enlisted in the cause of david's education. it was the beginning of a new world for him. he studied with a concentration that made him oblivious to all that occurred about him, and he had to be reminded of calls to recitations by an individual summons. he fairly overwhelmed little teacher by his voracity for learning and a perseverance that vanquished all obstacles. he soon outstripped his class, and finally his young instructress was forced to bring forth her own textbooks to satisfy his avidity. he devoured them all speedily, and she then applied to the judge for fuel from his library to feed her young furnace. "he takes to learning as naturally as bees to blossoms," she reported. "he must ease off," warned barnabas. "young hickory needs plenty of room for full growth." "no," disagreed the judge, "young hickory is as strong as wrought iron. he's going to have a clear, keen mind to argue law cases." "i think not," said m'ri. "you forget another quality of young hickory. no other wood burns with such brilliancy. david is going to be an author." "i am afraid," wrote joe, "that dave won't be a first-class ranchman. he must be plum locoed with dreams." this prognostication reached david's ears. "without dreams," he argued to barnabas, "one would be like the pigs." "wal, now, dave, mebby pigs dream. they sartain sleep a hull lot." david laughed appreciatively. "dave," pursued barnabas, "they're all figgerin' on your futur, and they're a-figgerin' wrong. joe thinks you'll take to ranchin'. you may--fer a spell. m'ri thinks you may write books. you may do even that--fer a spell. the jedge counts on yer takin' to the law like a duck does to water. you may, but law larnin', cow punchin', and story writin' 'll jest be steppin' stuns to what i know you air goin' ter be, and what i know is in you ter be." "what in the world is that, uncle barnabas?" asked david in surprise. "a farmer?" "farmer, nuthin'!" scoffed barnabas. "yer hain't much on farmin', dave, though i will say yer furrers is allers straight, like everythin' else you do. yer straight yerself. no! young hickory can bend without breakin', and thar's jest one thing i want fer you to be." "what?" persisted the boy. barnabas whispered something. the blood of the young country boy went like wine through his veins; his heart leaped with a big and mighty purpose. "now, remember, dave," cautioned barnabas, "what all work and no play done to jack. you git yer lessons perfect, and recite them, and read a leetle of an evenin'; the rest of the time i want yer to get out and cerkilate." november with its call to quiet woods came on, and david was eager to "cerkilate." he became animated with the spirit of sport. red-letter saturdays were spent with uncle larimy, and the far-away echo of the hunter's bullet and the scudding through the woods of startled game became new, sweet music to his ears. rifle in hand, with dog shuffling at his heels or plunging ahead in search of game, the world was his. life was very full and happy, save for the one inevitable sprig of bitter--jud! the big bully of a boy had learned that david was his equal physically and his superior mentally, but the fear of david and of david's good standing kept him from venturing out in the open; so from cover he sought by all the arts known to craftiness to harass the younger boy, whose patience this test tried most sorely. one day when little teacher had given him a verbose definition of the word "pestiferous," david looked at her comprehendingly. "like jud," he murmured. many a time his young arms ached to give jud another thrashing, but his mother's parting injunction restrained him. "if only," he sighed, "jud belonged to some one else!" he vainly sought to find the hair line that divided his sense of gratitude and his protection of self-respect. winter followed, and the farm work droned. it was a comfortable, cozy time, with breakfast served in the kitchen on a table spread with a gay, red cloth. pennyroyal baked griddle-sized cakes, delivering them one at a time direct from the stove to the consumer. the early hour of lamplight made long evenings, which were beguiled by lesson books and story-books, by an occasional skating carnival on the river, a coasting party at long hill, or a "surprise" on some hospitable neighbor. one morning he came into school with face and eyes aglow with something more than the mere delight of living. it meant mischief, pure and simple, but little teacher was not always discerning. she gave him a welcoming smile of sheer sympathy with his mood. she didn't smile, later, when the schoolroom was distracted by the sound of raucous laughter, feminine screams, and a fluttering of skirts as the girls scrambled to standing posture in their chairs. astonished, she looked for the cause. the cause came her way, and the pupils had a fresh example of the miracles wrought by a mouse, for little teacher, usually the personification of dignity and repose, screamed lustily and scudded chairward with as much rapidity as that displayed by the scurrying mouse as it chased for the corner and disappeared through a knothole. as soon as the noiseful glee had subsided, little teacher sought to recover her prided self-possession. in a voice resonant with sternness, she commanded silence, gazing wrathfully by chance at little tim wiggins. "'t was david done it," he said in deprecating self-defense, imagining himself accused. "david dunne," demanded little teacher, "did you bring that mouse to school?" "he brung it and let it out on purpose," informed tim eagerly. little teacher never encouraged talebearing, but she was so discomfited by the exposure of the ruling weakness peculiar to her sex that she decided to discipline her favorite pupil upon his acknowledgment of guilt. "you may bring your books and sit on the platform," she ordered indignantly. david did not in the least mind his assignment to so prominent a position, but he did mind little teacher's attitude toward him throughout the day. he sought to propitiate her by coming to her assistance in many little tasks, but she persistently ignored his overtures. he then ventured to seek enlightenment regarding his studies, but she coldly informed him he could remain after school to ask his questions. david began to feel troubled, and looked out of the window for an inspiration. he found one in the form of big, brawny, jim block--"teacher's jim," as the school children all called him. "there goes teacher's jim," sang david, _soto voce_. the shot told. for the second time that day little teacher showed outward and visible signs of an inward disturbance. with a blush she turned quickly to the window and watched with expressive eyes the stalwart figure striding over the rough-frozen road. in an instant, however, she had recalled herself to earth, and david's dancing eyes renewed her hostility toward him. toward the end of the day she began to feel somewhat appeased by his docility and evident repentance. her manner had perceptibly changed by the time the closing exercise began. this was the writing of words on the blackboard for the pupils to use in sentences. she pointed to the first word, "income." "who can make a sentence and use that word correctly?" she asked. "do call on tim," whispered david. "he so loves to be the first to tell anything." she smiled her appreciation of tim's prominent characteristic, and looked at the youngster, who was wringing his hand in an agony of eagerness. she gave him the floor, and he jumped to his feet in triumph, yelling: "in come a mouse!" this was too much for david's composure, and he gave way to an infectious fit of laughter, in which the pupils joined. little teacher found the allusion personal and uncomfortable. she at once assumed her former distant mien, demanding david's presence after school closed. "you have no gratitude, david," she stated emphatically. the boy winced, and his eyes darkened with concern, as he remembered his mother's parting injunction. little teacher softened slightly. "you are sorry, aren't you, david?" she asked gently. he looked at her meditatively. "no, teacher," he answered quietly. she flushed angrily. "david dunne, you may go home, and you needn't come back to school again until you tell me you are sorry." david took his books and walked serenely from the room. he went home by the way of jim block's farm. "hullo, dave!" called big jim, who was in the barnyard. "hello, jim! i came to tell you some good news. you said if you were only sure there was something teacher was afraid of, you wouldn't feel so scared of her." "well," prompted jim eagerly. "i thought i'd find out for you, so i took a mouse to school and let it loose." "gee!" david then related the occurrences of the morning, not omitting the look in little teacher's eyes when she beheld jim from the window. "i'll hook up this very night and go to see her," confided jim. "be sure you do, jim. if you find your courage slipping, just remember that you owe it to me, because she won't let me come back to school unless she knows why i wasn't sorry." "i give you my word, dave," said jim earnestly. the next morning little teacher stopped at the brumble farm. "i came this way to walk to school with you and janey," she said sweetly and significantly to david. when they reached the road, and janey had gone back to get her sled, little teacher looked up and caught the amused twinkle in david's eye. a wave of conscious red overspread her cheeks. "must i say i am sorry now?" he asked. "david dunne, there are things you understand which you never learned from books." chapter xi late spring brought preparations for m'ri's wedding. rhody crabbe's needle and fingers flew in rapturous speed, and there was likewise engaged a seamstress from lafferton. rhody had begged for the making of the wedding gown, and when it was finished david went to fetch it home. "it's almost done, david, and you tell m'ri the last stitch was a loveknot. it's most a year sence you wuz here afore, a-waitin' fer her blue waist tew be finished. remember, don't you, david?" he remembered, and as she stitched he sat silently reviewing that year, the comforts received, the pleasures pursued, and, best of all, the many things he had learned, but the recollection that a year ago his mother had been living brought a rush of sad memories and blotted out happier thoughts. "i wish yer ma could hev seen mart and m'ri merried. she was orful disapp'inted when they broke off." there was no reply. rhody's sharp little eyes, in upward glance, spied the trickling tear; she looked quickly away and stitched in furious haste. "but, my!" she continued, as if there had been no pause, "how glad she would be to know 't was you as fetched it around." david looked up, diverted and inquiring. "yes; i learnt it from m'ri. she told me about the flowers you give him. i thought it was jest sweet in you, david. you done good work thar." "miss rhody," said david earnestly, "maybe some day i can get you a sweetheart." "'t ain't no use, david," she sighed. "no one wants a plain critter like me." "lots of them don't marry for looks," argued david sagely. "besides, you look fine in your black silk, and your hair crimped. joe thinks your picture is great. he's got it on a shelf over his fireplace at the ranch." "most likely some cowboy'll see it and lose his heart," laughed miss rhody, "but thar, the weddin' dress is all done. you go home and quit thinkin' about gittin' me a man. i ain't ha'nted by the thought of endin' single." great preparations for the wedding progressed at the brumble farm. for a week pennyroyal whipped up eggs and sugar, and david ransacked the woods for evergreens and berries with which to decorate the big barn, where the dance after the wedding was to take place. the old farmhouse was filled to overflowing on the night of the wedding. after the ceremony, miss rhody, resplendent in the black silk and waving hair loosed from the crimping pins that had confined it for two days and nights, came up to david. "my, david, i've got the funniest all over feelin' from seein' mart and m'ri merried! i was orful afeerd i'd cry." "sit down, miss rhody," said david, gallantly bringing her a chair. "didn't m'ri look perfeckly beyewtiful?" she continued, after accomplishing the pirouette that prevented creases. "and mart, he looked that proud, and solemn too. it made me think of that gal when she spoke 'curfew shall not ring tewnight' at the schoolhouse. every one looks fine. i hain't seen barnabas so fussed up sence libby sukes' funyral. it makes him look real spry. and whoever got larimer sasser to perk up and put on a starched shirt!" "i think," confided david, "that penny got after him. she had him in a corner when he came, and she tied his necktie so tight i was afraid she would choke him." "look at old miss pankey, david. she, as rich as they make 'em, and a-wearin' that old silk! it looks as ef it hed bin hung up fer you and jud to shoot at. ain't she a-glarin' and a-sniffin' at me, though? say, david, you write joe that if m'ri did look the purtiest of any one that my dress cost more'n any one's here, and showed it, too. i hope thar'll be a lot of occasions to wear it to this summer. m'ri is a-goin' to give a reception when she gits back from her tower, and that'll be one thing to wear it at. ain't jud got a mean look? he's as crooked as a dog's hind leg. but, say, david, that's a fine suit you're a-wearin'. you look handsome. thar ain't a stingy hair on barnabas' head. he's doin' jest as good by you as he is by jud. don't little janey look like an angel in white, and them lovely beads joe give her? i can't think of nothin' else but that little eva you read me about. i shouldn't wonder a bit, david, if i come to yer and janey's weddin' yet!" she said, as janey came dancing up to them. a slow flush mounted to his forehead, but janey laughed merrily. "i've promised joe i'd wait for him," she said roguishly. "she's only foolin' and so wuz he," quickly spoke miss rhody, seeing the hurt look in david's eyes. "barnabas," she asked, stopping him as he passed, "you air a-goin' to miss m'ri turrible. you could never manige if it wa'n't fer penny. won't she hev the time of her life cleanin' up after this weddin'? she'll enjoy it more'n she did gettin' ready fer it." "i hope penny won't go to gittin' merried--not till janey's growed up." "david's a great help to you, too, barnabas." "dave! i don't know how i ever got along afore he came. he's so willin' and so honest. he's as good as gold. only fault he's got is a quick temper. he's doin' purty fair with it, though. if only jud--" he stopped, with a sigh, and rhody hastened to change the subject. "you're a-lookin' spry to-night, barnabas. i hain't seen you look so spruce in a long time." "you look mighty tasty yerself, rhody." this interchange of compliments was interrupted by the announcement of supper. "i never set down to sech a repast," thought miss rhody. "i'm glad i didn't feed much to-day. i don't know whether to take chickin twice, or to try all them meltin', flaky lookin' pies. and jest see them layer cakes!" after supper adjournment was made to the barn, where the fiddles were already swinging madly. every one caught the spirit, and even miss rhody finally succumbed to barnabas' insistence. pennyroyal captured uncle larimy, and when janey whirled away in the arms of a schoolmate, david, who had never learned to dance, stood isolated. he felt lonely and depressed, and recalled the expression in which joe forbes had explained life after he had acquired a stepmother. "i was always on the edge of the fireside," he had said. "dave," expostulated uncle barnabas, as soon as he could get his breath after the last dance, "you'd better eddicate yer heels as well as yer head. it's unnateral fer a colt and a boy not to kick up their heels. you don't never want to be a looker-on at nuthin' excep' from ch'ice. you'd orter be a stand-in on everything that's a-goin' instead of a stand-by. the stand-bys never git nowhar." part two chapter i david dunne at eighteen was graduated from the high school in lafferton after five colorless years in which study and farm work alternated. throughout this period he had continued to incur the rancor of jud, whose youthful scrapes had gradually developed into brawls and carousals. the judge periodically extricated him from serious entanglements, and barnabas continued optimistic in his expectations of a time when jud should "settle." on one occasion jud sneeringly accused david of "working the old man for a share in the farm," and taunted him with the fact that he was big enough and strong enough to hustle for himself without living on charity. david started on a tramp through the woods to face the old issue and decide his fate. he had then one more year before he could finish school and carry out a long-cherished dream of college. he was at a loss to know just where to turn at the present time for a home where he could work for his board and attend school. the judge and m'ri had gone abroad; joe was on his ranch; the farmers needed no additional help. he had been walking swiftly in unison with his thoughts, and when he came out of the woods into the open he was only a mile downstream from town. upon the river bank stood uncle larimy, skillfully swirling his line. "wanter try yer luck, dave?" "i have no luck just now, uncle larimy," replied the boy sadly. uncle larimy shot him a quick, sidelong glance. "then move on, dave, and chase arter it. thar's allers luck somewhar. jest like fishin'. you can't set in one spot and wait for luck tew come to you like old zeke foss does. you must keep a-castin'." "i don't know where to cast, uncle larimy." uncle larimy pondered. he knew that jud was home, and he divined david's trend of thought. "you can't stick to a plank allers, dave, ef you wanter amount tew anything. strike out bold, and swim without any life presarvers. you might jest as well be a sleepy old cat in a corner as to go smoothsailin' through life." "i feel that i have got to strike out, and at once, uncle larimy, but i don't just know where to strike." "wal, dave, it's what we've all got to find out fer ourselves. it's a leap in the dark like, and ef you don't land nowhere, take another leap, and keep a-goin' somewhar." david wended his way homeward, pondering over uncle larimy's philosophy. when he went with barnabas to do the milking that night he broached the subject of leaving the farm. "i know how jud feels about my being here, uncle barnabas." "what did he say to you?" asked the old man anxiously. "nothing. i overheard a part of your conversation. he is right. and if i stay here, he will run away to sea. he told the fellows in lafferton he would." "you are going to stay, dave." "you won't like to think you drove your son away. if he gets into trouble, both you and i will feel we are to blame." "dave, i see why the jedge hez got it all cut out fer you to be a lawyer. you've got the argyin' habit strong. but you can't argue me into what i see is wrong. this is the place fer you to be, and jud 'll hev to come outen his spell." "then let me go away until he does. you must give him every chance." "where'll you go?" asked barnabas curiously. "i don't know, yet," said the boy, "but i'll think out a plan to-night." it was jud, after all, who cut the gordian knot, and made one of his welcome disappearances, which lasted until david was ready to start in college. his savings, that he had accumulated by field work in the summers and a very successful poultry business for six years, netted him four hundred dollars. "one hundred dollars for each year," he thought exultantly. "that will be ample with the work i shall find to do." then he made known to his friends his long-cherished scheme of working his way through college. the judge laughed. "your four hundred dollars, david, will barely get you through the first year. after that, i shall gladly pay your expenses, for as soon as you are admitted to the bar you are to come into my office, of course." david demurred. "i shall work my way through college," he said firmly. he next told barnabas of his intention and the judge's offer which he had declined. "i'm glad you refused, dave. you'll only be in his office till you're ripe fer what i kin make you. i've larnt that the law is a good foundation as a sure steppin' stone tew it, so you kin hev a taste of it. but the jedge ain't a-goin' to pay yer expenses." "i don't mean that he shall," replied david. "i want to pay my own way." "i'm a-goin' to send you tew college and send you right. no starvin' and garret plan fer you. i've let joe and the jedge do fer you as much as they're a-goin' to, but you're mine from now on. it's what i'd do fer my own son if he cared fer books, and you're as near to me ez ef you were my son." "it's too much, uncle barnabas." "and, david," he continued, unheeding the interruption, "i hope you'll really be my son some day." a look of such exquisite happiness came into the young eyes that barnabas put out his hand silently. in the firm hand-clasp they both understood. "i am not going to let you help me through college, though, uncle barnabas. it has always been my dream to earn my own education. when you pay for anything yourself, it seems so much more your own than when it's a gift." "let him, barnabas," again counseled uncle larimy. "folks must feed diff'rent. thar's the sweet-fed which must allers hev sugar, but salt's the savor for dave. he's the kind that flourishes best in the shade." janey wrote to joe of david's plan, and there promptly came a check for one thousand dollars, which david as promptly returned. chapter ii a few days before the time set for his departure david set out on a round of farewell visits to the country folk. it was one of those cold, cheerless days that intervene between the first haze of autumn and the golden glow of october. he had never before realized how lonely the shiver of wind through the poplars could sound. two innovations had been made that day in the country. the rural delivery carrier, in his little house on wheels, had made his first delivery, and a track for the new electric-car line was laid through the sheep meadow. this inroad of progress upon the sanctity of their seclusion seemed sacrilegious to david, who longed to have lived in the olden time of log houses, with their picturesque open fires and candle lights. following some vague inward call, he went out of his way to ride past the tiny house he had once called home, and which in all his ramblings he had steadfastly avoided. he had heard that the place had passed into the hands of a widow with an only son, and that they had purchased surrounding land for cultivation. he had been glad to hear this, and had liked to fancy the son caring for his mother as he himself would have cared for his mother had she lived. as he neared the little nutshell of a house his heart beat fast at the sight of a woman pinning clothes to the line. her fingers, stiff and swollen, moved slowly. the same instinct that had guided him down this road made him dismount and tie his horse. the old woman came slowly down the little path to meet him. "i am david dunne," he said gently, "and i used to live here. i wanted to come to see my old home once more." he thought that the dim eyes gazing into his were the saddest he had ever beheld. "yes," she replied, with the slow, german accent, "i know of you. come in." he followed her into the little sitting room, which was as barren of furnishings as it had been in the olden days. "sit down," she invited. he took a chair opposite a cheap picture of a youth in uniform. a flag of coarse material was pinned above this portrait, and underneath was a roughly carved bracket on which was a glass filled with goldenrod. "you lived here with your mother," she said musingly, "and she was taken. i lived here with my son, and--he was taken." "oh!" said david. "i did not know--was he--" his eyes sought the picture on the wall. "yes," she replied, answering his unspoken question, as she lifted her eyes to her little shrine, "he enlisted and went to the philippines. he died there of fever more than a year ago." david was silent. his brown, boyish hand shaded his eyes. it had been his fault that he had not heard of this old woman and the loss of her son. he had shrunk from all knowledge and mention of this little home and its inmates. the country folk had recognized and respected his reticence, which to people near the soil seems natural. this had been the only issue in his life that he had dodged, and he was bitterly repenting his negligence. in memory of his mother, he should have helped the lonely old woman. "you were left a poor, helpless boy," she continued, "and i am left a poor, helpless old woman. the very young and the very old meet in their helplessness, yet there is hope for the one--nothing for the other." "yes, memories," he suggested softly, "and the pride you feel in his having died as he did." "there is that," she acknowledged with a sigh, "and if only i could live on here in this little place where we have been so happy! but i must leave it." "why?" asked david quickly. "after my carl died, things began to happen. when once they do that, there is no stopping. the bank at the corners failed, and i lost my savings. the turkeys wandered away, the cow died, and now there's the mortgage. it's due to-morrow, and then--the man that holds it will wait no longer. so it is the poorhouse, which i have always dreaded." david's head lifted, and his eyes shone radiantly as he looked into the tired, hopeless eyes. "your mortgage will be paid to-morrow, and--don't you draw a pension for your son?" she looked at him in a dazed way. "no, there is no pension--i--" "judge thorne will get you one," he said optimistically, as he rose, ready for action, "and how much is the mortgage?" "three hundred dollars," she said despairingly. "almost as much as the place is worth. who holds the mortgage?" "deacon prickley." "you see," said david, trying to speak casually, "i have three hundred dollars lying idle for which i have no use. i'll ride to town now and have the judge see that the place is clear to you, and he will get you a pension, twelve dollars a month." the worn, seamed face lifted to his was transfigured by its look of beatitude. "you mustn't," she implored. "i didn't know about the pension. that will keep me, and i can find another little place somewhere. but the money you offer--no! i have heard how you have been saving to go through school." he smiled. "uncle barnabas and the judge are anxious to pay my expenses at college, and--you _must_ let me. i would like to think, don't you see, that you are living here in my old home. it will seem to me as if i were doing it for _my_ mother--as i would want some boy to do for her if she were left--and it's my country's service he died in. i would rather buy this little place for you, and know that you are living here, than to buy anything else in the world." the old face was quite beautiful now. "then i will let you," she said tremulously. "you see, i am a hard-working woman and quite strong, but folks won't believe that, because i am old; so they won't hire me to do their work, and they say i should go to the poorhouse. but to old folks there's nothing like having your own things and your own ways. they get to be a part of you. i was thinking when you rode up that it would kill me not to see the frost on the old poplar, and not to cover up my geraniums on the chill nights." something stirred in david's heart like pain. he stooped and kissed her gently. then he rode away, rejoicing that he had worked to this end. four hours later he rode back to the little home. "the judge has paid over the money to old skinflint prickley," he said blithely, "and the place is all yours. the deacon had compounded the interest, which is against the laws of the state, so here are a few dollars to help tide you over until the judge gets the pension for you." "david," she said solemnly, "an old woman's prayers may help you, and some day, when you are a great man, you will do great deeds, but none of them will be as great as that which you have done to-day." david rode home with the echo of this benediction in his ears. he had asked the judge to keep the transaction secret, but of course the judge told barnabas, who in turn informed uncle larimy. "i told the boy when his ma died," said uncle larimy, "that things go 'skew sometimes, but that the sun would shine. the sun will allers be a-shinin' fer him when he does such deeds as this." chapter iii the fare to his college town, his books, and his tuition so depleted david's capital of one hundred dollars that he hastened to deposit the balance for an emergency. then he set about to earn his "keep," as he had done in the country, but there were many students bent on a similar quest and he soon found that the demand for labor was exceeded by the supply. before the end of the first week he was able to write home that he had found a nice, quiet lodging in exchange for the care of a furnace in winter and the trimming of a lawn in other seasons, and that he had secured a position as waiter to pay for his meals; also that there was miscellaneous employment to pay for his washing and incidentals. he didn't go into details and explain that the "nice quiet lodging" was a third-floor rear whose gables gave david's six feet of length but little leeway. it was quiet because the third floor was not heated, and its occupants therefore stayed away as much as possible. his services as waiter were required only at dinner time, in exchange for which he received that meal. his breakfast and luncheon he procured as best he could; sometimes he dispensed with them entirely. crackers, milk, and fruit, as the cheapest articles of diet, appeared oftenest on his ménu. sometimes he went fishing and surreptitiously smuggled the cream of the catch up to his little abode, for mrs. tupps' "rules to roomers," as affixed to the walls, were explicit: "no cooking or washing allowed in rooms." but mrs. tupps, like her fires, was nearly always out, for she was a member of the woman's relief corps, ladies' aid, ladies' guild, woman's league, suffragette society, pioneer society, and eastern star. at the meetings of these various societies she was constant in attendance, so in her absence her roomers "made hay," as david termed it, cooking their provender and illicitly performing laundry work in the bathtub. still, there must always be "on guard" duty, for mrs. tupps was a stealthy stalker. one saw her not, but now and then there was a faint rustle on the stair. david's eyes and ears, trained to keenness, were patient and vigilant, so he was generally chosen as sentinel, and he acquired new caution, adroitness, and a quietness of movement. there had been three or four close calls. once, she had knocked at his door as he was in the act of boiling eggs over the gas jet. in the twinkling of an eye the saucepan was thrust under the bed, and david, sweet and serene of expression, opened the door to the inquisitive-eyed tupps. "i came to borrow a pen," she said shamelessly, her eyes penetrating the cracks and crevices of the little room. david politely regretted that he used an indelible pencil and possessed no pens. in the act of removing all records and remains of feasts, david became an adept. neat, unsuspicious looking parcels were made and conveyed, after retiring hours, to a near-by vacant lot, where once had been visible an excavation for a cellar, but this had been filled to street level with tin cans, paper bags, butter bowls, cracker cases, egg shells, and pie plates from the house of tupps. his miscellaneous employment, mentioned in his letter, was any sort of work he could find to do. david became popular with professors by reason of his record in classes and the application and concentration he brought to his studies. his prowess in all sports, his fairness, and the spirit of _camaraderie_ he always maintained with his associates, made him a general favorite. he wore fairly good clothes, was well groomed, and always in good spirits, so of his privations and poverty only one or two of those closest to him were even suspicious. he was entirely reticent on the subject, though open and free in all other discourse, and permitted no encroachment on personal matters. one or two chance offenders intuitively perceived a slight but impassable barrier. "dunne has grown a little gaunt-eyed since he first came here," said one of his chosen friends to a classmate one evening. "he's outdoors enough to counteract overstudy. but do you suppose he has enough to eat? so many of these fellows live on next to nothing." "i shouldn't be surprised if he were on rations. you know he always makes some excuse when we invite him to a spread. he's too proud to accept favors and not reciprocate, i believe." david overheard these remarks, and a very long walk was required to restore his serenity. during this walk he planned to get some extra work that would insure him compensation requisite to provide a modest spread so that he might allay their suspicions. upon his return to his lodgings he found an enormous box which had come by express from lafferton. it contained pennyroyal's best culinary efforts; also four dozen eggs, a two-pound pat of butter, coffee, and a can of cream. he propitiated mrs. tupps by the proffer of a dozen of the eggs and told her of his desire to entertain his friends. it would be impossible to do this in his room, for when he lay in bed he could touch every piece of furniture with but little effort. david had become his landlady's confidant and refuge in time of trouble, and she was willing to allow him the privilege of the dining room. "i am going away to-night for a couple of days, but i would rather you wouldn't mention it to the others. you may have the use of the dining room and the dishes." david's friends were surprised to receive an off-hand invitation from him to "drop in for a little country spread." they were still more surprised when they beheld the long table with its sumptuous array of edibles,--raised biscuits, golden butter, cold chicken, pickles, jelly, sugared doughnuts, pork cake, gold and silver cake, crullers, mince pie, apple pie, cottage cheese, cider, and coffee. "it looks like a county fair exhibit, dunne," said a city-bred chap. six healthy young appetites did justice to this repast and insured david's acceptance of five invitations to dine. it took mrs. tupps and david fully a week to consume the remnants of this collation. the eggs he bestowed upon an anemic-faced lodger who had been prescribed a milk and egg diet, but with eggs at fifty cents a dozen he had not filled his prescription. [illustration: "_david's friends were surprised to receive an off-hand invitation from him to 'drop in for a little country spread'_"] at the end of the college year david went back to the farm, and a snug sense of comfort and a home-longing filled him at the sight of the old farmhouse, its lawn stretching into gardens, its gardens into orchards, orchards into meadows, and meadows into woodlands. through the long, hot summer he tilled the fields, and invested the proceeds in clothes and books for the ensuing year. there followed three similar years of a hand-to-mouth existence, the privations of which he endured in silence. there were little occasional oases, such as boxes from pennyroyal, or extra revenue now and then from tutoring, but there were many, many days when his healthy young appetite clamored in vain for appeasement. on such days came the temptation to borrow from barnabas the money to finish his course in comfort, but the young conqueror never yielded to this enticement. he grew stronger and sturdier in spirit after each conflict, but lost something from his young buoyancy and elasticity which he could never regain. his struggles added a touch of grimness to his old sense of humor, but when he was admitted to the bar he was a man in courage, strength, and endurance. chapter iv it seemed to david, when he was at the farm again, that in his absence time had stood still, except with janey. she was a slender slip of a girl, gentle voiced and soft hearted. her eyes were infinitely blue and lovely, and there was a glad little ring in her voice when she greeted "davey." m'ri gave a cry of surprised pleasure when she saw her former charge. he was tall, lithe, supple, and hard-muscled. his face was not very expressive in repose, but showed a quiet strength when lighted by the keenness of his serious, brown eyes and the sweetness of his smile. his color was a deep-sea tan. "it seems so good to be alive, aunt m'ri. i thought i was weaned away from farm life until i bit into one of those snow apples from the old tree by the south corner of the orchard. then i knew i was home." pennyroyal shed her first visible tear. "i am glad you are home again, david," she sniffed. "you were always such a clean boy." "i missed you more'n any one did, david," acknowledged miss rhody. "ef i hed been a catholic i should a felt as ef the confessional hed been took from me. i ain't hed no one to talk secret like to excep' when joe comes onct a year. he ain't been fer a couple of years, either, but he sent me anuther black dress the other day--silk, like the last one. to think of little joe forbes a-growin' up and keepin' me in silk dresses!" "i'll buy your next one for you," declared david emphatically. the next day after his return from college david started his legal labors under the watchful eye of the judge. he made a leap-frog progress in acquiring an accurate knowledge of legal lore. he worked and waited patiently for the judge's recognition of his readiness to try his first case, and at last the eventful time came. "no; there isn't the slightest prospect of his winning it," the judge told his wife that night. "the prosecution has strong evidence, and we have nothing--barely a witness of any account." "then the poor man will be convicted and david will gain no glory," lamented m'ri. "it means so much to a young lawyer to win his first case." the judge smiled. "neither of them needs any sympathy. miggs ought to have been sent over the road long ago. david's got to have experience before he gains glory." "how did you come to take such a case?" asked m'ri, for the judge was quite exclusive in his acceptance of clients. "it was david's doings," said the judge, with a frown that had a smile lurking behind it. "why did he wish you to take the case?" persisted m'ri. "as near as i can make out," replied the judge, with a slight softening of his grim features, "it was because miggs' wife takes in washing when miggs is celebrating." m'ri walked quickly to the window, murmuring some unintelligible sound of endearment. on the day of the summing-up at the trial the court room was crowded. there were the habitual court hangers on, david's country friends _en masse_, a large filling in at the back of the representatives of the highways and byways, associates of the popular wrongdoer, and the legal lore of the town, with the good-humored patronage usually bestowed by the profession on the newcomer to their ranks. as the judge had said, his client was conceded to be slated for conviction. if he had made the argument himself he would have made it in his usual cool, well-poised manner. but david, although he knew miggs to be a veteran of the toughs, felt sure of his innocence in this case, and he was determined to battle for him, not for the sake of justice alone, but for the sake of the tired-looking washerwoman he had seen bending over the tubs. this was an occupation she had to resort to only in her husband's times of indulgence, for he was a wage earner in his days of soberness. when david arose to speak it seemed to the people assembled that the coil of evidence, as reviewed by the prosecutor in his argument, was drawn too closely for any power to extricate the victim. at the first words of the young lawyer, uttered in a voice of winning mellowness, the public forgot the facts in the case. swayed by the charm of david's personality, a current of new-born sympathy for the prisoner ran through the court room. david came up close to the jury and, as he addressed them, he seemed to be oblivious of the presence of any one else in the room. it was as though he were telling them, his friends, something he alone knew, and that he was sure of their belief in his statements. "for all the world," thought m'ri, listening, "as he used to tell stories when he was a boy. he'd fairly make you believe they were true." to be sure the jury were all his friends; they had known him when he was little "barefoot dave dunne." still, they were captivated by this new oratory, warm, vivid, and inspiring, delivered to the accompaniment of dulcet and seductive tones that transported them into an enchanted world. their senses were stirred in the same way they would be if a flag were unfurled. "sounds kind o' like orgin music," whispered miss rhody. yet underneath the eloquence was a logical simplicity, a keen sifting of facts, the exposure of flaws in the circumstantial evidence. there was a force back of what he said like the force back of the projectile. about the form of the hardened sinner, miggs, david drew a circle of innocence that no one ventured to cross. simply, convincingly, and concisely he summed up, with a forceful appeal to their intelligence, their honor, and their justice. the reply by the assistant to the prosecutor was perfunctory and ineffective. the charge of the judge was neutral. the jury left the room, and were out eight and one-quarter minutes. as they filed in, the foreman sent a triumphant telepathic message to david before he quietly drawled out: "not guilty, yer honor." the first movement was from mrs. miggs. and she came straight to david, not to the jury. "david," said the judge, who had cleared his throat desperately and wiped his glasses carefully, at the look in the eyes of the young lawyer when they had rested on the defendant's wife, "hereafter our office will be the refuge for all the riffraff in the country." this was his only comment, but the judge did not hesitate to turn over any case to him thereafter. when david had added a few more victories to his first one, jud made one of his periodical diversions by an offense against the law which was far more serious in nature than his previous misdeeds had been. m'ri came out to the farm to discuss the matter. "barnabas, martin thinks you had better let the law take its course this time. he says it's the only procedure left untried to reform jud. he is sure he can get a light sentence for him--two years." "m'ri," said barnabas, in a voice vibrating with reproach, "do you want jud to go to prison?" m'ri paled. "i want to do what is best for him, barnabas. martin thinks it will be a salutary lesson." "i wonder, m'ri," said barnabas slowly, "if the judge had a son of his own, he would try to reform him by putting him behind bars." "oh, barnabas!" protested m'ri, with a burst of tears. "he's still my boy, if he is wild, m'ri." "but, barnabas, martin's patience is exhausted. he has got him out of trouble so many times--and, oh, barnabas, he says he won't under any circumstances take the case! he is ashamed to face the court and jury with such a palpably guilty client. i have pleaded with him, but i can't influence him. you know how set he can be!" "wal, there are other lawyers," said barnabas grimly. [illustration: "_he kept his word. jud was cleared_"] david had remained silent and constrained during this conversation, the lines of his young face setting like steel. suddenly he left the house and paced up and down in the orchard, to wrestle once more with the old problem of his boyhood days. it was different now. then it had been a question of how much he must stand from jud for the sake of the benefits bestowed by the offender's father. now it meant a sacrifice of principle. he had made his boyish boast that he would defend only those who were wrongfully accused. to take this case would be to bring his wagon down from the star. then suddenly he found himself disposed to arraign himself for selfishly clinging to his ideals. he went back into the house, where m'ri was still tearfully arguing and protesting. he came up to barnabas. "i will clear jud, if you will trust the case to me, uncle barnabas." barnabas grasped his hand. "bless you, dave, my boy," he said. "i wanted you to, but jud has been--wal, i didn't like to ask you." "david," said m'ri, when they were alone, "martin said you wouldn't take a case where you were convinced of the guilt of the client." "i shall take this case," was david's quiet reply. "really, david, martin thinks it will be best for jud--" "i don't want to do what is best for jud, aunt m'ri, i want to do what is best for uncle barnabas. it's the first chance i ever had to do anything for him." when judge thorne found that david was determined to defend jud, he gave him some advice: "you must get counter evidence, if you can, david. if you have any lingering idea that you can appeal to the jury on account of barnabas being jud's father, root out that idea. there's no chance of rural juries tempering justice with mercy. with them it's an eye for an eye, every time." david had an infinitely harder task in clearing jud than he had had in defending miggs. the evidence was clear, the witnesses sure and wary, and the prisoner universally detested save by his evil-minded companions, but these obstacles brought out in full force all david's indomitable will and alertness. he tipped up and entrapped the prosecution's witnesses with lightning dexterity. one of them chanced to be a man whom david had befriended, and he aided him by replying shrewdly in jud's favor. but it was jud himself who proved to be david's trump card. he was keen, crafty, and quick to seize his lawyer's most subtle suggestions. his memory was accurate, and with david's steering he avoided all traps set for him on cross examination. when david stood before the jury for the most stubborn fight he had yet made, his mother's last piece of advice--all she had to bequeath to him--permeated every effort. he put into his argument all the compelling force within him. there were no ornate sentences this time, but he concentrated his powers of logic and persuasiveness upon his task. the jury was out two hours, during which time barnabas and jud sat side by side, pale and anxious, but upheld by david's confident assurance of victory. he kept his word. jud was cleared. "you're a smart lawyer, dave," commented uncle larimy. david looked at him whimsically. "i had a smart client, uncle larimy." "that's what you did, dave, but he's gettin' too dernd smart. you'd a done some of us a favor if you'd let him git sent up." chapter v "dave," said barnabas on one memorable day, "the jedge hez hed his innings trying to make you a lawyer. now it's my turn." "all right, uncle barnabas, i am ready." "hain't you hed enough of law, dave? you've given it a good trial, and showed what you could do. it'll be a big help to you to know the law, and it'll allers be sumthin' to fall back on when things get slack, but ain't you pinin' fer somethin' a leetle spryer?" "yes, i am," was the frank admission. "i like the excitement attending a case, and the fight to win, but it's drudgery between times--like soldiering in time of peace." "wal, dave, i've got a job fer you wuth hevin', and one that starts toward what you air a-goin' to be." david's breath came quickly. "what is it?" "thar's no reason at all why you can't go to legislatur' and make new laws instead of settin' in the jedge's office and larnin' to dodge old ones. i'm a-runnin' politics in these parts, and i'm a-goin' to git you nominated. after that, you'll go the hull gamut--so 't will be up the ladder and over the wall fer you, dave." so, david, to the astonishment of the judge, put his foot on the first round of the political ladder as candidate for the legislature. at the same time janey returned from the school in the east, where she had been "finished," and david's heart beat an inspiring tattoo every time he looked at her, but he was nominated by a speech-loving, speech-demanding district, and he had so many occasions for oratory that only snatches of her companionship were possible throughout the summer. joe came on to join in the excitement attending the campaign. it had been some time since his last visit, and he scarcely recognized david when he met him at the lafferton station. "well, dave," said the ranchman, "if you are as strong and sure as you look, you won't need my help in the campaign." "i always need you, joe. but you haven't changed in the least, unless you look more serious than ever, perhaps." "it's the outdoor life does that. take a field-bred lad, he always shies a bit at people." "your horse does, too, i notice. he arrived safely a week ago, and i put him up at the livery here in lafferton. i was afraid he would demoralize all the horses at the farm." "good! i'll ride out this evening. i have a little business to attend to here in town, and i want to see the judge and his wife, of course." when the western sky line gleamed in crimson glory joe came riding at a long lope up the lane. he sat his spirited horse easily, one leg thrown over the horn of his saddle. as he neared the house, a thrashing machine started up. the desert-bred horse shied, and performed maneuvers terrifying to janey, but joe in the saddle was ever a part of the horse. quietly and impassively he guided the frightened animal until the machine was passed. then he slid from the horse and came up to janey and david, who were awaiting his coming. "this can never be little janey!" he exclaimed, holding her hand reverently. "i haven't changed as much as davey has," she replied, dimpling. "oh, yes, you have! you are a woman. david is still a boy, in spite of his six feet." "you don't know about davey!" she said breathlessly. "he has won all kinds of law cases, and he is going to the legislature." joe laughed. "i repeat, he is still a boy." on the morrow david started forth on a round of speech making, canvassing the entire district. he returned at the wane of october's golden glow for the round-up, as joe termed the finish of the campaign. the flaunting crimson of the maples, the more sedate tinge of the oaks, the vivid yellow of the birches, the squashes piled up on the farmhouse porches, and the fields filled with pyramidal stacks of cornstalks brought a vague sense of loneliness as he rode out from lafferton to the farm. he left his horse at the barn and came up to the house through the old orchard as the long, slanting rays of sunlight were making afternoon shadows of all who crossed their path. he found janey sitting beneath their favorite tree. an open book lay beside her. she was gazing abstractedly into space, with a new look in her star-like eyes. david's big, untouched heart gave a quick leap. he took up the book and with an exultant little laugh discovered that it was a book of poems! janey, who could never abide fairy stories, reading poetry! surprised and embarrassed, after a shy greeting she hurried toward the house, her cheeks flaming. something very beautiful and breath-taking came into david's thoughts at that moment. he was roused from his beatific state by the approach of barnabas, so he was obliged to concentrate his attention on giving a résumé of his tour. then the judge telephoned for him to come to his office, and he was unable to finish his business there until dusk. the night was clear and frost touched. he left his horse in the lane and walked up to the house. as he came on to the porch he looked in through the window. the bright fire on the hearth, the soft glow of the shaded lamp, and the fair-haired girl seated by a table, needlework in hand, gave him a hunger for a hearth of his own. suddenly the scene shifted. joe came in from the next room. janey rose to her feet, a look of love lighting her face as she went to the arms outstretched to receive her. chapter vi david went back to lafferton. the little maid informed him that the judge and his wife were out for the evening; but there was always a room in readiness for him, so he sat alone by the window, staring into the lighted street, trying to comprehend that janey was not for him. it was late the next morning when he came downstairs. "i am glad, david, you decided to stay here last night," said m'ri, whose eyes were full of a yearning solicitude. she sat down at the table with him while he drank his coffee. "david." she spoke in a desperate tone, that caused him to glance keenly at her. "if you have anything to tell," he said quietly, "it's a good plan to tell it at once." "since you have been away joe and janey have been together constantly. it seems to have been a case of mutual love. david, they are engaged." "so," he said gravely, "i am to lose my little sister. joe is a man in a thousand." "but, david, i had set my heart on janey's marrying you, from that very first day when you went to school together and you carried her books. do you remember?" "yes," he replied whimsically, "but even then joe met us and took her away from me. but i must drive out and congratulate them." m'ri gazed after him in perplexity as he left the house. "i wonder," she mused, "if i ever quite understood david!" miss rhody called to david as he was passing her house and bade him come in. "you've hed a hard trip," she said, with a keen glance into his tired, boyish eyes. "very hard, miss rhody." "you have heard about janey--and joe?" "aunt m'ri just told me," he said, wincing ever so slightly. "they was all sot on your being her sweetheart, except me and her--and joe." "why not you, miss rhody?" "you ain't never been in love with janey--not the way you'll love some day. when i was sick last fall almiry green come over to read to me and she brung a book of poems. i never keered much for po'try, and almiry, she didn't nuther, but she hed jest ketched widower pankey, and so she thought it was proper to be readin' po'try. she read somethin' about fust love bein' a primrose, and a-fallin' to make way fer the real rose, and i thought to myself: 'that's david. his feelin' fer janey is jest a primrose.'" david's eyes were inscrutable, but she continued: "i knowed she hed allers fancied joe sence she was a little tot and he give her them beads. when joe's name was spoke she was allers shy-like. she wuz never shy-like with you." "no," admitted david wearily, "but i must go on to the farm now, miss rhody. i will come in again soon." when he came into the sitting room of the farmhouse, where he found joe and janey, the rare smile that comes with the sweetness of renunciation was on his lips. after he had congratulated them, he asked for barnabas. "he just started for the woods," said joe. "i think he is on his way to uncle larimy's." david hastened to overtake him, and soon caught sight of the bent figure walking slowly over the stubbled field. "uncle barnabas!" he called. barnabas turned and waited. "did you see janey and joe?" he asked, looking keenly into the shadowed eyes. "yes; aunt m'ri had told me." "when?" "this morning. joe's a man after your own heart, uncle barnabas." "it's you i wanted fer her," said the old man bluntly. "i never dreamt of its bein' enybody else. it's an orful disapp'intment to me, dave. i'd ruther see you her man than to see you what i told you long ago i meant fer you to be." "and i, too, uncle barnabas," said david, with slow earnestness, "would rather be your son than to be governor of this state!" "you did care, then, david," said the old man sadly. "it don't seem to be much of a surprise to you." "uncle barnabas, i will tell you something which i want no one else to know. i came back last evening and drove out here. i looked in the window, and saw her as she sat at work. it came into my heart to go in then and ask her to marry me, instead of waiting until after election as i had planned. then joe came in and she--went to him. i returned to lafferton. it was daylight before i had it out with myself." "dave! i thought i knew you better than any of them. it's been a purty hard test, but you won't let it spile your life?" "no, i won't, uncle barnabas. i owe it to you, if not to myself, to go straight ahead as you have mapped it out for me." "bless you, dave! you're the right stuff!" part three chapter i in january david took his seat in the house of representatives, of which he was the youngest member. it was not intended by that august body that he should take any rôle but the one tacitly conceded to him of making silver-tongued oratory on the days when the public would crowd the galleries to hear an all-important measure, the "griggs bill," discussed. the committee were to give him the facts and the general line of argument, and he was to dress it up in his fantastic way. they were entirely willing that he should have the applause from the public as well as the credit of the victory; all they cared for was the certainty of the passage of the bill. david's cool, lawyer-like mind saw through all these manipulations and machinations even if he were only a political tenderfoot. as other minor measures came up he voted for or against them as his better judgment dictated, but all his leisure hours were devoted to the investigation and study of the one big bill which was to be rushed through at the end of the session. he pored over the status of the law, found out the policies and opinions of other states on the subject, and listened attentively to all arguments, but he never took part in the discussions and he was very guarded in giving an expression of his views, an attitude which pleased the promoters of the bill until it began to occur to them that his caution came from penetration into their designs and, perhaps, from intent to thwart them. "he has ketched on," mournfully stated an old-timer from the third district. "i'm allers mistrustful of these young critters. they are sure to balk on the home stretch." "well, one good thing," grinned a city member, "it breaks their record, and they don't get another entry." david had made a few short speeches on some of the bills, and those who had read in the papers of the wonderful powers of oratory of the young member from the eleventh flocked to hear him. they were disappointed. his speeches were brief, forceful, and logical, but entirely barren of rhetorical effect. the promoters of the griggs bill began to wonder, but concluded he was saving all his figures of speech to sugarcoat their obnoxious measure. it occurred to them, too, that if by chance he should oppose them his bare-handed way of dealing with subterfuges and his clear presentation of facts would work harm. they counted, however, on being able to convince him that his future status in the life political depended upon his coöperation with them in pushing this bill through. finally he was approached, and then the bomb was thrown. he quietly and emphatically told them he should fight the bill, single handed if necessary. recriminations, arguments, threats, and inducements--all were of no avail. "let him hang himself if he wants to," growled one of the committee. "he hasn't influence enough to knock us out. we've got the majority." the measure was one that would radically affect the future interests of the state, and was being watched and studied by the people, who had not, as yet, however, realized its significance or its far-reaching power. the intent of the promoters of the griggs bill was to leave the people unenlightened until it should have become a law. "dunne won't do us any harm," argued the father of the bill on the eventful day. "he's been saving all his skyrockets for this celebration. he'll get lots of applause from the women folks," looking up at the solidly packed gallery, "and his speech will be copied in all the papers, and that'll be the reward he's looking for." when david arose to speak against the griggs bill he didn't look the youngster he had been pictured. his tall, lithe, compelling figure was drawn to its full height. his eyes darkened to intensity with the gravity of the task before him; the stern lines of his mouth bespoke a master of the situation and compelled confidence in his knowledge and ability. the speech delivered in his masterful voice was not so much in opposition to the bill as it was an exposure of it. he bared it ruthlessly and thoroughly, but he didn't use his youthful hypnotic periods of persuasive eloquence that had been wont to sway juries and to creep into campaign speeches. his wits had been sharpened in the last few months, and his keen-edged thrusts, hurled rapier-like, brought a wince to even the most hardened of veteran members. it was a complete enlightenment in plain words to a plain people--a concise and convincing protest. when he finished there was a tempest of arguments from the other side, but there was not a point he had not foreseen, and as attack only brought out the iniquities of the measure, they let the bill come to ballot. the measure was defeated, and for days the papers were headlined with david dunne's name, and accounts of how the veterans had been routed by the "tenderfoot from the eleventh." after his dip into political excitement legal duties became a little irksome to david, especially after the wedding of joe and janey had taken place. in the fall occurred the death of the united states senator from the western district of the state. a special session of the legislature was to be convened for the purpose of pushing through an important measure, and the election of a successor to fill the vacancy would take place at the same time. the usual "certain rich man," anxious for a career, aspired, and, as he was backed by the state machine as well as by the covert influence of two or three of the congressmen, his election seemed assured. there was an opposing candidate, the choice of the people, however, who was gathering strength daily. "we've got to head off this man dunne some way," said the manager of the "certain rich man." "he can't beat us, but with him out of the way it would be easy sailing, and all opposition would come over to us on the second ballot." "isn't there a way to win him over?" asked a congressman who was present. the introducer of the memorable measure of the last session shook his head negatively. "he can't be persuaded, threatened, or bought." "then let's get him out of the way." "kidnap him?" "decoy him gently from your path. the consul of a little seaport in south america has resigned, and at a word from me to senator hollis, who would pass it on to the president, this appointment could be given to your young bucker, and he'd be out of your way for at least three years." "that would be too good to be true, but he wouldn't bite at such bait. his aspirations are all in a state line. he's got the usual career mapped out,--state senator, secretary of state, governor--possibly president." "you can never tell," replied the congressman sagaciously. "a presidential appointment, the alluring word 'consul,' a foreign residence, all sound very enticing and important to a young country man. the dunne type likes to be the big frog in the puddle. this stripling you are all so afraid of hasn't cut all his wisdom teeth yet. it's worth a try. i'll tackle him." the morning after this conversation, as david walked down to the judge's office he felt very lonely--a part of no plan. it was a mood that made him ripe for the purpose of the congressman whom he found awaiting him. "i've been wanting to meet you for a long time, mr. dunne," said the congressman obsequiously, after the judge had introduced him. "we've heard a great deal about you down in washington since your defeat of the griggs bill, and we are looking for great things from you. of course, we have to keep our eye on what is going on back here." the judge looked his surprise at this speech, and was still more mystified at receiving a knowing wink from david. after some preliminary talk the congressman finally made known his errand, and tendered david the offer of a consulship in south america. at this juncture the judge was summoned to the telephone in another room. when he returned the congressman had taken his departure. "behold," grinned david, "the future consul of--i really can't pronounce it. i am going to look it up now in your atlas." "where is gilbert?" asked the judge. "gone to wire hilliard before i can change my mind. you see, it's a scheme to get me out of the road and i--well i happen to be willing to get out of the road just now. i am not in a fighting mood." "consular service," remarked the judge oracularly, "is generally considered a sort of clearing house for undesirable politicians. the consuls to those little ports are, as a rule, very poor." "then a good consul like your junior partner will loom up among so many poor ones." barnabas was inwardly disturbed by this move from david, but he philosophically argued that "the boy was young and 't wouldn't harm him to salt down awhile." "dave," he counseled in farewell, "i hope you'll come to love some good gal. every man orter hev a hearth of his own. this stretchin' yer feet afore other folks' firesides is unnateral and lonesome. thar's no place so snug and safe fer a man as his own home, with a good wife to keep it. but i want you tew make me a promise, dave. when i see the time's ripe fer pickin' in politics, will you come back?" "i will, uncle barnabas," promised david solemnly. the heartiest approval came from joe. "that's right, dave, see all you can of the world instead of settling down in a pasture lot at lafferton." chapter ii gilbert, complacent and affable, returned to washington accompanied by david. a month later the newly made consul sailed from new york for south america. he landed at a south american seaport that had a fine harbor snugly guarded by jutting cliffs skirting the base of a hill barren and severe in aspect. as he walked down the narrow, foreign streets thronged with a strange people, and saw the structures with their meaningless signs, he began to feel a wave of homesickness. then, looking up, he felt that little inner thrill that comes from seeing one's flag in a foreign land. "and that is why i am here," he thought, "to keep that flag flying." he resolutely started out on the first day to keep the flag flying in the manner befitting the kind of a consul he meant to be. he maintained a strict watch over the commercial conditions, and his reports of consular news were promptly rendered in concise and instructive form. his native tact and inherent courtesy won him favor with the government, his hospitality and kindly intent conciliated the natives, and he was soon also accorded social privileges. he began to enjoy life. his duties were interesting, and his leisure was devoted to the pursuit of novel pleasures. fletcher wilder, the son of the president of an american mining company, was down there ostensibly to look after his father's interests, but in reality to take out pleasure parties in his trim little yacht, and david soon came to be the most welcome guest that set foot on its deck. at the end of a year, when his duties had become a matter of routine and his life had lost the charm of novelty, david's ambitions started from their slumbers, though not this time in a political way. wilder had cruised away, and the young consul was conscious of a sense of aloneness. he spent his evenings on his spacious veranda, from where he could see the moonlight making a rippling road of silver across the black water. the sensuous beauty of the tropical nights brought him back to his early land of dreams, and the pastime that he had been forced to relinquish for action now appealed to him with overwhelming force and fascination. but the dreams were a man's dreams, not the fleeting fancies of a boy. they continued to possess and absorb him until one night, when he was looking above the mountains at one lone star that shone brighter than the rest, he was moved for the first time to give material shape and form to his conceptions. the impulse led to execution. "i must get it out of my system," he explained half apologetically to himself as he began the writing of a novel. to this task, as to everything else he had undertaken, he brought the entire concentration of his mind and energy, until the book soon began to seem real to him--more real than anything he had done. as he was copying the last page for the last time, fletcher sailed into the harbor for a week of farewell before returning to new york. "what have you been doing for amusement these last six months, dunne?" he asked as he dropped into david's house. "you'd never guess," said david, "what your absence drove me to. i've written a book--a novel." "let me take it back to the hotel with me to-night. i haven't been sleeping well lately, and it may--" "if it serves as a soporific," said david gravely, as he handed him the bulky package, "my labor will not have been in vain." the next morning wilder came again into david's office. "i fear you didn't sleep well, after all," observed david, looking at his visitor's heavy-lidded eyes. "no, darn you, dunne. i took up your manuscript and i never laid it down until the first streaks of dawn. then when i went to bed i lay awake thinking it all over. why, dunne, it's the best book i ever read!" "i wish," david replied with a whimsical smile, "that you were a publisher." "speaking of publishers, that's why i didn't bring the manuscript back. i sail in a week, and i want you to let me take it to a publisher i know in new york. he will give it a prompt reading." "if it wouldn't bother you too much, i wish you would. you see, it would take so long for it to come back here and be sent out again each time it is rejected." "rejected!" scoffed wilder. "you wait and see! aren't you going to dedicate it?" david hesitated, his eyes stealing dreamily out across the bay to the horizon line. "i wonder," he said meditatively, "if the person to whom it is dedicated--every word of it--wouldn't know without the inscription." "no," objected fletcher, "you should have it appear out of compliment." he smiled as he wrote on a piece of paper: "to t. l. p." "the initials of your sweetheart?" quizzed fletcher. "no; when i was a little chap i used to spin yarns. these are the initials of one who was my most absorbed listener." wilder raised anchor and sailed back to the states. at the expiration of two months he wrote david that his book had been accepted. in time ten bound copies of his novel, his allotment from the publishers, brought him a thrill of indescribable pleasure. the next mail brought papers with glowing reviews and letters of commendation and congratulations. next came a good-sized check, and the information that his book was a "best seller." the night that this information was received he went up to the top of the hill that jutted over the harbor and listened to the song of the waves. two years in this land of liquid light--a land of burning days and silent, sapphired nights, a land of palms and olives--two years of quiet, dreamy bliss, an idle and unsubstantial time! how evanescent it seemed, by the light of the days at home, when something had always pressed him to action. "two years of drifting," he thought. "it is time i, too, raised anchor and sailed home." the next mail brought a letter that made his heart beat faster than it had yet been able to do in this exotic, lazy land. it was a recall from barnabas. "dear dave: "nothing but a lazy life in a foreign land would have drove a man like you to write a book. the jedge and m'ri are pleased, but i know you are cut out for something different. i want you to come home in time to run for legislature again. there's goin' to be something doin'. it is time for another senator, and who do you suppose is plugging for it, and opening hogsheads of money? wilksley. i want for you to come back and head him off. if you've got one speck of your old spirit, and you care anything about your state, you'll do it. i am still running politics for this county at the old stand. your book has started folks to talking about you agen, so come home while the picking is good. you've dreamt long enough. it is time to get up. don't write no more books till you git too old to work. "yours if you come, "b. b." the letter brought to david's eyes something that no one in this balmy land had ever seen there. with the look of a fighter belted for battle he went to the telegraph office and cabled barnabas, "coming." chapter iii on his return to lafferton david was met at the train by the judge, m'ri, and barnabas. "your trunks air goin' out to the farm, dave, ain't they?" asked barnabas wistfully. "of course," replied david, with an emphasis that brought a look of pleasure to the old man. "your telegram took a great load offen my mind," he said, as they drove out to the farm. "miss rhody told me all along i need hev no fears fer you, that you weren't no dawdler." "good for miss rhody!" laughed david. "she shall have her reward. i brought her silk enough for two dresses at least." "david," said m'ri suddenly at the dinner table, "do tell me for whose name those initials in the dedication to your book stand. is it any one i know?" "i hardly know the person myself," was the smiling and evasive reply. "a woman, david?" "she figured largely in my fairy stories." "a nickname he had for janey," she thought with a sigh. "uncle barnabas," said david the next day, "before we settle down to things political tell me if you regret my south american experience." "now that you're back and gittin' into harness, i'll overlook anything. you'd earnt a breathing spell, and you look a hull lot older. your book's kep' your name in the papers, tew, which helps." "i will show you something that proves the book did more than that," said david, drawing his bank book from his pocket and passing it to the old man, who read it unbelievingly. "why, dave, you're rich!" he exclaimed. "no; not rich. i shall always have to work for my living. so tell me the situation." this fully occupied the time it took to drive to town, for cold molasses, successor to old hundred, kept the pace his name indicated. the day was spent in meeting old friends, and then david settled down to business with his old-time energy. once more he was nominated for the legislature and took up the work of campaigning for stephen hume, opponent to wilksley. hume was an ardent, honest, clean-handed politician without money, but he had for manager one ethan knowles, a cool-headed, tireless veteran of campaign battles, with david acting as assistant and speech maker. david was elected, went to the capital, and was honored with the office of speaker by unanimous vote. he had his plans carefully drawn for the election of hume, who came down on the regular train and established headquarters at one of the hotels, surrounded by a quiet and determined body of men. wilksley's supporters, a rollicking lot, had come by special train and were quartered at a club, dispensing champagne and greenbacks promiscuously and freely. there was also a third candidate, whose backers were non-committal, giving no intimation as to where their strength would go in case their candidate did not come in as a dark horse. when the night of the senatorial contest came the floor, galleries, and lobby of the house were crowded. the judge, m'ri, and joe were there, janey remaining home with her father, who refused to join the party. "thar'll be bigger doin's fer me to see dave officiate at," he prophesied. the quietly humorous young man wielding the gavel found it difficult to maintain quiet in the midst of such excitement, but he finally evolved order from chaos. wilksley was the first candidate nominated, a gentleman from the fourteenth delivering a bombastic oration in pompous periods, accompanied by lofty gestures. he was followed by an understudy, who made an ineffective effort to support his predecessor. "a ricochet shot," commented joe. "wait till dave hits the bullseye." the supporting representatives of the dark horse made short, forceful speeches. then followed a brief intermission, while david called a substitute _pro tem_ to the speaker's desk. he stepped to the platform to make the nominating speech for hume, the speech for which every one was waiting. there was a hush of expectancy, and m'ri felt little shivers of excitement creeping down her spine as she looked up at david, dauntless, earnest, and compelling, as he towered above them all. in its simplicity, its ring of truth, and its weight of conviction, his speech was a masterpiece. "a young patrick henry!" murmured the judge. m'ri made no comment, for in that flight of a second that intervened between david's speech and the roar of tumultuous applause, she had heard a voice, a young, exquisite voice, murmur with a little indrawn breath, "oh, david!" m'ri turned in surprise, and looked into the confused but smiling face of a lovely young girl, who said frankly and impulsively: "i don't know who mr. hume may be, but i do hope he wins." m'ri smiled in sympathy, trying to place the resemblance. then her gaze wandered to the man beside the young girl. "you are carey winthrop!" she exclaimed. the man turned, and leaned forward. "mrs. thorne, this is indeed a pleasure," he said, extending his hand. joe then swung his chair around into their vision. "oh, joe!" cried the young girl ecstatically. "and where is janey?" the balloting was in progress, and there was opportunity for mutual recalling of old times. then suddenly the sibilant sounds dropped to silence as the result was announced. wilksley had the most votes, the dark horse the least; hume enjoyed a happy medium, with fifteen more to his count than forecast by the man behind the button, as joe designated knowles. in the rush of action from the delegates, reporters, clerks, and messengers, the place resembled a beehive. then came another ballot taking. hume had gained ten votes from the wilksley men and fifteen from the dark horse, but still lacked the requisite number. from the little retreat where hume's manager was ensconced, with his hand on the throttle, david emerged. he looked confident and determined. the third ballot resulted in giving hume the entire added strength of the dark horse, and enough votes to elect. a committee was thereupon appointed to bring the three candidates to the house. when they entered and were escorted to the platform they each made a speech, and then formed a reception line. david stood apart, talking to one of the members. he was beginning to feel the reaction from the long strain he had been under and wished to slip away from the crowd. suddenly he heard some one say: "mr. speaker, may i congratulate you?" chapter iv he turned quickly, his heart thrilling at the charm in the voice, low, yet resonant, and sweet with a lurking suggestion of sadness. a girl, slender and delicately made, stood before him, a girl with an exquisite grace and a nameless charm--the something that lurks in the fragrance of the violet. her eyes were not the quiet, solemn eyes of the little princess of his fairy tales, but the deep, fathomless eyes of a maiden. a reminiscent smile stole over his face. "the little princess!" he murmured, taking her hand. the words brought a flush of color to her fair face. "the prince is a politician now," she replied. "the prince has to be a politician to fight for his kingdom. have you been here all the evening?" "yes; father and i sat with your party. but you were altogether too absorbed to glance our way." "are you visiting in the city? will you be here long?" "for to-night only. i've been west with father, and we only stopped off to see what a senatorial fight was like; also, to hear you speak. to-morrow we return east, and then mother and i shall go abroad. father," calling to mr. winthrop, "i am renewing my acquaintance with mr. dunne." "i wish to do the same," he said, extending his hand cordially. "i expect to be able to tell people some day that i used to fish in a country stream with the governor of this state when he was a boy." after a few moments of general conversation they all left the statehouse together. "carey," said mr. winthrop, "i am going with the judge to the club, so i will put you in david's hands. i believe you have no afraidments with him." "that has come to be a household phrase with us," she laughed; "but you forget, father, that mr. dunne has official duties." "if you only knew," david assured her earnestly, "how thankful i am for a release from them. my task is ended, and i don't wish to celebrate in the usual and political way." "there is a big military ball at the hotel," informed joe. "mrs. thorne and i thought we would like to go and look on." "a fine idea, joe. maybe you would like to go?" he said to carey, trying to make his tone urgent. she laughed at his dismayed expression. "no; you may walk to the bradens' with me. we couldn't get in at the hotels, and father met major braden on the street. he is instructor or something of the militia of this state, and has gone to the ball with his wife. they supposed that this contest would last far into the night, so they planned to be home before we were." "we will get a carriage as soon as we are out of the grounds." "have you come to carriages?" she asked, laughingly. "you used to say if you couldn't ride horseback, or walk, you would stand still." "and you agreed with me that carriages were only for the slow, the stupid, and the infirm," he recalled. "it's a glorious night. would you rather walk, really?" "really." at the entrance to the grounds they parted from the others and went up one of the many avenues radiating from the square. the air was full of snowflakes, moving so softly and so slowly they scarcely seemed to fall. the electric lights of the city shone cheerfully through the white mist, and the sound of distant mirthmakers fell pleasantly on the ear. "snow is the only picture part of winter," said carey. "do you remember the story of the snow princess?" "you must have a wonderful memory!" he exclaimed. "you were only six years old when i told you that story." "i have a very vivid memory," she replied. "sometimes it almost frightens me." "do you know," he said, "that i think people that have dreams and fancies do look backward farther than matter-of-fact people, who let things out of sight go out of mind?" "you were full of dreams then, but i don't believe you are now. of course, politicians have no time or inclination for dreams." "no; they usually have a dread of dreams. would you rather have found me still a dreamer?" he asked, looking down into her dark eyes, which drooped beneath the intensity of his gaze. then her delicate face, misty with sweetness, turned toward him again. "no; dreams are for children and for old people, whose memories, like their eyes, are for things far off. this is your time to do things, not to dream them. and you have done things. i heard major braden telling father about you at dinner--your success in law, your getting some bill killed in the legislature, and your having been to south america. father says you have had a wonderful career for a young man. i used to think when i was a little girl that when you were a grown-up prince you would kill dragons and bring home golden fleeces." he smiled with a sudden deep throb of pleasure. her voice stirred him with a sense of magic. "this is the braden home," she said, stopping before a big house that seemed to be all pillars and porches. "you'll come in for a little while, won't you?" "i'll come in, if i may, and help you to recall some more of maplewood days." a trim little maid opened the door and led the way into a long library where in the fireplace a pine backlog, crisscrossed by sturdy forelogs of birch and maple, awaited the touch of a match. it was given, and the room was filled with a flaring light that made the soft lamplight seem pale and feeble. "this is a genuine brumble fire," he exclaimed, as they sat down before the ruddy glow. "it carries me back to farm life." "how many phases of life you have seen," mused carey. "country, college, city, tropical, and now this political life. which one have you really enjoyed the most?" "my life in the land of dreams--that beautiful isle of everywhere," he replied. her eyes grew radiant with understanding. "you are not so very much changed since your days of dreaming," she said, smiling. "to be sure, you have lost your freckles and you don't kick at the ground when you walk, and--" "and," he reminded, as she paused. "you are no longer twice my age." "did janey tell you?" "yes; the last summer i was at maplewood--the summer you were graduated. you say you don't dream any more, but it wasn't so very long ago that you did, else how could you have written that wonderful book?" "then you read it?" he asked eagerly. "of course i read it." "all of it?" "could any one begin it and not finish it? i've read some parts of it many times." "did you," he asked slowly, holding her eyes in spite of her desire to lower them, "read the dedication?" and by their subtle confession he knew that this was one of the parts she had read "many times." "yes," she replied, trying to speak lightly, but breathing quickly, "and i wondered who t. l. p. might be." "and so you didn't know," in slow, disappointed tones, "that they stood for the name i gave you when i first met you--the name by which i always think of you? it was with your perfect understanding of my old fancies in mind that i wrote the book. and so i dedicated it to you, thinking if you read it you would know even without the inscription. some one suggested--" "it was fletcher," she began. "oh, you know wilder?" "yes, i've known him always. he has told me of your days in south america together and how he told you to dedicate it. and he wondered who t. l. p. might be." "and you never guessed?" her face, bent over the firelight, looked small and white; her beautiful eyes were fixed and grave. then suddenly she lifted them to his with the artlessness of a child. "i did know," she confessed. "at least, i hoped--i claimed it as my book, anyway, but i thought your memory of those summers at the farm might not have been as keen as mine." "it is keen," he replied. "i have always thought of you as a little princess who only lived in my dreams, but, hereafter, you are not only in my past dreams, but i hope, in my future." "when we come back--" "will you be gone long?" he asked wistfully. "is your father--" "father can't go, but he may join us." after a moment's hesitation she continued, with a slight blush: "fletcher is going with us." "oh," he said, wondering at his tinge of disappointment. "carey," he said wistfully, as he was leaving, "don't you think when a man dedicates a book to a girl, and they both have a joint claim on a territory known as the land of dreams, that she might call him, as she did when they were boy and girl, by his first name?" "yes, david," she replied with a light little laugh. the music of the soft "a" rang entrancingly in his ears as he walked back to the hotel. chapter v there was but one important measure to deal with in this session of the legislature, but david's penetration into a thorough understanding of each bill, and the patience and sagacity he displayed in settling all disputes, won the approbation of even doubtful and divided factions. he flashed a new fire of life into the ebbing enthusiasm of his followers, whom he had led to victory on the griggs bill. at the close of the session, early in may, he was presented with a set of embossed resolutions commending his fulfillment of his duties. that same night, in his room at the hotel, as he was packing his belongings, he was waited upon by a delegation composed alike of horny-handed tillers of the soil and distinguished statesmen. "we come, david," said the spokesman, who had been chairman of the county convention, "to say that you are our choice for the next governor of this state, and in saying this we know we are echoing the sentiment of the republican party. in fact, we are looking to you as the only man who can bring that party to victory." he said many more things, flattering and echoed by his followers. it made the blood tingle in david's veins to know that these men of plain, honest, country stock, like himself, believed in him and in his honor. in kaleidoscopic quickness there passed in review his life,--the days when he and his mother had struggled with a wretched poverty that the neighbors had only half suspected, the first turning point in his life, when he was taken unto the hearth and home of strong-hearted people, his years at college, the plodding days in pursuit of the law, his hotly waged fight in the legislature, and his short literary career, and he felt a surging of boyish pride at the knowledge that he was now approaching his goal. the next morning david went to lafferton in order to discuss the road to the ruling of the people. "whom would you suggest for manager of my campaign, uncle barnabas?" he asked. "knowles came to me and offered his services. couldn't have a slicker man, dave." "none better in the state. i shouldn't have ventured to ask him." janey was home for the summer, and on the first evening of his return she and david sat together on the porch. "oh, davey," she said with a little sob, "jud has come home again, and they say he isn't just wild any more, but thoroughly bad." the tears in her eyes and the tremor in her tone stirred all his old protective instinct for her. "poor jud! i'll see if i can't awaken some ambition in him for a different life." "you've been very patient, davey, but do try again. every one is down on him now but father and you and me. aunt m'ri has let the judge prejudice her; joe hasn't a particle of patience with him, and he can't understand how i can have any, but you do, davey. you understand everything." they sat in silence, watching the stars pierce vividly through the blackness of the sky, and presently his thoughts strayed from jud and from his fair young sister. in fancy he saw the queenly carriage of an imperious little head, the mystery lurking in a pair of purple eyes, and heard the cadence in an exquisite voice. the next morning he began the fight, and there was an incessant cannonade from start to finish against the upstart boy nominee, who proved to be an adversary of unremitting activity, the tact and experience of knowles making a fortified intrenchment for him. all of david's friends rallied strongly to his support. hume came from washington, joe from the ranch, and wilder from the east, his father having a branch concern in the state. through the long, hot summer the warfare waged, and by mid-autumn it seemed a neck and neck contest--a contest so susceptible that the merest breath might turn the tide at any moment. the week before the election found david still resolute, grim, and determined. instead of being discouraged by adverse attacks he had gained new vigor from each downthrow. all forces rendezvoused at the largest city in the state for the final engagement. three days before election he received a note in a handwriting that had become familiar to him during the past year. with a rush of surprise and pleasure he noted the city postmark. the note was very brief, merely mentioning the hotel at which they were stopping and asking him to call if he could spare a few moments from his campaign work. in an incredibly short time after the receipt of this note he was at the hotel, awaiting an answer to his card. he was shown to the sitting room of the suite, and carey opened the door to admit him. this was not the little princess of his dreams, nor the charming young girl who had talked so ingenuously with him before the braden fireside. this was a woman, stately yet gracious, vigorous yet exquisite. "i am glad we came home in time to see you elected," she said. "it is a great honor, david, to be the governor of your state." there was a shade of deference in her manner to him which he realized was due to the awe with which she regarded the dignity of his elective office. this amused while it appealed to him. "we are on our way to california to spend the winter," she replied, in answer to his eager question, "and father proposed stopping here until after election." "you come in and out of my life like a comet," he complained wistfully. mrs. winthrop came in, smiling and charming as ever. she was very cordial to david, and interested in his campaign, but it seemed to him that she was a little too gracious, as if she wished to impress him with the fact that it was a concession to meet him on an equal social footing. for mrs. winthrop was inclined to be of the world, worldly. "you have arrived at an auspicious time," he assured her. "to-night the democrats will have the biggest parade ever scheduled for this city. joe calls it the round-up." "oh, is joe here?" asked carey eagerly. "yes; and another friend of yours, fletcher wilder." "i knew that he was here," she said, with an odd little smile. "we had expected to see him in new york, and were surprised to learn he was out here," said mrs. winthrop. "he came to help me in my campaign," informed david. "fletcher interested in politics! how strange!" "his interest is purely personal. we were together in south america, you know." "i am glad that you have a friend in him," said mrs. winthrop affably. "the parade will pass here, and fletcher is coming up, of course. why not come up, too, if you can spare the time?" "this is not my night," laughed david. "it's purely and simply a democratic night. i shall be pleased to come." "bring joe, too," reminded carey. when mr. winthrop came in david had no doubt as to the welcome he received from the head of the family. "a man's measure of a man," thought david, "is easily taken, and by natural laws, but oh, for an understanding of the scales by which women weigh! and yet it is they who hold the balance." "fletcher and david and joe are coming to-night to watch the parade from here," said carey. "you shall all dine with us," said mr. winthrop. "thank you," replied david, "but--" "oh, but you must," insisted mrs. winthrop, who always warmly seconded any proffer of hospitality made by her husband. "fletcher will dine with us, of course. we can have a little dinner served here in our rooms. write a note to mr. forbes, carey." the marked difference in type of her three guests as they entered the sitting room that night struck mrs. winthrop forcibly. joe, lean and brown, with laughing eyes, was the typical frontiersman; fletcher, quiet and substantial looking, with his air of culture and ease and his modulated voice, was the type of a city man; david--"what a man he is!" she was forced to admit as he stood, head uplifted in the white glare under the chandelier, the brilliant light shining upon his dark hair, and his eyes glowing like stars. his lithe figure, perfect in poise and balance, of virile strength that was toil-proof, wore the look of the outdoor life. his smile banished everything that was ordinary from his face and transmuted it into a glowing personality. his eyes, serious with that insight of the observer who knows what is going on without and within, were clear and steady. the table was laid for six in the sitting room, the flowers and candles giving it a homelike look. as mrs. winthrop listened to the conversation between her husband and david she was forced to admit that the young candidate for governor was a man of mark. "i never knew a man without good birth to have such perfect breeding," she thought. "he really appears as well as fletcher, and, well, of course, he has more temperament. if he could have been born on a different plane," thinking of her long line of virginia ancestors. she had ceded a great deal to her husband's and carey's democracy, and reserved many an unfavorable criticism of their friends and their friends' ways with a tactfulness that had blinded their eyes to her true feelings. yet david knew instinctively her standpoint; she partly suspected that he knew, and the knowledge did not disturb her; she intuitively gauged his pride, and welcomed it, for a suitor of the fletcher wilder station of life was more to her liking. carey led david away from her father's political discourse, and encouraged him to give reminiscences of old days. joe told a few inimitable western stories, and before the cozy little meal was finished mrs. winthrop, though against her will, was feeling the compelling force of david's winning sweetness. the sound of a distant band hurried them from the table to the balcony. "they've certainly got a fair showing of floating banners and transformations," said joe. as the procession came nearer the face of the hardy ranchman flushed crimson and his eyes flashed dangerously. he made a quick motion as if to obstruct david's vision, but the young candidate had already seen. he stood as if at bay, his face pale, his eyes riveted on those floating banners which bore in flaming letters the inscriptions: "the father of david dunne died in state prison!" "his mother was a washerwoman!" chapter vi the others were stricken into shocked silence which they were too stunned for the moment to break. it was fletcher who recovered first, but then fletcher was the only one present who did not know that the words had struck home. "we mustn't wait another moment, david," he said emphatically, "to get out sweeping denials and--" "we can't," said david wearily. "it is true." "oh," responded fletcher lamely. there was another silence. something in david's voice and manner had made the silence still more constrained. "i'll go down and smash their banners!" muttered joe, who had not dared to look in david's direction. mr. winthrop restrained him. "the matter will take care of itself," he counseled. it is mercifully granted that the intensity of present suffering is not realized. only in looking back comes the pang, and the wonder at the seemingly passive endurance. again david's memory was bridging the past to unveil that vivid picture of the patient-eyed woman bending over the tub, and the pity for her was hurting him more than the cruel banner which was flaunting the fact before a jeering, applauding crowd. mrs. winthrop gave him a covert glance. she had great pride in her lineage, and her well-laid plans for her daughter's future did not include david dunne in their scope, but she was ever responsive to distress. before the look in his eyes every sensation save that of sympathy left her, and she went to him as she would have gone to a child of her own that had been hurt. "david," she said tenderly, laying her hand on his arm, "any woman in the world might be glad to take in washing to bring up a boy to be such a man as you are!" deeply moved and surprised, he looked into her brimming eyes and met there the look he had sometimes seen in the eyes of his mother, of m'ri, and once in the eyes of janey. moved by an irresistible impulse, he stooped and kissed her. the situation was relieved of its tenseness. "i think, joe," said david, speaking collectedly, "we had better go to headquarters. knowles will be looking for me." "sure," assented joe, eager to get into action. "carey," said david in a low voice, as he was leaving. as she turned to him, an impetuous rush of new life leaped torrent-like in his heart. her eyes met his slowly, and for a moment he felt a pleasure acute with the exquisiteness of pain. such sensations are usually transient, and in another moment he had himself well in hand. "i want to say good night," he said quietly, "and--" "will you come here to-morrow at eleven?" she asked hurriedly. "there is something i want to say to you." "i know that you are sorry for me." "that isn't what i mean to say." a wistful but imperious message was flashed to him from her eyes. "i will come," he replied gravely. when he reached headquarters he found the committee dismayed and distracted. like wilder, they counseled a sweeping denial, but david was firm. "it is true," he reiterated. "it will cost us the vote of a certain element," predicted the chairman, "and we haven't one to spare." david listened to a series of similar sentiments until knowles--a new knowles--came in. the usual blank placidity of his face was rippled by radiant exultation. "david," he announced, "before that parade started to-night i had made out another conservative estimate, and thought i could pull you through by a slight majority. now, it's different. while you may lose some votes from the 'near-silk stocking' class, yet for every vote so lost hundreds will rally to you. that all men are created equal is still a truth held to be self-evident. the spark of the spirit that prompted the declaration of independence is always ready to be fanned to a flame, and the democrats have furnished us the fans in their flying pennants." david found no balm in this argument. all the wounds in his heart were aching, and he could not bring his thoughts to majorities. he passed a night of nerve-racking strain. the jeopardy of election did not concern him. that night at the dinner party he had realized that he had a formidable rival in fletcher, who had a place firmly fixed in the winthrop household. still, against odds, he had determined to woo and win carey. he had thought to tell her of his father's imprisonment under softening influences. to have it flashed ruthlessly upon her in such a way, and at such a time, made him shrink from asking her to link her fate with his, and he decided to put her resolutely out of his life. unwillingly, he went to keep his appointment with her the next morning. he also dreaded an encounter with mrs. winthrop. he felt that the reaction from her moment of womanly pity would strand her still farther on the rocks of her worldliness. he was detained on his way to the hotel so that it was nearly twelve when he arrived. it was a relief to find carey alone. there was an appealing look in her eyes; but david felt that he could bear no expression of sympathy, and he trusted she would obey the subtle message flashed from his own. with keen insight she read his unspoken appeal, but a high courage dwelt in the spirit of the little puritan of colonial ancestry, and she summoned its full strength. "david," she asked, "did you think i was ignorant of your early life until i read those banners last night?" "i thought," he said, flushing and taken by surprise, "that you might have long ago heard something, but to have it recalled in so sensational a way when you were entertaining me at dinner--" [illustration: "_it was a relief to find carey alone_"] "david, the first day i met you, when i was six years old, mrs. randall told us of your father. i didn't know just what a prison was, but i supposed it something very grand, and it widened the halo of romance that my childish eyes had cast about you. the morning after you had nominated mr. hume i saw your aunt at the hotel, and she told me, for she said some day i might hear it from strangers and not understand. when i saw those banners it was not so much sympathy for you that distressed me; i was thinking of your mother, and regretting that she could not be alive to hear you speak, and see what her bravery had done for you." david had to summon all his control and his recollection of her virginia ancestors to refrain from telling her what was in his heart. mrs. winthrop helped him by her entrance at this crucial point. "good morning, david," she said suavely. "carey, fletcher is waiting for you at the elevator. your father stopped him. i told him you would be out directly." "i had an engagement to drive with him," explained carey. "i thought you would come earlier." "i am due at a committee meeting," he said, in a courteous but aloof manner. "we start in the morning, you know," she reminded him. "won't you dine here with us to-night?" "i am sorry," he refused. "it will be impossible." "arthur is going to a club for luncheon," said mrs. winthrop, when carey had gone into the adjoining room, "and i shall be alone unless you will take pity on my loneliness. i won't detain you a moment after luncheon." "thank you," he replied abstractedly. she smiled at the reluctance in his eyes. "david is going to stay to luncheon with me," she announced to carey as she came into the sitting room. david winced at the huge bunch of violets fastened to her muff. he remembered with a pang that fletcher had left him that morning to go to a florist's. after she had gone mrs. winthrop turned suddenly toward him, as he was gazing wistfully at the closed door. "david," she asked directly, "why did you refuse our invitation to dine to-night?" "why--you see--mrs. winthrop--with so many engagements--there is a factory meeting at five--" "david, you are floundering! that is not like the frankly spoken boy we used to know at maplewood. i kept you to luncheon to tell you some news that even carey doesn't know yet. mrs. randall has written insisting that we spend a week at maplewood before we go west. as we are in no special haste, i shall accept her hospitality." david made no reply, and she continued: "you are going home the day before election?" "yes, mrs. winthrop," he replied. "we will go down with you, and i hope you will be neighborly while we are in the country." the bewildered look in his eyes deepened, and then a heartrending solution of her graciousness came to him. fletcher and carey were doubtless engaged, and this fact made mrs. winthrop feel secure in extending hospitality to him. "thank you, mrs. winthrop," he said, a little bitterly. "you are very kind." "david," she asked, giving him a searching look. "what is the matter? i thought you would be pleased at the thought of our spending a week among you all." he made a quick, desperate decision. "mrs. winthrop," he asked earnestly, "may i speak to you quite openly and honestly?" "david dunne, you couldn't speak any other way," she asserted, with a gay little laugh. "i love carey!" chapter vii this information seemingly conveyed no startling intelligence. "well," replied mrs. winthrop, evidently awaiting a further statement. "i haven't tried to win her love, nor have i told her that i love her, because i knew that in your plans for her future you had never included me. i know what you think about family, and i don't want to make ill return for the courtesy and kindness you and mr. winthrop have always shown me." "david, you have one rare trait--gratitude. i did have plans for carey--plans built on the basis of 'family'; but i have learned from you that there are other things, like the trait i mentioned, for instance, that count more than lineage. before we went abroad i knew carey was interested in you, with the first flutter of a young girl's fancy, and i was secretly antagonistic to that feeling. but last night, david, i came to feel differently. i envied your mother when i read those banners. if i had a son like you, i'd feel honored to take in washing or anything else for him." at the look of ineffable sadness in his eyes her tears came. "david," she said gently, after a pause, "if you can win carey's love, i shall gladly give my consent." he thanked her incoherently, and was seized with an uncontrollable longing to get away--to be alone with this great, unbelievable happiness. in realization of his mood, she left him under pretext of ordering the luncheon. on her return she found him exuberant, in a flow of spirits and pleasantry. "mrs. winthrop," he said earnestly, as he was taking his departure, "i am not going to tell carey just yet that i love her." "as you wish, david. i shall not mention our conversation." she smiled as the door closed upon him. "tell her! i wonder if he doesn't know that every time he looks at her, or speaks her name, he tells her. but i suppose he has some foolish mannish pride about waiting until he is governor." when david, in a voice vibrant with new-found gladness, finished an eloquent address to a united band of workmen, he found mr. winthrop waiting for him. "i was sent to bring you to the hotel to dine with us, david. my wife told me of your conversation." noting the look of apprehension in david's eyes, he continued: "every time a suitor for carey has crossed our threshold i've turned cold at the thought of relinquishing my guardianship. with you it is different; i can only quote carey's childish remark--'with david i would have no afraidments.'" a touch upon his shoulder prevented david's reply. he turned to find joe and fletcher. "knowles has been looking for you everywhere. he wants you to come to headquarters at once." "is it important?" asked david hesitatingly. "important! knowles! say, david, have you forgotten that you are running for governor?" winthrop laughed appreciatively. "go back to knowles, david, and come to us when you can. we have no iron-clad rules as to hours. go with him, joe, to be sure he doesn't forget where he is going. come with me, fletcher." "it's too late to call now," remonstrated joe, when david had finally made his escape from headquarters. david muttered that time was made for slaves, and increased his pace. when they reached the hotel joe refused to go to the winthrop's apartment. david found carey alone in the sitting room. "david," she asked, after one glance into his eyes, "what has changed you? good news from mr. knowles?" "no, carey," he replied, his eyes growing luminous. "it was something your mother said to me this morning." "oh, i am glad. what was it she said?" "she told me," he evaded, "that you were going to visit the randalls." "and that is what makes you look so--cheered?" she persisted. "no, carey. may i tell you at two o'clock in the afternoon, the day after election?" she laughed delightedly. "that sounds like our childhood days. you used to put notes in the old apple tree--do you remember?--asking janey and me to meet you two hours before sundown at the end of the picket fence." further confidential conversation was prevented by the entrance of the others. joe had been captured, and mrs. winthrop had ordered a supper served in the rooms. "carey," asked her mother softly, when they were alone that night, "did david tell you what a cozy little luncheon we had?" "he told me, mother, that you said something to him that made him very happy, but he would not tell me what it was." something in her mother's gaze made carey lift her violets as a shield to her face. "she knows!" thought mrs. winthrop. "but does she care?" chapter viii at two o'clock on the day after david dunne had been elected governor by an overwhelming majority, he reined up at the open gate at the end of the maple drive. his heart beat faster at the sight of the regal little figure awaiting him. her coat, furs, and hat were all of white. he helped her into the carriage and seated himself beside her. "have you been waiting long, and are you dressed quite warmly?" he asked anxiously. "yes, indeed; i thought you might keep me waiting at the gate, so i put on my furs." the drive went on through the grounds to a sloping pasture, where it became a rough roadway. the day was perfect. the sharp edges of november were tempered by a bright sun, and the crisp air was possessed of a profound quiet. when the pastoral stretches ended in the woods, david stopped suddenly. "it must have been just about here," he said, reminiscently, as he hitched the horse to a tree and held out his hand to carey. they walked on into the depths of the woods until they came to a fallen tree. "let us sit here," he suggested. she obeyed in silence. an early frost had snatched the glory from the trees, whose few brown and sere leaves hung disconsolately on the branches. high above them was an occasional skirmishing line of wild ducks. the deep stillness was broken only by the scattering of nuts the scurrying squirrels were harvesting, by the cry of startled wood birds, or by the wistful note of a solitary, distant quail. "do you remember that other--that first day we came here?" he asked. she glanced up at him quickly. "is this really the place where we came and you told me stories?" "you were only six years old," he reminded her. "it doesn't seem possible that you should remember." "it was the first time i had ever been in any kind of woods," she explained, "and it was the first time i had ever played with a grown-up boy. for a long time afterward, when i teased mother for a story, she would tell me of 'the day carey met david.'" "and do you remember nothing more about that day?" "oh, yes; you made us some little chairs out of red sticks, and you drew me here in a cart." "can't you remember when you first laid eyes on me?" "no--yes, i remember. you drove a funny old horse, and i saw you coming when i was waiting at the gate." "yes, you were at the gate," he echoed, with a caressing note in his voice. "you were dressed in white, as you are to-day, and that was my first glimpse of the little princess. and because she was the only one i had ever known, i thought of her for years as a princess of my imagination who had no real existence." "but afterwards," she asked wistfully, "you didn't think of me as an imaginary person, did you?" "yes; you were hardly a reality until--" "until the convention?" she asked disappointedly. "no; before that. it was in south america, when i began to write my book, that you came to life and being in my thoughts. the tropical land, the brilliant sunshine, the purple nights, the white stars, the orchids, the balconies looking down upon fountained courts, all invoked you. you answered, and crept into my book, and while we--you and i--were writing it, it came to me suddenly and overwhelmingly that the little princess was a living, breathing person, a woman who mayhap would read my book some day and feel that it belonged to her. it was so truly hers that i did not think it necessary to write the dedication page. and she did read the book and she did know--didn't she?" he looked down into her face, which had grown paler but infinitely more lovely. "david, i didn't dare know. i wanted to think it was so." "carey," his voice came deep and strong, his eyes beseeching, "we were prince and princess in that enchanted land of childish dreams. will you make the dream a reality?" * * * * * "when, david," she asked him, "did you know that you loved, not the little princess, but me, carey?" "you make the right distinction in asking me when i _knew_ i loved you. i loved you always, but i didn't know that i loved you, or how much i loved you, until that night we sat before the fire at the bradens'." "and, david, tell me what mother said that day after the parade?" "she told me i had her consent to ask you--this!" "and why, david, did you wait until to-day?" "the knowledge that you were coming back here to maplewood brought the wish to make a reality of another dream--to meet you at the place where i first saw you--to bring you here, where you clung to me for the protection that is henceforth always yours. and now, carey, it is my turn to ask you a question. when did you first love me?" [illustration: "_'carey, will you make the dream a reality?'_"] "that first day i met you--here in the woods. my dream and my prince were always realities to me." chapter ix the governor was indulging in the unwonted luxury of solitude in his private sanctum of the executive offices. the long line of politicians, office seekers, committees, and reporters had passed, and he was supposed to have departed also, but after his exit he had made a detour and returned to his private office. then he sat down to face the knottiest problem that had as yet confronted him in connection with his official duties. an important act of the legislature awaited his signature or veto. various pressing matters called for immediate action, but they were mere trifles compared to the issue pending upon an article he had read in a bi-weekly paper from one of the country districts. the article stated that a petition was being circulated to present to the governor, praying the pardon and release of jud brumble. then had begun the great conflict in the mind of david dunne, the "governor who could do no wrong." it was not a conflict between right and wrong that was being waged, for jud had been one to the prison born. david reviewed the series of offenses jud had perpetrated, punishment for which had ever been evaded or shifted to accomplices. he recalled the solemn promise the offender had made him long ago when, through david's efforts, he had been acquitted--a promise swiftly broken and followed by more daring transgressions, which had culminated in one enormous crime. he had been given the full penalty--fifteen years--a sentence in which a long-suffering community had rejoiced. jud had made himself useful at times to a certain gang of ward heelers and petty politicians, who were the instigators of this petition, which they knew better than to present themselves. had they done so, david's course would have been plain and easy; but the petition was to be conveyed directly and personally to the governor, so the article read, by the prisoner's father, barnabas brumble. by this method of procedure the petitioners showed their cunning as well as their knowledge of david dunne. they knew that his sense of gratitude was as strong as his sense of accurate justice, and that to barnabas he attributed his first start in life; that he had, in fact, literally blazed the political trail that had led him from a country lawyer to the governorship of his state. there were other ties, other reasons, of which these signers knew not, that moved david to heed a petition for release should it be presented. again he seemed to see his mother's imploring eyes and to hear her impressive voice. again he felt around his neck the comforting, chubby arms of the criminal's little sister. her youthful guilelessness and her inherent goodness had never recognized evil in her wayward brother, and she would look confidently to "davey" for service, as she had done in the old days of country schools and meadow lanes. on the other hand, he, david dunne, had taken a solemn oath to do his duty, and his duty to the people, in the name of justice, was clear. he owed it to them to show no leniency to jud brumble. so he hovered between base ingratitude to the man who had made him, and who had never before asked a favor, and non-fulfillment of duty to his people. it was a wage of head and heart. there had never been moral compromises in his code. there had ever been a right and a wrong--plain roads, with no middle course or diverging paths, but now in his extremity he sought some means of evading the direct issue. he looked for the convenient loophole of technicality--an irregularity in the trial--but his legal knowledge forbade this consideration after again going over the testimony and evidence of the trial. the attorney for the defense had been compelled to admit that his client had had a square deal. if only the petition might be brought in the usual way, and presented to the pardon board, it would not be allowed to reach the governor, as there was nothing in the case to warrant consideration, but that was evidently not to be the procedure. barnabas would come to him and ask for jud's release, assuming naturally that his request would be willingly granted. if he pardoned jud, all the popularity of the young governor would not screen him from the public censure. one common sentiment of outrage had been awakened by the crime, and the criminal had been universally repudiated, but it was not from public censure or public criticism that this young man with the strong under jaw shrank, but from the knowledge that he would be betraying a trust. gratitude and duty pointed in different directions this time. with throbbing brain and racked nerves he made his evening call upon carey, who had come to be a clearing house for his troubles and who was visiting the bradens. she looked at him to-night with her eyes full of the adoration a young girl gives to a man who has forged his way to fame. he responded to her greeting abstractedly, and then said abruptly: "carey, i am troubled to-night!" "i knew it before you came, david. i read the evening papers." "what!" he exclaimed in despair. "it's true, then! i have not seen the papers to-night." she brought him the two evening papers of opposite politics. in glowing headlines the democratic paper told in exaggerated form the story of his early life, his humble home, his days of struggle, his start in politics, and his success, due to the father of the hardened criminal. would the governor do his duty and see that law and order were maintained, or would he sacrifice the people to his personal obligations? david smiled grimly as he reflected that either course would be equally censured by this same paper. he took up the other journal, the organ of his party, which stated the facts very much as the other paper had done, and added that barnabas brumble was en route to the capital city for the purpose of asking a pardon for his son. the editor, in another column, briefly and firmly expressed his faith in the belief that david dunne would be stanch in his views of what was right and for the public welfare. there was one consolation; neither paper had profaned by public mention the love of his boyhood days. "what shall i do! what should i do!" he asked himself in desperation. "i know what you will do," said carey, quickly reading the unspoken words. "what?" "you will do, as you always do--what you believe to be right. david, tell me the story of those days." so from the background of his recollections he brought forward vividly a picture of his early life, a story she had heard only from others. he told her, too, of his boyish fancy for janey. there was silence when he had finished. carey looked into the flickering light of the open fire with steady, musing eyes. it did not hurt her in the least that he had had a love of long ago. it made him but the more interesting, and appealed to her as a pretty and fitting romance in his life. "it seems so hard, either way, david," she said looking up at him in a sympathetic way. "to follow the dictates of duty is so cold and cruel a way, yet if you follow the dictates of your heart your conscience will accuse you. but you will, when you have to act, david, do what you believe to be right, and abide by the consequences. either way, dear, is going to bring you unhappiness." "which do you believe the right way, carey?" he asked, looking searchingly into her mystic eyes. "david," she replied helplessly, "i don't know! the more i think about it, the more complicated the decision seems." they discussed the matter at length, and he went home comforted by the thought that there was one who understood him, and who would abide in faith by whatever decision he made. the next day, at the breakfast table, on the street, in his office, in the curious, questioning faces of all he encountered, he read the inquiry he was constantly asking himself and to which he had no answer ready. when he finally reached his office he summoned his private secretary. "major, don't let in any more people than is absolutely necessary to-day. i will see no reporters. you can tell them that no petition or request for the pardon of jud bramble has been received, if they ask, and oh, major!" the secretary turned expectantly. "if barnabas brumble comes, of course he is to be admitted at once." later in the morning the messenger to the governor stood at the window of the business office, idly looking out. "dollars to doughnuts," he exclaimed suddenly and confidently, "that this is barnabas brumble coming up the front walk!" the secretary hastened to the window. a grizzled old man in butternut-colored, tightly buttoned overcoat, and carrying a telescope bag, was ascending the steps. "i don't know why you think so," said the secretary resentfully to the boy. "barnabas brumble isn't the only farmer in the world. sometimes," he added, pursuing a train of thought beyond the boy's knowledge, "it seems as if no one but farmers came into this capitol nowadays." a few moments later one of the guards ushered into the executive office the old man carrying the telescope. the secretary caught the infection of the boy's belief. "what can i do for you?" he asked courteously. "i want to see the guvner," replied the old man in a curt tone. "your name?" asked the secretary. "barnabas brumble," was the terse response. he had not read the newspapers for a week past, and so he could hardly know the importance attached to his name in the ears of those assembled. the click of the typewriters ceased, the executive clerk looked quickly up from his papers, the messenger assumed a triumphant pose, and the janitor peered curiously in from an outer room. "come this way, mr. brumble," said the secretary deferentially, as he passed to the end of the room and knocked at a closed door. david dunne knew, when he heard the knock, to whom he would open the door, and he was glad the strain of suspense was ended. but when he looked into the familiar face a host of old memories crowded in upon his recollection, and obliterated the significance of the call. "uncle barnabas!" he said, extending a cordial hand to the visitor, while his stern, strong face softened under his slow, sweet smile. then he turned to his secretary. "admit no one else, major." david took the telescope from his guest and set it on the table, wondering if it contained the "documents in evidence." "take off your coat, uncle barnabas. they keep it pretty warm in here!" "i callate they do--in more ways than one," chuckled barnabas, removing his coat. "i hed to start purty early this mornin', when it was cool-like. wal, dave, times has changed! to think of little dave dunne bein' guvner! i never seemed to take it in till i come up them front steps." the governor laughed. "sometimes i don't seem to take it in myself, but _you_ ought to, uncle barnabas. you put me here!" as he spoke he unlocked a little cabinet and produced a bottle and a couple of glasses. "wal, i do declar, ef you don't hev things as handy as a pocket in a shirt! good stuff, dave! more warmin' than my old coat, i reckon, but say, dave, what do you s'pose i hev got in that air telescope?" david winced. in olden times the old man ever came straight to the point, as he was doing now. "why, what is it, uncle barnabas?" "open it!" directed the old man laconically. with the feeling that he was opening his coffin, david unstrapped the telescope and lifted the cover. a little exclamation of pleasure escaped him. the telescope held big red apples, and it held nothing more. david quickly bit into one. "i know from just which particular tree these come," he said, "from that humped, old one in the corner of the orchard nearest the house." "yes," allowed barnabas, "that's jest the one--the one under which you and her allers set and purtended you were studyin' your lessons." david's eyes grew luminous in reminiscence. "i haven't forgotten the tree--or her--or the old days, uncle barnabas." "i knowed you hadn't, dave!" again david's heart sank at the confidence in the tone which betokened the faith reposed, but he would give the old man a good time anyway before he took his destiny by the throat. "wouldn't you like to go through the capitol?" he asked. "i be goin'. the feller that brung me up here sed he'd show me through." "i'll show you through," said david decisively, and together they went through the places of interest in the building, the governor as proud as a newly domiciled man showing off his possessions. at last they came to the room where in glass cases reposed the old, unfurled battle flags. the old man stopped before one case and looked long and reverently within. "which was your regiment, uncle barnabas?" "forty-seventh infantry. i kerried that air flag at the battle of the wilderness." david called to a guard and obtained a key to the case. opening it, he bade the old man take out the flag. with trembling hands barnabas took out the flag he had followed when his country went to war. he gazed at it in silence, and then restored it carefully to its place. as they walked away, he brushed his coat sleeve hastily across his dimmed eyes. david consulted his watch. "it's luncheon time, uncle barnabas. we'll go over to my hotel. the executive mansion is undergoing repairs." "i want more'n a lunch, dave! i ain't et nuthin' sence four o'clock this mornin'." "i'll see that you get enough to eat," laughed david. in the lobby of the hotel a reporter came quickly up to them. "how are you, governor?" he asked, with his eyes fastened falcon-like on barnabas. david returned the salutation and presented his companion. "mr. brumble from lafferton?" asked the reporter, with an insinuating emphasis on the name of the town. "yes," replied the old man in surprise. "i don't seem to reckleck seein' you before." "i never met you, but i have heard of you. may i ask what your business in the city is, mr. brumble?" the old man gave him a keen glance from beneath his shaggy brows. "wal, i don't know as thar's any law agin your askin'! i came to see the guvner." david, with a laugh of pure delight at the discomfiture of the reporter, led the way to the dining room. "you're as foxy as ever, uncle barnabas. you routed that newspaper man in good shape." "so that's what he was! i didn't know but he was one of them three-card-monty sharks. wal, i s'pose it's his trade to ask questions." barnabas' loquacity always ceased entirely at meal times, so his silence throughout the luncheon was not surprising to david. "wal, dave," he said as he finished, "ef this is your lunch i'd hate to hev to eat what you'd call dinner. i never et so much before at one settin'!" "we'll go over to the club now and have a smoke," suggested david. "then you can go back to my office with me and see what i have to undergo every afternoon." at the club they met several of david's friends--not politicians--who met barnabas with courtesy and composure. when they returned to david's private office barnabas was ensconced comfortably in an armchair while david listened with patience to the long line of importuners, each receiving due consideration. the last interview was not especially interesting and barnabas' attention was diverted. his eyes fell on a newspaper, which he picked up carelessly. it was the issue of the night before, and his own name was conspicuous in big type. he read the article through and returned the paper to its place without being observed by david, whose back was turned to him. "wal, dave," he said, when the last of the line had left the room, "i used ter think i'd ruther do enything than be a skule teacher, but i swan ef you don't hev it wuss yet!" david made no response. the excitement of his boyish pleasure in showing uncle barnabas about had died away as he listened to the troubles and demands of his callers, and now the recollection of the old man's errand confronted him in full force. barnabas looked at him keenly. "dave," he said slowly, "'t ain't no snap you hev got! i never knowed till to-day jest what it meant to you. i'm proud of you, dave! i wish--i wish you hed been my son!" the governor arose impetuously and crossed the room. "i would have been, uncle barnabas, if she had not cared for joe!" "i know it, dave, but you hev a sweet little gal who will make you happy." the governor's face lighted in a look of exquisite happiness. "i have, uncle barnabas. we will go to see her this evening." "i'd like to see her, sartain. hain't seen her sence the night you was elected. and, dave," with a sheepish grin, "i'm a-goin' to git spliced myself." "what? no! may i guess, uncle barnabas--miss rhody?" "dave, you air a knowin' one. yes, it's her! whenever we set down to our full table i got to thinkin' of that poor little woman a-settin' down alone, and i've never yet knowed a woman livin' alone to feed right. they allers eat bean soup or prunes, and call it a meal." "i am more glad than i can tell you, uncle barnabas, and i shall insist on giving the bride away. but what will penny think about some one stepping in?" "wal, dave, i'll allow i wuz skeered to tell penny, and it tuk a hull lot of bracin' to do it, and what do you suppose she sed? she sez, 'i've bin wantin' tew quit these six years, and now, thank the lord, i've got the chance.'" "why, what in the world did she want to leave for?" "i guess you'll be surprised when i tell you. to marry larimy sasser!" "uncle larimy! she'll scour him out of house and home," laughed david. "we'll hev both weddin's to the same time. joe and janey are a-comin', and we'll hev a grand time. i hain't much on the write, dave, and i've allers meant to see you here in this great place. some of the boys sez to me: 'mebby dave's got stuck on himself and his job by this time, and you'll hev to send in yer keerd by a nigger fust afore you kin see him,' but i sez, 'no! not david dunne! he ain't that kind and never will be.' so when i go back i kin tell them how you showed me all over the place, and tuk me to eat at a hotel and to that air stylish place where i wuz treated like a king by yer friends. i've never found you wantin', dave, and i never expect to!" "uncle barnabas," began david, "i--" his voice suddenly failed him. "see here, dave! i didn't know nuthin' about that," pointing to the newspaper, "until a few minutes ago. i sed tew hum that i wuz a-comin' to see how dave run things, and ef them disreptible associates of jud's air a-gittin' up some fool paper, i don't know it! ef they do send it in, don't you dare sign it! why, i wouldn't hev that boy outen prison fer nuthin'. he's different from what he used to be, dave. he got so low he would hev to reach up ter touch bottom. he's ez low ez they git, and he's dangerous. i didn't know an easy minute fer the last two years afore he wuz sent up, so keep him behind them bars fer fear he'll dew somethin' wuss when he gits out. don't you dare sign no petition, dave!" tears of relief sprang into the strong eyes of the governor. "why, dave," said the old man in shocked tones, "you didn't go fer to think fer a minute i'd ask you to let him out cause he wuz my son? even ef i hed a wanted him out, and lord knows i don't, i'd not ask you to do somethin' wrong, no more'n i'd bring dishoner to that old flag i held this mornin'!" david grasped his hand. "uncle barnabas!" his voice broke with emotion. then he murmured: "we'll go to see _her_, now." as they passed out into the corridor a reporter hastened up to them. "governor," he asked, with impudent directness, "are you going to pardon jud bramble?" before david could reply, barnabas stepped forward: "young feller, thar hain't no pardon ben asked fer jud brumble, and what's more, thar hain't a-goin' to be none asked--not by me. i come down here to pay my respecks to the guvner, and to bring him a few apples, and you kin say so ef you wanter!" when carey came into the library where her two callers awaited her, one glance into the divine light of david's deepening, glowing eyes told her what she wanted to know. with a soft little cry she went to barnabas, who was holding out his hand in welcome. impulsively her lips were pressed against his withered cheek, and he took her in his arms as he might have taken janey. "why, carey!" he said delightedly, "dave's little gal!" * * * * * an announcement of new books love in a mask. honoré de balzac a discovery in the world of literature, a story of daring and piquant interest. price . . . . $ . net. betty moore's journal. mrs. mabel d. carry a gallant little charge for the rights of motherhood among the wealthy indifferent, and from a most important viewpoint. price . . . . . . . . $ . net. the joy of gardens. lena may mccauley "miss mccauley has proved in this book her right to the beauties of nature, for the book delights by its charm of description, its riot of color, and its carnival of blossom."--_the boston herald._ price . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$ . net. the lovers. eden phillpotts an "intense" tale of love and war, the ingenuity and daring of american prisoners on british soil brought into stirring play with the integrity of john bull's humble officials. price . . . . $ . net. lady eleanor: lawbreaker. robert barr "lady eleanor is a brilliant little story of sheridan's time, clever and tingling with interest. though a love story pure and simple, the tale is charged throughout with the spirit of the great playwright and is a mirror of his circle and hour."--_the argus_, albany, n. y. price . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ . net. rand mcnally & company chicago--new york beyond the frontier [illustration: "you kiss me! try it, monsieur, if you doubt how my race repays insult". page . beyond the frontier.] beyond the frontier a romance of early days in the middle west by randall parrish author of "when wilderness was king," "the maid of the forest," etc. with frontispiece by the kinneys a. l. burt company publishers--new york published by arrangements with a. c. mcclurg & co. copyright a. c. mcclurg & co. published october, copyrighted in great britain w. f. hall printing company, chicago contents chapter page i at the home of hugo chevet ii the choice of a husband iii i appeal for aid iv in the palace of the intendant v the order of la barre vi the wife of francois cassion vii the two men meet viii i defy cassion ix the flames of jealousy x we attain the ottawa xi i gain speech with de artigny xii on the summit of the bluff xiii we reach the lake xiv at st. ignace xv the murder of chevet xvi my pledge saves de artigny xvii the break of storm xviii alone with de artigny xix we exchange confidences xx i choose my duty xxi we decide our course xxii we meet with danger xxiii the words of love xxiv we attack the savages xxv within the fort xxvi in de baugis' quarters xxvii i send for de tonty xxviii the court martial xxix condemned xxx i choose my future xxxi we reach the river xxxii we meet surprise xxxiii warriors of the illini xxxiv we wait in ambush xxxv the charge of the illini xxxvi the clearing of mystery beyond the frontier chapter i at the home of hugo chevet it was early autumn, for the clusters of grapes above me were already purple, and the forest leaves were tinged with red. and yet the air was soft, and the golden bars of sun flickered down on the work in my lap through the laced branches of the trellis. the work was but a pretense, for i had fled the house to escape the voice of monsieur cassion who was still urging my uncle to accompany him on his journey into the wilderness. they sat in the great room before the fireplace, drinking, and i had heard enough already to tell me there was treachery on foot against the sieur de la salle. to be sure it was nothing to me, a girl knowing naught of such intrigue, yet i had not forgotten the day, three years before, when this la salle, with others of his company, had halted before the ursuline convent, and the sisters bade them welcome for the night. 'twas my part to help serve, and he had stroked my hair in tenderness. i had sung to them, and watched his face in the firelight as he listened. never would i forget that face, nor believe evil of such a man. no! not from the lips of cassion nor even from the governor, la barre. i recalled it all now, as i sat there in the silence, pretending to work, how we watched them embark in their canoes and disappear, the indian paddlers bending to their task, and monsieur la salle, standing, bareheaded as he waved farewell. beyond him was the dark face of one they called de tonty, and in the first boat a mere boy lifted his ragged hat. i know not why, but the memory of that lad was clearer than all those others, for he had met me in the hall and we had talked long in the great window ere the sister came, and took me away. so i remembered him, and his name, rene de artigny. and in all those years i heard no more. into the black wilderness they swept and were lost to those of us at home in new france. no doubt there were those who knew--frontenac, bigot, those who ruled over us at quebec--but 'twas not a matter supposed to interest a girl, and so no word came to me. once i asked my uncle chevet, and he replied in anger with only a few sentences, bidding me hold my tongue; yet he said enough so that i knew the sieur de la salle lived and had built a fort far away, and was buying furs of the indians. it was this that brought jealousy, and hatred. once monsieur cassion came and stopped with us, and, as i waited on him and uncle chevet, i caught words which told me that frontenac was la salle's friend, and would listen to no charges brought against him. they talked of a new governor; yet i learned but little, for cassion attempted to kiss me, and i would wait on him no more. then frontenac was recalled to france, and la barre was governor. how pleased my uncle chevet was when the news came, and he rapped the table with his glass and exclaimed: "ah! but now we will pluck out the claws of this sieur de la salle, and send him where he belongs." but he would explain nothing, until a week later. cassion came up the river in his canoe with indian paddlers, and stopped to hold conference. the man treated me with much gallantry, so that i questioned him, and he seemed happy to answer that la barre had already dispatched a party under chevalier de baugis, of the king's dragoons to take command of la salle's fort st. louis in the illinois country. la salle had returned, and was already at quebec, but cassion grinned as he boasted that the new governor would not even give him audience. bah! i despised the man, yet i lingered beside him, and thus learned that la salle's party consisted of but two _voyageurs_, and the young sieur de artigny. i was glad enough when he went away, though i gave him my hand to kiss, and waved to him bravely at the landing. and now he was back again, bearing a message from la barre, and seeking volunteers for some western voyage of profit. 'twas of no interest to me unless my uncle joined in the enterprise, yet i was kind enough, for he brought with him word of the governor's ball at quebec, and had won the pledge of chevet to take me there with him. i could be gracious to him for that and it was on my gown i worked, as the two planned and talked in secret. what they did was nothing to me now--all my thought was on the ball. what would you? i was seventeen. the grape trellis ran down toward the river landing, and from where i sat in the cool shadow, i could see the broad water gleaming in the sun. suddenly, as my eyes uplifted, the dark outline of a canoe swept into the vista, and the splashing paddles turned the prow inward toward our landing. i did not move, although i watched with interest, for it was not the time of year for indian traders, and these were white men. i could see those at the paddles, voyageurs, with gay cloths about their heads; but the one in the stern wore a hat, the brim concealing his face, and a blue coat. i knew not who it could be until the prow touched the bank, and he stepped ashore. then i knew, and bent low over my sewing, as though i had seen nothing, although my heart beat fast. through lowered lashes i saw him give brief order to the men, and then advance toward the house alone. ah! but this was not the slender, laughing-eyed boy of three years before. the wilderness had made of him a man--a soldier. he paused an instant to gaze about, and held his hat in his hand, the sun touching his tanned cheeks, and flecking the long, light-colored hair. he looked strong and manly in his tightly buttoned jacket, a knife at his belt, a rifle grasped within one hand. there was a sternness to his face too, although it lit up in a smile, as the searching eyes caught glimpse of my white dress in the cool shade of the grape arbor. hat still in hand he came toward me, but i only bent the lower, as though i knew nothing of his approach, and had no interest other than my work. "mademoiselle," he said gently, "pardon me, but is not this the home of hugo chevet, the fur trader?" i looked up into his face, and bowed, as he swept the earth with his hat, seeing at a glance that he had no remembrance of me. "yes," i answered. "if you seek him, rap on the door beyond." "'tis not so much chevet i seek," he said, showing no inclination to pass me, "but one whom i understood was his guest--monsieur francois cassion." "the man is here," i answered quickly, yet unable to conceal my surprise, "but you will find him no friend to sieur de la salle." "ah!" and he stared at me intently. "in the name of the saints, what is the meaning of this? you know me then?" i bowed, yet my eyes remained hidden. "i knew you once as monsieur's friend," i said, almost regretting my indiscretion, "and have been told you travel in his company." "you knew me once!" he laughed. "surely that cannot be, for never would i be likely to forget. i challenge you, mademoiselle to speak my name." "the sieur rene de artigny, monsieur." "by my faith, the witch is right, and yet in all this new france i know scarce a maid. nay look up; there is naught to fear from me, and i would see if memory be not new born. saint giles! surely 'tis true; i have seen those eyes before; why, the name is on my tongue, yet fails me, lost in the wilderness. i pray you mercy, mademoiselle!" "you have memory of the face you say?" "ay! the witchery of it; 'tis like a haunting spirit." "which did not haunt long, i warrant. i am adele la chesnayne, monsieur." he stepped back, his eyes on mine, questioningly. for an instant i believed the name even brought no familiar sound; then his face brightened, and his eyes smiled, as his lips echoed the words. "adele la chesnayne! ay! now i know. why 'tis no less than a miracle. it was a child i thought of under that name--a slender, brown-eyed girl, as blithesome as a bird. no, i had not forgotten; only the magic of three years has made of you a woman. again and again have i questioned in montreal and quebec, but no one seemed to know. at the convent they said your father fell in indian skirmish." "yes; ever since then i have lived here, with my uncle, hugo chevet." "here!" he looked about, as though the dreariness of it was first noticed. "alone? is there no other woman?" i shook my head, but no longer looked at him, for fear he might see the tears in my eyes. "i am the housekeeper, monsieur. there was nothing else for me. in france, i am told, my father's people were well born, but this is not france, and there was no choice. besides i was but a child of fourteen." "and seventeen, now, mademoiselle," and he took my hand gallantly. "pardon if i have asked questions which bring pain. i can understand much, for in montreal i heard tales of this hugo chevet." "he is rough, a woodsman," i defended, "yet not unkind to me. you will speak him fair?" he laughed, his eyes sparkling with merriment. "no fear of my neglecting all courtesy, for i come beseeching a favor. i have learned the lesson of when the soft speech wins more than the iron hand. and this other, the commissaire cassion--is he a bird of the same plumage?" i made a little gesture, and glanced back at the closed door. "oh, no; he is the court courtier, to stab with words, not deeds. chevet is rough of speech, and hard of hand, but he fights in the open; cassion has a double tongue, and one never knows him." i glanced up into his sobered face. "he is a friend of la barre." "so 'tis said, and has been chosen by the governor to bear message to de baugis in the illinois country. i seek passage in his company." "you! i thought you were of the party of sieur de la salle?" "i am," he answered honestly, "yet cassion will need a guide, and there is none save myself in all new france who has ever made that journey. 'twill be well for him to listen to my plan. and why not? we do not fight the orders of the governor: we obey, and wait. monsieur de la salle will tell his story to the king." "the king! to louis?" "ay, 'twill not be the first time he has had audience, and already he is at sea. we can wait, and laugh at this cassion over his useless journey." "but he--he is treacherous, monsieur." he laughed, as though the words amused. "to one who has lived, as i, amid savages, treachery is an old story. the commissaire will not find me asleep. we will serve each other, and let it go at that. ah! we are to be interrupted." he straightened up facing the door, and i turned, confronting my uncle as he emerged in advance. he was a burly man, with iron-gray hair, and face reddened by out-of-doors; and he stopped in surprise at sight of a stranger, his eyes hardening with suspicion. "and who is this with whom you converse so privately, adele?" he questioned brusquely, "a young popinjay new to these parts i venture." de artigny stepped between us, smiling in good humor. "my call was upon you, monsieur chevet, and not the young lady," he said quietly enough, yet with a tone to the voice. "i merely asked her if i had found the right place, and if, monsieur, the commissaire cassion was still your guest." "and what may i ask might be your business with the commissaire cassion?" asked the latter, pressing past chevet, yet bowing with a semblance of politeness, scarcely in accord with the studied insolence of his words. "i have no remembrance of your face." "then, monsieur cassion is not observant," returned the younger man pleasantly, "as i accompanied the sieur de la salle in his attempt to have audience with the governor." "ah!" the word of surprise exploded from the lips. "_sacre!_ 'tis true! my faith, what difference clothes make. i mistook you for a _courier du bois_." "i am the sieur rene de artigny." "lieutenant of la salle's?" "scarcely that, monsieur, but a comrade; for three years i have been with his party, and was chosen by him for this mission." cassion laughed, chucking the gloomy-faced chevet in the side, as though he would give point to a good joke. "and little the trip hither has profited either master or man, i warrant. la barre does not sell new france to every adventurer. monsieur de la salle found different reception in quebec than when frontenac ruled this colony. where went the fur-stealer?" "to whom do you refer?" "to whom? heaven help us, chevet, the man would play nice with words. well, let it go, my young cock, and answer me." "you mean the sieur de la salle?" "to be sure; i called him no worse than i have heard la barre speak. they say he has left quebec; what more know you?" "'tis no secret, monsieur," replied de artigny quietly enough, although there was a flash in his eyes, as they met mine. "the sieur de la salle has sailed for france." "france! bah! you jest; there has been no ship outward bound." "the _breton_ paused at st. roche, held by the fog. when the fog lifted there was a new passenger aboard. by dawn the indian paddlers had me landed in quebec." "does la barre know?" "faith! i could not tell you that, as he has not honored me with audience." cassion strode back and forth, his face dark with passion. it was not pleasant news he had been told, and it was plain enough he understood the meaning. "by the saints!" he exclaimed. "'tis a sly fox to break through our guard so easily. ay, and 'twill give him a month to whisper his lies to louis, before la barre can forward a report. but, _sacre!_ my young chanticleer, surely you are not here to bring me this bit of news. you sought me, you said? well, for what purpose?" "in peace, monsieur. because i have served sieur de la salle loyally is no reason why we should be enemies. we are both the king's men, and may work together. the word has come to me that you head a party for the illinois, with instructions for de baugis at fort st. louis. is this true?" cassion bowed coldly, waiting to discover how much more his questioner knew. "ah, then i am right thus far. well, monsieur, 'twas on that account i came, to volunteer as guide." "you! 'twould be treachery." "oh, no; our interests are the same so far as the journey goes. i would reach st. louis; so would you. because we may have different ends in view, different causes to serve, has naught to do with the trail thither. there is not a man who knows the way as well as i. four times have i traveled it, and i am not a savage, monsieur--i am a gentleman of france." "and you pledge your word?" "i pledge my word--to guide you safe to fort st. louis. once there i am comrade to sieur de la salle." "bah! i care not who you comrade with, once you serve my purpose. i take your offer, and if you play me false--" "restrain your threats, monsieur cassion. a quarrel will get us nowhere. you have my word of honor; 'tis enough. who will compose the party?" cassion hesitated, yet seemed to realize the uselessness of deceit. "a dozen or more soldiers of the regiment of picardy, some _couriers du bois_, and the indian paddlers. there will be four boats." "you go by the ottawa, and the lakes?" "such were my orders." "'tis less fatiguing, although a longer journey; and the time of departure?" cassion laughed, as he turned slightly, and bowed to me. "we leave quebec before dawn tuesday," he said gaily. "it is my wish to enjoy once more the follies of civilization before plunging into the wilderness. the governor permits that we remain to his ball. mademoiselle la chesnayne does me the honor of being my guest on that occasion." "i, monsieur!" i exclaimed in surprise at his boastful words. "'twas my uncle who proposed--" "tut, tut, what of that?" he interrupted in no way discomposed. "it is my request which opens the golden gates. the good hugo here but looks on at a frivolity for which he cares nothing. 'tis the young who dance. and you, monsieur de artigny, am i to meet you there also, or perchance later at the boat landing?" the younger man seemed slow in response, but across cassion's shoulder our eyes met. i know not what he saw in the glance of mine, for i gave no sign, yet his face brightened, and his words were carelessly spoken. "at the ball, monsieur. 'tis three years since i have danced to measure, but it will be a joy to look on, and thus keep company with monsieur chevet. nor shall i fail you at the boats: until then, messieurs," and he bowed hat in hand, "and to you, mademoiselle, adieu." we watched him go down the grape arbor to the canoe, and no one spoke but cassion. "_pouf!_ he thinks well of himself, that young cockerel, and 'twill likely be my part to clip his spurs. still 'tis good policy to have him with us, for 'tis a long journey. what say you, chevet?" "that he is one to watch," answered my uncle gruffly. "i trust none of la salle's brood." "no, nor i, for the matter of that, but i am willing to pit my brains against the best of them. francois cassion is not likely to be caught asleep, my good hugo." he turned about, and glanced questioningly into my face. "and so, mademoiselle, it did not altogether please you to be my guest at the ball? perchance you preferred some other gallant?" the sunlight, flickering through the leaves, rested on his face, and brought out the mottled skin of dissipation, the thin line of his cruel lips, the insolent stare of his eyes. i felt myself shrink, dreading he might touch me; yet dominating all else was the thought of de artigny--the message of his glance, the secret meaning of his pledge--the knowledge that he would be there. so i smiled, and made light of his suspicion. "it was but surprise, monsieur," i said gaily "for i had not dreamed of such an honor. 'tis my wish to go; see, i have been working on a new gown, and now i must work the faster." i swept him a curtsey, smiling to myself at the expression of his face, and before he could speak had disappeared within. bah! i would escape those eyes and be alone to dream. chapter ii the choice of a husband it was just before dark when monsieur cassion left us, and i watched him go gladly enough, hidden behind the shade of my window. he had been talking for an hour with chevet in the room below; i could hear the rattle of glasses, as though they drank, and the unpleasant arrogance of his voice, although no words reached me clearly. i cared little what he said, although i wondered at his purpose in being there, and what object he might have in this long converse with my uncle. yet i was not sent for, and no doubt it was some conference over furs, of no great interest. the two were in some scheme i knew to gain advantage over sieur de la salle, and were much elated now that la barre held power; but that was nothing for a girl to understand, so i worked on with busy fingers, my mind not forgetful of the young sieur de artigny. it was not that i already loved him, yet ever since girlhood the memory of him had remained in my thought, and in those years since i had met so few young men that the image left on my imagination had never faded. indeed, it had been kept alive by the very animosity which my uncle cherished against monsieur de la salle. the real cause of his bitterness, outside of trade rivalry, i never clearly understood, but he was ever seeking every breath of gossip from that distant camp of adventurers, and angrily commenting thereon. again and again i overheard him conspiring with others in a vain effort to influence frontenac to withdraw his support of that distant expedition, and it was this mutual enmity which first brought cassion to our cabin. with frontenac's removal, and the appointment of la barre as governor, the hopes of la salle's enemies revived, and when cassion's smooth tongue won him a place as commissaire, all concerned became more bold and confident in their planning. i knew little of it, yet sufficient to keep the remembrance of those adventures fresh in my mind, and never did they recur to me without yielding me vision of the ardent young face of de artigny as he waved me adieu from the canoe. often in those years of silence did i dream of him amid the far-off wilderness--the idle dreaming of a girl whose own heart was yet a mystery--and many a night i sat at my window gazing out upon the broad river shimmering in the moonlight, wondering at those wilderness mysteries among which he lived. yet only once in all those years had i heard mention of his name. 'twas but a rumor floating back to us of how la salle had reached the mouth of a great river flowing into the south sea, and among the few who accompanied him was de artigny. i remember yet how strangely my heart throbbed as i heard the brief tale retold, and someone read the names from a slip of paper. chevet sat by the open fire listening, his pipe in his mouth, his eyes scowling at the news; suddenly he blurted out: "de artigny, say you? in the name of the fiend! 'tis not the old captain?" "no, no, chevet," a voice answered testily, "sieur louis de artigny has not stepped foot on ground these ten years; 'tis his brat rene who serves this freebooter, though 'tis like enough the father hath money in the venture." and they fell to discussing, sneering at the value of the discovery, while i slipped unnoticed from the room. chevet did not return to the house after monsieur cassion's canoe had disappeared. i saw him walking back and forth along the river bank, smoking, and seemingly thinking out some problem. nor did he appear until i had the evening meal ready, and called to him down the arbor. he was always gruff and bearish enough when we were alone, seldom speaking, indeed, except to give utterance to some order, but this night he appeared even more morose and silent than his wont, not so much as looking at me as he took seat, and began to eat. no doubt cassion had brought ill news, or else the appearance of de artigny had served to arouse all his old animosity toward la salle. it was little to me, however, and i had learned to ignore his moods, so i took my own place silently, and paid no heed to the scowl with which he surveyed me across the table. no doubt my very indifference fanned his discontent, but i remained ignorant of it, until he burst out savagely. "and so you know this young cockerel, do you? you know him, and never told me?" i looked up in surprise, scarce comprehending the unexpected outburst. "you mean the sieur de artigny?" "ay! don't play with me! i mean louis de artigny's brat. bah! he may fool cassion with his soft words, but not hugo chevet. i know the lot of them this many year, and no ward of mine will have aught to do with the brood, either young or old. you hear that, adele! when i hate, i hate, and i have reason enough to hate that name, and all who bear it. where before did you ever meet this popinjay?" "at the convent three years ago. la salle rested there overnight, and young de artigny was of the party. he was but a boy then." "he came here today to see you?" "no, never," i protested. "i doubt if he even had the memory of me until i told him who i was. surely he explained clearly why he came." he eyed me fiercely, his face full of suspicion, his great hand gripping the knife. "'tis well for you if that be true," he said gruffly, "but i have no faith in the lad's words. he is here as la salle's spy, and so i told cassion, though the only honor he did me was to laugh at my warning. 'let him spy,' he said, 'and i will play at the same game; 'tis little enough he will learn, and we shall need his guidance.' ay! and he may be right, but i want nothing to do with the fellow. cassion may give him place in his boats, if he will, but never again shall he set foot on my land, nor have speech with you. you mark my words, mademoiselle?" i felt the color flame into my cheeks, and knew my eyes darkened with anger, yet made effort to control my speech. "yes, monsieur; i am your ward and have always been obedient, yet this sieur de artigny seems a pleasant spoken young man, and surely 'tis no crime that he serves the sieur de la salle." "is it not!" he burst forth, striking the table with his fist. "know you not i would be rich, but for that fur stealer. by right those should be my furs he sends here in trade. there will be another tale to tell soon, now that la barre hath the reins of power; and this de artigny--bah! what care i for that young cockerel--but i hate the brood. listen, girl, i pay my debts; it was this hand that broke louis de artigny, and has kept him to his bed for ten years past. yet even that does not wipe out the score between us. 'tis no odds to you what was the cause, but while i live i hate. so you have my orders; you will speak no more with this de artigny." "'tis not like i shall have opportunity." "i will see to that. the fool looked at you in a way that made me long to grip his throat; nor do i like your answer, yet 'twill be well for you to mark my words." "yes, monsieur." "oh, you're sweet enough with words. i have heard you before, and found you a sly minx--when my back was turned--but this time it is not i alone who will watch your actions. i have pledged you a husband." i got to my feet, staring at him, the indignant words stifled in my throat. he laughed coarsely, and resumed his meal. "a husband, monsieur? you have pledged me?" "ay! why not? you are seventeen, and 'tis my place to see you well settled." "but i have no wish to marry, monsieur," i protested. "there is no man for whom i care." he shrugged his shoulders indifferently, and laughed. "pooh! if i waited for that no doubt you would pick out some cockerel without so much as a spur to his heel. 'tis my choice, not yours, for i know the world, and the man you need. monsieur cassion has asked me to favor him, and i think well of it." "cassion! surely, you would not wed me to that creature?" he pushed back his chair, regarding me with scowling eyes. "and where is there a better? _sacre_! do you think yourself a queen to choose? 'tis rare luck you have such an offer. monsieur cassion is going to be a great man in this new france; already he has the governor's ear, and a commission, with a tidy sum to his credit in quebec. what more could any girl desire in a husband?" "but, monsieur, i do not love him; i do not trust the man." "pah!" he burst into a laugh, rising from the table. before i could draw back he had gripped me by the arm. "enough of that, young lady. he is my choice, and that settles it. love! who ever heard of love nowadays? ah, i see, you dream already of the young gallant de artigny. well, little good that will do you. why what is he? a mere ragged adventurer, without a sou to his name, a prowling wolf of the forest, the follower of a discredited fur thief. but enough of this; i have told you my will, and you obey. tomorrow we go to quebec, to the governor's ball, and when monsieur cassion returns from his mission you will marry him--you understand?" the tears were in my eyes, blotting out his threatening face, yet there was naught to do but answer. "yes, monsieur." "and this de artigny; if the fellow ever dares come near you again i'll crush his white throat between my fingers." "yes, monsieur." "to your room then, and think over all i have said. you have never found me full of idle threats i warrant." "no, monsieur." i drew my arm from his grasp, feeling it tingle with pain where his fingers had crushed the flesh, and crept up the narrow stairs, glad enough to get away and be alone. i had never loved chevet, but he had taught me to fear him, for more than once had i experienced his brutality and physical power. to him i was but a chattel, an incumbrance. he had assumed charge of me because the law so ordained, but i had found nothing in his nature on which i could rely for sympathy. i was his sister's child, yet no more to him than some indian waif. more, he was honest about it. to his mind he did well by me in thus finding me a husband. i sank on my knees, and hid my face, shuddering at the thought of the sacrifice demanded. cassion! never before had the man appeared so despicable. his face, his manner, swept through my memory in review. i had scarcely considered him before, except as a disagreeable presence to be avoided as much as possible. but now, in the silence, the growing darkness of that little chamber, with chevet's threat echoing in my ears, he came to me in clear vision--i saw his dull-blue, cowardly eyes, his little waxed mustache, his insolent swagger, and heard his harsh, bragging voice. ay! he would get on; there was no doubt of that, for he would worm his way through where only a snake could crawl. a snake! that was what he was, and i shuddered at thought of the slimy touch of his hand. i despised, hated him; yet what could i do? it was useless to appeal to chevet, and the governor, la barre, would give small heed to a girl objecting to one of his henchmen. de artigny! the name was on my lips before i realized i had spoken it, and brought a throb of hope. i arose to my feet, and stared out of the window into the dark night. my pulses throbbed. if he cared; if i only knew he cared, i would fly with him anywhere, into the wilderness depths, to escape cassion. i could think of no other way, no other hope. if he cared! it seemed to me my very breath stopped as this daring conception, this mad possibility, swept across my mind. i was a girl, inexperienced, innocent of coquetry, and yet i possessed all the instincts of a woman. i had seen that in his eyes which gave me faith--he remembered the past; he had found me attractive; he felt a desire to meet me again. i knew all this--but was that all? was it a mere passing fervor, a fleeting admiration, to be forgotten in the presence of the next pretty face? would he dare danger to serve me? to save me from the clutches of cassion? a smile, a flash of the eyes, is small foundation to build upon, yet it was all i had. perchance he gave the same encouragement to others, with no serious thought. the doubt assailed me, yet there was no one else in all new france to whom i could appeal. but how could i reach him with my tale? there was but one opportunity--the governor's ball. he would be there; he had said so, laughingly glancing toward me as he spoke the words, the flash of his eyes a challenge. but it would be difficult. chevet, cassion, not for a moment would they take eyes from me, and if i failed to treat him coldly an open quarrel must result. chevet would be glad of an excuse, and cassion's jealousy would spur him on. yet i must try, and, in truth, i trusted not so much in monsieur de artigny's interest in me, as in his reckless love of adventure. 'twould please him to play an audacious trick on la salle's enemies, and make cassion the butt of laughter. once he understood, the game would prove much to his liking, and i could count on his aid, while the greater the danger the stronger it would appeal to such a nature as his. even though he cared little for me he was a gallant to respond gladly to a maid in distress. ay, if i might once bring him word, i could rely on his response; but how could that be done? i must trust fortune, attend the ball, and be ready; there was no other choice. 'tis strange how this vague plan heartened me, and gave new courage. scarce more than a dream, yet i dwelt upon it, imagining what i would say, and how escape surveillance long enough to make my plea for assistance. today, as i write, it seems strange that i should ever have dared such a project, yet at the time not a thought of its immodesty ever assailed me. to my mind rene de artigny was no stranger; as a memory he had lived, and been portion of my life for three lonely years. to appeal to him now, to trust him, appeared the most natural thing in the world. the desperation of my situation obscured all else, and i turned to him as the only friend i knew in time of need. and my confidence in his fidelity, his careless audacity, brought instantly a measure of peace. i crept back and lay down upon the bed. the tears dried upon my lashes, and i fell asleep as quietly as a tired child. chapter iii i appeal for aid it had been two years since i was at quebec, and it was with new eyes of appreciation that i watched the great bristling cliffs as our boat glided silently past the shore and headed in toward the landing. there were two ships anchored in the river, one a great war vessel with many sailors hanging over the rail and watching us curiously. the streets leading back from the water front were filled with a jostling throng, while up the steep hillside beyond a constant stream of moving figures, looking scarcely larger than ants, were ascending and descending. we were in our large canoe, with five indian paddlers, its bow piled deep with bales of fur to be sold in the market, and i had been sleeping in the stern. it was the sun which awoke me, and i sat up close beside chevet's knee, eagerly interested in the scene. once i spoke, pointing to the grim guns on the summit of the crest above, but he answered so harshly as to compel silence. it was thus we swept up to the edge of the landing, and made fast. cassion met us, attired so gaily in rich vestments that i scarcely recognized the man, whom i had always seen before in dull forest garb, yet i permitted him to take my hand and assist me gallantly to the shore. faith, but he appeared like a new person with his embroidered coat, buckled shoes and powdered hair, smiling and debonair, whispering compliments to me, as he helped me across a strip of mud to the drier ground beyond. but i liked him none the better, for there was the same cold stare to his eyes, and a cruel sting to his words which he could not hide. the man was the same whatever the cut of his clothes, and i was not slow in removing my hand from his grasp, once i felt my feet on firm earth. yet naught i might do would stifle his complacency, and he talked on, seeking to be entertaining, no doubt, and pointing out the things of interest on every hand. and i enjoyed the scene, finding enough to view to make me indifferent to his posturing. scarcely did i even note what he said, although i must have answered in a fashion, for he stuck at my side, and guided me through the crowd, and up the hill. chevet walked behind us, gloomy and silent, having left the indians with the furs until i was safely housed. it was evidently a gala day, for flags and streamers were flying from every window of the lower town, and the narrow, crooked streets were filled with wanderers having no apparent business but enjoyment. never had i viewed so motley a throng, and i could but gaze about with wide-opened eyes on the strange passing figures. it was easy enough to distinguish the citizens of quebec, moving soberly about upon ordinary affairs of trade, and those others idly jostling their way from point to point of interest--hunters from the far west, bearded and rough, fur clad, and never without a long rifle; sailors from the warship in the river; indians silent and watchful, staring gravely at every new sight; settlers from the st. lawrence and the richelieu, great seigniors on vast estates, but like children in the streets of the town; fishermen from cap st. roche; _couriers du bois_, and _voyageurs_ in picturesque costumes; officers of the garrison, resplendent in blue and gold; with here and there a column of marching soldiers, or statuesque guard. and there were women too, a-plenty--laughing girls, grouped together, ready for any frolic; housewives on way to market; and occasionally a dainty dame, with high-heeled shoe and flounced petticoat, picking her way through the throng, disdainful of the glances of those about. everywhere there was a new face, a strange costume, a glimpse of unknown life. it was all of such interest i was sorry when we came to the gray walls of the convent. i had actually forgotten cassion, yet i was glad enough to be finally rid of him, and be greeted so kindly by sister celeste. in my excitement i scarcely knew what it was the bowing commissaire said as he turned away, or paid heed to chevet's final growl, but i know the sister gently answered them, and drew me within, closing the door softly, and shutting out every sound. it was so quiet in the stone passageway as to almost frighten me, but she took me in her arms, and looked searchingly into my face. "the three years have changed you greatly, my child," she said gently, touching my cheeks with her soft hands; "but bright as your eyes are, it is not all pleasure i see in them. you must tell me of your life. the older man, i take it, was your uncle, monsieur chevet." "yes," i answered, but hesitated to add more. "he is much as i had pictured him, a bear of the woods." "he is rough," i protested, "for his life has been hard, yet has given me no reason to complain. 'tis because the life is lonely that i grow old." "no doubt, and the younger gallant? he is not of the forest school?" "'twas monsieur cassion, commissaire for the governor." "ah! 'tis through him you have invitation to the great ball?" i bowed my head, wondering at the kind questioning in the sister's eyes. could she have heard the truth? perchance she might tell me something of the man. "he has been selected by monsieur chevet as my husband," i explained doubtfully. "know you aught of the man, sister?" her hand closed gently on mine. "no, only that he has been chosen by la barre to carry special message to the chevalier de baugis in the illinois country. he hath an evil, sneering face, and an insolent manner, even as described to me by the sieur de artigny." i caught my breath quickly, and my hand grasp tightened. "the sieur de artigny!" i echoed, startled into revealing the truth. "he has been here? has talked with you?" "surely, my dear girl. he was here with la salle before his chief sailed for france, and yesterday he came again, and questioned me." "questioned you?" "yes; he sought knowledge of you, and of why you were in the household of chevet. i liked the young man, and told him all i knew, of your father's death and the decree of the court, and of how chevet compelled you to leave the convent. i felt him to be honest and true, and that his purpose was worthy." "and he mentioned cassion?" "only that he had arranged to guide him into the wilderness. but i knew he thought ill of the man." i hesitated, for as a child i had felt awe of sister celeste, yet her questioning eyes were kind, and we were alone. here was my chance, my only chance, and i dare not lose it. her face appeared before me misty through tears, yet words came bravely enough to my lips. "sister, you must hear me," i began bewildered, "i have no mother, no friend even to whom to appeal; i am just a girl all alone. i despise this man cassion; i do not know why, but he seems to be like a snake, and i cannot bear his presence. i would rather die than marry him. i do not think chevet trusts him, either, but he has some hold, and compels him to sell me as though i was a slave in the market. i am to be made to marry him. i pray you let me see this sieur de artigny that i may tell him all, and beseech his aid." "but why de artigny, my girl? what is the boy to you?" "nothing--absolutely nothing," i confessed frankly. "we have scarcely spoken together, but he is a gallant of true heart; he will never refuse aid to a maid like me. it will be joy for him to outwit this enemy of la salle's. all i ask is that i be permitted to tell him my story." celeste sat silent, her white hands clasped, her eyes on the stained-glass window. it was so still i could hear my own quick breathing. at last she spoke, her voice still soft and kindly. "i scarcely think you realize what you ask, my child. 'tis a strange task for a sister of the ursulines, and i would learn more before i answer. is there understanding between you and this sieur de artigny?" "we have met but twice; here at this convent three years ago, when we were boy and girl, and he went westward with la salle. you know the time, and that we talked together on the bench in the garden. then it was three days since that he came to our house on the river, seeking cassion that he might volunteer as guide. he had no thought of me, nor did he know me when we first met. there was no word spoken other than that of mere friendship, nor did i know then that chevet had arranged my marriage to the commissaire. we did no more than laugh and make merry over the past until the others came and demanded the purpose of his visit. it was not his words, sister, but the expression of his face, the glance of his eye, which gave me courage. i think he likes me, and his nature is without fear. he will have some plan--and there is no one else." i caught her hands in mine, but she did not look at me, or answer. she was silent and motionless so long that i lost hope, yet ventured to say no more in urging. "you think me immodest, indiscreet?" "i fear you know little of the world, my child, yet, i confess this young sieur made good impression upon me. i know not what to advise, for it may have been but idle curiosity which brought him here with his questioning. 'tis not safe to trust men, but i can see no harm in his knowing all you have told me. there might be opportunity for him to be of service. he travels with cassion, you say?" "yes, sister." "and their departure is soon?" "before daylight tomorrow. when the commissaire returns we are to be married. so chevet explained to me; monsieur cassion has not spoken. you will give me audience with the sieur de artigny?" "i have no power, child, but i will speak with the mother superior, and repeat to her all i have learned. it shall be as she wills. wait here, and you may trust me to plead for you." she seemed to fade from the room, and i glanced about, seeing no change since i was there before--the same bare walls and floor, the rude settee, the crucifix above the door, and the one partially open window, set deep in the stone wall. outside i could hear voices, and the shuffling of feet on the stone slabs, but within all was silence. i had been away from this emotionless cloister life so long, out in the open air, that i felt oppressed; the profound stillness was a weight on my nerves. would the sister be successful in her mission? would the mother superior, whose stern rule i knew so well, feel slightest sympathy with my need? and if she did, would de artigny care enough to come? perchance it would have been better to have made the plea myself rather than trust all to the gentle lips of celeste. perhaps i might even yet be given that privilege, for surely the mother would feel it best to question me before she rendered decision. i crossed to the window and leaned out, seeking to divert my mind by view of the scene below, yet the stone walls were so thick that only a tantalizing glimpse was afforded of the pavement opposite. there were lines of people there, pressed against the side of a great building, and i knew from their gestures that troops were marching by. once i had view of a horseman, gaily uniformed, his frightened animal rearing just at the edge of the crowd, which scattered like a flock of sheep before the danger of pawing hoofs. the man must have gained glimpse of me also, for he waved one hand and smiled even as he brought the beast under control. then a band played, and i perceived the shiny top of a carriage moving slowly up the hill, the people cheering as it passed. no doubt it was governor la barre, on his way to the citadel for some ceremony of the day. cassion would be somewhere in the procession, for he was one to keep in the glare, and be seen, but there would be no place for a lieutenant of la salle's. i leaned out farther, risking a fall, but saw nothing to reward the effort, except a line of marching men, a mere bobbing mass of heads. i drew back flushed with exertion, dimly aware that someone had entered the apartment. it was the mother superior, looking smaller than ever in the gloom, and behind her framed in the narrow doorway, his eyes smiling as though in enjoyment of my confusion, stood de artigny. i climbed down from the bench, feeling my cheeks burn hotly, and made obeisance. the mother's soft hand rested on my hair, and there was silence, so deep i heard the pounding of my heart. "child," said the mother, her voice low but clear. "rise that i may see your face. ah! it has not so greatly changed in the years, save that the eyes hold knowledge of sorrow. sister celeste hath told me your story, and if it be sin for me to grant your request then must i abide the penance, for it is in my heart to do so. until i send the sister you may speak alone with monsieur de artigny." she drew slightly aside, and the young man bowed low, hat in hand, then stood erect, facing me, the light from the window on his face. "at your command, mademoiselle," he said quietly. "the mother tells me you have need of my services." i hesitated, feeling the embarrassment of the other presence, and scarce knowing how best to describe my case. it seemed simple enough when i was alone, but now all my thoughts fled in confusion, and i realized how little call i had to ask assistance. my eyes fell, and the words trembled unspoken on my lips. when i dared glance up again the mother had slipped silently from the room, leaving us alone. no doubt he felt the difference also, for he stepped forward and caught my hand in his, his whole manner changing, as he thus assumed leadership. 'twas so natural, so confidently done, that i felt a sudden wave of hope overcome my timidity. "come, mademoiselle," he said, almost eagerly. "there is no reason for you to fear confiding in me. surely i was never sent for without just reason. let us sit here while you retell the story. perchance we will play boy and girl again." "you remember that?" "do i not!" he laughed pleasantly. "there were few pleasant memories i took with me into the wilderness, yet that was one. ay, but we talked freely enough then, and there is naught since in my life to bring loss of faith. 'tis my wish to serve you, be it with wit or blade." he bent lower, seeking the expression in my eyes. "this hugo chevet--he is a brute. i know--is his abuse beyond endurance?" "no, no," i hastened to explain. "in his way he is not unkind. the truth is he has lived so long in the woods alone, he scarcely speaks. he--he would marry me to monsieur cassion." never will i forget the look of sheer delight on his face as these words burst from me. his hand struck the bench, and he tossed back the long hair from his forehead, his eyes merry with enjoyment. "ah, good! by all the saints, 'tis even as i hoped. then have no fear of my sympathy, mademoiselle. nothing could please me like a clash with that perfumed gallant. he doth persecute you with his wooing?" "he has not spoken, save to chevet; yet it is seemingly all arranged without my being approached." "a coward's way. chevet told you?" "three days ago, monsieur, after you were there, and cassion had departed. it may have been that your being seen with me hastened the plan. i know not, yet the two talked together long, and privately, and when the commissaire finally went away, chevet called me in, and told me what had been decided." "that you were to marry that coxcomb?" "yes; he did not ask me if i would; it was a command. when i protested my lack of love, saying even that i despised the man, he answered me with a laugh, insisting it was his choice, not mine, and that love had naught to do with such matters. think you this cassion has some hold on hugo chevet to make him so harsh?" "no doubt, they are hand in glove in the fur trade, and the commissaire has la barre's ear just now. he rode by yonder in the carriage a moment since, and you might think from his bows he was the governor. and this marriage? when does it take place?" "on monsieur's safe return from the great west." the smile came back to his face. "not so bad that, for 'tis a long journey, and might be delayed. i travel with him, you know, and we depart at daybreak. what else did this chevet have to say?" "only a threat that if ever you came near me again his fingers would feel your throat, monsieur. he spoke of hate between himself and your father." the eyes upon mine lost their tolerant smile, and grew darker, and i marked the fingers of his hand clinch. "that was like enough, for my father was little averse to a quarrel, although he seldom made boast of it afterwards. and so this hugo chevet threatened me! i am not of the blood, mademoiselle, to take such things lightly. yet wait--why came you to me with such a tale? have you no friends?" "none, monsieur," i answered gravely, and regretfully, "other than the nuns to whom i went to school, and they are useless in such a case. i am an orphan under guardianship, and my whole life has been passed in this convent, and chevet's cabin on the river. my mother died at my birth, my father was a soldier on the frontier, and i grew up alone among strangers. scarcely have i met any save the rough boatmen, and those _couriers du bois_ in my uncle's employ. there was no one else but you, monsieur--no one. 'twas not immodesty which caused me to make this appeal, but a dire need. i am a helpless, friendless girl." "you trust me then?" "yes, monsieur; i believe you a man of honor." he walked across the room, once, twice, his head bent in thought, and i watched him, half frightened lest i had angered him. "have i done very wrong, monsieur?" he stopped, his eyes on my face. he must have perceived my perplexity, for he smiled again, and pressed my hand gently. "if so, the angels must judge," he answered stoutly. "as for me, i am very glad you do me this honor. i but seek the best plan of service, mademoiselle, for i stand between you and this sacrifice with much pleasure. you shall not marry cassion while i wear a sword; yet, faith! i am so much a man of action that i see no way out but by the strong arm. is appeal to the governor, to the judges impossible?" "he possesses influence now." "true enough; he is the kind la barre finds useful, while i can scarce keep my head upon my shoulders here in new france. to be follower of la salle is to be called traitor. it required the aid of every friend i had in quebec to secure me card of admission to the ball tonight." "you attend, monsieur?" "unless they bar me at the sword point. know you why i made the effort?" "no, monsieur." "your promise to be present. i had no wish otherwise." i felt the flush deepen on my cheeks and my eyes fell. "'tis most kind of you to say so, monsieur," was all i could falter. "ay!" he interrupted, "we are both so alone in this new france 'tis well we help each other. i will find you a way out, mademoiselle--perhaps this night; if not, then in the woods yonder. they are filled with secrets, yet have room to hide another." "but not violence, monsieur!" "planning and scheming is not my way, nor am i good at it. a soldier of la salle needs more to understand action, and the de artigny breed has ever had faith in steel. i seek no quarrel, yet if occasion arise this messenger of la barre will find me quite ready. i know not what may occur. mademoiselle; i merely pledge you my word of honor that cassion will no longer seek your hand. the method you must trust to me." our eyes met, and his were kind and smiling, with a confidence in their depths that strangely heartened me. before i realized the action i had given him my hand. "i do, monsieur, and question no more, though i pray for peace between you. our time is up, sister?" "yes, my child," she stood in the doorway, appearing like some saintly image. "the mother sent me." de artigny released my hand, and bowed low. "i still rely upon your attendance at the ball?" he asked, lingering at the door. "yes, monsieur." "and may bespeak a dance?" "i cannot say no, although it may cost you dear." he laughed gaily, his eyes bright with merriment. "faith! most pleasures do i find; the world would be dull enough otherwise. till then, mademoiselle, adieu." we heard his quick step ring on the stone of the passage, and celeste smiled, her hand on mine. "a lad of spirit that. the sieur de la salle picks his followers well, and knows loyal hearts. the de artignys never fail." "you know of them, sister?" "i knew his father," she answered, half ashamed already of her impulse, "a gallant man. but come, the mother would have you visit her." chapter iv in the palace of the intendant the huge palace of the intendant, between the bluff and the river, was ablaze with lights, and already crowded with guests at our arrival. i had seen nothing of chevet since the morning, nor did he appear now; but monsieur cassion was prompt enough, and congratulated me on my appearance with bows, and words of praise which made me flush with embarrassment. yet i knew myself that i looked well in the new gown, simple enough to be sure, yet prettily draped, for sister celeste had helped me, and 'twas whispered she had seen fine things in europe before she donned the sober habit of a nun. she loved yet to dress another, and her swift touches to my hair had worked a miracle. i read admiration in cassion's eyes, as i came forward from the shadows to greet him, and was not unhappy to know he recognized my beauty, and was moved by it. yet it was not of him i thought, but rene de artigny. there was a chair without, and bearers, while two soldiers of the regiment of picardy, held torches to light the way, and open passage. cassion walked beside me, his tongue never still, yet i was too greatly interested in the scene to care what he was saying, although i knew it to be mostly compliment. it was a steep descent, the stones of the roadway wet and glistening from a recent shower, and the ceaseless stream of people, mostly denizens of quebec, peered at us curiously as we made slow progress. great bonfires glowed from every high point of the cliff, their red glare supplementing our torches, and bringing out passing faces in odd distinctness. a spirit of carnival seemed to possess the crowd, and more than once bits of green, and handfuls of sweets were tossed into my lap; while laughter, and gay badinage greeted us from every side. cassion took this rather grimly, and gave stern word to the soldier escort, but i found it all diverting enough, and had hard work to retain my dignity, and not join in the merriment. it was darker at the foot of the hill, yet the crowd did not diminish, although they stood in ankle deep mud, and seemed less vivacious. now and then i heard some voice name cassion as we passed, recognizing his face in the torch glow, but there was no sign that he was popular. once a man called out something which caused him to stop, hand on sword, but he fronted so many faces that he lost heart, and continued, laughing off the affront. then we came to the guard lines, and were beyond reach of the mob. an officer met us, pointing out the way, and, after he had assisted us to descend from the chair, we advanced slowly over a carpet of clean straw toward the gaily lighted entrance. soldiers lined the walls on either side, and overhead blazed a beacon suspended on a chain. it was a scene rather grotesque and weird in the red glow, and i took cassion's arm gladly, feeling just a little frightened by the strange surroundings. "where is my uncle chevet?" i asked, more as a relief, than because i cared, although i was glad of his absence because of de artigny. "in faith, i know not," he answered lightly. "i won him a card, but he was scarce gracious about it. in some wine shop likely with others of his kind." there were servants at the door, and an officer, who scanned the cards of those in advance of us, yet passed cassion, with a glance at his face, and word of recognition. i observed him turn and stare after me, for our eyes met, but, almost before i knew what had occurred, i found myself in a side room, with a maid helping to remove my wraps, and arrange my hair. she was gracious and apt, with much to say in praise of my appearance; and at my expression of doubt, brought a mirror and held it before me. then, for the first time, did i comprehend the magic of sister celeste, and what had been accomplished by her deft fingers. i was no longer a rustic maid, but really a quite grand lady, so that i felt a thrill of pride as i went forth once more to join cassion in the hall. 'twas plain enough to be seen that my appearance pleased him also, for appreciation was in his eyes, and he bowed low over my hand, and lifted it gallantly to his lips. i will not describe the scene in the great ballroom, for now, as i write, the brilliant pageant is but a dim memory, confused and tantalizing. i recall the bright lights overhead, and along the walls, the festooned banners, the raised dais at one end, carpeted with skins of wild animals, where the governor stood, the walls covered with arms and trophies of the chase, the guard of soldiers at each entrance, and the mass of people grouped about the room. it was an immense apartment, but so filled with guests as to leave scarce space for dancing, and the company was a strange one; representative, i thought, of each separate element which composed the population of new france. officers of the regiments in garrison were everywhere, apparently in charge of the evening's pleasure, but their uniforms bore evidence of service. the naval men were less numerous, yet more brilliantly attired, and seemed fond of the dance, and were favorites of the ladies. these were young, and many of them beautiful; belles of quebec mostly, and, although their gowns were not expensive, becomingly attired. yet from up and down the river the seigniors had brought their wives and daughters to witness the event. some of these were uncouth enough, and oddly appareled; not a few among them plainly exhibiting traces of indian blood; and here and there, standing silent and alone, could be noted a red chief from distant forest. most of those men i saw bore evidence in face and dress of the wild, rough life they led--fur traders from far-off waterways, guardians of wilderness forts, explorers and adventurers. many a name reached my ears famous in those days, but forgotten long since; and once or twice, as we slowly made our way through the throng, cassion pointed out to me some character of importance in the province, or paused to present me with formality to certain officials whom he knew. it was thus we approached the dais, and awaited our turn to extend felicitations to the governor. just before us was du l'hut, whose name cassion whispered in my ear, a tall, slender man, attired as a _courier du bois_, with long fair hair sweeping his shoulders. i had heard of him as a daring explorer, but there was no premonition that he would ever again come into my life, and i was more deeply interested in the appearance of la barre. he was a dark man, stern of face, and with strange, furtive eyes, concealed behind long lashes and overhanging brows. yet he was most gracious to du l'hut, and when he turned, and perceived monsieur cassion next in line, smiled and extended his hand cordially. "ah, francois, and so you are here at last, and ever welcome. and this," he bowed low before me in excess of gallantry, "no doubt will be the mademoiselle la chesnayne of whose charms i have heard so much of late. by my faith, cassion, even your eloquence hath done small justice to the lady. where, mademoiselle, have you hidden yourself, to remain unknown to us of quebec?" "i have lived with my uncle, hugo chevet." "ah, yes; i recall the circumstances now--a rough, yet loyal trader. he was with me once on the ottawa--and tonight?" "he accompanied me to the city, your excellency, but i have not seen him since." "small need, with francois at your beck and call," and he patted me playfully on the cheek. "i have already tested his faithfulness. your father, mademoiselle?" "captain pierre la chesnayne, sir." "ah, yes; i knew him well; he fell on the richelieu; a fine soldier." he turned toward cassion, the expression of his face changed. "you depart tonight?" "at daybreak, sir." "that is well; see to it that no time is lost on the journey. i have it in my mind that de baugis may need you, for, from all i hear henri de tonty is not an easy man to handle." "de tonty?" "ay! the lieutenant sieur de la salle left in charge at st. louis; an italian they tell me, and loyal to his master. 'tis like he may resist my orders, and de baugis hath but a handful with which to uphold authority. i am not sure i approve of your selecting this lad de artigny as a guide; he may play you false." "small chance he'll have for any trick." "perchance not, yet the way is long, and he knows the wilderness. i advise you guard him well. i shall send to you for council in an hour; there are papers yet unsigned." he turned away to greet those who followed us in line, while we moved forward into the crowd about the walls. cassion whispered in my ear, telling me bits of gossip about this and that one who passed us, seeking to exhibit his wit, and impress me with his wide acquaintance. i must have made fit response, for his voice never ceased, yet i felt no interest in the stories, and disliked the man more than ever for his vapid boasting. the truth is my thought was principally concerned with de artigny, and whether he would really gain admission. still of this i had small doubt, for his was a daring to make light of guards, or any threat of enemies, if desire urged him on. and i had his pledge. my eyes watched every moving figure, but the man was not present, my anxiety increasing as i realized his absence, and speculated as to its cause. could cassion have interfered? could he have learned of our interview, and used his influence secretly to prevent our meeting again? it was not impossible, for the man was seemingly in close touch with quebec, and undoubtedly possessed power. my desire to see de artigny was now for his own sake--to warn him of danger and treachery. the few words i had caught passing between la barre and cassion had to me a sinister meaning; they were a promise of protection from the governor to his lieutenant, and this officer of la salle's should be warned that he was suspected and watched. there was more to la barre's words than appeared openly; it would be later, when they were alone, that he would give his real orders to cassion. yet i felt small doubt as to what those orders would be, nor of the failure of the lieutenant to execute them. the wilderness hid many a secret, and might well conceal another. in some manner that night i must find de artigny, and whisper my warning. these were my thoughts, crystallizing into purpose, yet i managed to smile cheerily into the face of the commissaire and make such reply to his badinage as gave him pleasure. faith, the man loved himself so greatly the trick was easy, the danger being that i yield too much to his audacity. no doubt he deemed me a simple country maid, overawed by his gallantries, nor did i seek to undeceive him, even permitting the fool to press my hand, and whisper his soft nonsense. yet he ventured no further, seeing that in my eyes warning him of danger if he grew insolent. i danced with him twice, pleased to know i had not forgotten the step, and then, as he felt compelled to show attention to the governor's lady, he left me in charge of a tall, thin officer--a major callons, i think--reluctantly, and disappeared in the crowd. never did i part with one more willingly, and as the major spoke scarcely a dozen words during our long dance together i found opportunity to think, and decide upon a course of action. as the music ceased my only plan was to avoid cassion as long as possible, and, at my suggestion, the silent major conducted me to a side room, and then disappeared seeking refreshments. i grasped the opportunity to slip through the crowd, and find concealment in a quiet corner. it was impossible for me to conceive that de artigny would fail to come. he had pledged his word, and there was that about the man to give me faith. ay! he would come, unless there had already been treachery. my heart beat swiftly at the thought, my eyes eagerly searching the moving figures in the ballroom. yet there was nothing i could do but wait, although fear was already tugging at my heart. i leaned forward scanning each passing face, my whole attention concentrated on the discovery of de artigny. where he came from i knew not, but his voice softly speaking at my very ear brought me to my feet, with a little cry of relief. the joy of finding him must have found expression in my eyes, in my eager clasping of his hand, for he laughed. "'tis as though i was truly welcomed, mademoiselle," he said, and gravely enough. "could i hope that you were even seeking me yonder?" "it would be the truth, if you did," i responded frankly, "and i was beginning to doubt your promise." "nor was it as easily kept as i supposed when given," he said under his breath. "come with me into this side room where we can converse more freely--i can perceive monsieur cassion across the floor. no doubt he is seeking you, and my presence here will give the man no pleasure." i glanced in the direction indicated, and although i saw nothing of the commissaire, i slipped back willingly enough through the lifted curtain into the deserted room behind. it was evidently an office of some kind, for it contained only a desk and some chairs, and was unlighted, except for the gleam from between the curtains. the outer wall was so thick a considerable space separated the room from the window, which was screened off by heavy drapery. de artigny appeared familiar with these details, for, with scarcely a glance about, he led me into this recess, where we stood concealed. lights from below illumined our faces, and revealed an open window looking down on the court. my companion glanced out at the scene beneath, and his eyes and lips smiled as he turned again and faced me. "but, monsieur," i questioned puzzled, "why was it not easy? you met with trouble?" "hardly that; a mere annoyance. i may only suspect the cause, but an hour after i left you my ticket of invitation was withdrawn." "withdrawn? by whom?" "the order of la barre, no doubt; an officer of his guard called on me to say he preferred my absence." "'twas the work of cassion." "so i chose to believe, especially as he sent me word later to remain at the boats, and have them in readiness for departure at any minute. some inkling of our meeting must have reached his ears." "but how came you here, then?" he laughed in careless good humor. "why that was no trick! think you i am one to disappoint because of so small an obstacle? as the door was refused me i sought other entrance and found it here." he pointed through the open window. "it was not a difficult passage, but i had to wait the withdrawal of the guards below, which caused my late arrival. yet this was compensated for by discovering you so quickly. my only fear was encountering someone i knew while seeking you on the floor." "you entered through this window?" "yes; there is a lattice work below." "and whose office is that within?" "my guess is that of colonel delguard, la barre's chief of staff, for there was a letter for him lying on the desk. what difference? you are glad i came?" "yes, monsieur, but not so much for my own sake, as for yours. i bring you warning that you adventure with those who would do you evil if the chance arrive." "bah! monsieur cassion?" "'tis not well for you to despise the man, for he has power and is a villain at heart in spite of all his pretty ways. 'tis said he has the cruelty of a tiger, and in this case la barre gives him full authority." "hath the governor grudge against me also?" "only that you are follower of la salle, and loyal, while he is heart and hand with the other faction. he chided cassion for accepting you as guide, and advised close watch lest you show treachery." "you overheard their talk?" "ay! they made no secret of it; but i am convinced la barre has more definite instructions to give in private, for he asked the commissaire to come to him later for conference. i felt that you should be told, monsieur." de artigny leaned motionless against the window ledge, and the light streaming in through the opening of the draperies revealed the gravity of his expression. for the moment he remained silent, turning the affair over in his mind. "i thank you, mademoiselle," he said finally, and touched my hand, "for your report gives me one more link to my chain. i have picked up several in the past few hours, and all seem to lead back to the manipulations of cassion. faith! there is some mystery here, for surely the man seemed happy enough when first we met at chevet's house, and accepted my offer gladly. have you any theory as to this change in his front?" i felt the blood surge to my cheeks, and my eyes fell before the intensity of his glance. "if i have, monsieur, 'tis no need that it be mentioned." "your pardon, mademoiselle, but your words already answer me--'tis then that i have shown interest in you; the dog is jealous!" "monsieur!" he laughed, and i felt the tightening of his hand on mine. "good! and by all the gods, i will give him fair cause. the thought pleases me, for rather would i be your soldier than my own. see, how it dovetails in--i meet you at the convent and pledge you my aid; some spy bears word of our conference to monsieur, and an hour later i receive word that if i have more to do with you i die. i smile at the warning and send back a message of insult. then my invitation to this ball is withdrawn, and, later still, la barre even advises that i be assassinated at the least excuse. 'twould seem they deem you of importance, mademoiselle." "you make it no more than a joke?" "far from it; the very fact that i know the men makes it matter of grave concern. i might, indeed, smile did it concern myself alone, but i have your interests in mind--you have honored me by calling me your only friend, and now i know not where i may serve you best--in the wilderness, or here in quebec?" "there can nothing injure me here, monsieur, not with cassion traveling to the illinois. no doubt he will leave behind him those who will observe my movements--that cannot harm." "it is hugo chevet, i fear." "chevet! my uncle--i do not understand." "no, for he is your uncle, and you know him only in such relationship. he may have been to you kind and indulgent. i do not ask. but to those who meet him in the world he is a big, cruel, savage brute, who would sacrifice even you, if you stood in his way. and now if you fail to marry cassion, you will so stand. he is the one who will guard you, by choice of the commissaire, and orders of la barre, and he will do his part well." "i can remain with the sisters." "not in opposition to the governor; they would never dare antagonize him; tomorrow you will return with chevet." i drew a quick breath, my eyes on his face. "how can you know all this, monsieur? why should my uncle sacrifice me?" "no matter how i know. some of it has been your own confession, coupled with my knowledge of the man. three days ago i learned of his debt to cassion, and that the latter had him in his claws, and at his mercy. today i had evidence of what that debt means." "today!" "ay! 'twas from chevet the threat came that he would kill me if i ever met with you again." i could but stare at him, incredulous, my fingers unconsciously grasping his jacket. "he said that? chevet?" "ay! chevet; the message came by mouth of the half-breed, his _voyageur_, and i choked out of him where he had left his master, yet when i got there the man had gone. if we might meet tonight the matter would be swiftly settled." he gazed out into the darkness, and i saw his hand close on the hilt of his knife. i caught his arm. "no, no monsieur; not that. you must not seek a quarrel, for i am not afraid--truly i am not; you will listen--" there was a voice speaking in the office room behind, the closing of a door, and the scraping of a chair as someone sat down. my words ceased, and we stood silent in the shadow, my grasp still on de artigny's arm. chapter v the order of la barre i did not recognize the voice speaking--a husky voice, the words indistinct, yet withal forceful--nor do i know what it was he said. but when the other answered, tapping on the desk with some instrument, i knew the second speaker to be la barre, and leaned back just far enough to gain glimpse through the opening in the drapery. he sat at the desk, his back toward us, while his companion, a red-faced, heavily-moustached man, in uniform of the rifles, stood opposite, one arm on the mantel over the fireplace. his expression was that of amused interest. "you saw the lady?" he asked. "in the receiving line for a moment only; a fair enough maid to be loved for her own sake i should say. faith, never have i seen handsomer eyes." the other laughed. "'tis well madame does not overhear that confession. an heiress, and beautiful! piff! but she might find others to her liking rather than this cassion." "it is small chance she has had to make choice, and as to her being an heiress, where heard you such a rumor, colonel delguard?" the officer straightened up. "you forget, sir," he said slowly, "that the papers passed through my hands after captain la chesnayne's death. it was at your request they failed to reach the hands of frontenac." la barre gazed at him across the desk, his brows contracted into a frown. "no, i had not forgotten," and the words sounded harsh. "but they came to me properly sealed, and i supposed unopened. i think i have some reason to ask an explanation, monsieur." "and one easily made. i saw only the letter, but that revealed enough to permit of my guessing the rest. it is true, is it not, that la chesnayne left an estate of value?" "he thought so, but, as you must be aware, it had been alienated by act of treason." "ay! but comte de frontenac appealed the case to the king, who granted pardon, and restoration." "so, 'twas rumored, but unsupported by the records. so far as new france knows there was no reply from versailles." the colonel stood erect, and advanced a step, his expression one of sudden curiosity. "in faith, governor," he said swiftly, "but your statement awakens wonder. if this be so why does francois cassion seek the maid so ardently? never did i deem that cavalier one to throw himself away without due reward." la barre laughed. "perchance you do francois ill judgment, monsieur le colonel," he replied amused. "no doubt 'tis love, for, in truth, the witch would send sluggish blood dancing with the glance of her eyes. still," more soberly, his eyes falling to the desk, "'tis, as you say, scarce in accord with cassion's nature to thus make sacrifice, and there have been times when i suspected he did some secret purpose. i use the man, yet never trust him." "nor i, since he played me foul trick at la chine. could he have found the paper of restoration, and kept it concealed, until all was in his hands?" "i have thought of that, yet it doth not appear possible. francois was in ill grace with frontenac, and could never have reached the archives. if the paper came to his hands it was by accident, or through some treachery. well,'tis small use of our discussing the matter. he hath won my pledge to mademoiselle la chesnayne's hand, for i would have him friend, not enemy, just now. they marry on his return." "he is chosen then for the mission to fort st. louis?" "ay, there were reasons for his selection. the company departs at dawn. tell him, monsieur, that i await him now for final interview." i watched delguard salute, and turn away to execute his order. la barre drew a paper from a drawer of the desk, and bent over it pen in hand. my eyes lifted to the face of de artigny, standing motionless behind me in the deeper shadow. "you overheard, monsieur?" i whispered. he leaned closer, his lips at my ear, his eyes dark with eagerness. "every word, mademoiselle! fear not, i shall yet learn the truth from this cassion. you suspected?" i shook my head, uncertain. "my father died in that faith, monsieur, but chevet called me a beggar." "chevet! no doubt he knows all, and has a dirty hand in the mess. he called you beggar, hey!--hush, the fellow comes." he was a picture of insolent servility, as he stood there bowing, his gay dress fluttering with ribbons, his face smiling, yet utterly expressionless. la barre lifted his eyes, and surveyed him coldly. "you sent for me, sir?" "yes, although i scarcely thought at this hour you would appear in the apparel of a dandy. i have chosen you for serious work, monsieur, and the time is near for your departure. surely my orders were sufficiently clear?" "they were, governor la barre," and cassion's lips lost their grin, "and my delay in changing dress has occurred through the strange disappearance of mademoiselle la chesnayne. i left her with major callons while i danced with my lady, and have since found no trace of the maid." "does not callons know?" "only that, seeking refreshments, he left her, and found her gone on his return. her wraps are in the dressing room." "then 'tis not like she has fled the palace. no doubt she awaits you in some corner. i will have the servants look, and meanwhile pay heed to me. this is a mission of more import than love-making with a maid, monsieur cassion, and its success, or failure, will determine your future. you have my letter of instruction?" "it has been carefully read." "and the sealed orders for chevalier de baugis?" "here, protected in oiled silk." "see that they reach him, and no one else; they give him an authority i could not grant before, and should end la salle's control of that country. you have met this henri de tonty? he was here with his master three years since, and had audience." "ay, but that was before my time. is he one to resist de baugis?" "he impressed me as a man who would obey to the letter, monsieur; a dark-faced soldier, with an iron jaw. he had lost one arm in battle, and was loyal to his chief." "so i have heard--a stronger man than de baugis?" "a more resolute; all depends on what orders la salle left, and the number of men the two command." "in that respect the difference is not great. de baugis had but a handful of soldiers to take from mackinac, although his _voyageurs_ may be depended upon to obey his will. his instructions were not to employ force." "and the garrison of st. louis?" "'tis hard to tell, as there are fur hunters there of whom we have no record. la salle's report would make his own command eighteen, but they are well chosen, and he hath lieutenants not so far away as to be forgotten. la forest would strike at a word, and de la durantaye is at the chicago portage, and no friend of mine. 'tis of importance, therefore, that your voyage be swiftly completed, and my orders placed in de baugis' hands. are all things ready for departure?" "ay, the boats only await my coming." the governor leaned his head on his hand, crumbling the paper between his fingers. "this young fellow--de artigny," he said thoughtfully, "you have some special reason for keeping him in your company?" cassion crossed the room, his face suddenly darkening. "ay, now i have," he explained shortly, "although i first engaged his services merely for what i deemed to be their value. he spoke me most fairly." "but since?" "i have cause to suspect. chevet tells me that today he had conference with mademoiselle at the house of the ursulines." "ah, 'twas for that then you had his ticket revoked. i see where the shoe pinches. 'twill be safer with him in the boats than back here in quebec. then i give permission, and wash my hands of the whole affair--but beware of him, cassion." "i may be trusted, sir." "i question that no longer." he hesitated slightly, then added in lower tone: "if accident occur the report may be briefly made. i think that will be all." both men were upon their feet, and la barre extended his hand across the desk. i do not know what movement may have caused it, but at that moment, a wooden ring holding the curtain fell, and struck the floor at my feet. obeying the first impulse i thrust de artigny back behind me into the shadow, and held aside the drapery. both men, turning, startled at the sound, beheld me clearly, and stared in amazement. cassion took a step forward, an exclamation of surprise breaking from his lips. "adele! mademoiselle!" i stepped more fully into the light, permitting the curtain to fall behind me, and my eyes swept their faces. "yes, monsieur--you were seeking me?" "for an hour past; for what reason did you leave the ballroom?" with no purpose in my mind but to gain time in which to collect my thought and protect de artigny from discovery, i made answer, assuming a carelessness of demeanor which i was far from feeling. "has it been so long, monsieur?" i returned in apparent surprise. "why i merely sought a breath of fresh air, and became interested in the scene without." la barre stood motionless, just as he had risen to his feet at the first alarm, his eyes on my face, his heavy eyebrows contracted in a frown. "i will question the young lady, cassion," he said sternly, "for i have interests here of my own. mademoiselle!" "yes, monsieur." "how long have you been behind that curtain?" "monsieur cassion claims to have sought me for an hour." "enough of that," his voice grown harsh, and threatening. "you address the governor; answer me direct." i lifted my eyes to his stern face, but they instantly fell before the encounter of his fierce gaze. "i do not know, monsieur." "who was here when you came in?" "no one, monsieur; the room was empty." "then you hid there, and overheard the conversation between colonel delguard and myself?" "yes, monsieur," i confessed, feeling my limbs tremble. "and also all that has passed since monsieur cassion entered?" "yes, monsieur." he drew a deep breath, striking his hand on the desk, as though he would control his anger. "were you alone? had you a companion?" i know not how i managed it, yet i raised my eyes to his, simulating a surprise i was far from feeling. "alone, monsieur? i am adele la chesnayne; if you doubt, the way of discovery is open without word from me." his suspicious, doubting eyes never left my face, and there was sneer in his voice as he answered. "bah! i am not in love to be played with by a witch. perchance 'tis not easy for you to lie. well, we will see. look within the alcove, cassion." the commissaire was there even before the words of command were uttered, and my heart seemed to stop beating as his heavy hand tore aside the drapery. i leaned on the desk, bracing myself, expecting a blow, a struggle; but all was silent. cassion, braced, and expectant, peered into the shadows, evidently perceiving nothing; then stepped within, only to instantly reappear, his expression that of disappointment. the blood surged back to my heart, and my lips smiled. "no one is there, monsieur," he reported, "but the window is open." "and not a dangerous leap to the court below," returned la barre thoughtfully. "so far you win, mademoiselle. now will you answer me--were you alone there ten minutes ago?" "it is useless for me to reply, monsieur," i answered with dignity, "as it will in no way change your decision." "you have courage, at least." "the inheritance of my race, monsieur." "well, we'll test it then, but not in the form you anticipate." he smiled, but not pleasantly, and resumed his seat at the desk. "i propose closing your mouth, mademoiselle, and placing you beyond temptation. monsieur cassion, have the lieutenant at the door enter." i stood in silence, wondering at what was about to occur; was i to be made prisoner? or what form was my punishment to assume? the power of la barre i knew, and his stern vindictiveness, and well i realized the fear and hate which swept his mind, as he recalled the conversation i had overheard. he must seal my lips to protect himself--but how? as though in a daze i saw cassion open the door, speak a sharp word to one without, and return, followed by a young officer, who glanced curiously aside at me, even as he saluted la barre, and stood silently awaiting his orders. the latter remained a moment motionless, his lips firm set. "where is father le guard?" "in the chapel, monsieur; he passed me a moment ago." "good; inform the _père_ that i desire his presence at once. wait! know you the fur trader, hugo chevet?" "i have seen the man, monsieur--a big fellow, with a shaggy head." "ay, as savage as the indians he has lived among. he is to be found at eclair's wine shop in the rue st. louis. have your sentries bring him here to me. attend to both these matters." "yes, monsieur." la barre's eyes turned from the disappearing figure of the officer, rested a moment on my face, and then smiled grimly as he fronted cassion. he seemed well pleased with himself, and to have recovered his good humor. "a delightful surprise for you, monsieur cassion," he said genially, "and let us hope no less a pleasure for the fair lady. be seated, mademoiselle; there may be a brief delay. you perceive my plan, no doubt?" cassion did not answer, and the governor looked at me. "no, monsieur." "and yet so simple, so joyful a way out of this unfortunate predicament. i am surprised. cassion here might not appreciate how nicely this method will answer to close your lips, but you, remembering clearly the private conference between myself and colonel delguard, should grasp my purpose at once. your marriage is to take place tonight, mademoiselle." "tonight! my marriage! to whom?" "ah! is there then more than one prospective bridegroom? monsieur cassion surely i am not in error that you informed me of your engagement to mademoiselle la chesnayne?" "she has been pledged me in marriage, monsieur--the banns published." i sat with bowed head, my cheeks flaming. "'tis then as i understood," la barre went on, chuckling. "the lady is over modest." "i have made no pledge," i broke in desperately. "monsieur spoke to my uncle chevet, not i!" "yet you were told! you made no refusal?" "monsieur, i could not; they arranged it all, and, besides, it was not to be until monsieur returned from the west. i do not love him; i thought--" "bah! what is love? 'tis enough that you accepted. this affair is no longer one of affection; it has become the king's business, a matter of state. i decide it is best for you to leave quebec; ay! and new france, mademoiselle. there is but one choice, imprisonment here, or exile into the wilderness." he leaned forward staring into my face with his fierce, threatening eyes. "i feel it better that you go as monsieur cassion's wife, and under his protection. i decree that so you shall go." "alone--with--with--monsieur cassion?" "one of his party. 'tis my order also that hugo chevet be of the company. perchance a year in the wilderness may be of benefit to him, and he might be of value in watching over young de artigny." never have i felt more helpless, more utterly alone. i knew all he meant, but my mind grasped no way of escape. his face leered at me as through a mist, yet as i glanced aside at cassion it only brought home to me a more complete dejection. the man was glad--glad! he had no conscience, no shame. to appeal to him would be waste of breath--a deeper humiliation. suddenly i felt cold, hard, reckless; ay! they had the power to force me through the unholy ceremony. i was only a helpless girl; but beyond that i would laugh at them; and cassion--if he dared-- the door opened, and a lean priest in long black robe entered noiselessly, bending his shaven head to la barre, as his crafty eyes swiftly swept our faces. "monsieur desired my presence?" "yes, père le guard, a mission of happiness. there are two here to be joined in matrimony by bonds of holy church. we but wait the coming of the lady's guardian." the _père_ must have interpreted the expression of my face. "'tis regular, monsieur?" he asked. "by order of the king," returned la barre sternly. "beyond that it is not necessary that you inquire. ah! monsieur chevet! they found you then? i have a pleasant surprise for you. 'tis hereby ordered that you accompany commissaire cassion to the illinois country as interpreter, to be paid from my private fund." chevet stared into the governor's dark face, scarce able to comprehend, his brain dazed from heavy drinking. "the illinois country! i--hugo chevet? 'tis some joke, monsieur." "none at all, as you will discover presently, my man. i do not jest on the king's service." "but my land, monsieur; my niece?" la barre permitted himself a laugh. "bah! let the land lie fallow; 'twill cost little while you draw a wage, and as for mademoiselle, 'tis that you may accompany her i make choice. stand back; you have your orders, and now i'll show you good reason." he stood up, and placed his hand on cassion's arm. "now my dear, francois, if you will join the lady." chapter vi the wife of francois cassion it is vague, all that transpired. i knew then, and recall now, much of the scene yet it returns to memory more in a passing picture than an actual reality in which i was an actor. but one clear impression dominated my brain--my helplessness to resist the command of la barre. his word was law in the colony, and from it there was no appeal, save to the king. through swimming mist i saw his face, stern, dark, threatening, and then glimpsed cassion approaching me, a smile curling his thin lips. i shrank back from him, yet arose to my feet, trembling so that i clung to the chair to keep erect. "do not touch me, monsieur," i said, in a voice which scarcely sounded like my own. cassion stood still, the smile of triumph leaving his face. la barre turned, his eyes cold and hard. "what is this, mademoiselle? you would dare disobey me?" i caught my breath, gripping the chair with both hands. "no, monsieur le governor," i answered, surprised at the clearness with which i spoke. "that would be useless; you have behind you the power of france, and i am a mere girl. nor do i appeal, for i know well the cause of your decision. it is indeed my privilege to appeal to holy church for protection from this outrage, but not through such representative as i see here." "père le guard is chaplain of my household." "and servant to your will, monsieur. 'tis known in all new france he is more diplomat than priest. nay! i take back my word, and will make trial of his priesthood. father, i do not love this man, nor marry him of my own free will. i appeal to you, to the church, to refuse the sanction." the priest stood with fingers interlocked, and head bowed, nor did his eyes meet mine. "i am but the humble instrument of those in authority, daughter," he replied gently, "and must perform the sacred duties of my office. 'tis your own confession that your hand has been pledged to monsieur cassion." "by hugo chevet, not myself." "without objection on your part." he glanced up slyly. "perchance this was before the appearance of another lover, the sieur de artigny." i felt the color flood my cheeks, yet from indignation rather than embarrassment. "no word of love has been spoken me by monsieur de artigny," i answered swiftly. "he is a friend, no more. i do not love francois cassion, nor marry him but through force; ay! nor does he love me--this is but a scheme to rob me of my inheritance." "enough of this," broke in la barre sternly, and he gripped my arm. "the girl hath lost her head, and such controversy is unseemly in my presence. père le guard, let the ceremony proceed." "'tis your order, monsieur?" "ay! do i not speak my will plainly enough? come, the hour is late, and our king's business is of more import than the whim of a girl." i never moved, never lifted my eyes. i was conscious of nothing, but helpless, impotent anger, of voiceless shame. they might force me to go through the form, but never would they make me the wife of this man. my heart throbbed with rebellion, my mind hardened into revolt. i knew all that occurred, realized the significance of every word and act, yet it was as if they appertained to someone else. i felt the clammy touch of cassion's hand on my nerveless fingers, and i must have answered the interrogatories of the priest, for his voice droned on, meaningless to the end. it was only in the silence which followed that i seemed to regain consciousness, and a new grip on my numbed faculties. indeed i was still groping in the fog, bewildered, inert, when la barre gave utterance to a coarse laugh. "congratulations, francois," he cried. "a fair wife, and not so unwilling after all. and now your first kiss." the sneer of these words was like a slap in the face, and all the hatred, and indignation i felt seethed to the surface. a heavy paper knife lay on the desk, and i gripped it in my fingers, and stepped back, facing them. the mist seemed to roll away, and i saw their faces, and there must have been that in mine to startle them, for even la barre gave back a step, and the grin faded from the thin lips of the commissaire. "'tis ended then," i said, and my voice did not falter. "i am this man's wife. very well, you have had your way; now i will have mine. listen to what i shall say, monsieur le governor, and you also, francois cassion. by rite of church you call me wife, but that is your only claim. i know your law, and that this ceremony has sealed my lips. i am your captive, nothing more; you can rob me now--but, mark you! all that you will ever get is money. monsieur cassion, if you dare lay so much as a finger on me, i will kill you, as i would a snake. i know what i say, and mean it. you kiss me! try it, monsieur, if you doubt how my race repays insult. i will go with you; i will bear your name; this the law compels, but i am still mistress of my soul, and of my body. you hear me, messieurs? you understand?" cassion stood leaning forward, just where my first words had held him motionless. as i paused his eyes were on my face, and he lifted a hand to wipe away drops of perspiration. la barre crumpled the paper he held savagely. "so," he exclaimed, "we have unchained a tiger cat. well, all this is naught to me; and francois, i leave you and the wilderness to do the taming. in faith, 'tis time already you were off. you agree to accompany the party without resistance, madame?" "as well there, as here," i answered contemptuously. "and you, hugo chevet?" the giant growled something inarticulate through his beard, not altogether, i thought, to la barre's liking, for his face darkened. "by st. anne! 'tis a happy family amid which you start your honeymoon, monsieur cassion," he ejaculated at length, "but go you must, though i send a file of soldiers with you to the boats. now leave me, and i would hear no more until word comes of your arrival at st. louis." we left the room together, the three of us, and no one spoke, as we traversed the great assembly hall, in which dancers still lingered, and gained the outer hall. cassion secured my cloak, and i wrapped it about my shoulders, for the night air without was already chill, and then, yet in unbroken silence, we passed down the steps into the darkness of the street. i walked beside chevet, who was growling to himself, scarce sober enough to clearly realize what had occurred, and so we followed the commissaire down the steep path which led to the river. there was no pomp now, no military guard, or blazing torches. all about us was gloom and silence, the houses fronting the narrow passage black, although a gleam of fire revealed the surface of the water below. the rough paving made walking difficult, and i tripped twice during the descent, once wrenching an ankle, but with no outcry. i was scarce conscious of the pain, or of my surroundings, for my mind still stood aghast over what had occurred. it had been so swiftly accomplished i yet failed to grasp the full significance. vaguely i comprehended that i was no longer adele la chesnayne, but the wife of that man i followed. a word, a muttered prayer, an uplifted hand, had made me his slave, his vassal. nothing could break the bond between us save death. i might hate, despise, revile, but the bond held. this thought grew clearer as my mind readjusted itself, and the full horror of the situation took possession of me. yet there was nothing i could do; i could neither escape or fight, nor had i a friend to whom i could appeal. suddenly i realized that i still grasped in my hand the heavy paper knife i had snatched up from la barre's desk, and i thrust it into the waistband of my skirt. it was my only weapon of defense, yet to know i had even that seemed to bring me a glow of courage. we reached the river's edge and halted. below us, on the bank, the blazing fire emitted a red gleam reflecting on the water, and showing us the dark outlines of waiting canoes, and seated figures. gazing about cassion broke the silence, his voice assuming the harshness of authority. "three canoes! where is the other? huh! if there be delay now, someone will make answer to me. pass the word for the sergeant; ah! is this you le claire?" "all is prepared, monsieur." he glared at the stocky figure fronting him in infantry uniform. "prepared! you have but three boats at the bank." "the other is below, monsieur; it is loaded and waits to lead the way." "ah! and who is in charge?" "was it not your will that it be the guide--the sieur de artigny?" "_sacre!_ but i had forgotten the fellow. ay! 'tis the best place for him. and are all provisions and arms aboard? you checked them, le claire?" "with care, monsieur; i watched the stowing of each piece; there is nothing forgotten." "and the men?" "four indian paddlers to each boat, monsieur, twenty soldiers, a priest, and the guide." "'tis the tally. make room for two more in the large canoe; ay, the lady goes. change a soldier each to your boat and that of père allouez until we make our first camp, where we can make new arrangement." "there is room in de artigny's canoe." "we'll not call him back; the fellows will tuck away somehow. come, let's be off, it looks like dawn over yonder." i found myself in one of the canoes, so filled with men any movement was almost impossible, yet of this i did not complain for my uncle chevet was next to me, and cassion took place at the steering oar in the stern. to be separated from him was all i asked, although the very sound of his harsh voice rasping out orders, as we swung out from the bank rendered me almost frantic. my husband! god! and i was actually married to that despicable creature! i think i hardly realized before what had occurred, but now the hideous truth came, and i buried my face in my hands, and felt tears stealing through my fingers. yet only for a moment were these tears of weakness. indignation, anger, hatred conquered me. he had won! he had used power to conquer! very well, now he would pay the price. he thought me a helpless girl; he would find me a woman, and a la chesnayne. the tears left my eyes, and my head lifted, as purpose and decision returned. we were skirting the northern bank, the high bluffs blotting out the stars, with here and there, far up above us, a light gleaming from some distant window, its rays reflecting along the black water. the indian paddlers worked silently, driving the sharp prow of the heavily laden canoe steadily up stream. farther out to the left was the dim outline of another boat, keeping pace with ours, the moving figures of the paddlers revealed against the water beyond. i endeavored to discern the canoe which led the way, over which de artigny held command, but it was hidden by a wall of mist too far away to be visible. yet the very thought that the young sieur was there, accompanying us into the drear wilderness, preserved me from utter despair. i would not be alone, or friendless. even when he learned the truth, he would know it was not my fault, and though he might question, and even doubt, at first, yet surely the opportunity would come for me to confess all, and feel his sympathy, and protection. i cannot explain the confidence which this certainty of his presence brought, or how gratefully i awaited the dawn, and its revelation. 'tis not in the spirit of youth to be long depressed by misfortune, and although each echo of cassion's voice recalled my condition, i was not indifferent to the changing scene. chevet, still sodden with drink, fell asleep, his head on his pack, but i remained wide awake, watching the first faint gleam of light along the edge of the cloud stretching across the eastern sky line. it was a dull, drear morning, everywhere a dull gray, the wide waters about us silent and deserted. to the right the shore line was desolate and bare, except for blackened stumps of fire-devastated woods, and brown rocks, while in every other direction the river spread wide in sullen flow. there was no sound but the dip of the paddles and the heavy breathing. as the sun forced its way through the obscuring cloud, the mist rose slowly, and drifted aside, giving me glimpse of the canoe in advance, although it remained indistinct, a vague speck in the waste of water. i sat motionless gazing about at the scene, yet vaguely comprehending the nature of our surroundings. my mind reviewed the strange events of the past night, and endeavored to adjust itself to my new environment. almost in an instant of time my life had utterly changed--i had been married and exiled; wedded to a man whom i despised, and forced to accompany him into the unknown wilderness. it was like a dream, a delirium of fever, and even yet i could not seem to comprehend its dread reality. but the speeding canoes, the strange faces, the occasional sound of cassion's voice, the slumbering figure of chevet was evidence of truth not to be ignored, and ahead yonder, a mere outline, was the boat which contained de artigny. what would he say, or do, when he learned the truth? would he care greatly? had i read rightly the message of his eyes? could i have trust, and confidence in his loyalty? would he accept my explanation! or would he condemn me for this act in which i was in no wise to blame? mother of god! it came to me that it was not so much monsieur cassion i feared, as the sieur de artigny. what would be his verdict? my heart seemed to stop its beating, and tears dimmed my eyes, as i gazed across the water at that distant canoe. i knew then that all my courage, all my hope, centered on his decision--the decision of the man i loved. chapter vii the two men meet i could not have slept, although i must have lost consciousness of our surroundings, for i was aroused by cassion's voice shouting some command, and became aware that we were making landing on the river bank. the sun was two hours high, and the spot selected a low grass-covered point, shaded by trees. chevet had awakened, sobered by his nap, and the advance canoe had already been drawn up on the shore, the few soldiers it contained busily engaged in starting fires with which to cook our morning meal. i perceived de artigny with my first glance, standing erect on the bank, his back toward us, directing the men in their work. as we shot forward toward the landing he turned indifferently, and i marked the sudden straightening of his body, as though in surprise, although the distance gave me no clear vision of his face. as our canoe came into the shallows, he sprang down the bank to greet us, hat in hand, his eyes on me. my own glance fell before the eagerness in his face, and i turned away. "ah! monsieur cassion," he exclaimed, the very sound of his voice evidencing delight. "you have guests on the journey; 'tis unexpected." cassion stepped over the side, and fronted him, no longer a smiling gallant of the court, but brutal in authority. "and what is that to you, may i ask, sieur de artigny?" he said, coldly contemptuous. "you are but our guide, and it is no concern of yours who may compose the company. 'twill be well for you to remember your place, and attend to your duties. go now, and see that the men have breakfast served." there was a moment of silence, and i did not even venture to glance up to perceive what occurred, although i felt that de artigny's eyes shifted their inquiry from cassion's face to mine. there must be no quarrel now, not until he knew the truth, not until i had opportunity to explain, and yet he was a firebrand, and it would be like him to resent such words. how relieved i felt, as his voice made final answer. "pardon, monsieur le commissaire," he said, pleasantly enough. "it is true i forgot my place in this moment of surprise. i obey your orders." i looked up as he turned away, and disappeared. cassion stared after him, smothering an oath, and evidently disappointed at so tame an ending of the affair, for it was his nature to bluster and boast. yet as his lips changed to a grin, i knew of what the man was thinking--he had mistaken de artigny's actions for cowardice, and felt assured now of how he would deal with him. he turned to the canoe, a new conception of importance in the sharp tone of his voice. "come ashore, men; ay! draw the boat higher on the sand. now, monsieur chevet, assist your niece forward to where i can help her to land with dry feet--permit me, adele." "it is not at all necessary, monsieur," i replied, avoiding his hand, and leaping lightly to the firm sand. "i am no dainty maid of quebec to whom such courtesy is due." i stood and faced him, not unpleased to mark the anger in his eyes. "not always have you shown yourself so considerate." "why blame me for the act of la barre?" "the act would never have been considered had you opposed it, monsieur. it was your choice, not the governor's." "i would wed you--yes; but that is no crime. but let us understand each other. those were harsh words you spoke in anger in the room yonder." "they were not in anger." "but surely--" "monsieur, you have forced me into marriage; the law holds me as your wife. i know not how i may escape that fate, or avoid accompanying you. so far i submit, but no farther. i do not love you; i do not even feel friendship toward you. let me pass." he grasped my arm, turning me about until i faced him, his eyes glaring into mine. "not until i speak," he replied threateningly. "do not mistake my temper, or imagine me blind. i know what has so suddenly changed you--it is that gay, simpering fool yonder. but be careful how far you go. i am your husband, and in authority here." "monsieur, your words are insult; release your hand." "so you think to deceive! bah! i am too old a bird for that, or to pay heed to such airs. i have seen girls before, and a mood does not frighten me. but listen now--keep away from de artigny unless you seek trouble." "what mean you by that threat?" "you will learn to your sorrow; the way we travel is long, and i am woodsman as well as soldier. you will do well to heed my words." i released my arm, but did not move. my only feeling toward him at that moment was one of disgust, defiance. the threat in his eyes, the cool insolence of his speech, set my blood on fire. "monsieur," i said coldly, although every nerve of my body throbbed, "you may know girls, but you deal now with a woman. your speech, your insinuation is insult. i disliked you before; now i despise you, yet i will say this in answer to what you have intimated. monsieur de artigny is nothing to me, save that he hath shown himself friend. you wrong him, even as you wrong me, in thinking otherwise, and whatever the cause of misunderstanding between us, there is no excuse for you to pick quarrel with him." "you appear greatly concerned over his safety." "not at all; so far as i have ever heard the sieur de artigny has heretofore proven himself quite capable of sustaining his own part. 'tis more like i am concerned for you." "for me? you fool! why, i was a swordsman when that lad was at his mother's knee." he laughed, but with ugly gleam of teeth. "_sacre!_ i hate such play acting. but enough of quarrel now; there is sufficient time ahead to bring you to your senses, and a knowledge of who is your master. hugo chevet, come here." my uncle climbed the bank, his rifle in hand, with face still bloated, and red from the drink of the night before. behind him appeared the slender black-robed figure of the jesuit, his eyes eager with curiosity. it was sight of the latter which caused cassion to moderate his tone of command. "you will go with chevet," he said, pointing to the fire among the trees, "until i can talk to you alone." "a prisoner?" "no; a guest," sarcastically, "but do not overstep the courtesy." we left him in conversation with the _père_, and i did not even glance back. chevet breathed heavily, and i caught the mutter of his voice. "what meaneth all this chatter?" he asked gruffly. "must you two quarrel so soon?" "why not?" i retorted. "the man bears me no love; 'tis but gold he thinks about." "gold!" he stopped, and slapped his thighs. "'tis precious little of that he will ever see then." "and why not? was not my father a land owner?" "ay! till the king took it." "then even you do not know the truth. i am glad to learn that, for i have dreamed that you sold me to this coxcomb for a share of the spoils." "what? a share of the spoils! bah! i am no angel, girl, nor pretend to a virtue more than i possess. there is truth in the thought that i might benefit by your marriage to monsieur cassion, and, by my faith, i see no wrong in that. have you not cost me heavily in these years? why should i not seek for you a husband of worth in these colonies? wherefore is that a crime? were you my own daughter i could do no less, and this man is not ill to look upon, a fair-spoken gallant, a friend of la barre's, chosen by him for special service--" "and with influence in the fur trade." "all the better that," he continued obstinately. "why should a girl object if her husband be rich?" "but he is not rich," i said plainly, looking straight into his eyes. "he is no more than a penniless adventurer; an actor playing a part assigned him by the governor; while you and i do the same. listen, monsieur chevet, the property at st. thomas is mine by legal right, and it was to gain possession that this wretch sought my hand." "your legal right?" "ay, restored by the king in special order." "it is not true; i had the records searched by a lawyer, monsieur gautier, of st. anne." i gave a gesture of indignation. "a country advocate at whom those in authority would laugh. i tell you what i say is true; the land was restored, and the fact is known to la barre and to cassion. it is this fact which has caused all our troubles. i overheard talk last night between the governor and his aide-de-camp, colonel delguard--you know him?" chevet nodded, his interest stirred. "they thought themselves alone, and were laughing at the success of their trick. i was hidden behind the heavy curtains at the window, and every word they spoke reached my ears. then they sent for cassion." "but where is the paper?" "i did not learn; they have it hidden, no doubt, awaiting the proper time to produce it. but there is such a document: la barre explained that clearly, and the reason why he wished cassion to marry me. they were all three talking when an accident happened, which led to my discovery." "ah! and so that was what hurried the wedding, and sent me on this wild wilderness chase. they would bury me in the woods--_sacre!_--" "hush now--cassion has left the canoe already, and we can talk of this later. let us seem to suspect nothing." this was the first meal of many eaten together along the river bank in the course of our long journey, yet the recollection of that scene rises before my memory now with peculiar vividness. it was a bright, glorious morning, the arching sky blue overhead, and the air soft with early autumn. our temporary camp was at the edge of a grove, and below us swept the broad river, a gleaming highway of silvery water without speck upon its surface. except for our little party of voyagers no evidence of life was visible, not even a distant curl of smoke obscuring the horizon. cassion had divided us into groups, and, from where i had found resting place, with a small flat rock for table, i was enabled to see the others scattered to the edge of the bank, and thus learned for the first time, the character of those with whom i was destined to companion on the long journey. there were but four of us in that first group, which included père allouez, a silent man, fingering his cross, and barely touching food. his face under the black cowl was drawn, and creased by strange lines, and his eyes burned with fanaticism. if i had ever dreamed of him as one to whom i might turn for counsel, the thought instantly vanished as our glances met. a soldier and two indians served us, while their companions, divided into two groups, were gathered at the other extremity of the ridge, the soldiers under discipline of their own under officers, and the indians watched over by sieur de artigny, who rested, however, slightly apart, his gaze on the broad river. never once while i observed did he turn and glance my way. i counted the men, as i endeavored to eat, scarcely heeding the few words exchanged by those about me. the indians numbered ten, including their chief, whom cassion called altudah. chevet named them as algonquins from the ottawa, treacherous rascals enough, yet with expert knowledge of water craft. altudah was a tall savage, wrapped in gaudy blanket, his face rendered sinister and repulsive by a scar the full length of his cheek, yet he spoke french fairly well, and someone said that he had three times made journey to mackinac, and knew the waterways. there were twenty-four soldiers, including a sergeant and corporal, of the regiment of picardy; active fellows enough, and accustomed to the frontier, although they gave small evidence of discipline, and their uniforms were in shocking condition. the sergeant was a heavily built, stocky man, but the others were rather undersized, and of little spirit. the same thought must have been in the minds of others, for the expression on monsieur cassion's face was not pleasant as he stared about. "chevet," he exclaimed disgustedly "did ever you see a worse selection for wilderness travel than la barre has given us? cast your eyes down the line yonder; by my faith! there is not a real man among them." chevet who had been growling to himself, with scarce a thought other than the food before him, lifted his eyes and looked. "not so bad," he answered finally, the words rumbling in his throat. "altudah is a good indian, and has traveled with me before, and the sergeant yonder looks like a fighting man." "ay, but the others?" "no worse than all the scum. de baugis had no better with him, and la salle led a gang of outcasts. with right leadership you can make them do men's work. 'tis no kid-gloved job you have, monsieur cassion." the insulting indifference of the old fur trader's tone surprised the commissaire, and he exhibited resentment. "you are overly free with your comments, hugo chevet. when i wish advice i will ask it." "and in the woods i do not always wait to be asked," returned the older man, lighting his pipe, and calmly puffing out the blue smoke. "though it is likely enough you will be asking for it before you journey many leagues further." "you are under my orders." "so la barre said, but the only duty he gave me was to watch over adele here. he put no shackle on my tongue. you have chosen your course?" "yes, up the ottawa." "i supposed so, although that boy yonder could lead you a shorter passage." "how learned you that?" "by talking with him in quebec. he even sketched me a map of the route he traveled with la salle. you knew it not?" "'twas of no moment, for my orders bid me go by st. ignace. yet it might be well to question him and the chief also." he turned to the nearest soldier. "tell the algonquin, altudah, to come here, and sieur de artigny." they approached together, two specimens of the frontier as different as could be pictured, and stood silent, fronting cassion who looked at them frowning, and in no pleasant humor. the eyes of the younger man sought my face for an instant, and the swift glance gave harsher note to the commissaire's voice. "we will reload the canoes here for the long voyage," he said brusquely. "the sergeant will have charge of that, but both of you will be in the leading boat, and will keep well in advance of the others. our course is by way of the ottawa. you know that stream, altudah?" the indian bowed his head gravely, and extended one hand beneath the scarlet fold of his blanket. "five time, monsieur." "how far to the west, chief?" "to place call green bay." cassion turned his eyes on de artigny, a slight sneer curling his lips. "and you?" he asked coldly. "but one journey, monsieur, along the ottawa and the lakes," was the quiet answer, "and that three years ago, yet i scarce think i would go astray. 'tis not a course easily forgotten." "and beyond green bay?" "i have been to the mouth of the great river." "you!" in surprise. "were you of that party?" "yes, monsieur." "and you actually reached the sea--the salt water?" "yes, monsieur." "saint anne! i never half believed the tale true, nor do i think overmuch of your word for it. but let that go. chevet here tells me you know a shorter journey to the illinois?" "not by canoe, monsieur. i followed sieur de la salle by forest trail to the straits, and planned to return that way, but 'tis a foot journey." "not fitted for such a party as this?" "only as you trust to your rifles for food, bearing what packs we might on our backs. with the lady the trail is scarcely possible." "as to the lady i will make my own decision. besides, our course is decided. we go to st. ignace. what will be your course from green bay?" "along the west shore, monsieur; it is dangerous only by reason of storms." "and the distance?" "from st. ignace?" "ay! from st. ignace! what distance lies between there and this fort st. louis, on the illinois?" "'twill be but a venture, monsieur, but i think 'tis held at a hundred and fifty leagues." "of wilderness?" "when i passed that way--yes; they tell me now the jesuits have mission station at green bay, and there may be fur traders in indian villages beyond." "no chance to procure supplies?" "only scant rations of corn from the indians." "your report is in accordance with my instructions and maps, and no doubt is correct. that will be all. take two more men in your boat, and depart at once. we shall follow immediately." as de artigny turned away in obedience to these orders, his glance met mine, and seemed to question. eager as i was to acquaint him with the true reason of my presence it was impossible. to have exhibited the slightest interest would only increase the enmity between the two men, and serve no good purpose. i did not even venture to gaze after him as he disappeared down the bank, feeling assured that cassion's eyes were suspiciously watching me. my appearance of indifference must have been well assumed, for there was a sound of confidence in his voice as he bade us return to the canoes, and i even permitted him to assist me to my feet, and aid me in the descent to the shore. chapter viii i defy cassion our progress was slow against the swift current of the st. lawrence, and we kept close to the overhanging bank, following the guidance of the leading canoe. we were the second in line, and no longer over-crowded, so that i had ample room to rest at ease upon a pile of blankets, and gaze about me with interest on the changing scene. cassion, encouraged possibly by my permitting his attendance down the bank, found seat near me, and endeavored to converse; but, although i tried to prove cordial, realizing now that to anger the man would only add to my perplexity, his inane remarks tried me so that i ceased reply, and we finally lapsed into silence. chevet, who held the steering oar, asked him some questions, which led to a brisk argument, and i turned away my head, glad enough to escape, and be permitted the luxury of my own thoughts. how beautifully desolate it all was; with what fresh delight each new vista revealed itself. the wild life, the love of wilderness and solitude, was in my blood, and my nature responded to the charm of our surroundings. i was the daughter of one ever attracted by the frontier, and all my life had been passed amid primitive conditions--the wide out-of-doors was my home, and the lonely places called me. the broad, rapid sweep of the river up which we won our slow passage, the great beetling cliffs dark in shadows, and crowned by trees, the jutting rocks whitened by spray, the headlands cutting off all view ahead, then suddenly receding to permit of our circling on into the unknown--here extended a panorama of which i could never tire. my imagination swept ahead into the mystery which awaited us in that vast wilderness toward which we journeyed--the dangerous rivers, the portages, the swift rush of gleaming water, the black forests, the plains of waving grass, the indian villages, and those immense lakes along whose shores we were destined to find way. all this possibility had come to me so unexpectedly, with such suddenness, that even yet i scarcely realized that my surroundings were real. they seemed more a dream than an actual fact, and i was compelled to concentrate my mind on those people about me before i could clearly comprehend the conditions under which i lived. yet here was reality enough: the indian paddlers, stripped to the waist, their bodies glistening, as with steady, tireless strokes, they forced our canoe forward, following relentlessly the wake of the speeding boat ahead; the little group of soldiers huddled in the bows, several sleeping already, the others amusing themselves with game of cards; while just in front of me sat the priest, his fingers clasping an open book, but his eyes on the river. the silhouette of his face, outlined beyond his black hood, seemed carved from stone, it was so expressionless and hard. there was something so sinister about it that i felt a chill run through me, and averted my eyes, only to encounter the glance of cassion beside me, who smiled, and pointed out a huge terrace of rock which seemed a castle against the blue of the sky. i think he told me the fanciful name the earlier explorers had given the point, and related some legend with which it was connected, but my mind was not on his tale, and soon he ceased effort to entertain me, and his head nodded sleepily. i turned to glance back beyond the massive figure of chevet at the steering oar, to gain glimpse of the canoes behind. the first was well up, so that even the faces of its occupants were revealed, but the second was but a black shapeless thing in the distance, a mere blotch upon the waters. ahead of us, now sweeping around the point like a wild bird, amid a smother of spray, appeared the advance canoe. as it disappeared i could distinguish de artigny at the stern, his coat off, his hands grasping a paddle. above the point once more and in smoother water, i was aware that he turned and looked back, shading his eyes from the sun. i could not but wonder what he thought, what possible suspicion had come to him, regarding my presence in the company. there was no way in which he could have learned the truth, for there had been no communication between him and those who knew the facts. never would he conceive so wild a thought as my marriage to cassion. he might, indeed, believe that some strange, sudden necessity had compelled me to accompany them on this adventure, or he might suspect that i had deceived him, knowing all the time that i was to be of the party. i felt the shame of it bring the red blood into my cheeks, and my lips pressed together in firm resolve. i should tell him, tell him all; and he must judge my conduct from my own words, and not those of another. in some manner i must keep him away from cassion--ay, and from chevet--until opportunity came for me to first communicate with him. i was a woman, and some instinct of my nature told me that sieur de artigny held me in high esteem. and his was the disposition and the training to cause the striking of a blow first. that must not be, for now i was determined to unravel the cause for cassion's eagerness to marry, and la barre's willing assistance, and to accomplish this end there could be no quarreling between us. the weariness of the long night conquered even my brain, the steady splash of the paddles becoming a lullaby. insensibly my head rested back against the pile of blankets, the glint of sunshine along the surface of the water vanished as my lashes fell, and, before i knew it, i slept soundly. i awoke with the sun in the western sky, so low down as to peep at me through the upper branches of trees lining the bank. our surroundings had changed somewhat, the shores being no longer steep, and overhung with rocks, but only slightly uplifted, and covered with dense, dark woods, somber and silent. their shadows nearly met in midstream, giving to the scene a look of desolation and gloom, the water sweeping on in sullen flow, without sparkle, or gaiety. our boat clung close to the west shore, and i could look long distances through the aisles of trees into the silent gloom beyond. not a leaf rustled, not a wild animal moved in the coverts. it was like an abode of death. and we moved so slowly, struggling upward against the current, for the indians were resting, and the less expert hands of soldiers were wielding the paddles, urged on by cassion, who had relieved chevet at the steering oar. the harsh tones of his voice, and the heavy breathing of the laboring men alone broke the solemn stillness. i sat up, my body aching from the awkward position in which i lay, and endeavored to discern the other canoes. behind us stretched a space of straight water, and one canoe was close, while the second was barely visible along a curve of the shore. ahead, however, the river appeared vacant, the leading boat having vanished around a wooded bend. my eyes met those of cassion, and the sight of him instantly restored me to a recollection of my plan--nothing could be gained by open warfare. i permitted my lips to smile, and noted instantly the change of expression in his face. "i have slept well, monsieur," i said pleasantly, "for i was very tired." "'tis the best way on a boat voyage," assuming his old manner, "but now the day is nearly done." "so late as that! you will make camp soon?" "if that be cap sante yonder, 'tis like we shall go ashore beyond. ay! see the smoke spiral above the trees; a hundred rods more and we make the turn. the fellows will not be sorry, the way they ply the paddles." he leaned over and shook chevet. "time to rouse, hugo, for we make camp. bend to it, lads; there is food and a night's rest waiting you around yonder point. dig deep, and send her along." as we skirted the extremity of shore i saw the opening in the woods, and the gleam of a cheerful fire amid green grass. the advance canoe swung half-hidden amid the overhanging roots of a huge pine tree, and the men were busily at work ashore. to the right they were already erecting a small tent, its yellow canvas showing plainly against the leafy background of the forest. as we circled the point closely, seeking the still water, we could perceive altudah standing alone on a flat rock, his red blanket conspicuous as he pointed out the best place for landing. as we nosed into the bank, our sharp bow was grasped by waiting indians and drawn safely ashore. i reached my feet, stiffened, and scarcely able to move my limbs, but determined to land without the aid of cassion, whose passage forward was blocked by chevet's huge bulk. as my weight rested on the edge of the canoe, de artigny swung down from behind the chief, and extended his hand. "a slight spring," he said, "and you land with dry feet; good! now let me lift you--so." i had but the instant; i knew that, for i heard cassion cry out something just behind me, and, surprised as i was by the sudden appearance of de artigny, i yet realized the necessity for swift speech. "monsieur," i whispered. "do not talk, but listen. you would serve me?" "ay!" "then ask nothing, and above all do not quarrel with cassion. i will tell you everything the moment i can see you safely alone. until then do not seek me. i have your word?" he did not answer, for the commissaire grasped my arm, and thrust himself in between us, his action so swift that the impact of his body thrust de artigny back a step. i saw the hand of the younger man close on the knife hilt at his belt, but was quick enough to avert the hot words burning his lips. "a bit rough, monsieur cassion," i cried laughing merrily, even as i released my arm. "why so much haste? i was near falling, and it was but courtesy which led the sieur de artigny to extend me his hand. it does not please me for you to be ever seeking a quarrel." there must have been that in my face which cooled him, for his hand fell, and his thin lips curled into sarcastic smile. "if i seemed hasty," he exclaimed, "it was more because i was blocked by that boor of a chevet yonder, and it angered me to have this young gamecock ever at hand to push in. what think you you were employed for, fellow--an esquire of dames? was there not work enough in the camp yonder, that you must be testing your fancy graces every time a boat lands?" there was no mild look in de artigny's eyes as he fronted him, yet he held his temper, recalling my plea no doubt, and i hastened to step between, and furnish him excuse for silence. "surely you do wrong to blame the young man, monsieur, as but for his aid i would have slipped yonder. there is no cause for hard words, nor do i thank you for making me a subject of quarrel. is it my tent they erect yonder?" "ay," there was little graciousness to the tone, for the man had the nature of a bully. "'twas my thought that it be brought for your use; and if monsieur de artigny will consent to stand aside, it will give me pleasure to escort you thither." the younger man's eyes glanced from the other's face into mine, as though seeking reassurance. his hat was instantly in his hand, and he stepped backward, bowing low. "the wish of the lady is sufficient," he said quietly, and then stood again erect, facing cassion. "yet," he added slowly, "i would remind monsieur that while i serve him as a guide, it is as a volunteer, and i am also an officer of france." "of france? pah! of the renegade la salle." "france has no more loyal servant, monsieur cassion in all this western land--nor is he renegade, for he holds the illinois at the king's command." "held it--yes; under frontenac, but not now." "we will not quarrel over words, yet not even in quebec was it claimed that higher authority than la barre's had led to recall. louis had never interfered, and it is de tonty, and not de baugis who is in command at st. louis by royal order. my right to respect of rank is clearer than your own, monsieur, so i beg you curb your temper." "you threaten me?" "no; we who live in the wilderness do not talk, we act. i obey your orders, do your will, on this expedition, but as a man, not a slave. in all else we stand equal, and i accept insult from no living man. 'tis well that you know this, monsieur." the hat was back upon his head, and he had turned away before cassion found answering speech. it was a jaunty, careless figure, disappearing amid the trees, the very swing of his shoulders a challenge, nor did he so much as glance about to mark the effect of his insolent words. for the instant i believed cassion's first thought was murder, for he gripped a pistol in his hand, and flung one foot forward, an oath sputtering between his lips. yet the arrant coward in him conquered even that mad outburst of passion, and before i could grasp his arm in restraint, the impulse had passed, and he was staring after the slowly receding figure of de artigny, his fingers nerveless. "_mon dieu_--no! i'll show the pup who is the master," he muttered. "let him disobey once, and i'll stretch his dainty form as i would an indian cur." "monsieur," i said, drawing his attention to my presence. "'tis of no interest to me your silly quarrel with sieur de artigny. i am weary with the boat journey, and would rest until food is served." "but you heard the young cockerel! what he dared say to me?" "surely; and were his words true?" "true! what mean you? that he would resist my authority?" "that he held commission from the king, while your only authority was by word of the governor? was it not by royal orders that la salle was relieved of command?" cassion's face exhibited embarrassment, yet he managed to laugh. "a mere boast the boy made, yet with a grain of truth to bolster it. la barre acted with authority, but there has not been time for his report to be passed upon by louis. no doubt 'tis now upon the sea." "and now for this reason to lay his cause before the king, the sieur de la salle, sailed for france." "yes, but too late; already confirmation of la barre's act is en route to new france. the crowing cockerel yonder will lose his spurs. but come, 'tis useless to stand here discussing this affair. let me show you how well your comfort has been attended to." i walked beside him among the trees, and across the patch of grass to where the tent stood against a background of rock. the indians and soldiers in separate groups were busied about their fires, and i could distinguish the chief, with chevet, still beside the canoes, engaged in making them secure for the night. the evening shadows were thickening about us, and the gloom of the woods extended already across the river to the opposite shore. de artigny had disappeared, although i glanced about in search for him, as cassion drew aside the tent flap, and peered within. he appeared pleased at the way in which his orders had been executed. "'tis very neat, indeed, monsieur," i said pleasantly, glancing inside. "i owe you my thanks." "'twas brought for my own use," he confessed, encouraged by my graciousness, "for as you know, i had no previous warning that you were to be of our party. please step within." i did so, yet turned instantly to prevent his following me. already i had determined on my course of action, and now the time had come for me to speak him clearly; yet now that i had definite purpose in view it was no part of my game to anger the man. "monsieur," i said soberly. "i must beg your mercy. i am but a girl, and alone. it is true i am your wife by law, but the change has come so suddenly that i am yet dazed. surely you cannot wish to take advantage, or make claim upon me, until i can bid you welcome. i appeal to you as a gentleman." he stared into my face, scarcely comprehending all my meaning. "you would bar me without? you forbid me entrance?" "would you seek to enter against my wish?" "but you are my wife; that you will not deny! what will be said, thought, if i seek rest elsewhere?" "monsieur, save for hugo chevet, none in this company know the story of that marriage, or why i am here. what i ask brings no stain upon you. 'tis not that i so dislike you, monsieur, but i am the daughter of pierre la chesnayne, and 'tis not in my blood to yield to force. it will be best to yield me respect and consideration." "you threatened me yonder--before la barre." "i spoke wildly, in anger. that passion has passed--now i appeal to your manhood." he glanced about, to assure himself we were alone. "you are a sly wench," he said, laughing unpleasantly, "but it may be best that i give you your own way for this once. there is time enough in which to teach you my power. and so you shut the tent to me, fair lady, in spite of your pledge to holy church. ah, well! there are nights a plenty between here and st. ignace, and you will become lonely enough in the wilderness to welcome me. one kiss, and i leave you." "no, monsieur." his eyes were ugly. "you refuse that! _mon dieu!_ do you think i play? i will have the kiss--or more." furious as the man was i felt no fear of him, merely an intense disgust that his hands should touch me, an indignation that he should offer me such insult. he must have read all this in my eyes, for he made but the one move, and i flung his hand aside as easily as though it had been that of a child. i was angry, so that my lips trembled, and my face grew white, yet it was not the anger that stormed. "enough, monsieur--go!" i said, and pointed to where the fires reddened the darkness. "do not dare speak to me again this night." an instant he hesitated, trying to muster courage, but the bully in him failed, and with an oath, he turned away, and vanished. it was nearly dark then, and i sat down on a blanket at the entrance, and waited, watching the figures between me and the river. i did not think he would come again, but i did not know; it would be safer if i could have word with chevet. a soldier brought me food, and when he returned for the tins i made him promise to seek my uncle, and send him to me. chapter ix the flames of jealousy my only faith in hugo chevet rested in his natural resentment of cassion's treachery relative to my father's fortune. he would feel that he had been cheated, deceived, deprived of his rightful share of the spoils. the man cared nothing for me, as had already been plainly demonstrated, yet, but for this conspiracy of la barre and his commissaire, it would have been his privilege to have handled whatever property pierre la chesnayne left at time of his death. he would have been the legal guardian of an heiress, instead of the provider for an unwelcomed child of poverty. he had been tricked into marrying me to cassion, feeling that he had thus rid himself of an incumbrance, and at the same time gained a friend and ally at court, and now discovered that by that act he had alienated himself from all chance of ever controlling my inheritance. the knowledge that he had thus been outwitted would rankle in the man's brain, and he was one to seek revenge. it was actuated by this thought that i had sent for him, feeling that perhaps at last we had a common cause. whether, or not, cassion would take my dismissal as final i could not feel assured. no doubt he would believe my decision the outburst of a woman's mood, which he had best honor, but in full faith that a few days would bring to me a change of mind. the man was too pronounced an egotist to ever confess that he could fail in winning the heart of any girl whom he condescended to honor, and the very injury which my repulse had given to his pride would tend to increase his desire to possess me. however little he had cared before in reality, now his interest would be aroused, and i would seem to him worthy of conquest. he would never stop after what had occurred between us until he had exhausted every power he possessed. yet i saw nothing more of him that night, although i sat just within the flap of the tent watching the camp between me and the river. shadowing figures glided about, revealed dimly by the fires, but none of these did i recognize as the commissaire, nor did i hear his voice. i had been alone for an hour, already convinced that the soldier had failed to deliver my message, when my uncle chevet finally emerged from the shadows, and announced his presence. he appeared a huge, shapeless figure, his very massiveness yielding me a feeling of protection, and i arose, and joined him. his greeting proved the unhappiness of his mind. "so you sent for me--why? what has happened between you and cassion?" "no more than occurred between us yonder in quebec, when i informed him that i was his wife in name only," i answered quietly. "do you blame me now that you understand his purpose in this marriage?" "but i don't understand. you have but aroused my suspicion. tell me all, and if the man is a villain he shall make answer to me." "ay, if you imagine you have been outplayed in the game, although it is little enough you would care otherwise. let there be no misunderstanding between us, monsieur. you sold me to francois cassion because you expected to profit through his influence with la barre. now you learn otherwise, and the discovery has angered you. for the time being you are on my side--but for how long?" he stared at me, his slow wits scarcely translating my words. seemingly the man had but one idea in his thick head. "how know you the truth of all you have said?" he asked. "where learned you of this wealth?" "by overhearing conversation while hidden behind the curtain in la barre's office. he spoke freely with his aide, and later with cassion. it was my discovery there which led to the forced marriage, and our being sent with this expedition." "you heard alone?" "so they thought, and naturally believed marriage would prevent my ever bearing witness against them. but i was not alone." "_mon dieu!_ another heard?" "yes, the sieur de artigny." chevet grasped my arm, and in the glare of the fire i could see his excitement pictured in his face. "who? that lad? you were in hiding there together? and did he realize what was said?" "that i do not know," i answered, "for we have exchanged no word since. when my presence was discovered, de artigny escaped unseen through the open window. i need to meet him again that these matters may be explained, and that i may learn just what he overheard. it was to enlist your aid that i sent for you." "to bring the lad here?" "no; that could not be done without arousing the suspicion of cassion. the two are already on the verge of quarrel. you must find some way of drawing the commissaire aside--not tonight, for there is plenty of time before us, and i am sure we are being watched now--and that will afford me opportunity." "but why may i not speak him?" "you!" i laughed. "he would be likely to talk with you. a sweet message you sent him in quebec." "i was drunk, and cassion asked it of me." "i thought as much; the coward makes you pull his chestnuts from the fire. do you give me the pledge?" "ay! although 'tis not my way to play sweet, when i should enjoy to wring the fellow's neck. what was it la barre said?" i hesitated a moment, doubting how much i had better tell, yet decided it would be best to intrust him with the facts, and some knowledge of what i proposed to do. "that just before he died my father's property was restored to him by the king, but the royal order was never recorded. it exists, but where i do not know, nor do i know as yet for what purpose it was concealed. my marriage to cassion must have been an afterthought, for he is but a creature of la barre's. it is through him the greater villains seek control; but, no doubt, he was a willing tool enough, and expects his share." "why not let me choke the truth out of him then? bah! it would be easy." "for two reasons," i said earnestly. "first, i doubt if he knows the true conspiracy, or can lay hands on the king's restoration. without that we have no proof of fraud. and second, coward though he may be, his very fear might yield him courage. no, uncle chevet, we must wait, and learn these facts through other means than force. 'tis back in quebec, not in this wilderness, we will find the needed proofs. what i ask of you is, pretend to know nothing; do not permit cassion to suspicion that i have confided in you. we must encourage him to talk by saying nothing which will put him on guard." "but he is already aware that you have learned the truth." "of that i am not certain. it was the conversation between la barre and colonel delguard which gave me the real cue. of this cassion may not have heard, as he entered the room later. i intended to proceed on that theory, and win his confidence, if possible. there is a long, tiresome journey before us, and much may be accomplished before we return." chevet stood silent, his slow mind struggling with the possibilities of my plan. i could realize the amazement with which he comprehended this cool proposition. he, who had considered me a thoughtless girl, incapable of serious planning, was suddenly forced to realize that a woman confronted him, with a will and mind of her own. it was almost a miracle, and he failed to entirely grasp the change which had occurred in my character. he stared at me with dull eyes, like those of an ox, his lips parted as he sought expression. "you--you will try, as his wife, to win confession?" he asked finally, grasping vaguely the one thought occurring to him. "no; there is a better way. i despise the man; i cannot bear that he touch me. more than that, if i read him aright, once i yield and confess myself his property, he will lose all interest in my possession. he is a lady killer; 'tis his boast. the man has never been in love with me; it was not love, but a desire to possess my fortune, which led to his proposal of marriage. now i shall make him love me." "you! _mon dieu!_ how?" "by refusing him, tantalizing him, arousing a desire which i will not gratify. already his thought of me has changed. last night in quebec he was surprised, and aroused to new interest in me as a woman. he considered me before as a helpless girl, with no will, no character--the sort with which he had had his way all through life. he thought i would fall in his arms, and confess him master. the words i spoke to la barre shocked and startled him out of his self complacency. nor was that all--even before then he had begun to suspicion my relations with sieur de artigny. "it was at his suggestion, you say, that you sent that young man your message of warning to keep away from me. good! the poison is already working, and i mean it shall. two hours ago, when we landed here, the two men were on verge of quarrel, and blows would have been struck but that i intervened. he is finding me not so easy to control, and later still the mighty commissaire met with a rebuff which rankles." i laughed at the remembrance, satisfied now as i placed the situation in words, that my plans were working well. chevet stood silent, his mouth agape, struggling to follow my swift speech. "do you see now what i mean to do?" i asked gravely. "we shall be alone in the wilderness for months to come. i will be the one woman; perchance the only white woman into whose face he will look until we return to quebec. i am not vain, yet i am not altogether ill to look upon, nor shall i permit the hardships of this journey to affect my attractiveness. i shall fight him with his own weapons, and win. he will beg, and threaten me, and i shall laugh. he will love me, and i shall mock. there will be jealousy between him and de artigny, and to win my favor he will confess all that he knows. tonight he sulks somewhere yonder, already beginning to doubt his power to control me." "you have quarreled?" "no--only that i asserted independence. he would have entered this tent as my husband, and i forbade his doing so. he stormed and threatened, but dare not venture further. he knows me now as other than a weak girl, but my next lesson must be a more severe one. 'tis partly to prepare that i sent for you; i ask the loan of a pistol--the smaller one, to be concealed in my dress." "you would kill the man?" "pooh! small danger of that. you may draw the charge if you will. for him to know that i possess the weapon will protect me. you do not grasp my plan?" he shook his head gloomily, as though it was all a deep puzzle to his mind, yet his great hand held forth the pistol, the short barrel of which gleamed wickedly in the fire glow, as i thrust it out of sight. "'tis not the way i front enemies," he growled stubbornly, "and i make little of it. _mon dieu!_ i make them talk with these hands." "but my weapons are those of a woman," i explained, "and i will learn more than you would with your brute strength. all i ask of you now, uncle chevet, is that you keep on friendly terms with monsieur cassion, yet repeat nothing to him of what i have said, and gain me opportunity for speech alone with sieur de artigny." "ah! perhaps i perceive--you love the young man?" i grasped his sleeve in my fingers, determined to make this point at least clear to his understanding. his blunt words had set my pulses throbbing, yet it was resentment, indignation, i felt in strongest measure. "mother of god, no! i have spoken with him but three times since we were children. he is merely a friend to be trusted, and he must be made to know my purpose. it will be joy to him to thus affront cassion, for there is no love lost between them. you understand now?" he growled something indistinctly in his beard, which i interpreted as assent, but i watched his great form disappear in the direction of the fire, my own mind far from satisfied; the man was so lacking in brains as to be a poor ally, and so obstinate of nature as to make it doubtful if he would long conform to my leadership. still it was surely better to confide in him to the extent i had than permit him to rage about blindly, and in open hostility to cassion. i seated myself just within the tent, my eyes on the scene as revealed in the fire-glow, and reflected again over the details of my hastily born plan. the possibility of the commissaire's return did not greatly trouble me, my confidence fortified by the pistol concealed in my waist. no doubt he was already asleep yonder in the shadows, but this night was only the beginning. the opposition he had met would prove a spur to endeavor, and the desire to win me a stronger incentive than ever. he may have been indifferent, careless before--deeming me easy prey--but from now on i meant to lead him a merry chase. i cannot recall any feeling of regret, any conception of evil, as my mind settled upon this course of action. there was no reason why i should spare him. he had deliberately lied, and deceived me. his marriage to me was an act of treachery; the only intent to rob me of my just inheritance. there seemed to me no other way left in which i could hope to overcome his power. i was a woman, and must fight with the weapons of my sex; mine was the strength of the weak. how dark and still it was, for the fires had died down into beds of red ash, and only the stars glimmered along the surface of the river. the only movement i could perceive was the dim outline of a man's figure moving about near the canoes--a watchman on guard, but whether red or white i could not determine. it was already late, well into the night, and the forest about us was black and still. slowly my head sank to the blanket, and i slept. chapter x we attain the ottawa it was not yet dawn when the stir in the camp aroused me, and the sun had not risen above the bluffs, or begun to tinge the river, when our laden canoes left the bank and commenced their day's journey up stream. de artigny was off in advance, departing indeed before i had left the tent, the chief seated beside him. i caught but a glimpse of them as the canoe rounded the bend in the bank, and slipped silently away through the lingering shadows, yet it gladdened me to know his eyes were turned toward my tent until they vanished. cassion approached me with excessive politeness, waiting until the last moment, and escorting me to the shore. it made me smile to observe his pretense at gallantry, yet i accepted his assistance down the bank with all possible graciousness, speaking to him so pleasantly as to bring a look of surprise to his face. 'twas plain to be seen that my conduct puzzled him, for although he sought to appear at ease, his words faltered sadly. he, who had so long considered himself as past master of the art of love-making had most unexpectedly encountered a character which he could not comprehend. however, that his purpose was in no way changed was made evident as we took our places in the canoes. a new distribution had been arranged, chevet accompanying the sergeant, leaving the commissaire and me alone, except for the _père_, who had position in the bow. i observed this new arrangement from underneath lowered lashes, but without comment, quietly taking the place assigned me, and shading my face from the first rays of the sun. the day which followed was but one of many we were destined to pass in the canoes. i have small recollection of it, except the weariness of my cramped position, and cassion's efforts to entertain. our course kept us close to the north shore, the high banks cutting off all view in that direction, while in the other there was nothing to see but an expanse of water. except for a single canoe, laden with furs, and propelled by indian paddlers, bound for quebec and a market, we encountered no travelers. these swept past us swiftly in grip of the current, gesticulating, and exchanging salutations, and were soon out of sight. our own boats scattered, as no danger held us together, and there were hours when we failed to have even a glimpse of their presence. at noon we landed in a sheltered cove, brilliant with wild flowers, and partook of food, the rearward canoes joining us, but de artigny was still ahead, perhaps under orders to keep away. to escape cassion, i clambered up the front of the cliff, and had view from the summit, marking the sweep of the river for many a league, a scene of wild beauty never to be forgotten. i lingered there at the edge until the voice of the commissaire recalled me to my place in the canoe. it is of no consequence now what we conversed about during that long afternoon, as we pushed steadily on against the current. cassion endeavored to be entertaining and i made every effort to encourage him, although my secret thoughts were not pleasant ones. where was all this to lead? where was to be the end? there was an expression in the man's face, a glow in his eyes, which troubled me. already some instinct told me that his carelessness was a thing of the past. he was in earnest now, his vague desire stimulated by my antagonism. he had set out to overcome my scruples, to conquer my will, and was merely biding his time, seeking to learn the best point of attack. it was with this end in view that he kept me to himself, banishing chevet, and compelling de artigny to remain well in advance. he was testing me now by his tales of quebec, his boasting of friendship with the governor, his stories of army adventure, and the wealth he expected to amass through his official connections. yet the very tone he assumed, the conceit shown in his narratives, only served to add to my dislike. this creature was my husband, yet i shrank from him, and once, when he dared to touch my hand, i drew it away as though it were contamination. it was then that hot anger leaped into his eyes, and his true nature found expression before he could restrain the words: "_mon dieu!_ what do you mean, you chit?" "only that i am not won by a few soft words, monsieur," i answered coldly. "but you are my wife; 'twill be well for you to remember that." "nor am i likely to forget, yet because a priest has mumbled words over us does not make me love you." "_sacre!_" he burst forth, yet careful to keep his voice pitched to my ears alone, "you think me a plaything, but you shall learn yet that i have claws. bah! do you imagine i fear the coxcomb ahead?" "to whom do you refer, monsieur?" "such innocence! to that boot-licker of la salle's to whom you give your smiles, and pretty words." "rene de artigny!" i exclaimed pleasantly, and then laughed. "why how ridiculous you are, monsieur. better be jealous of père allouez yonder, for of him i see far the most. why do you pick out de artigny on whom to vent your anger?" "i like not the way he eyes you, nor your secret meetings with him in quebec." "if he even sees me i know it not, and as for secret meetings, knew you not that sister celeste was with me while we talked." "not in the governor's palace." "you accuse me of that then," indignantly. "because i am your wife, you can insult, yet it was your hand that drew aside the curtain, and found me alone. do you hope to gain my respect by such base charges as that, monsieur?" "do you deny that he had been with you?" "i? do i deny! it is not worthy my while. why should i? we were not married then, nor like to be to my knowledge. why, then, if i wished, was it not my privilege to speak with the sieur de artigny? i have found him a very pleasant, and polite young man." "a pauper, his only fortune the sword at his side." "ah, i knew not even that he possessed one. yet of what interest can all this be to me, monsieur, now that i am married to you?" that my words brought him no comfort was plain enough to be seen, yet i doubt if it ever occurred to his mind that i simply made sport, and sought to anger him. it was on his mind to say more, yet he choked the words back, and sat there in moody silence, scarce glancing at me again during the long afternoon. but when we finally made landing for the night, it was plain to be seen that his vigilance was in no wise relaxed, for, although he avoided me himself, the watchful jesuit was ever at my side, no doubt in obedience to his orders. this second camp, as i recall, was on the shore of lake st. peter, in a noble grove, the broad stretch of waters before us silvered by the sinking sun. my tent was pitched on a high knoll, and the scene outspread beneath was one of marvelous beauty. even the austere père was moved to admiration, as he pointed here and there, and conversed with me in his soft voice. cassion kept to the men along the bank below, while chevet lay motionless beside a fire, smoking steadily. i had no glimpse of de artigny, although my eyes sought him among the others. the chief, altudah, glided out from among the trees as it grew dusk, made some report, and as quickly disappeared again, leaving me to believe the advance party had made camp beyond the curve of the shore. the priest lingered, and we had our meal together, although it was not altogether to my liking. once he endeavored to talk with me on the sacredness of marriage, the duty of a wife's obedience to her husband, the stock phrases rolling glibly from his tongue, but my answers gave him small comfort. that he had been so instructed by cassion was in my mind, and he was sufficiently adroit to avoid antagonizing me by pressing the matter. as we were eating, a party of fur traders, bound east, came ashore in a small fleet of canoes, and joined the men below, building their fires slightly up stream. at last père allouez left me alone, and descended to them, eager to learn the news from montreal. yet, although seemingly i was now left alone, i had no thought of adventuring in the darkness, as i felt convinced the watchful priest would never have deserted my side had he not known that other eyes were keeping vigil. from that moment i never felt myself alone or unobserved. cassion in person did not make himself obnoxious, except that i was always seated beside him in the boat, subject to his conversation, and attentions. ever i had the feeling the man was testing me, and venturing how far he dared to go. not for a moment did i dare to lower my guard in his presence, and this constant strain of watchfulness left me nervous, and bitter of speech. in every respect i was a prisoner, and made to realize my helplessness. i know not what cassion suspected, what scraps of information he may have gained from chevet, but he watched me like a hawk. never, i am sure, was i free of surveillance--in the boat under his own eye; ashore accompanied everywhere by père allouez, except as i slept, and then even some unknown sentry kept watch of the tent in which i rested. however it was managed i know not, but my uncle never approached me alone, and only twice did i gain glimpse of sieur de artigny--once, when his canoe returned to warn us of dangerous water ahead, and once when he awaited us beside the landing at montreal. yet even these occasions yielded me new courage, for, as our eyes met i knew he was still my friend, waiting, as i was, the opportunity for a better understanding. this knowledge brought tears of gratitude to my eyes, and a thrill of hope to my heart. i was no longer utterly alone. we were three days at montreal, the men busily engaged in adding to their store of provisions. i had scarcely a glimpse of the town, as i was given lodging in the convent close to the river bank, and the _père_ was my constant companion during hours of daylight. i doubt if he enjoyed the task any more than i, but he proved faithful to his master, and i could never venture to move without his black robe at my side. nor did i seek to avoid him, for my mind grasped the fact already that my only hope of final liberty lay in causing cassion to believe i had quietly yielded to fate. surely as we plunged deeper into the wilderness his suspicions would vanish, and his grim surveillance relax. i must patiently abide my time. so i sat with the sisters within the dull, gray walls, seemingly unconscious of the _père's_ eyes stealthily watching my every motion, as he pretended other employment. cassion came twice, more to assure himself that i was safely held than for any other purpose, yet it pleased me to see his eyes follow my movements, and to realize the man had deeper interest in me than formerly. chevet, no doubt, spent his time in the wine shops; at least i never either saw, or heard of him. indeed i asked nothing as to his whereabouts, as i had decided already his assistance would be of no value. we departed at dawn, and the sun was scarce an hour high when the prows of our canoes turned into the ottawa. now we were indeed in the wilderness, fronting the vast unknown country of the west, with every league of travel leaving behind all trace of civilization. there was nothing before us save a few scattered missions, presided over by ragged priests, and an occasional fur trader's station, the headquarters of wandering _couriers du bois_. on every side were the vast prairies, and stormy lakes, roamed over by savage men and beasts through whom we must make our way in hardship, danger, and toil. cassion spread out his rude map in the bottom of the canoe, and i had him point out the route we were to follow. it was a long, weary way he indicated, and, for the moment, my heart almost failed me, as we traced together the distance outlined, and pictured in imagination the many obstacles between us and our goal. had i known the truth, all those leagues were destined to disclose of hardship and peril, i doubt my courage to have fronted them. but i did not know, nor could i perceive a way of escape. so i crushed back the tears dimming my eyes, smiled into his face, as he rolled up the map, and pretended to care not at all. when night came we were in the black woods, the silence about us almost unearthly, broken only by the dash of water over the rocks below where we were camped, promising a difficult portage on the morrow. alone, oppressed by the silence, feeling my helplessness as perhaps i never had before, and the dread loneliness of the vast wilderness in which i lay, i tossed on my bed for hours, ere sheer exhaustion conquered, and i slept. chapter xi i gain speech with de artigny our progress up the ottawa was so slow, so toilsome, the days such a routine of labor and hardship, the scenes along the shore so similar, that i lost all conception of time. except for the jesuit i had scarcely a companion, and there were days, i am sure, when we did not so much as exchange a word. the men had no rest from labor, even cassion changing from boat to boat as necessity arose, urging them to renewed efforts. the water was low, the rapids more than usually dangerous, so that we were compelled to portage more often than usual. once the leading canoe ventured to shoot a rapid not considered perilous, and had a great hole torn in its prow by a sharp rock. the men got ashore, saving the wreck, but lost their store of provisions, and we were a day there making the damaged canoe again serviceable. this delay gave me my only glimpse of de artigny, still dripping from his involuntary bath, and so busily engaged at repairs, as to be scarcely conscious of my presence on the bank above him. yet i can hardly say that, for once he glanced up, and our eyes met, and possibly he would have joined me, but for the sudden appearance of cassion, who swore at the delay, and ordered me back to where the tent had been hastily erected. i noticed de artigny straighten up, angered that cassion dared speak to me so harshly, but i had no wish then to precipitate an open quarrel between the two men, and so departed quickly. later, father allouez told me that in the overturning of the canoe the young sieur had saved the life of the algonquin chief, bringing him ashore unconscious, helpless from a broken shoulder. this accident to altudah led to the transferring of the injured indian to our canoe, and caused cassion to join de artigny in advance. this change relieved me of the constant presence of the commissaire, who wearied me with his ceaseless efforts to entertain, but rendered more difficult than ever my desire to speak privately with the younger man. the _père_ evidently had commands to keep me ever in view, for he clung to me like a shadow, and scarcely for a moment did i feel myself alone, or unwatched. it was five days later, and in the heart of all that was desolate and drear, when this long sought opportunity came in most unexpected fashion. we had made camp early, because of rough water ahead, the passage of which it was not deemed best to attempt without careful exploration. so, while the three heavily laden canoes drew up against the bank, and prepared to spend the night, the leading canoe was stripped, and sent forward, manned only with the most expert of the indian paddlers to make sure the perils of the current. from the low bank to which i had climbed i watched the preparations for the dash through those madly churning waters above. cassion was issuing his orders loudly, but exhibited no inclination to accompany the party, and suddenly the frail craft shot out from the shore, with de artigny at the steering paddle, and every indian braced for his task, and headed boldly into the smother. they vanished as though swallowed by the mist, cassion, and a half dozen soldiers racing along the shore line in an effort to keep abreast of the laboring craft. it was a wild, desolate spot in which we were, a mere rift in the bluffs, which seemed to overhang us, covered with a heavy growth of forest. the sun was still an hour high, although it was twilight already beside the river, when cassion, and his men came straggling back, to report that the canoe had made safe passage, and, taking advantage of his good humor, i proposed a climb up an opening of the bluff, down which led a deer trail plainly discernible. "not i," he said, casting a glance upward. "the run over the rocks will do me for exercise tonight." "then will i assay it alone," i replied, not displeased at his refusal. "i am cramped from sitting in the canoe so long." "'twill be a hard climb, and they tell me the _père_ has strained a tendon of his leg coming ashore." "and what of that!" i burst forth, giving vent to my indignation. "am i a ten-year-old to be guarded every step i take? 'tis not far to the summit, and no danger. you can see yourself the trail is not steep. faith! i will go now, just to show that i am at liberty." he laughed, an unpleasant sound to it, yet made no effort to halt me. 'tis probable he felt safe enough with de artigny camped above the rapids, and he had learned already that my temper might become dangerous. yet he stood and watched while i was half-way up before turning away, satisfied no doubt that i would make it safely. it was like a draught of wine to me to be alone again; i cannot describe the sense of freedom, and relief i felt when a spur of the cliff shut out all view of the scene below. the rude path i followed was narrow, but not steep enough to prove wearisome, and, as it led up through a crevice in the earth, finally emerged at the top of the bluff at a considerable distance above the camp i had left. thick woods covered the crest, although there were open plains beyond, and i was obliged to advance to the very edge in order to gain glimpse of the river. once there, however, with footing secure on a flat rock, the scene outspread was one of wild and fascinating beauty. directly below me were the rapids, rock strewn, the white spray leaping high in air, the swift, green water swirling past in tremendous volume. it scarcely seemed as though boats could live in that smother, or find passage between those jutting rocks, yet as i gazed more closely, i could trace the channel close in against the opposite shore, and note where the swift current bore back across the river. leaning far out, grasping a branch to keep from falling, i distinguished the canoe at the upper landing, and the indians busily preparing camp. at first i saw nothing of any white man, but was gazing still when de artigny emerged from some shadow, and stepped down beside the boat. i know not what instinct prompted him to turn and look up intently at the bluff towering above. i scarcely comprehended either what swift impulse led me to undo the neckerchief at my throat, and hold it forth in signal. an instant he stared upward, shading his eyes with one hand. i must have seemed a vision clinging there against the sky, yet all at once the truth burst upon him, and, with a wave of the arm, he sprang up the low bank, and joined his indians. i could not hear what he said, but with a single word he left them, and disappeared among the trees at the foot of the bluff. i drew back, almost frightened, half inclined to flee before he could attain the summit. what could i say? how could i meet him? what if cassion had followed me up the path, or had despatched one of his men to spy upon my movements? ever since leaving quebec my one hope had been this interview with de artigny, yet now that it was imminent i shrank from it, in actual confusion, my heart fluttering, my mind blank, yet i was not a coward, and did not run, but waited, feeling my limbs tremble under me, and listening for the first sound of his approach. he must have scrambled straight up the steep face of the bluff, for it could have been scarcely more than a minute, when i heard him crunching a passage through the bushes, and then saw him emerge above the edge. clinging to a tree limb, his eyes sought eagerly to locate me, and when i stepped forward, he sprang erect, and bowed, jerking his hat from his head. there was about his action the enthusiasm of a boy, and his face glowed with an eagerness and delight which instantly broke down every barrier between us. "you waved to me?" he exclaimed. "you wished me to come?" "yes," i confessed, swept from my guard by his enthusiasm. "i have been anxious to confer with you, and this is my first opportunity." "why i thought you avoided me," he burst forth. "it is because i felt so that i have kept away." "there was nothing else i could do but pretend," i exclaimed, gaining control over my voice as i spoke. "my every movement has been watched since we left quebec; this is the first moment i have been left alone--if, indeed, i am now." and i glanced about doubtfully into the shadows of the forest. "you imagine you may have been followed here? by whom? cassion?" "by himself, or some emissary. père allouez has been my jailor, but chances to be disabled at present. the commissaire permitted me to climb here alone, believing you to be safely camped above the rapids, yet his suspicions may easily revive." "his suspicions!" the sieur laughed softly. "so that then is the trouble? it is to keep us apart that he bids me make separate camp each night; and assigns me to every post of peril. i feel the honor, mademoiselle, yet why am i especially singled out for so great a distinction?" "he suspects us of being friends. he knew i conferred with you at the convent, and even believes that you were with me hidden behind the curtain in the governor's office." "yet if all that be true," he questioned, his voice evidencing his surprise. "why should our friendship arouse his antagonism to such an extent? i cannot understand what crime i have committed, mademoiselle. it is all mystery, even why you should be here with us on this long journey? surely you had no such thought when we parted last?" "you do not know what has occurred?" i asked, in astonishment. "no one has told you?" "told me! how? i have scarcely held speech with anyone but the algonquin chief since we took to the water. cassion has but given orders, and chevet is mum as an oyster. i endeavored to find you in montreal, but you were safely locked behind gray walls. that something was wrong i felt convinced, yet what it might be no one would tell me. i tried questioning the _père_, but he only shook his head, and left me unanswered. tell me then, mademoiselle, by what right does this cassion hold you as a captive?" my lips trembled, and my eyes fell, yet i must answer. "he is my husband, monsieur." i caught glimpse of his face, picturing surprise, incredulity. he drew a sharp breath, and i noted his hand close tightly on the hilt of his knife. "your husband! that cur! surely you do not jest?" "would that i did," i exclaimed, losing all control in sudden wave of anger. "no, monsieur, it is true; but listen. i supposed you knew; that you had been told. it is hard for me to explain, yet i must make it all plain for you to understand. i do not love the man, his very presence maddens me, nor has the creature dared as yet to lay hand on my person. see; i carry this," and i drew the pistol from my dress, and held it in my hand. "chevet loaned it me, and cassion knows i would kill him if he ventured insult. yet that serves me little, for my opposition only renders the man more determined. at quebec i was but a plaything, but now he holds me worth the winning." "but why did you marry him, then?" "i am coming to that, monsieur. you overheard what was said in la barre's office about--about my father's property?" "ay! although it was not all clear to me. captain la chesnayne had lost his estates, confiscated by the crown; yet before his death these had been restored to him by the king." "yes, but the report of the restoration had never been made to his rightful heirs. the papers had been held back and concealed, while those in authority planned how to retain possession. cassion was chosen as an instrument, and sought my hand in marriage." de artigny smothered an oath, his eyes darkening with anger. "it was to further this scheme that he induced chevet to announce our engagement, and drive me to consent. once my husband the fortune was securely in his hands--indeed, i need never know its existence; nor would chevet suspicion the trick. yet, as i see it now, la barre had no great faith in the man he had chosen, and thought best to test him first by this journey to st. louis. if he proved himself, then on his return, he was to have the reward of official position and wealth. i was but a pawn in the game, a plaything for their pleasure." my voice broke, and i could scarcely see through the tears in my eyes, but i felt his strong hand close over mine, the warm pressure an unspoken pledge. "the dogs! and then what happened?" "you know, already. i was discovered behind the curtain, when you escaped through the open window. they were not certain i was not alone there, as i claimed, but compelled me to confess what i had overheard. la barre was quick to grasp the danger of discovery, and the only method by which my lips could be closed. by threat he compelled me to marry francois cassion, and accompany him on this journey into the wilderness." "the ceremony was performed by a priest?" "by père le guard, the governor's chaplain." "and hugo chevet, your uncle? did he remain silent? make no protest?" i gave a gesture of despair. "he! never did he even conceive what occurred, until i told him later on the river. even now i doubt if his sluggish brain has grasped the truth. to him the alliance was an honor, an opening to possible wealth in the fur trade through cassion's influence with la barre. he could perceive nothing else except his good luck in thus ridding himself of the care of a poor niece who had been a sorry burden." "but you explained to him?" "i tried to, but only to regret the effort. giant as he is physically, his intellect is that of a big boy. all he can conceive of is revenge--a desire to crush with his hands. he hates cassion, because the man has robbed him of the use of my father's money; but for my position he cares nothing. to his mind the wrong has all been done to him, and i fear he will brood over it until he seeks revenge. if he does he will ruin everything." de artigny stood silent, evidently in thought, endeavoring to grasp the threads of my tale. "how did you attain the summit of this bluff?" he questioned at last. "yonder; there is a deer trail leading down." "and you fear cassion may follow?" "he will likely become suspicious if i am long absent, and either seek me himself, or send one of his men. this is the first moment of freedom i have experienced since we left quebec. i hardly know how to behave myself." "and we must guard it from being the last," he exclaimed, a note of determination, and leadership in his voice. "there are questions i must ask, so that we may work together in harmony, but cassion can never be allowed to suspect that we have communication. let us go forward to the end of the trail where you came up; from there we can keep watch below." he still grasped my hand, and i had no thought of withdrawing it. to me he was a friend, loyal, trustworthy, the one alone to whom i could confide. together we clambered over the rough rocks to where the narrow cleft led downward. chapter xii on the summit of the bluff securely screened from observation by the low growing bushes clinging to the edge of the bluff, and yet with a clear view of the cleft in the rocks half way to the river, de artigny found me a seat on a hummock of grass, but remained standing himself. the sun was sinking low, warning us that our time was short, for with the first coming of twilight i would certainly be sought, if i failed to return to the lower camp. for a moment he did not break the silence, and i glanced up, wondering why he should hesitate. his face was grave, no longer appearing, as was its wont, young and careless, but marked by thought and perplexity. something strong and earnest in the character of the man, brought forth by this emergency, seemed to stamp itself on his features. if i had ever before imagined him to be a mere reckless youth, with that moment such conception vanished, and i knew i was to rely on the experience of a man--a man trained in a rough wilderness school, yet with mind and heart fitted to meet any emergency. the knowledge brought me boldness. "you would question me, monsieur," i asked doubtfully. "it was for that you led me here?" "yes," instantly aroused by my voice, but with eyes still scanning the trail. "and there is no time to waste, if i am to do my part intelligently. you must return below before the sun disappears, or monsieur cassion might suspect you had lost your way. you have sought me for assistance, counsel perhaps, but this state of affairs has so taken me by surprise that i do not think clearly. you have a plan?" "scarcely that, monsieur. i would ascertain the truth, and my only means of doing so is through a confession by francois cassion." "and he is too cold-blooded a villain to ever acknowledge guilt. to my mind the methods of chevet would be most likely to bring result." "but not to mine, monsieur," i interrupted earnestly. "the man is not so cold-blooded as you imagine. arrogant he is, and conceited, deeming himself admired, and envied by all, especially my sex. he has even dared boast to me of his victims. but therein lies his very weakness; i would make him love me." he turned now, and looked searchingly into my face, no glimpse of a smile in the gray eyes. "pardon; i do not understand," he said gravely. "you seek his love?" i felt his manner a rebuke, a questioning of my honesty, and swift indignation brought the answering words to my lips. "and why not pray! must i not defend myself--and what other weapons are at hand? do i owe him kindness; or tender consideration? the man married me as he would buy a slave." "you may be justified," he admitted regretfully. "yet how is this to be done?" i arose to my feet, and stood before him, my face uplifted, and, with one hand, thrust aside the shade of my hat. "monsieur, deem you that impossible?" his lips parted in a quick smile, revealing the white teeth, and he bowed low, flinging his hat to the ground, and standing bareheaded. "_mon dieu_! no! monsieur cassion is to be congratulated. yet it was my thought you said yonder that you despised the man." "i do; what reason have i to feel otherwise? yet there lies my strength in this battle. he laughs at women, plays with them, breaks their hearts. it is his pride and boast, and his success in the past has ministered to his self conceit. he thought me of the same kind, but has already had his lesson. do you not know what that means to a man like him? more than ever he will desire my favor. a week back, he cared nothing; i was but a plaything, awaiting his pleasure; his wife to be treated as he pleased. he knows better now, and already his eyes follow me as though he were my dog." "and that then is why you send for me--that i may play my part in the game?" i shrugged my shoulders, yet there was doubt in my eyes as i faced him. "is there harm in such play, monsieur," i asked innocently, "with so important an end in view? 'tis not that i seek amusement, but i must find out where this king's pardon is hidden, who concealed it, and obtain proof of the fraud which compelled my marriage. my only hope of release lies in compelling francois cassion to confess all he knows of this foul conspiracy. i must possess the facts before we return to quebec." "but of what use?" he insisted. "you will still remain his wife, and your property will be in his control. the church will hold you to the marriage contract." "not if i can establish the truth that i was deceived, defrauded, and married by force. once i have the proofs in my hands, i will appeal to louis--to the pope for relief. these men thought me a helpless girl, friendless and alone, ignorant of law, a mere waif of the frontier. perhaps i was, but this experience has made of me a woman. in montreal i talked with the mother superior, and she told me of a marriage in france where the _père_ officiated under threat, and the pope dissolved the ties. if it can be done for others, it shall be done for me. i will not remain the wife of francois cassion." "yet you would make him love you?" "in punishment for his sins; in payment for those he has ruined. ay! 'tis a duty i shall not shrink from, monsieur de artigny, even although you may deem it unwomanly. i do not mean it so, nor hold myself immodest for the effort. why should i? i but war against him with his own weapons, and my cause is just. and i shall win, whether or not you give me your aid. how can i fail, monsieur? i am young, and not ill to look upon; this you have already confessed; here in this wilderness i am alone, the only woman. he holds me his wife by law, and yet knows he must still win me. there are months of loneliness before us, and he will not look upon the face of another white woman in all those leagues. are there any french of my sex at fort st. louis?" "no." "nor at st. ignace, père allouez assures me. i shall have no rival then in all this wilderness; you think me harmless, monsieur? look at me, and say!" "i do not need to look; you will have your game, i have no doubt, although the final result may not prove what you desire." "you fear the end?" "it may be so; you play with fire, and although i know little of women, yet i have felt the wild passions of men in lands where there is no restraint of law. the wilderness sees many tragedies--fierce, bitter, revengeful deeds--and 'tis best you use care. 'tis my belief this francois cassion might prove a devil, once his heart was tricked. have you thought of this?" i had thought of it, but with no mercy in my heart, yet as de artigny spoke i felt the ugliness of my threat more acutely, and, for an instant, stood before him white-lipped, and ashamed. then before me arose cassion's face, sarcastic, supercilious, hateful, and i laughed in scorn of the warning. "thought of it!" i exclaimed, "yes, but for that i care nothing. why should i, monsieur? has the man shown mercy to me, that i should feel regret because he suffers? as to his revenge, death is not more to be dreaded than a lifetime passed in his presence. but why do you make plea on his behalf--the man is surely no friend of yours?" "i make no plea for him," he answered, strangely sober, "and claim no friendship. any enemy to la salle is an enemy to rene de artigny; but i would front him as a man should. it is not my nature to do a deed of treachery." "you hold this treachery?" "what else? you propose luring him to love you, that you may gain confession from his lips. to attain this end you barter your honesty, your womanhood; you take advantage of your beauty to enslave him; you count as ally the loneliness of the wilderness; ay! and, if i understand aright, you hope through me to awaken the man's jealousy. is this not true?" i drew a quick breath, my eyes staring into his face, and my limbs trembling. his words cut me like a knife, yet i would not yield, would not even acknowledge their truth. "you are unjust, unfair," i burst forth impetuously. "you will see but the one side--that of the man. i cannot fight this battle with my hands, nor will i submit to such wrong without struggle. he has never thought to spare me, and there is no reason why i should show him mercy. i wish your good will, monsieur, your respect, but i cannot hold this plan which i propose as evil. do you?" he hesitated, looking at me with such perplexity in his eyes as to prove his doubt. "i cannot judge you," he admitted at last, "only that is not the way in which i have been trained. neither will i stand between you and your revenge, nor have part in it. i am your friend--now, always. in every honorable way i will serve you, and your cause. if cassion dares violence, or insult he must reckon with me, though i faced his whole company. i pledge you this, but i will not play a part, or act a lie even at your request." "you mean you will not pretend to care for me?" i asked, my heart leaden at his words. "there would be no pretense," he answered frankly. "i do care for you, but i will not dishonor my thought of you by thus deliberately scheming to outwit your husband. i am a man of the woods, the wilderness; not since i was a boy have i dwelt in civilization, but in all that time i have been companion of men to whom honor was everything. i have been comrade with sieur de la salle, with henri de tonty, and cannot be guilty of an act of treachery even for your sake. perchance my code is not the same as the perfumed gallants of quebec--yet it is mine, and learned in a hard school." he went on quietly, "there are two things i cannot ignore--one is, that i am an employee of this francois cassion, pledged to his service by my own free will; the other is, that you are his wife, joined to him by holy church, and although you may have assumed those vows under coercion, your promise is binding. i can but choose my path of duty, and abide therein." his words hurt, angered me; i lacked power of expression, ability to grasp his full meaning and purpose. "you--you desert me then? you--you leave me to this fate?" "i leave you to reconsider your choice of action," he returned gravely, his hat still in hand, his lips unsmiling. "i do believe your womanhood will find a better way to achieve its liberty, but what that way is i must trust you to discover. i am your friend, adele, always--you will believe that?" i did not answer; i could not, because of the choking in my throat, yet i let him grasp my hand. once i raised my eyes to his, but lowered them instantly in strange confusion. here was a man i did not understand, whose real motives i could not fathom. his protest had not yet penetrated my soul, and i felt toward him, an odd mixture of respect and anger. he released my hand, and turned away, and i stood motionless as he crossed the open space between the trees. at the edge of the bluff he paused and glanced about, lifting his hat in gesture of farewell. i do not think i moved, or made response, and an instant later he was gone. i know not how long i stood there staring into vacancy, haunted by regret, tortured by fear and humiliation. slowly all else crystallized into indignation, with a fierce resolve to fight on alone. the sun sank, and all about me clung the purple twilight, yet i did not move. he had been unjust, unfair; his simple code of the woods could not be made to apply to such a situation as this of mine. i had a right to use the weapons of womanhood in my own defense. ay! and i would; and whether voluntary, or not this spotless knight of the wilderness should be my ally. let him pretend to high virtue, yet surely under that outer armor of resolve there beat the heart of a man. he meant all he said; he was honest in it; not once did i doubt that, yet his apparent indifference, his seeming willingness to leave me to fate, and cassion, was all assumed. that one glimpse i had into his eyes told me this in a sudden revelation stronger than any words. i smiled at the recollection, the sense of power reawakening in my heart. he did care--no less than i cared, and this knowledge gave me the weapon i needed, and the courage to use it. i heard no sound of warning, yet as i turned to retrace my way to the camp below, i became suddenly aware of the presence of cassion. chapter xiii we reach the lake he was between me and the deer trail, and enough of daylight yet remained to enable me to perceive the man clearly. how long he may have been there observing me i could not know, but when i first saw him he was bent forward, apparently deeply interested in some sudden discovery upon the ground at his feet. "you thought me long in returning, monsieur?" i asked carelessly, and taking a step toward him. "it was cooler up here, and the view from the bluff yonder beautiful. you may gain some conception of it still, if you care." he lifted his head with a jerk, and stared into my face. "ay! no doubt," he said harshly, "yet i hardly think it was the view which held you here so long. whose boot print is this, madame? not yours, surely." i glanced where he pointed, my heart leaping, yet not altogether with regret. the young sieur had left his trail behind, and it would serve me whether by his will or no. "certainly not mine," and i laughed. "i trust, monsieur, your powers of observation are better than that--'tis hardly a compliment." "nor is this time for any lightness of speech, my lady," he retorted, his anger fanned by my indifference. "whose is it then, i ask you? what man has been your companion here?" "you jump at conclusions, monsieur," i returned coldly. "the stray imprint of a man's boot on the turf is scarcely evidence that i have had a companion. kindly stand aside, and permit me to descend." "_mon dieu_! i will not!" and he blocked my passage. "i have stood enough of your tantrums already in the boat. now we are alone, and i will have my say. you shall remain here until i learn the truth." his rage rather amused me, and i felt not the slightest emotion of fear, although there was threat in his words, and in the gesture accompanying them. i do not think the smile even deserted my lips, as i sought a comfortable seat on a fallen tree trunk, fully conscious that nothing would so infuriate the man as studied indifference. "very well, monsieur, i await your investigation with pleasure," i said sweetly. "no doubt it will prove interesting. you honor me with the suspicion that i had an appointment here with one of your men?" "no matter what i suspicion." "of course not; you treat me with marked consideration. perchance others have camped here, and explored these bluffs." "the print is fresh, not ancient, and none of the men from my camp have come this way." he strode forward, across the narrow open space, and disappeared into the fringe of trees bordering the edge of the bluff. it would have been easy for me to depart, to escape to the security of the tent below, but curiosity held me motionless. i knew what he would discover, and preferred to face the consequences where i was free to answer him face to face. i wished him to be suspicious, to feel that he had a rival; i would fan his jealousy to the very danger point. nor had i long to wait. forth from the shade of the trees he burst, and came toward me, his face white, his eyes blazing. "tis the fellow i thought," he burst forth, "and he went down the face of the bluff yonder. so you dared to have tryst with him?" "with whom, monsieur?" "de artigny, the young fool! do you think me blind? did i not know you were together in quebec? what are you laughing at?" "i was not laughing, monsieur. your ridiculous charge does not amuse me. i am a woman; you insult me; i am your wife; you charge me with indiscretion. if you think to win me with such cowardly insinuations you know little of my nature. i will not talk with you, nor discuss the matter. i return to the camp." his hands clinched as though he had the throat of an enemy between them, but angry as he was, some vague doubt restrained him. "_mon dieu_! i'll fight the dog!" "de artigny, you mean? tis his trade, i hear, and he is good at it." "bah! a bungler of the woods. i doubt if he ever crossed blades with a swordsman. but mark you this, madame, the lad feels my steel if ever you so much as speak to him again." there was contempt in my eyes, nor did i strive to disguise it. "am i your wife, monsieur, or your slave?" "my wife, and i know how to hold you! _mon dieu_! but you shall learn that lesson. i was a fool to ever give the brat place in the boats. la barre warned me that he would make trouble. now i tell you what will occur if you play false with me." "you may spare your threats--they weigh nothing. the sieur de artigny is my friend, and i shall address him when it pleases me. with whatever quarrel may arise between you i have no interest. let that suffice, and now i bid you good night, monsieur." he made no effort to halt me, nor to follow, and i made my way down the darkening path, without so much as turning my head to observe his movements. it was almost like a play to me, and i was reckless of the consequences, intent only on my purpose. i was awake a long time, lying alone on my blankets within the silent tent, and staring out at the darkness. i saw cassion descend the deer path, perhaps an hour after i left him, and go on to the main camp below. he made no pause as he passed, yet walked slowly as though in thought. where he went i could not determine in the gloom, yet was convinced he had no purpose then of seeking de artigny or of putting his threat into immediate action. in all probability he believed that his words would render me cautious, in spite of my defiant response, and that i would avoid creating trouble by keeping away from the younger man. he was no brawler, except as he felt safe, and this young frontiersman was hardly the antagonist he would choose. it would be more apt to be a blow in the dark, or an overturned canoe. i cannot recall now that i experienced any regret for what had occurred. perhaps i might if i had known the end, yet i felt perfectly justified in all my actions. i had done no conscious wrong, and was only seeking that which was mine by every standard of justice. i knew i despised cassion, while my feeling's toward de artigny were so confused, and indefinite as to be a continual puzzle. i knew nothing of what love was--i was merely aware that the man interested me, and that i felt confidence in him. i recalled his words, the expression of his face, and felt the sharp sting of his rebuke, yet all was strangely softened by the message i had read in his eyes. he had not approved of my course, yet in his heart had not blamed; he would not lend himself to my purpose, yet remained no less loyal to me. i could ask no more. indeed, i had no wish to precipitate an open quarrel between the two men. however it ended, such an occurrence would serve me ill, and all that my plan contemplated was that they should distrust each other, and thus permit me to play the one against the other, until i won my game. i felt no fear of the result, no doubt of my ability to manipulate the strings adroitly enough to achieve the end sought. the one point i ignored was the primitive passions of men. these were beyond my control; were already beyond, although i knew it not. fires were smouldering in hearts which out yonder in the dark woods would burst into flame of destruction. innocent as my purpose was, it had in it the germs of tragedy; but i was then too young, too inexperienced to know. nor had i reason to anticipate the result of my simple ruse, or occasion to note any serious change in my surroundings. the routine of our journey gave me no hint of the hidden passions seething below the outward appearance of things. in the early dawn we broke camp as usual, except that chosen boatmen guided the emptied canoes through the rapids, while the others of the party made portage along the rough shore. in the smooth water above we all embarked again, and won slow way against the current. the advance company had departed before our arrival, nor did i again obtain glimpse of de artigny for many days. i would not say that cassion purposely kept us apart, for the arrangement might have been the same had i not been of the party, yet the only communication between the two divisions occurred when some messenger brought back warning of dangerous water ahead. usually this messenger was an indian, but once de artigny himself came, and guided our canoes through a torrent of white, raging water, amid a maze of murderous rocks. during these days and weeks cassion treated me with consideration and outward respect. not that he failed to talk freely, and to boast of his exploits and adventures, yet he refrained from laying hand on me, nor did he once refer to the incident of the bluff. i knew not what to make of the man in this new rôle of gallant, yet suspicioned that he but bided his time, and a better opportunity for exhibiting his true purpose. there were times, when he thought i was not observing him, when the expression of his eyes brought me uneasiness, and i was soon aware that, in spite of his genial manner, and friendly expression, his surveillance was in no degree relaxed. not for a moment was i alone. when he was not beside me in the canoe, père allouez became my companion, and at night a guard kept vigilant eye upon my tent. twice i ventured to test this fact, only to be halted, and turned back within three yards of the entrance. very polite the soldier was, with explanation of danger from prowling beasts, and the strictness of his order. at first such restraint angered me, but on second thought i did not greatly care, humiliating though it was; yet the protection thus afforded was not altogether unwelcome, and was in itself evidence of cassion's determination to conquer me. nor was the journey lacking in interest or adventure. never shall i forget the charm of those days and nights, amid which we made slow and toilsome passage through the desolate wilderness, ever gaining new leagues to the westward. only twice in weeks did we encounter human beings--once a camp of indians on the shore of a lake, and once a capuchin monk, alone but for a single _voyageur_, as companion, passed us upon the river. he would have paused to exchange words, but at sight of père allouez's black robe, he gave swift command to his _engagé_, and the two disappeared as though fleeing from the devil. but what visions of beauty, and sublimity, were those that swept constantly past us as we thus advanced into the wild depths of the woods. no two views were ever alike, and every curve in the river bank brought a fresh vista. i never tired of the vast, silent forests that seemed to shut us in, nor of the dancing silver of the swift water under our keel, nor of the great rocky bluffs under whose grim shadows we found passage. to me the hardships even were enjoyable: the clambering over rough portages, the occasional mishap, the coarse fare, the nights i was compelled to pass in the canoe, these only served to give added zest to the great adventure, to make real the unusual experiences i was passing through. i was scarce more than a girl, young, strong, little accustomed to luxury, and my heart responded to the exhilaration of constant change, and the thrill of peril. and when, at last, we made the long portage, tramping through the dark forest aisles, bearing on our shoulders heavy loads, scarcely able to see the sun even at midday through the leafy screen of leaves, and came forth at twilight on the shores of the mighty lake, no words can express the raptures with which i stood and gazed across that expanse of heaving, restless water. the men launched their canoes upon the surface, and made camp in the edge of the forest, but i could not move, could not restrain my eyes, until darkness descended and left all before me a void. never had i gazed upon so vast a spectacle, so somber in the dull gray light, stretching afar to the horizon, its wild, desolate silence adding to its awful majesty. even when darkness enshrouded it all, the memory haunted me, and i could but think and dream, frightened and awed in presence of that stupendous waste of waters. the soldiers sang about their fires, and cassion sought me with what he meant to be courteous words, but i was in no spirit to be amused. for hours i lay alone, listening to the dull roar of waves along the shore, and the wind in the trees. de artigny, and his party, camped just beyond us, across the mouth of a narrow stream, but i saw nothing of him, nor do i believe i gave his presence a thought. it was scarcely more than daybreak when we broke camp, and headed our canoes out into the lake. with the dawn, and the glint of sunlight over the waters, much of my dread departed, and i could appreciate the wild song of delight with which our indian paddlers bent to their work. the sharp-prowed canoes swept through the waters swiftly, no longer battling against a current, and the shore line ever in view was fascinating in its green foliage. we kept close to the northern shore, and soon found passage amid numerous islands, forest covered, but with high, rocky outlines. of life there was no sign, and the silence of the vast primeval wilderness surrounding us rested heavily upon me. whether this same sense of loneliness and awe affected the others i cannot say--yet the savage song died away, and the soldiers sat motionless, while the indians plied their paddles noiselessly. cassion even restrained his garrulous tongue, and when i glanced at him in some surprise, he was intent on the shores of a passing island, forgetful of my presence. for four days we coasted thus, never out of sight of shore, and usually with islands between us and the main body of water. in all that time we had no sign of man--not even a wisp of smoke, nor heard the crack of distant rifle. about us extended loneliness and desolation, great waters never still, vast forests grim and somber, tall, menacing rocks, bright-colored in the sun. once it rained, drenching us to the skin, and driving us to shelter in an island cove. once a sudden storm swept the lake, and we barely made land in time to save us from wreck, chevet's canoe smashing an ugly hole in its bow, and a soldier dislocating his shoulder in the struggle. the accident held us for some hours, and later, when once more afloat, retarded progress. this misfortune served also to restore monsieur cassion to his natural ill temper, and led to a quarrel between himself and chevet which might have ended seriously had i not intervened. the incident, however, left the commissaire in ugly mood, and caused him to play the bully over his men. to me he was sullen, after an attempt at insolence, and sat glowering across the water, meditating revenge. at last we left the chain of islands behind, and one morning struck out from the shore into the waste of waters, the prows of the canoes turned westward, the steersman guiding our course by the sun. for several hours we were beyond view of land, with naught to rest the eye upon save the gray sea, and then, when it was nearly night, we reached the shore, and beached our canoes at st. ignace. chapter xiv at st. ignace so much had been said of st. ignace, and so long had the name been familiar throughout new france, that my first view of the place brought me bitter disappointment. the faces of the others in our party pictured the same disillusion. hugo chevet had been in these parts before on fur-trading expeditions, and 'twas probable that de artigny had stopped there on one of his voyages with la salle. but to all the others the place had been merely a name, and our imagination had invested it with an importance scarcely justified by what we saw as our canoes drew in toward the beach. the miserable little village was upon a point of land, originally covered with heavy growth of forest. a bit of this had been rudely cut, the rotting stumps still standing, and from the timber a dozen rough log houses had been constructed facing the lake. a few rods back, on slightly higher land, was a log chapel, and a house, somewhat more pretentious than the others, in which the priests lodged. the whole aspect of the place was peculiarly desolate and depressing, facing that vast waste of water, the black forest shadows behind, and those rotting stumps in the foreground. nor was our welcome one to make the heart rejoice. scarce a dozen persons gathered at the beach to aid us in making landing, rough _engagés_ mostly, and not among them all a face familiar. it was only later, when two priests from the mission came hurrying forward, that we were greeted by cordial speech. these invited a few of us to become guests at the mission house, and assigned the remainder of our party to vacant huts. cassion, chevet, and père allouez accompanied me as i walked beside a young priest up the beaten path, but de artigny was left behind with the men. i overheard cassion order him to remain, but he added some word in lower voice, which brought a flush of anger into the younger man's face, although he merely turned on his heel without reply. the young jesuit beside me--a pale-faced, delicate appearing man, almost emaciated in his long black robe--scarcely breathed a word as we climbed the rather steep ascent, but at the door of the mission house paused gravely, and directed our attention to the scene unrolled behind. it was indeed a vista of surpassing beauty, for from this point we could perceive the distant curve of the shore, shadowed by dark forests, while the lake itself, silvered by the setting sun stretched afar to the horizon, unbroken in its immensity except for an island lifting its rock front leagues away. so greatly was i impressed with the view, that after we had been shown into the bare room of the mission, where scarcely a comfort was to be seen, i crossed to the one window, and stood there staring out, watching the light fade across those leagues of water, until the purple twilight descended like a veil of mist. yet i heard the questions and answers, and learned that nearly all the inhabitants were away on various expeditions into the wilderness, none remaining except the two priests in charge of the mission, and the few _engagés_ necessary for their work. only a few days before five priests had departed to establish a mission at green bay, and visit the indian villages beyond. the young jesuit spoke freely when once convinced that our party journeyed to the illinois country, and was antagonistic to la salle, who had shown small liking for his order. the presence of père allouez overcame his first suspicion at recognition of de artigny, and he gave free vent to his dislike of the recollets, and the policy of those adventurous frenchmen who had dared oppose the jesuits. he produced a newly drawn map of the great lake we were to traverse, and the men studied it anxiously while the two priests and the _engagé_ prepared a simple meal. for the moment i was forgotten, and left alone on a rude bench beside the great fireplace, to listen to their discussion, and think my own thoughts. we remained at st. ignace three days, busily engaged in repairing our canoes, and rendering them fit for the long voyage yet before us. from this point we were to venture on treacherous waters, as yet scarcely explored, the shores inhabited by savage, unknown tribes, with not a white man in all the long distance from green bay to the chicago portage. once i got out the map, and traced the distance, feeling sick at heart as i thus realized more clearly the weary journey. those were dull, lonely days i passed in the desolate mission house, while the others were busy at their various tasks. only at night time, or as they straggled in, to their meals, did i see anyone but père allouez, who was always close at hand, a silent shadow from whose presence i could not escape. i visited the priest's garden, climbed the rocks overlooking the water, and even ventured into the dark forest, but he was ever beside me, suave but insistent on doing his master's will. the only glimpse i had of de artigny was at a distance, for not once did he approach the mission house. so i was glad enough when the canoes were ready, and all preparations made for departure. yet we were not destined to escape thus easily from st. ignace. of what occurred i must write as it happened to me then, and not as its full significance became later clear to my understanding. it was after nightfall when cassion returned to the mission house. the lights were burning on the table, and the three priests were rather impatiently waiting their evening meal, occasionally exchanging brief sentences, or peering out through the open window toward the dark water. as long as daylight lasted this had been my post of observation, while watching the distant figures busily engaged in reloading the canoes for the morrow's journey. they were like so many ants, running across the brown sands, both soldiers and indians stripped to the waist, apparently eager enough to complete their task. occasionally the echo of a song reached my ears, and the distance was not so great but that i could distinguish individuals. cassion sat upon a log directing operations, not even rising to lend a hand, but chevet gave his great strength freely. de artigny was back among the huts, in charge of that end of the line, no doubt, and it was only occasionally i gained glimpse of his presence. an indian canoe came ashore just before sundown, and our men knocked off work to cluster about and examine its cargo of furs. angered by the delay cassion strode in among them, and, with bitter words and a blow or two, drove them back to their task. the loss of time was not great, yet they were still busily engaged when darkness shut out the scene. cassion came in alone, yet i observed nothing strange about his appearance, except that he failed to greet me with the usual attempt at gallantry, although his sharp eyes swept our faces, as he closed the door, and stared about the room. "what! not eaten yet?" he exclaimed. "i anticipated my fate to be a lonely meal, for the rascals worked like snails, and i would not leave them rest until all was finished. faith, the odor is appetizing, and i am hungry as a bear." the younger priest waved his hand to the _engagé_, yet asked softly: "monsieur chevet--he is delayed also?" "he will sup with his men tonight," returned cassion shortly, seating himself on the bench. "the sergeant keeps guard of the canoes, and chevet will be useful with those off duty." the man ate as though nearly famished, his ready tongue unusually silent, and at the conclusion of the meal, appeared so fatigued, that i made early excuse to withdraw so he might rest in comfort, climbing the ladder in one corner to my own bed beneath the eaves. this apartment, whose only advantage was privacy, was no more than a narrow space between the sloping rafters of the roof, unfurnished, but with a small window in the end, closed by a wooden shutter. a partition of axe-hewn planks divided this attic into two compartments, thus composing the priests' sleeping chambers. while i was there they both occupied the one to the south, cassion, chevet, and père allouez resting in the main room below. as i lowered the trap in the floor, shutting out the murmur of voices, i was conscious of no desire to sleep, my mind busily occupied with possibilities of the morrow. i opened the window, and seated myself on the floor, gazing out at the night. below extended the priests' garden, and beyond the dark gloom of forest depths. a quarter moon peeped through cloud rifts, and revealed in spectral light the familiar objects. it was a calm, peaceful scene, yet ghostly in the silvery gleam and silence--the stumps of half-burned trees assuming grotesque forms, and the wind tossing branches as though by some demon hand. yet in my restless mood that outside world called me and i leaned forth to see if it was possible to descend. the way of egress was easy--a mere step to the flat roof of the kitchen, the dovetailed logs of which afforded a ladder to the ground. i had no object in such adventure, but a restless impulse urged me, and, almost before i realized my action, i was upon the ground. avoiding the gleam of light which streamed from the open window of the room below, i crossed the garden, and reached the path leading downward to the shore. from this point i could perceive the wide sweep of water, showing silvery in the dim moonlight, and detect the darker rim of the land. there was fire on the point below the huts, and its red glare afforded glimpses of the canoes--mere blurred outlines--and occasionally the figure of a man, only recognizable as he moved. i was still staring at this dim picture when some noise, other than the wind, startled me, and i drew silently back behind a great stump to avoid discovery. my thought was that someone had left the mission house--cassion perhaps with final orders to those on the beach--but a moment later i realized my mistake, yet only crouched lower in the shadow--a man was advancing from the black concealment of the woods, and crossing the open space. he moved cautiously, yet boldly enough, and his movements were not those of an indian, although the low bushes between us and the house shadow, prevented my distinguishing more than his mere outline. it was only when he lifted his head into the gleam of light, and took hasty survey through the window of the scene within, that i recognized the face of de artigny. he lingered scarcely a moment, evidently satisfied with what he saw, and then drew silently back, hesitating a brief space, as though debating his next movement. i waited breathless, wondering what his purpose could be, half inclined to intercept and question him. was he seeking to serve my cause? to learn the truth of my relationship with cassion? or did he have some other object, some personal feud in which he sought revenge? the first thought sent the warm blood leaping through my veins; the second left me shivering as if with sudden chill. even as i stood, hesitating, uncertain, he turned, and retraced his steps along the same path of his approach, passing me not ten steps away, and vanishing into the wood. i thought he paused at the edge, and bent down, yet before i found voice, or determination to stop him, he had disappeared. my courage returned, spurred by curiosity. why should he take so roundabout a way to reach the shore? what was that black, shapeless thing he had paused to examine? i could see something there, dark and motionless, though to my eyes no more than a shadow. i ventured toward it, creeping behind the bushes bordering the path, conscious of an odd fear as i drew closer. yet it was not until i emerged from the fringe of shrubbery that even the faintest conception of what the object i saw was occurred to me. then i stopped, frozen by horror, for i confronted a dead body. for an instant i could not utter a sound, or move a muscle of my body. my hands clung convulsively to a nearby branch, thus supporting me erect in spite of trembling limbs, and i stared at the grewsome object, black and almost shapeless in the moonlight. only part of the trunk was revealed, the lower portion concealed by bushes, yet i could no longer doubt it was a man's body--a large, heavily built man, his hat still crushed on his head, but with face turned away. what courage overcame my horror, and urged me forward i cannot tell; i seemed impelled by some power not my own, a vague fear of recognition tugging at my heart. i crept nearer, almost inch by inch, trembling at every noise, dreading to discover the truth. at last i could perceive the ghastly features--the dead man was hugo chevet. i scarcely know why this discovery of his identity brought back so suddenly my strength, and courage. but it did; i was no longer afraid, no longer shrank from contact with the corpse. i confess i felt no special sorrow, no deep regret at the fate which had overtaken him. although he was my mother's brother, yet his treatment of me had never been kind, and there remained no memories to touch my heart. still his death was from treachery, murder, and every instinct urged me to learn its cause, and who had been guilty of the crime. i nerved myself to the effort, and turned the body sufficiently to enable me to discover the wound--he had been pierced by a knife from behind; had fallen, no doubt, without uttering a cry, dead ere he struck the ground. then it was murder, foul murder, a blow in the back. why had the deed been done? what spirit of revenge, of hatred, of fear, could have led to such an act? i got again to my feet, staring about through the weird moonlight, every nerve throbbing, as i thought to grip the fact, and find its cause. slowly i drew back, shrinking in growing terror from the corpse, until i was safely in the priest's garden. there i paused irresolute, my dazed, benumbed brain beginning to grasp the situation, and assert itself. chapter xv the murder of chevet who had killed him? what should i do? these were the two questions haunting my mind, and becoming more and more insistent. the light still burned in the mission house, and i could picture the scene within--the three priests reading, or talking softly to each other, and cassion asleep on his bench in the corner, wearied with the day. i could not understand, could not imagine a cause, and yet the assassin must have been de artigny. how else could i account for his presence there in the night, his efforts at concealment, his bending over the dead body, and then hurrying away without sounding an alarm. the evidence against the man seemed conclusive, and yet i would not condemn. there might be other reasons for his silence, for his secret presence, and if i rushed into the house, proclaiming my discovery, and confessing what i had seen, he would be left without defense. perhaps it might be the very purpose of the real murderer to thus cast suspicion on an innocent man, and i would be the instrument. but who else could be the murderer? that it could have been cassion never seriously occurred to me, but i ran over in my mind the rough men of our party--the soldiers, some of them quarrelsome enough, and the indians to whom a treacherous blow was never unnatural. this must have been the way it happened--chevet had made some bitter enemy, for he was ever prodigal of angry word and blow, and the fellow had followed him through the night to strike him down from behind. but why did de artigny fail to sound an alarm when he found the body? why was he hiding about the mission house, and peering in through the window? i sank my face in my hands, so dazed and bewildered as to be incapable of thought--yet i could not, i would not believe him guilty of so foul a crime. it was not possible, nor should he be accused through any testimony from my lips. he could explain, he must explain to me his part in this dreadful affair, but, unless he confessed himself, i would never believe him guilty. there was but one thing for me to do--return silently to my room, and wait. perhaps he had already descended to camp to alarm the men; if not the body would be early discovered in the morning, and a few hours delay could make no difference to hugo chevet. the very decision was a relief, and yet it frightened me. i felt almost like an accomplice, as though i also was guilty of a crime by thus concealing my knowledge, and leaving that body to remain alone there in the dark. yet there was nothing else to do. shrinking, shuddering at every shadow, at every sound, my nerves throbbing with agony, i managed to drag my body up the logs, and in through the window. i was safe there, but there was no banishing from memory what i had seen--what i knew lay yonder in the wood shadow. i sank to the floor, clutching the sill, my eyes staring through the moonlight. once i thought i saw a man's indistinct figure move across an open space, and once i heard voices far away. the priests entered the room opposite mine, and i could distinguish the murmur of their voices through the thin partition. these became silent, and i prayed, with head bowed on the window sill. i could not leave that position, could not withdraw my eyes from the scene without. the moon disappeared, the night darkening; i could no longer perceive the line of forest trees, and sitting thus i fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. i do not know that i was called, yet when i awoke a faint light proclaiming the dawn was in the sky, and sounds of activity reached my ears from the room below. i felt tired and cramped from my unnatural position, but hastened to join the others. the morning meal was already on the table, and we ate as usual, no one mentioning chevet, thus proving the body had not been discovered. i could scarcely choke the food down, anticipating every instant the sounding of an alarm. cassion hurried, excited, no doubt, by the prospect of getting away on our journey, but seemed in excellent humor. pushing back the box on which he sat, he buckled his pistol belt, seized his hat, and strode to the door. "we depart at once," he proclaimed briefly. "so i will leave you, here, to bring the lady." père allouez, still busily engaged, murmured some indistinct reply, and cassion's eyes met mine. "you look pale, and weary this morning," he said. "not fear of the voyage, i hope?" "no, monsieur," i managed to answer quietly. "i slept ill, but shall be better presently--shall i bear my blankets to the boats?" "the _engagé_ will see to that, only let there be as little delay as possible. ah! here comes a messenger from below--what is it, my man?" the fellow, one of the soldiers whose face i did not recall, halted in the open door, gasping for breath, his eyes roving about the room. "he is dead--the big man," he stammered. "he is there by the woods." "the big man--dead!" cassion drew back, as though struck a blow. "what big man? who do you mean?" "the one in the second canoe, monsieur; the one who roared." "chevet? hugo chevet? what has happened to him? come, speak up, or i'll slit your tongue!" the man gulped, gripping the door with one hand, the other pointing outward. "he is there, monsieur, beyond the trail, at the edge of the wood. i saw him with his face turned up--_mon dieu_! so white; i dare not touch him, but there was blood, where a knife had entered his back." all were on their feet, their faces picturing the sudden horror, yet cassion was first to recover his wits, and lead the way without. grasping the soldier's arm, and bidding him show where the body lay, he thrust him through the door. i lingered behind shrinking from being again compelled to view the sight of the dead man, yet unable to keep entirely away. cassion stopped, looking down at the object on the grass, but made no effort to touch it with his hands. the soldier bent, and rolled the body over, and one of the priests felt in the pockets of the jacket, bringing forth a paper or two. cassion took these, gripping them in his fingers, his face appearing gray in the early light. "_mon dieu_! the man has been murdered," he exclaimed, "a dastard blow in the back. look about, and see if you find a knife. had he quarrel with anyone, moulin?" the soldier straightened up. "no, monsieur; i heard of none, though he was often rough and harsh of tongue to the men. ah! now i recall, he had words with sieur de artigny on the beach at dusk. i know not the cause, yet the younger man left him angrily, and passed by where i stood, with his hands clinched." "de artigny, hey!" cassion's voice had a ring of pleasure in it. "ay! he is a hothead. know you where the young cock is now?" "he, with the chief, left an hour ago. was it not your order, monsieur?" cassion made a swift gesture, but what it might signify i could not determine, as his face was turned away. a moment there was silence, as he shaded his eyes, and peered out across the water. "true, so i did," he said at last. "they were to depart before dawn. the villain is yonder--see; well off that farthest point, and 'tis too late to overtake him now. _sacre_! there is naught for us to do, that i see, but to bury hugo chevet, and go our way--the king's business cannot wait." they brought the body into the mission house, and laid it upon the bench. i did not look upon the ghastly face, which the young priest had covered, but i sank to my knees and prayed earnestly for the repose of his soul. for a moment i felt in my heart a tenderness for this rough, hard man who in the past had caused me such suffering. perchance he was not altogether to blame; his had been a rough, hard life, and i had only brought him care and trouble. so there were tears in my eyes as i knelt beside him, although in secret my heart rejoiced that de artigny had gone, and would not be confronted with his victim; for there was no longer doubt in my mind of his guilt, for surely, had the man been innocent, he would have sounded an alarm. it was cassion's hand which aroused me, and i glanced up at his face through the tears clinging to my lashes. "what, crying!" he exclaimed, in apparent surprise. "i never thought the man of such value to you as to cause tears at his death." "he was of my blood," i answered soberly, rising to my feet, "and his murder most foul." "ay! true enough, girl, and we will bring to book the villain who did the deed. yet we cannot remain here to mourn, for i am on the king's service. come, we have lost time already, and the canoes wait." "you would go at once?" i asked, startled at his haste, "without even waiting until he is buried?" "and why not? to wait will cost us a day; nor, so far as i can see, would it be of the slightest value to hugo chevet. the priests here will attend to the ceremony, and this handful of silver will buy him prayers. _pouf_! he is dead, and that is all there is to it; so come along, for i will wait here no longer." the man's actions, his manner, and words were heartless. for an instant i stood in revolt, ready to defy openly, an angry retort on my lips; yet before i found speech, père allouez rested his hand on my shoulder. "'tis best, my child," he said softly. "we can no longer serve the dead by remaining here, and there are long leagues before us. in the boat your prayers will reach the good god just as surely as though you knelt here beside this poor body. 'tis best we go." i permitted him to lead me out through the door, and we followed cassion down the steep path to the shore. the latter seemed to have forgotten all else save our embarkation, and hurried the soldier off on a run to get the boats in the water. the _père_ held to my arm, and i was conscious of his voice continually speaking, although i knew nothing of what he said. i was incapable of thinking, two visions haunting me--the body of hugo chevet outstretched on the bench in the mission house, and rene de artigny far away yonder on the water. why had it happened? what could ever excuse a crime like this? on the beach all was in readiness for departure, and it was evident enough that moulin had already spread the news of chevet's murder among his comrades. cassion, however, permitted the fellows little time for discussion, for at his sharp orders they took their places in the canoes, and pushed off. the priest was obliged to assume chevet's former position, and i would gladly have accompanied him, but cassion suddenly gripped me in his arms, and without so much as a word, waded out through the surf, and put me down in his boat, clambering in himself, and shouting his orders to the paddlers. i think we were all of us glad enough to get away. i know i sat silent, and motionless, just where he placed me, and stared back across the widening water at the desolate, dismal scene. how lonely, and heart-sickening it was, those few log houses against the hill, the blackened stumps littering the hillside, and the gloomy forest beyond. the figures of a few men were visible along the beach, and once i saw a black-robed priest emerge from the door of the mission house, and start down the steep path. the picture slowly faded as we advanced, until finally the last glimpse of the log chapel disappeared in the haze, and we were alone on the mystery of the great lake, gliding along a bare, uninhabited shore. i was aroused by the touch of cassion's hand on my own as it grasped the side of the canoe. "adele," he said, almost tenderly. "why should you be so serious? cannot we be friends?" my eyes met his in surprise. "friends, monsieur! are we not? why do you address me like that?" "because you treat me as though i were a criminal," he said earnestly. "as if i had done you an evil in making you my wife. 'twas not i who hastened the matter, but la barre. 'tis not just to condemn me unheard, yet i have been patient and kind. i thought it might be that you loved another--in truth i imagined that de artigny had cast his spell upon you; yet you surely cannot continue to trust that villain--the murderer of your uncle." "how know you that to be true?" i asked. "because there is no other accounting for it," he explained sternly. "the quarrel last evening, the early departure before dawn--" "at your orders, monsieur." "ay, but the sergeant tells me the fellow was absent from the camp for two hours during the night; that in the moonlight he saw him come down the hill. even if he did not do the deed himself, he must have discovered the body--yet he voiced no alarm." i was silent, and my eyes fell from his face to the green water. "'twill be hard to explain," he went on. "but he shall have a chance." "a chance! you will question him; and then--" he hesitated whether to answer me, but there was a cruel smile on his thin lips. "faith, i do not know. 'tis like to be a court-martial at the rock, if ever we get him there; though the chances are the fellow will take to the woods when he finds himself suspected. no doubt the best thing i can do will be to say nothing until we hold him safe, though 'tis hard to pretend with such a villain." he paused, as if hoping i might speak, and my silence angered him. "bah, if i had my way the young cockerel would face a file at our first camp. ay! and it will be for you to decide if he does not." "what is your meaning, monsieur?" "that i am tired of your play-acting; of your making eyes at this forest dandy behind my back. _sang dieu_! i am done with all this--do you hear?--and i have a grip now which will make you think twice, my dear, before you work any more sly tricks on me. _sacre_, you think me easy, hey? i have in my hand so," and he opened and closed his fingers suggestively, "the life of the lad." chapter xvi my pledge saves de artigny i had one glimpse of his face as he leaned forward, and there was a look in it which made me shudder, and turn away. his was no idle threat, and whether the man truly loved me or not, his hatred of de artigny was sufficient for any cruelty. i realized the danger, the necessity for compromise, and yet for the moment i lacked power to speak, to question, fearful lest his demands would be greater than i could grant. i had no thought of what i saw, and still that which my eyes rested upon remains pictured on my brain, the sparkle of sun on the water, the distant green of the shore, the soldiers huddled in the canoe, the dark shining bodies of the indians ceaselessly plying the paddles, and beyond us, to the left, another canoe, cleaving the water swiftly, with père allouez' face turned toward us, as though he sought to guess our conversation. i was aroused by the grip of cassion's hand. "well, my beauty," he said harshly, "haven't i waited long enough to learn if it is war or peace between us?" i laughed, yet i doubt if he gained any comfort from the expression of the eyes which met his. "why i choose peace, of course, monsieur," i answered, assuming a carelessness i was far from feeling. "am i not your wife? surely you remind me of it often enough, so i am not likely to forget; but i resent the insult of your words, nor will you ever win favor from me by such methods. i have been friendly with sieur de artigny, it is true, but there is nothing more between us. indeed no word has passed my lips in his presence i would not be willing for you to hear. so there is no cause for you to spare him on my account, or rest his fate on any action of mine." "you will have naught to do with the fellow?" "there would be small chance if i wished, monsieur; and do you suppose i would seek companionship with one who had killed my uncle?" "'twould scarce seem so, yet i know not what you believe." "nor do i myself; yet the evidence is all against the man thus far. i confess i should like to hear his defense, but i make you this pledge in all honor--i will have no word with him, on condition that you file no charges until we arrive at fort st. louis." "ah!" suspiciously, "you think he has friends there to hold him innocent." "why should i, monsieur? indeed, why should i care but to have justice done? i do not wish his blood on your hands, or to imagine that he is condemned because of his friendship for me rather than any other crime. i know not what friends the man has at the rock on the illinois. he was of la salle's party, and they are no longer in control. la barre said that de baugis commanded that post, and for all i know de tonty and all his men may have departed." "'tis not altogether true, and for that reason we are ordered to join the company. de baugis has the right of it under commission from la barre, but does not possess sufficient soldiers to exercise authority. la salle's men remain loyal to de tonty, and the indian tribes look to him for leadership. _mon dieu_! it was reported in quebec that twelve thousand savages were living about the fort--ay! and de artigny said he doubted it not, for the meadows were covered with tepees--so de baugis has small chance to rule until he has force behind him. they say this de tonty is of a fighting breed--the savages call him the man with the iron hand--and so the two rule between them, the one for la barre, and the other for la salle, and we go to give the governor's man more power." "you have sufficient force?" "unless the indians become hostile; besides there is to be an overland party later to join us in the spring, and sieur de la durantaye, of the regiment of carignan-salliers is at the chicago portage. this i learned at st. ignace." "then it would seem to me, monsieur, that you could safely wait the trial of de artigny until our arrival at the fort. if he does not feel himself suspected, he will make no effort to escape, and i give you the pledge you ask." it was not altogether graciously that he agreed to this, yet the man could not refuse, and i was glad enough to escape thus easily, for it was my fear that he might insist on my yielding much more to preserve de artigny from immediate condemnation and death. the fellow had the power, and the inclination, and what good fortune saved me, i can never know. i think he felt a certain fear of me, a doubt of how far he might presume on my good nature. certainly i gave him small encouragement to venture further, and yet had he done so i would have been at my wit's end. twice the words were upon his lips--a demand that i yield to his mastery--but he must have read in my eyes a defiance he feared to front, for they were not uttered. 'twas that he might have this very talk that he had found me place alone in his canoe, and i would have respected him more had he dared to carry out his desire. the coward in the man was too apparent, and yet that very cowardice was proof of treachery. what he hesitated to claim boldly he would attain otherwise if he could. i could place no confidence in his word, nor reliance upon his honor. however nothing occurred to give cassion opportunity, nor to tempt me to violate my own pledge. we proceeded steadily upon our course, aided by fair weather, and quiet waters for several days. so peaceful were our surroundings that my awe and fear of the vast lake on which we floated passed away, and i began to appreciate its beauty, and love those changing vistas, which opened constantly to our advance. we followed the coast line, seldom venturing beyond sight of land, except as we cut across from point to point; and fair as the wooded shore appeared, its loneliness, and the desolation of the great waters began, at last, to affect our spirits. the men no longer sang at their work, and i could see the depression in their eyes as they stared about across ceaseless waves to the dim horizon. day after day it was the same dull monotony, crouched in the narrow canoe, watching the movements of the paddlers, and staring about at endless sea and sky, with distant glimpse of wilderness. we lost interest in conversation, in each other, and i lay for hours with eyes closed to the glare of the sun, feeling no desire save to be left alone. yet there were scenes of surpassing beauty unrolled before us at sunrise and sunset, and when the great silvery moon reflected its glory in the water. had companionship been congenial no doubt every league of that journey would have proven a joy to be long remembered, but with cassion beside me, ever seeking some excuse to make me conscious of his purpose, i found silence to be my most effective weapon of defense. twice i got away in père allouez' canoe, and found pleasure in conversing, although i had no confidence in the priest, and knew well that my absence would anger cassion. our camps occurred wherever night overtook us and we found good landing place. occasionally we went ashore earlier, and the indians hunted for wild game, usually with success. in all these days and nights i had no glimpse of de artigny, nor of his crew. it was not possible for me to question cassion, for to do so would have aroused his jealous suspicion; but, as he never once referred to their continued absence, i became convinced that it was his orders which kept them ahead. no doubt it was best, as the men soon forgot the tragedy of hugo chevet's death, and after the first day i do not recall hearing the murder discussed. such deeds were not uncommon, and chevet had made no friends to cherish his memory. if others suspected de artigny they felt little resentment or desire to punish him--and doubtless the men had quarreled, and the fatal knife thrust been delivered in fair fight. the result interested them only slightly, and none regretted the loss of the man killed. we made no entrance into green bay, for there was nothing there but a newly established mission station, and perhaps a hunter's camp, scarcely worth our wasting two days in seeking. besides the night we made camp at a spot marked on the map as point de tour, we found waiting us there the advance canoe, and both de artigny and the chief counseled that our course be south across the mouth of the bay. i sat in my tent and watched them discuss the matter in the red glow of a fire, but this was my only glimpse of de artigny, until he led the way the next morning. our voyage that day was a long one, and we were often beyond view of land, although we skirted several islands. the lake was stirred by a gentle breeze, yet not enough to delay our passage, and the sky above was cloudless. the indian chief took the steering paddle in one of our boats, relieving père allouez, and de artigny guided us, his canoe a mere black speck ahead. it was already dark when we finally attained the rocky shore of port de morts. when dawn came de artigny and his crew had departed by order of cassion, but the chief remained to take charge of the third canoe. the indifference the younger man had shown to my presence hurt me strangely--he had made no effort to approach or address me; indeed, so far as i was aware, had not so much as glanced in my direction. did he still resent my words, or was it his consciousness of guilt, which held him thus aloof? not for a moment would i believe him wholly uninterested. there had been that in his eyes i should never forget, and so i persuaded myself that he thus avoided me because he feared to anger cassion. this was not at all in accord with his nature as i understood it, yet the explanation gave me a certain content, and i could find no better. thus we resumed our journey southward along the shore, but with clouded skies overhead, and the water about us dull and gray. chapter xvii the break of storm we had no more pleasant weather for days, the skies being overcast and the wind damp and chill. it did not rain, nor were the waves dangerous, although choppy enough to make paddling tiresome and difficult. a mist obscured the view, and compelled us to cling close to the shore so as to prevent becoming lost in the smother, and as we dare not venture to strike out boldly from point to point, we lost much time in creeping along the curves. the canoes kept closer together, never venturing to become separated, and the men stationed on watch in the bows continually called to each other across the tossing waters in guidance. even de artigny kept within sight, and made camp with us at night, although he made no effort to seek me, nor did i once detect that he even glanced in my direction. the studied indifference of the man puzzled me more than it angered, but i believed it was his consciousness of guilt, rather than any dislike which caused his avoidance. in a way i rejoiced at his following this course, as i felt bound by my pledge to cassion, and had no desire to further arouse the jealousy of the latter, yet i remained a woman, and consequently felt a measure of regret at being thus neglected and ignored. however i had my reward, as this state of affairs was plainly enough to monsieur cassion's liking, for his humor changed for the better, in spite of our slow progress, and i was pleased to note that his watchfulness over my movements while ashore noticeably relaxed. once he ventured to speak a bold word or two, inspired possibly by my effort to appear more friendly, but i gave him small opportunity to become offensive, for the raw, disagreeable atmosphere furnished me with sufficient excuse to snuggle down beneath blankets, and thus ignore his presence. i passed most of those days thus hidden from sight, only occasionally lifting my head to peer out at the gray, desolate sea, or watch the dim, mist-shrouded coast line. it was all of a color--a gloomy, dismal scene, the continuance of which left me homesick and spiritless. never have i felt more hopeless and alone. it seemed useless to keep up the struggle; with every league we penetrated deeper into the desolate wilderness, and now i retained not even one friend on whom i could rely. as cassion evidenced his sense of victory--as i read it in his laughing words, and the bold glance of his eyes--there came to me a knowledge of defeat, which seemed to rob me of all strength and purpose. i was not ready to yield yet; the man only angered me, and yet i began dimly to comprehend that the end was inevitable--my courage was oozing away, and somewhere in this lonely, friendless wilderness the moment i dreaded would come, and i would have no power to resist. more than once in my solitude, hidden beneath the blankets, i wiped tears from my eyes as i sensed the truth; yet he never knew, nor did i mean he should. i had no knowledge of the date, nor a very clear conception of where we were, although it must have been either the fourth or fifth day since we left port du morts. the night before, we had camped at the mouth of a small stream, the surrounding forest growing down close to the shore, and so thick as to be almost impenetrable. the men had set up my tent so close to the water the waves broke scarcely a foot away, and the fire about which the others clustered for warmth was but a few yards distant. wrapped in my blankets i saw de artigny emerge from the darkness, and approach cassion, who drew a map from his belt pocket, and spread it open on the ground in the glare of the fire. the two men bent over it, tracing the lines with finger tips, evidently determining their course for the morrow. then de artigny made a few notes on a scrap of paper, arose to his feet, and disappeared. they had scarcely exchanged a word, and the feeling of enmity between them was apparent. cassion sat quiet, the map still open, and stared after the younger man until he vanished in the darkness. the look upon his face was not a pleasant one. impelled by a sudden impulse i arose to my feet, the blanket still draped about my shoulders, and crossed the open space to the fire. cassion, hearing the sound of my approach, glanced around, his frown changing instantly into a smile. "ah, quite an adventure this," he said, adopting a tone of pleasantry. "the first time you have left your tent, madame?" "the first time i have felt desire to do so," i retorted. "i feel curiosity to examine your map." "and waited until i was alone; i appreciate the compliment," and he removed his hat in mock gallantry. "there was a time when you would have come earlier." "your sarcasm is quite uncalled for. you have my pledge relative to the sieur de artigny, monsieur, which suffices. if you do not care to give me glimpse of your map, i will retire again." "_pouf_! do not be so easily pricked, i spoke in jest. ay, look at the paper, but the tracing is so poor 'tis no better than a guess where we are. sit you down, madame, so the fire gives light, and i will show you our position the best i can." "did not de artigny know?" "he thinks he does, but his memory is not over clear, as he was only over this course the once. 'tis here he has put the mark, while my guess would be a few leagues beyond." i bent over, my eyes seeking the points indicated. i had seen the map before, yet it told me little, for i was unaccustomed to such study, and the few points, and streams named had no real meaning to my mind. the only familiar term was chicagou portage, and i pointed to it with my fingers. "is it there we leave the lake, monsieur?" "ay; the rest will be river work. you see this stream? 'tis called the des plaines, and leads into the illinois. de artigny says it is two miles inland, across a flat country. 'twas père marquette who passed this way first, but since then many have traversed it. 'tis like to take us two days to make the portage." "and way up here is port du morts, where we crossed the opening into green bay, and we have come since all this distance. surely 'tis not far along the shore now to the portage?" "_mon dieu_, who knows! it looks but a step on the map, yet 'tis not likely the distance has ever been measured." "what said the sieur de artigny?" "bah! the sieur de artigny; ever it is the sieur de artigny. 'tis little he knows about it in my judgment. he would have it thirty leagues yet, but i make it we are ten leagues to the south of where he puts us. what, are you going already? faith, i had hopes you might tarry here a while yet, and hold converse with me." i paused, in no way tempted, yet uncertain. "you had some word you wished to say, monsieur?" "there are words enough if you would listen." "'tis no fault of yours if i do not. but not now, monsieur. it is late, and cold. we take the boats early, and i would rest while i can." he was on his feet, the map gripped in his hand, but made no effort to stop me, as i dropped him a curtsey, and retreated. but he was there still when i glanced back from out the safety of the tent, his forehead creased by a frown. when he finally turned away the map was crushed shapeless in his fingers. the morning dawned somewhat warmer, but with every promise of a storm, threatening clouds hanging above the water, sullen and menacing, their edges tipped with lightning. the roar of distant thunder came to our ears, yet there was no wind, and cassion decided that the clouds would drift southward, and leave us safe passage along the shore. his canoe had been wrenched in making landing the evening before, and had taken in considerable water during the night. this was bailed out, but the interior was so wet and uncomfortable that i begged to be given place in another boat, and cassion consented, after i had exhibited some temper, ordering a soldier in the sergeant's canoe to exchange places with me. we were the last to depart from the mouth of the stream where we had made night camp, and i took more than usual interest, feeling oddly relieved to be away from cassion's presence for an entire day. the man irritated me, insisting on a freedom of speech i could not tolerate, thus keeping me constantly on defense, never certain when his audacity would break bounds. so this morning it was a relief to sit up, free of my blanket, and watch the men get under way. we may have proceeded for half a league, when a fog swept in toward the land enveloping us in its folds, although we were close enough to the shore so as to keep safely together, the word being passed back down the line, and as we drew nearer i became aware that de artigny's boat had turned about, and he was endeavoring to induce cassion to go ashore and make camp before the storm broke. the latter, however, was obstinate, claiming we were close enough for safety, and finally, in angry voice, insisted upon proceeding on our course. de artigny, evidently feeling argument useless, made no reply, but i noticed he held back his paddlers, and permitted cassion's canoe to forge ahead. he must have discovered that i was not with monsieur, for i saw him stare intently at each of the other canoes, as though to make sure of my presence, shading his eyes with one hand, as he peered through the thickening mist. this action evidenced the first intimation i had for days of his continued interest in my welfare, and my heart throbbed with sudden pleasure. whether, or not, he felt some premonition of danger, he certainly spoke words of instruction to his indian paddlers, and so manipulated his craft as to keep not far distant, although slightly farther from shore, than the canoe in which i sat. cassion had already vanished in the fog, which swept thicker and thicker along the surface of the water, the nearer boats becoming mere indistinct shadows. even within my own canoe the faces of those about me appeared gray and blurred, as the damp vapor swept over us in dense clouds. it was a ghastly scene, rendered more awesome by the glare of lightning which seemed to split the vapor, and the sound of thunder reverberating from the surface of the lake. the water, a ghastly, greenish gray, heaved beneath, giving us little difficulty, yet terrifying in its suggestion of sullen strength, and the shore line was barely discernible to the left as we struggled forward. what obstinacy compelled cassion to keep us at the task i know not--perchance a dislike to yield to de artigny's advice--but the sergeant swore to himself, and turned the prow of our canoe inward, hugging the shore as closely as he dared, his anxious eyes searching every rift in the mist. yet, dark and drear as the day was, we had no true warning of the approaching storm, for the vapor clinging to the water concealed from our sight the clouds above. when it came it burst upon us with mad ferocity, the wind whirling to the north, and striking us with all the force of three hundred miles of open sea. the mist was swept away with that first fierce gust, and we were struggling for life in a wild turmoil of waters. i had but a glimpse of it--a glimpse of wild, raging sea; of black, scurrying clouds, so close above i could almost reach out and touch them; of dimly revealed canoes flung about like chips, driving before the blast. our own was hurled forward like an arrow, the indian paddlers working like mad to keep stern to the wind, their long hair whipping about. the soldiers crouched in the bottom, clinging grimly to any support, their white faces exhibiting the abasement of fear. the sergeant alone spoke, yelling his orders, as he wielded steering paddle, his hat blown from his head, his face ghastly with sudden terror. it was but the glimpse of an instant; then a paddle broke, the canoe swung sideways, balanced on the crest of a wave and went over. i was conscious of cries, shrill, instantly smothered, and then i sank, struggling hard to keep above water, yet borne down by the weight of the canoe. i came up again, choking and half strangled, and sought to grip the boat as it whirled past. my fingers found nothing to cling to, slipping along the wet keel, until i went down again, but this time holding my breath. my water-soaked garments, and heavy shoes made swimming almost impossible, yet i struggled to keep face above water. two men had reached the canoe, and had somehow found hold. one of these was an indian, but they were already too far away to aid me, and in another moment had vanished in the white crested waves. not another of our boat's crew was visible, nor could i be sure of where the shore lay. twice i went down, waves breaking over me, and flinging me about like a cork. yet i was conscious, though strangely dazed and hopeless. i struggled, but more as if in a dream than in reality. something black, shapeless, seemed to sweep past me through the water; it was borne high on a wave, and i flung up my hands in protection; i felt myself gripped, lifted partially, then the grasp failed, and i dropped back into the churning water. the canoe, or whatever else it was, was gone, swept remorselessly past by the raging wind, but as i came up again to the surface a hand clasped me, drew me close until i had grip on a broad shoulder. chapter xviii alone with de artigny beyond this i knew nothing; with the coming of help, the sense that i was no longer struggling unaided for life in those treacherous waters, all strength and consciousness left me. when i again awoke, dazed, trembling, a strange blur before my eyes, i was lying upon a sandy beach, with a cliff towering above me, its crest tree-lined, and i could hear the dash of waves breaking not far distant. i endeavored to raise myself to look about, but sank back helpless, fairly struggling for breath. an arm lifted my head from the sand, and i stared into a face bending above me, at first without recollection. "lie still a moment," said a voice gently. "you will breathe easier shortly, and regain strength." i knew my fingers closed on the man's hand convulsively, but the water yet blinded my eyes. he must have perceived this for he wiped my face with a cloth, and it was then i perceived his face clearly, and remembered. "the sieur de artigny!" i exclaimed. "of course," he answered. "who else should it be, madame? please do not regret my privilege." "your privilege; 'tis a strange word you choose, monsieur," i faltered, not yet having control of myself. "surely i have granted none." "perchance not, as there was small chance," he answered, evidently attempting to speak lightly. "nor could i wait to ask your leave; yet surely i may esteem it a privilege to bring you ashore alive." "it was you then who saved me? i scarcely understood, monsieur; i lost consciousness, and am dazed in mind. you leaped into the water from the canoe?" "yes; there was no other course left me. my boat was beyond yours, a few yards farther out in the lake, when the storm struck. we were partially prepared, for i felt assured there would be trouble." "you told monsieur cassion so," i interrupted, my mind clearing. "it was to bring him warning you returned." "i urged him to land until we could be assured of good weather. my indians agreed with me." "and he refused to listen; then you permitted your canoe to fall behind; you endeavored to keep close to the boat i was in--was that not true, monsieur?" he laughed, but very softly, and the grave look did not desert his eyes. "you noted me then! faith, i had no thought you so much as glanced toward us. well, and why should i not? is it not a man's duty to seek to guard your safety in such an hour? monsieur cassion did not realize the peril, for he knows naught of the treachery of this lake, while i have witnessed its sudden storms before, and learned to fear them. so i deemed it best to be near at hand. for that you cannot chide me." "no, no, monsieur," and i managed to sit up, and escape the pressure of his arm. "to do that would be the height of ingratitude. surely i should have died but for your help, yet i hardly know now what occurred--you sprang from the canoe?" "ay, when i found all else useless. never did i feel more deadly blast; no craft such as ours could face it. we were to your left and rear when your canoe capsized, and i bore down toward where you struggled in the water. an indian got grip upon you as we swept by, but the craft dipped so that he let go, and then i jumped, for we could never come back, and that was the only chance. this is the whole story, madame, except that by god's help, i got you ashore." i looked into his face, impressed by the seriousness with which he spoke. "i--i thank you, monsieur," i said, and held out my hand. "it was most gallant. are we alone here? where are the others?" "i do not know, madame," he answered, his tone now that of formal courtesy. "'tis but a short time since we reached this spot, and the storm yet rages. may i help you to stand, so you may perceive better our situation." he lifted me to my feet, and i stood erect, my clothes dripping wet, and my limbs trembling so that i grasped his arm for support, and glanced anxiously about. we were on a narrow sand beach, at the edge of a small cove, so protected the waters were comparatively calm, although the trees above bowed to the blast, and out beyond the headland i could see huge waves, whitened with foam, and perceive the clouds of spray flung up by the rocks. it was a wild scene, the roar of the breakers loud and continuous, and the black clouds flying above with dizzy rapidity. all the horror which i had just passed through seemed typified in the scene, and i covered my face with my hands. "you--you think they--they are all gone?" i asked, forcing the words from me. "oh, no," he answered eagerly, and his hand touched me. "do not give way to that thought. i doubt if any in your canoe made shore, but the others need not be in great danger. they could run before the storm until they found some opening in the coast line to yield protection. the sergeant was no _voyageur_, and when one of the paddles broke he steered wrong. with an indian there you would have floated." "then what can we do?" "there is naught that i see, but wait. monsieur cassion will be blown south, but will return when the storm subsides to seek you. no doubt he will think you dead, yet will scarcely leave without search. see, the sky grows lighter already, and the wind is less fierce. it would be my thought to attain the woods yonder, and build a fire to dry our clothes; the air chills." i looked where he pointed, up a narrow rift in the rocks, yet scarcely felt strength or courage to attempt the ascent. he must have read this in my face, and seen my form shiver as the wind struck my wet garments, for he made instant decision. "ah, i have a better thought than that, for you are too weak to attempt the climb. here, lie down, madame, and i will cover you with the sand. it is warm and dry. then i will clamber up yonder, and fling wood down; 'twill be but a short time until we have a cheerful blaze here." i shook my head, but he would listen to no negative, and so, at last, i yielded to his insistence, and he piled the white sand over me until all but my face was covered. to me the position was ridiculous enough, yet i appreciated the warmth and protection, and he toiled with enthusiasm, his tongue as busy as his hands in effort to make me comfortable. "'tis the best thing possible; the warmth of your body will dry your clothes. ah, it is turning out a worthy adventure, but will soon be over with. the storm is done already, although the waves still beat the shore fiercely. 'tis my thought monsieur cassion will be back along this way ere dusk, and a canoe can scarce go past without being seen while daylight lasts, and at night we will keep a fire. there, is that better? you begin to feel warm?" "yes, monsieur." "then lie still, and do not worry. all will come out right in a few hours more. now i will go above, and throw down some dry wood. i shall not be out of sight more than a few minutes." from where i lay, my head on a hummock of sand, my body completely buried, i could watch him scale the rocks, making use of the rift in the face of the cliff, and finding no great difficulty. at the top he looked back, waved his hand, and then disappeared among the trees. all was silent about me, except for the dash of distant waves, and the rustle of branches far overhead. i gazed up at the sky, where the clouds were thinning, giving glimpses of faintest blue, and began to collect my own thoughts, and realize my situation. in spite of my promise to cassion i was here alone with de artigny, helpless to escape his presence, or to be indifferent for the service he had rendered me. nor had i slightest wish to escape. even although it should be proven that the man was the murderer of my uncle, i could not break the influence he had over me, and now, when it was not proven, i simply must struggle to believe that he could be the perpetrator of the deed. all that i seemed truly conscious of was a relief at being free from the companionship of cassion. i wanted to be alone, relieved from his attentions, and the fear of what he might attempt next. beyond this my mind did not go, for i felt weak from the struggle in the water, and a mere desire to lie quiet and rest took possession of all my faculties. de artigny appeared at the edge of the cliff, and called to reassure me of his presence. he had his arms filled with broken bits of wood which were tossed to the sand, and, a moment later, he descended the rift in the wall, and paused beside me. "no sign of anyone up there," he said, and i felt not regretfully. "the canoes must have been blown some distance down the coast." "were you able to see far?" "ay, several leagues, for we are upon a headland, and there is a wide sweep of bay below. the shore line is abrupt, and the waves still high. indeed i saw no spot in all that distance where a boat might make safe landing. are you becoming dry?" "i am at least warm, and already feel much stronger. would it not be best, monsieur, for us to scale the cliff, and wait our rescuers there, where we can keep lookout?" "if you feel able to climb the rocks, although the passage is not difficult. a boat might pass us by here and never be seen, or know of our presence, unless we keep up a fire." i held out my hand to him, and he helped me to my feet. the warmth of the sand while it had not entirely dried my clothing, had given me fresh vigor, and i stood erect, requiring no assistance. with this knowledge a new assurance seemed to take possession of me, and i looked about, and smiled. "i am glad to know you can laugh," he said eagerly. "i have felt that our being thus shipwrecked together was not altogether to your liking." "and why?" i asked, pretending surprise. "being shipwrecked, of course, could scarcely appeal to me, but i am surely not ungrateful to you for saving my life." "as to that, i did no more than any man might be expected to do," he protested. "but you have avoided me for weeks past, and it can scarcely be pleasant now to be alone with me here." "avoided you! rather should i affirm it was your own choice, monsieur. if i recall aright i gave you my confidence once, long ago on the ottawa, and you refused my request of assistance. since then you have scarcely been of our party." he hesitated, as though doubtful of what he had best say. "it was never through indifference as to your welfare," he answered at last, "but obedience to orders. i am but an employee on this expedition." my eyes met his. "did monsieur cassion command that you keep in advance?" i asked, "and make your night camps beyond those of the main company?" "those were his special orders, for which i saw no need, except possibly his desire to keep us separated. yet i did not know his reason, nor was it my privilege to ask. had monsieur cassion any occasion to distrust me?" "i know not as to occasion, monsieur, but he left quebec disliking you because of our conference there, and some words la barre spoke gave him fresh suspicion that you and i were friends, and should be watched. i do not altogether blame the man for he learned early that i thought little of him, and held it no honor to be his wife. yet that distrust would have died, no doubt, had it not been fanned into flame by accident. "i was kept in his boat, and every instant guarded by either himself, or père allouez, his faithful servitor, until long after we passed montreal, and entered the wilderness. that day i met you on the bluff was the first opportunity i had found to be alone. your crew were beyond the rapids, and cassion felt there could be no danger in yielding me liberty, although, had the _père_ not been ill, 'tis doubtful if i had been permitted to disappear alone." "but he knew naught of our meeting?" "you mistake, monsieur. scarcely had you gone when he appeared, and, by chance, noted your footprints, and traced them to where you descended the cliff. of course he had no proof, and i admitted nothing, yet he knew the truth, and sought to pledge me not to speak with you again." "and you made such pledge?" "no; i permitted him to believe that i did, for otherwise there would have been an open quarrel. from then until now we have never met." "no," he burst forth, "but i have been oftentimes nearer you than you thought. i could not forget what you said to me at that last meeting, or the appeal you made for my assistance. i realize the position you are in, madame, married by force to a man you despise, a wife only in name, and endeavoring to protect yourself by wit alone. i could not forget all this, nor be indifferent. i have been in your camp at night--ay, more than once--dreaming i might be of some aid to you, and to assure myself of your safety." "you have guarded me?" "as best i could, without arousing the wrath of monsieur cassion. you are not angry? it was but the duty of a friend." "no, i am not angry, monsieur, yet it was not needed. i do not fear cassion, so long as i can protect myself, for if he attempts evil it will find some form of treachery. but, monsieur, later i gave him the pledge he asked." "the pledge! what pledge?" "that i would neither meet, nor communicate with you until our arrival at fort st. louis." my eyes fell before his earnest gaze, and i felt my limbs tremble. "_mon dieu_! why? there was some special cause?" "yes, monsieur--listen. do not believe this is my thought, yet i must tell you the truth. hugo chevet was found dead, murdered, at st. ignace. 'twas the morning of our departure, and your boat had already gone. cassion accused you of the crime, as some of the men saw you coming from the direction where the body was found late at night, and others reported that you two had quarreled the evening before. cassion would have tried you offhand, using his authority as commander of the expedition, but promised not to file charges until we reached st. louis, if i made pledge--'twas then i gave him my word." de artigny straightened up, the expression on his face one of profound astonishment. "he--he accused me," he asked, "of murder to win your promise?" "no, monsieur; he believed the charge true, and i pledged myself to assure you a fair trial." "then you believed also that i was guilty of the foul crime?" i caught my breath, yet there was nothing for me to do but give him a frank answer. "i--i have given no testimony, monsieur," i faltered, "but i--i saw you in the moonlight bending over chevet's dead body." chapter xix we exchange confidences my eyes fell before his; i could not look into his face, yet i had a sense that he was actually glad to hear my words. there was no anger, rather happiness and relief in the gray eyes. "and you actually believed i struck the blow? you thought me capable of driving a knife into the man's back to gain revenge?" "monsieur, what could i think?" i urged eagerly. "it did not seem possible, yet i saw you with my own eyes. you knew of the murder, but you made no report, raised no alarm, and in the morning your boat was gone before the body was found by others." "true, yet there was a reason which i can confess to you. you also discovered the body that night, yet aroused no alarm. i saw you. why did you remain silent? was it to protect me from suspicion?" i bent my head, but failed to find words with which to answer. de artigny scarcely permitted me time. "that is the truth; your silence tells me it was for my sake you remained still. is it not possible, adele, that my purpose was the same? listen to me, my girl, and have faith in my words--i am not guilty of hugo chevet's death. i did not like the man, it is true, and we exchanged words in anger while loading the boats, but i never gave the matter second thought. that was not the first night of this journey that i sought to assure myself of your safety. "i know monsieur cassion, and of what he is capable, and felt that some time there would occur between you a struggle--so at every camping place, where it was possible, i have watched. it was for that purpose i approached the mission house. i gained glimpse within, and saw cassion asleep on a bench, and knew you had retired to the chamber above. i was satisfied, and started to return to the camp. on my way back i found chevet's body at the edge of the wood. i discovered how he had been killed--a knife thrust in the back." "but you made no report; raised no alarm." "i was confused, unable to decide what was best for me to do. i had no business being there. my first impulse was to arouse the mission house; my second to return to camp, and tell the men there. with this last purpose in view i entered the wood to descend the hill, but had hardly done so when i caught sight of you in the moonlight, and remained there hidden, watching your movements with horror. i saw you go straight to the body, assure yourself the man was dead; then return to the mission house, and enter your room by way of the kitchen roof. do you realize what your actions naturally meant to me?" i stared at him, scarcely able to speak, yet in some way my lips formed words. "you--you thought i did it?" "what else could i think? you were hiding there; you examined the body; you crept secretly in through the window, and gave no alarm." the horror of it all struck me like a blow, and i covered my eyes with my hands, no longer able to restrain my sobs. de artigny caught my hands, and uncovered my face. "do not break down, little girl," he entreated. "it is better so, for now we understand each other. you sought to shield me, and i endeavored to protect you. 'twas a strange misunderstanding, and, but for the accident to the canoe, might have had a tragic ending." "you would never have told?" "of seeing you there? of suspecting you? could you think that possible?" "but you would have been condemned; the evidence was all against you." "let us not talk of that now," he insisted. "we have come back to a faith in each other. you believe my word?" "yes." "and i yours." his hand clasp tightened, and there was that in his eyes which frightened me. "no, no, monsieur," i exclaimed, and drew back quickly. "do not say more, for i am here with you alone, and there will be trouble enough when cassion returns." "do i not know that," he said, yet releasing my hands. "still it can surely do no harm for us to understand each other. you care nothing for cassion; you dislike, despise the man, and there is naught sacred in your marriage. we are in the wilderness, not quebec, and la barre has little authority here. you have protected me with your silence--was it not because you cared for me?" "yes, monsieur; you have been my friend." "your friend! is that all?" "is that not enough, monsieur? i like you well; i would save you from injustice. you could not respect me if i said more, for i am monsieur cassion's wife by rite of holy church. i do not fear him--he is a coward; but i fear dishonor, monsieur, for i am adele la chesnayne. i would respect myself, and you." the light of conquest vanished from the gray eyes. for a moment he stood silent and motionless; then he drew a step backward, and bowed. "your rebuke is just, madame," he said soberly. "we of the frontier grow careless in a land where might is right, and i have had small training save in camp and field. i crave your pardon for my offense." so contrite was his expression i had to smile, realizing for the first time the depth of his interest in my good will, yet the feeling which swayed me was not altogether that of pleasure. he was not one to yield so quietly, or to long restrain the words burning his tongue, yet i surrendered to my first impulse, and extended my hand. "there is nothing to pardon, sieur de artigny," i said frankly. "there is no one to whom i owe more of courtesy than you. i trust you fully, and believe your word, and in return i ask the same faith. under the conditions confronting us we must aid each other. we have both made mistakes in thus endeavoring to shield one another from suspicion, and, as a result, are both equally in peril. our being alone together here will enrage monsieur cassion, and he will use all his power for revenge. my testimony will only make your case more desperate should i confess what i know, and you might cast suspicion upon me--" "you do not believe i would." "no, i do not, and yet, perchance, it might be better for us both if i made full confession. i hesitate merely because cassion would doubt my word; would conclude that i merely sought to protect you. before others--fair-minded judges at st. louis--i should have no hesitancy in telling the whole story, for there is nothing i did of which i am ashamed, but here, where cassion has full authority, such a confession would mean your death." "he would not dare; i am an officer of the sieur de la salle." "the more reason why he would. i know monsieur cassion even better than you do. he has conversed with me pretty freely in the boat, and made clear his hatred of la salle, and his desire to do him evil. no fear of your chief will ever deter him, for he believes la barre has sufficient power now in this country to compel obedience. i overheard the governor's orders to keep you under close surveillance, and cassion will jump at the chance of finding you guilty of crime. now my broken pledge gives him ample excuse." "but it was not broken except through necessity," he urged. "he surely cannot blame you because i saved your life." "i doubt if that has slightest weight. all he will care about is our being here alone together. that fact will obscure all else in his mind." "he believes then that you feel interest in me?" "i have never denied it; the fact which rankles, however, is his knowledge that i feel no interest whatever in him. but we waste time, monsieur, in fruitless discussion. our only course is a discovery of hugo chevet's real murderer. know you anything to warrant suspicion?" de artigny did not answer at once, his eyes looking out on the white crested waters of the lake. "no, madame," he said at length gravely. "the last time chevet was seen alive, so far as i now know, was when he left the boats in company with monsieur cassion to return to the mission house." "at dusk?" "it was already quite dark." "they did not arrive together, and cassion reported that chevet had remained at the beach in charge of the canoes." "you saw cassion when he arrived?" "yes, and before; i was at the window, and watched him approach across the open space. he was alone, and appeared at ease." "what did he do, and say, after he entered the house?" "absolutely nothing to attract notice; he seemed very weary, and, as soon as he had eaten, lay down on the bench, and fell asleep." "are you sure he slept?" "i felt no doubt; there was nothing strange about his actions, but as soon as possible i left the room. you surely do not suspect him?" "he was the last to be seen with chevet; they left the beach together, yet the murdered man failed to appear at the mission house, and cassion falsely reported him left in charge at the beach." "but no one could act so indifferent, after just committing such a crime. when you looked in through the window what did you see?" "only the priests about the table talking, and cassion seemingly sound asleep. could there be any reason why he should desire the death of chevet?" "i know of none. my uncle felt bitter over the concealment of my fortune, and no doubt the two had exchanged words, but there was no open quarrel. chevet was rough and headstrong, yet he was not killed in fight, for the knife thrust was from behind." "ay, a coward's blow. chevet possessed no papers of value?" i shook my head. "if so, no mention was ever made to me. but, monsieur, you are still wet, and must be cold in this wind. why do you not build the fire, and dry your clothing?" "the wind does have an icy feel," he admitted, "but this is a poor spot. up yonder in the wood shadow there is more warmth, and besides it affords better outlook for the canoes. have you strength now to climb the bluff?" "the path did not appear difficult, and it is dreary enough here. i will try." i did not even require his aid, and was at the top nearly as soon as he. it was a pleasant spot, a heavy forest growing almost to the edge, but with green carpet of grass on which one could rest, and gaze off across the wide waste of waters. yet there was little to attract the eyes except the ceaseless roll of the waves, and the curve of the coast line, against which the breakers still thundered, casting high in air their white spray. it was a wild, desolate scene, a wilderness wherever the eyes turned. i stood silent, gazing to the southward, but there were no canoes visible, although the storm had ceased, and the waves were no longer high enough to prevent their return. they must have been driven below the distant point, and possibly so injured as to make repairs necessary. when i finally turned away i found that de artigny had already lighted a fire with flint and steel in a little hollow within the forest. he called to me to join him. "there is nothing to see," he said, "and the warmth is welcome. you had no glimpse of the boats?" "no," i admitted. "do you really believe they survived?" "there was no reason why they should not, if properly handled. i have controlled canoes in far worse storms. they are doubtless safely ashore beyond the point yonder." "and will return seeking us?" "seeking you, at least. cassion will learn what occurred, and certainly will never depart without seeking to discover if you are alive. the thought that you may be with me will only serve to spur him to quicker action. my fear is he may be delayed by some accident, and we might suffer from lack of food." "i had not thought how helpless we were." "oh, we are not desperate," and he laughed, getting up from his knees. "you forget i am bred to this life, and have been alone in the wilderness without arms before. the woods are full of game, and it is not difficult to construct traps, and the waters are filled with fish which i will devise some means of catching. you are not afraid to be left alone?" "no," in surprise. "where are you going?" "to learn more of our surroundings, and arrange some traps for wild game. i will not be away long but someone should remain here to signal any canoe returning in search." i watched him disappear among the trees, without regret, or slightest sense of fear at thus being left alone. the fire burned brightly, and i rested where the grateful warmth put new life into my body. the silence was profound, depressing, and a sense of intense loneliness stole over me. i felt a desire to get away from the gloom of the woods, and climbed the bank to where i could look out once more across the waters. chapter xx i choose my duty the view outspread before me revealed nothing new; the same dread waste of water extended to the horizon, while down the shore no movement was visible. as i rested there, oppressed by the loneliness, i felt little hope that the others of our party had escaped without disaster. de artigny's words of cheer had been spoken merely to encourage me, to make me less despondent. deep down in his heart the man doubted the possibility of those frail canoes withstanding the violence of the storm. it was this thought which had made him so anxious to secure food, for, if the others survived, and would return seeking us, as he asserted, surely they would appear before nightfall, and there would be no necessity for our snaring wild game in order to preserve life. de artigny did not believe his own words; i even suspicioned that he had gone now alone to explore the shore-line; seeking to discover the truth, and the real fate of our companions. at first this conception of our situation startled me, and yet, strange as it may seem, my realization brought no deep regret. i was conscious of a feeling of freedom, of liberty, such as had not been mine since we departed from quebec. i was no longer watched, spied upon, my every movement ordered, my speech criticized. more, i was delivered from the hated presence of cassion, ever reminding me that i was his wife, and continually threatening to exercise his authority. ay, and i was with de artigny, alone with him, and the joy of this was so deep that i came to a sudden realization of the truth--i loved him. in a way i must have known this before, yet, not until that moment, did the fact dawn upon me in full acknowledgement. i sank my head on my hands, my breath quickened by surprise, by shame, and felt my cheeks burn. i loved him, and believed he loved me. i knew then that all the happiness of life centered in this one fact; while between us arose the shadow of cassion, my husband. true i loved him not; true i was to him wife only in name; true our marriage was a thing of shame, yet no less a fact, no less a barrier. i was a la chesnayne to whom honor was a religion; a catholic bowing humbly to the vow of holy church; a frenchwoman taught that marriage was a sacred rite. the knowledge of my love for de artigny brought me more fear than pleasure. i dare not dream, or hope; i must escape his presence while i retained moral strength to resist temptation. i got to my feet, not knowing what i could do, yet with a wild conception of returning to the beach, and seeking to find a passage southward. i would go now along the shore, before de artigny came back, and meet those returning canoes. in such action lay my only safety--he would find me gone, would trace me along the sand, yet before i could be caught, i would have met the others, and thus escape the peril of being alone with him again. even as i reached this decision, something arose in my throat and choked me, for my eyes saw just outside the curve of the shore-line, a canoe emerge from the shadows of the bluff. i cannot picture the reaction, the sudden shrinking fear which, in that instant, mastered me. they were coming, seeking me; coming to drag me back into slavery; coming to denounce de artigny of crime, and demand his life. i know not which thought dominated me--my own case, or his; but i realized instantly what course cassion would pursue. his hatred of de artigny would be fanned into flame by discovery that we were alone together. he possessed the power, the authority to put this man forever out of his way. to save him there remained but one possible plan--he must reach fort st. louis, and friends before cassion could bring him to trial. it was in my power to permit his escape from discovery, mine alone. if i did otherwise i should be his murderer. i sank down out of sight, yet my decision was made in an instant. it did not seem to me then as though any other course could be taken. that de artigny was innocent i had no doubt. i loved him, this i no longer denied to myself; and i could not possibly betray the man to the mad vengeance of cassion. i peered forth, across the ridge of earth concealing me from observation, at the distant canoe. it was too far away for me to be certain of its occupants, yet i assured myself that indians were at the paddles, while three others, whose dress designated them as whites, occupied places in the boat. the craft kept close to the shore, evidently searching for any sign of the lost canoe, and the man in the stern stood up, pointing, and evidently giving orders. there was that about the fellow's movements to convince me he must be cassion, and the very sight of him strengthened my resolve. i turned, and ran down the bank to where the fire yet glowed dully in the hollow, emitting a faint spiral of blue smoke, dug dirt up with my hands, and covered the coals, until they were completely extinguished. then i crept back to the bluff summit, and lay down to watch. the canoe rounded the curve in the shore, and headed straight across toward where i rested in concealment. their course would keep them too far away from the little strip of sand on which we had landed to observe the imprint of our feet, or the pile of wood de artigny had flung down. i observed this with an intense feeling of relief, as i peered cautiously out from my covert. i could see now clearly the faces of those in the canoe--the dark, expressionless countenances of the indians, and the three white men, all gazing intently at the shore line, as they swept past, a soldier in the bow, and père allouez and cassion at the stern, the latter standing, gripping the steering paddle. the sound of his rasping, disagreeable voice reached me first. "this is the spot," he exclaimed, pointing. "i saw that headland just before the storm struck. but there is no wreck here, no sign of landing. what is your judgment, père?" "that further search is useless, monsieur," answered the priest. "we have covered the entire coast, and found no sign of any survivor; no doubt they were all lost." "'tis likely true, for there was small hope for any swimmer in such a sea." cassion's eyes turned to the others in the boat. "and you, descartes, you were in the canoe with the sieur de artigny, tell us again what happened, and if this be not the place." the soldier in the bow lifted his head. "i know little of the place, monsieur," he answered gruffly, "though it would seem as if i recalled the forked tree yonder, showing through a rift in the fog. all i know is that one of the paddles broke in the sergeant's canoe, and over they went into the water. 'twas as quick as that," and he snapped his fingers, "and then a head or two bobbed up, but the canoe swept over them, and down they went again. sieur de artigny held our steering paddle, and, in an instant, he swung us that way, and there was the lady struggling. i reached out and touched her, but lost hold, and then the sieur de artigny leaped overboard, and the storm whirled us off into the fog. i saw no more." "you do not know that he reached her?" "no, monsieur; the lady sank when i lost my grip; i do not even know if she came up again." cassion stood motionless, staring intently at the bluff. i almost thought he must have seen me, but there was no outcry, and finally he seated himself. "go on, round the long point yonder, and if there is no sign there we will return," he said grimly. "'tis my thought they were all drowned, and there is no need of our seeking longer. pull on boys, and let us finish the job." they rounded the point, the père talking earnestly, but the canoe so far away i could not overhear his words. cassion paid small heed to what he urged, but, at last, angrily bade him be still, and, after a glance into the narrow basin beyond, swung the bow of the canoe about, and headed it southward, the return course further off shore. the indians paddled with renewed energy, and, in a few moments, they were so far away their faces were indistinguishable, and i ventured to sit on the bank, my gaze still on the vanishing canoe. so intent was i that i heard no sound of approaching footsteps, and knew nothing of de artigny's presence until he spoke. "what is that yonder--a canoe?" i started, shrinking back, suddenly realizing what i had done, and the construction he might place upon my action. "yes," i answered faintly, "it--it is a canoe." "but it is headed south; it is going away," he paused, gazing into my face. "did it not come this far?" i hesitated; he had furnished me with an excuse, a reason. i could permit him to believe the boat had not approached close enough to be signaled. it was, for an instant, a temptation, yet as i looked into his eyes i could not tell the lie. more, i felt the uselessness of any such attempt to deceive; he would discover the fire extinguished by dirt thrown on it, and thus learn the truth. far better that i confess frankly, and justify my action. "the canoe came here," i faltered, my voice betraying me. "it went around the point yonder, and then returned." "and you made no signal? you let them go, believing us dead?" i could not look at him, and i felt my cheeks burn with shame. "yes, monsieur; but listen. no, do not touch me. perhaps it was all wrong, yet i thought it right. i lay here, hidden from view, and watched them; i extinguished the fire so they could not see the smoke. they came so near i could hear their voices, and distinguish their words, yet i let them pass." "who were in the canoe?" "besides the indians, cassion, père allouez, and the soldier descartes." "he was with me." "so i learned from his tale; 'twas he who sought to lift me from the water, and failed. do you realize, monsieur, why i chose to remain unseen? why i have done what must seem an unwomanly act?" he was still gazing after the canoe, now a mere speck amid the waste of waters, but turned and looked into my face. "no, madame, yet i cannot deem your reason an unworthy one--yet wait; could it be fear for my life?" "it was that, and that only, monsieur. the truth came to me in a flash when i first perceived the canoe approaching yonder. i felt that hate rather than love urged cassion to make search for us. he knew of your attempt at rescue, and if he found us here together alone, he would care for nothing save revenge. he has the power, the authority to condemn you, and have you shot. i saw no way to preserve your life, but to keep you out of his grip, until you were with your friends at fort st. louis." "you sacrificed yourself for me?" "'tis no more than you did when you leaped from the canoe." "_pah_, that was a man's work; but now you risk more than life; you peril reputation--" "no, monsieur; no more, at least, than it was already imperiled. cassion need never know that i saw his searching party, and surely no one can justly blame me for being rescued from death. one does not ask, in such a moment, who the rescuer is. i feel i have chosen right, monsieur, and yet i must trust you to never cause me to regret that i am the wife of monsieur cassion." to my surprise his face brightened, his eyes smiling, as he bowed low before me. "your confidence shall not be betrayed, madame," he said gallantly. "i pledge you my discretion whatever circumstances may arise. there is no cur in the de artigny strain, and i fight my own battles. some day i shall be face to face with francois cassion, and if then i fail to strike home it will be memory of your faith which restrains my hand. and now i rejoice that i can make your sacrifice less grievous." "in what way, monsieur?" "in that we are no longer entirely alone in our wilderness adventure. i have fortunately brought back with me a comrade, whose presence will rob cassion of some sharpness of tongue. shall we go meet him?" "meet him! a man, you mean? one rescued from the canoe?" "no, but more likely to serve us a good turn--a soldier under monsieur de la durantaye, who has camp below at the portage to the des plaines. out yonder i ran onto him, bearing some message from green bay--an odd fellow, but with a gun at his shoulder, and a tongue with which to tell the truth on occasion. come, madame, there is naught now you need to fear." chapter xxi we decide our course with a feeling of relief in my heart, a sense that my reputation was safe, and that the good god had set the seal of his approval on the choice made, i accepted de artigny's outstretched hand, and permitted him to assist me down the bank. the new arrival was just within the edge of the forest, bending over a freshly kindled fire, barely commencing to blaze, and beside him on the grass lay a wild fowl, already plucked of its feathers. so intent was the fellow at his task, he did not even lift his head until my companion hailed him. "barbeau, here is the lady of whom i spoke--the wife of monsieur cassion." he stood up, and made me a salute as though i were an officer, as odd a looking little man as ever i had seen, with a small, peaked face, a mop of black hair, and a pair of shrewd, humorous eyes. his dress was that of a _courier du bois_, with no trace of uniform save the blue forage cap gripped in one hand, yet he stood stiff as if on parade. in spite of his strange, uncouth appearance there was that in his face which won my favor, and i held out my hand. "you are a soldier of france, monsieur de artigny tells me." "yes, madame, of the regiment carignan-salliers," he answered. "i wonder have you served long? my father was an officer in that command--captain la chesnayne." the expression on the man's face changed magically. "you the daughter of captain la chesnayne," he exclaimed, the words bursting forth uncontrolled, "and married to cassion! how can this be?" "you knew him then--my father?" "ay, madame; i was with him at the richelieu, at the village of the mohawks; and at bois le blanc, where he died. i am jacques barbeau, a soldier for twenty years; did he not speak to you of me?" "i was but a girl when he was killed, and we seldom met, for he was usually on campaign. yet what do you mean by thus expressing surprise at my marriage to monsieur cassion?" he hesitated, evidently regretting his impulsive speech, and glancing from my face into the stern eyes of de artigny. "monsieur, madame, i spoke hastily; it was not my place." "that may be true, barbeau," replied the sieur grimly, "yet the words have been said, and the lady has a right to have them explained. was there quarrel between her father and this francois cassion?" "ay, there was, and bitter, although i know nothing as to the cause. cassion, and la barre--he whom i now hear is governor of new france--were alike opposed to captain la chesnayne, and but for reports they made he would have been the colonel. he struck cassion in the mess tent, and they were to fight the very morning the iroquois met us at bois le blanc. 'twas the talk of the men that the captain was shot from behind." "by cassion?" "that i cannot say; yet the bullet entered behind the ear, for i was first to reach him, and he had no other enemy in the regiment carignan-salliers. the feeling against m. cassion was so strong that he resigned in a few months. you never heard this?" i could not answer, but stood silent with bowed head. i felt de artigny place his hand on my shoulder. "the lady did not know," he said gravely, as though he felt the necessity of an explanation. "she was at school in a convent at quebec, and no rumor reached her. she is thankful to you for what you have said, barbeau, and can trust you as her father's friend and comrade. may i tell him the truth, madame? the man may have other information of value." i looked at the soldier, and his eyes were grave and honest. "yes," i answered, "it can do no harm." de artigny's hand was still on my shoulder, but his glance did not seek my face. "there is some low trick here, barbeau," he began soberly, "but the details are not clear. madame has trusted me as a friend, and confided all she knows, and i will tell the facts to you as i understand them. false reports were made to france regarding captain la chesnayne. we have not learned what they were, or who made them, but they were so serious that louis, by royal decree, issued order that his estates revert to the crown. later la chesnayne's friends got the ear of the king, no doubt through frontenac, ever loyal to him, and by royal order the estates were restored to his ownership. this order of restoration reached quebec soon after la barre was appointed governor, and was never made public. it was suppressed by someone, and la chesnayne was killed three months later, without knowing that he had won the favor of the king." "but cassion knew; he was ever hand in glove with la barre." "we have cause to suspect so, and now, after listening to your tale, to believe that captain la chesnayne's death was part of a carefully formed plot. by accident the lady here learned of the conspiracy, through overhearing a conversation, but was discovered by la barre hiding behind the curtains of his office. to keep her quiet she was forced into marriage with francois cassion, and bidden to accompany him on this journey to fort st. louis." "i see," commented barbeau shrewdly. "such marriage would place the property in their control by law. had cassion sought marriage previously?" his eyes were upon me as he asked the question, and i answered him frankly. "he visited often at the home of my uncle, hugo chevet, and, while he never spoke to me directly of marriage, i was told he desired me for his wife and at the palace he so presented me to monsieur la barre." "on pledge of chevet, no doubt. your uncle knew of your fortune?" "no; he supposed me penniless; he thought it a great honor done me by the favorite of the governor's. 'twas my belief he expected some reward for persuading me to accept the offer." "and this chevet--what became of him?" "he accompanied us on the journey, also upon order of monsieur la barre, who, no doubt, thought he would be safer in the wilderness than in quebec. he was murdered at st. ignace." "murdered?" "ay, struck down from behind with a knife. no one knows who did it, but cassion has charged the crime against sieur de artigny, and circumstances are such he will find it difficult to prove his innocence." the soldier stood silent, evidently reviewing in his mind all that had been told him, his eyes narrowed into slits as he gazed thoughtfully at us both. "_bah_," he exclaimed at last, "the riddle is not so hard to read, although, no doubt the trick has been well played. i know governor la barre, and this francois cassion, for i have served under both, while monsieur la chesnayne was my captain, and friend. i was not always a soldier, madame, and once i sought holy orders, but the flesh was weak. however, the experiment gave me education, and led to comradeship with those above me in station--discipline in the wilderness is not rigid. many a night at the campfire have i talked with my captain. and i have heard before of this sieur de artigny, and of how loyally he has served m. de la salle. monsieur de tonty told the tale to m. de la durantaye, mayhap a month ago, and i overheard. so i possess faith in him as a gallant man, and have desire to serve you both. may i tell you what, in my judgment, seems best for you to do?" i glanced at de artigny, and his eyes gave me courage. "monsieur, you are a french soldier," i answered, "an educated man also, and my father's friend. i will listen gladly." his eyes smiled, and he swept the earth with his cap. "then my plan is this--leave monsieur cassion to go his way, and let me be your guide southward. i know the trails, and the journey is not difficult. m. de la durantaye is camped at the portage of the des plaines, having but a handful of men to be sure, yet he is a gallant officer, and no enemy to la salle, although he serves the governor. he will see justice done, and give you both safe convoy to fort st. louis, where de tonty knows how to protect his officers. faith! i would like to see francois cassion try to browbeat that one armed italian--'twould be one time he would meet his match." de artigny laughed. "ay, you are right there, my friend. i have felt the iron-hook, and witnessed how he wins his way with white and red. yet he is no longer in command at fort st. louis; i bring him orders now from sieur de la salle bidding him not to interfere with the governor's lieutenants. 'tis the chevalier de baugis with whom we must reckon." "true, he has control, and men enough, with cassion's party, to enforce his order. and he is a hothead, conceited, and holding himself a bit better than others, because he bears commission in the king's dragoons. 'tis said that he and de tonty have had many a stiff quarrel since he came; but he dare not go too far. there are good men there ready to draw sword if it ever come to blows--de tonty, boisrondet, l'espirance, de marle, and the algonquins camped on the plain below. they would be tigers if the italian spoke the word; while i doubt not m. de la durantaye would throw his influence on the side of mercy; he has small love for the captain of dragoons." i spoke quickly, and before de artigny could voice decision. "we will accept your guidance, monsieur. it is the best choice, and now the only one, for the time is past when we can expect the return of the canoes. can we not at once begin the journey?" it was an hour later, after we had eaten, that we left the bluff, and turned westward into the great woods. barbeau led the way, moving along the bank of a small stream, and i followed, with de artigny close behind. as we had nothing to carry, except the soldier's rifle and blanket, we made rapid progress, and in less than half an hour, we came to the indian trail, which led southward from green bay to the head waters of the des plaines. it was so faint and dim, a mere trace through forest depths, that i would have passed it by unseen, but both my companions were woodsmen, and there was no sign their trained eyes overlooked. once in the trail, however, there was no difficulty in following it, although it twisted here and there, in the avoiding of obstacles, ever seeking the easier route. barbeau had passed this way before, and recalled many a land-mark, occasionally turning, and pointing out to us certain peculiarities he had observed on his journey north. once he held us motionless while he crept aside, through an intervening fringe of trees to the shore of a small lake, coming back with two fine ducks dangling from his shoulder. before dark we halted in a little opening, the grass green underfoot, and a bank of trees all about, and made night camp. there was water near at hand, and the fire quickly built gave cheer to the scene, as the men prepared supper. the adventures of the day had wearied me, and i was very content to lie on barbeau's blanket, and watch them work. while the soldier cooked, de artigny swiftly erected a shelter of boughs, within which i was to pass the night. after we had eaten, i retired at once, yet for a long time could not sleep, but lay looking out at the two men seated before the fire smoking. i could hear their voices, and scraps of conversation--de artigny telling the tale of the exploration of the great river to its mouth in the salt sea, and barbeau relating many a strange adventure in the wilderness. it was a scene long to be remembered--the black shadows all about, the silence of the great woods, the sense of loneliness, the red and yellow flames of the fire, and the two men telling tales of wild adventure amid the unknown. at last they grew weary also, and lay down, pillowed their heads on their arms, and rested motionless. my own eyes grew heavy, and i fell asleep. chapter xxii we meet with danger it was late in the afternoon of the second day when we arrived at the forks of the chicago river. there was a drizzle of rain in the air, and never saw i a more desolate spot; a bare, dreary plain, and away to the eastward a glimpse of the lake. a hut of logs, a mere shack scarcely fit for shelter, stood on a slight eminence, giving wide view in every direction, but it was unoccupied, the door ajar. barbeau, in advance, stared at it in surprise, gave utterance to an oath, and ran forward to peer within. close behind him i caught a glimpse of the interior, my own heart heavy with disappointment. if this miserable place had been the headquarters of m. de la durantaye, evidently it was so no longer. not a vestige of occupancy remained, save a rotten blanket on the floor, and a broken bench in one corner. rude bunks lined two walls, and a table hewed from a log stood in the center of the dirt floor. on this was a paper pinned to the wood by a broken knife blade. barbeau grasped it, and read the writing, handing it back to me. it was a scrawl of a few words, yet told the whole story. "francois cassion, under commission of governor la barre, arrived with party of soldiers and indians. at his orders we accompany the force to fort st. louis. "de la durantaye." "perhaps it is as well," commented de artigny lightly. "at least as far as my good health goes; but 'tis like to make a hard journey for you, madame." "is it far yet until we attain the fort?" "a matter of twenty-five leagues; of no moment had we a boat in which to float down stream, but the trail, as i remember, is rough." "perchance there may be a boat," interrupted barbeau. "there was the wreck of an indian canoe a mile below here on the des plaines, not so damaged as to be beyond repair, and here is a hatchet which we will find useful." he stooped and picked it up from under the bench. "one thing is certain--'tis useless to remain here; they have left the place as bare as a desert. 'tis my choice that we make the des plaines before dark." "and mine also; are you too greatly wearied, madame?" "i? oh, no! to escape this desolate place i will go gladly. have men really lived here?" "ay, more than once," replied de artigny. "'tis said the _engagés_ of père marquette built this hut, and that it sheltered him an entire winter. twice i have been here before, once for weeks, waiting the arrival of the _griffin_, alone with sieur de la salle." "the _griffin_?" "the ship which was to bring us provisions and men. 'twas a year later we learned that she went down in the sea, with all aboard. how long was m. de la durantaye on station here?" he turned to barbeau. "'tis three months since we came from st. ignace--a dreary time enough, and for what purpose i could never guess. in that time all we have seen has been indian hunters. i cannot bear to remain even for another night. are we ready, madame? shall we go?" the des plaines was a narrow stream, flowing quietly through prairie land, although bordered along its shores by a thin fringe of trees. we moved down along its eastern bank for perhaps a half league, when we came to the edge of a swamp and made camp. de artigny built a fire, and prepared my tent of boughs, while barbeau waded out around a point in search of the wrecked canoe. he came back just at dusk towing it behind him through the shallow water, and the two men managed to drag it far enough up the bank to enable the water to drain out. later, aided by a flaming torch, we looked it over, and decided the canoe could be made to float again. it required two days' work, however, before we ventured to trust ourselves to its safety. but the dawn of the third day saw us afloat on the sluggish current, the two men plying improvised paddles to increase our speed, while i busied myself in keeping the frail craft free from water by constant use of a tin cup. this oozed in through numerous ill-fitting seams, but not fast enough to swamp us in midstream, although the amount gained steadily on me in spite of every effort, and we occasionally had to make shore to free us of the encumbrance. yet this voyage south along the des plaines was far from unpleasant, despite the labor involved and the discomfort of the leaking canoe. the men were full of cheer and hope, some of it possibly assumed to strengthen my courage, but no less effective--barbeau telling many an anecdote of his long service in strange places, exhibiting a sense of humor which kept us in continuous laughter. he was, indeed, a typical adventurer, gay and debonair in presence of peril, and apparently without a care in the world. de artigny caught something of the fellow's spirit, being young enough himself to love excitement, and related in turn, to the music of the splashing paddles, numerous incidents of his wild exploits with la salle and de tonty along the great rivers of the west. it all interested me, these glimpses of rough forest life, and i questioned them both eagerly, learning many a truth the histories fail to tell. particularly did i listen breathlessly to the story of their adventurous first voyage along the illinois, following the trail of raiding iroquois, amid scenes of death and destruction. the very horrors pictured fascinated me even, although the grim reality was completely beyond my power of imagination. 'twas thus we passed the hours of daylight, struggling with the current, forcing our way past obstacles, seeking the shore to drain off water, every moment bringing to us a new vista, and a new peril, yet ever encouraged by memory of those who had toiled along this stream before us. at night, under the stars and beside the blaze of campfire, barbeau sang rollicking soldier songs, and occasionally de artigny joined him in the choruses. to all appearances we were absolutely alone in the desolation of the wilderness. not once in all that distance did we perceive sign of human life, nor had we cause to feel the slightest uneasiness regarding savage enemies. both men believed there was peace in the valley, except for the jealousy between the white factions at fort st. louis, and that the various algonquin tribes were living quietly in their villages under protection of the rock. de artigny described what a wonderful sight it was, looking down from the high palisades to the broad meadows below, covered with tepees, and alive with peaceful indians. he named the tribes which had gathered there for protection, trusting in la salle, and believing de tonty their friend--illini, shawnees, abenakies, miamis, mohegans--at one time reaching a total of twenty thousand souls. there they camped, guarded by the great fort towering above them, on the same sacred spot where years before the jesuit marquette had preached to them the gospel of the christ. so we had no fear of savages, and rested in peace at our night camps, singing aloud, and sleeping without guard. every day barbeau went ashore for an hour, with his rifle, tramping along beside us through the shadowing forest screen, seeking game, and always coming back with plenty. we would hear the sharp report of his gun breaking the silence, and turn the prow of our canoe shoreward and pick him up again. owing to the leaking of our canoe, and many difficulties experienced, we were three days in reaching the spot where the illinois and the fox rivers joined their waters, and swept forward in one broad stream. the time of our arrival at this spot was early in the afternoon, and, as de artigny said fort st. louis was situated scarce ten miles below, our long journey seemed nearly ended. we anticipated reaching there before night, and, in spite of my fear of the reception awaiting us, my heart was light with hope and expectation. i was but a girl in years, excitement was still to me a delight, and i had listened to so many tales, romantic, wonderful, of this wilderness fortress, perched upon a rock, that my vivid imagination had weaved about it an atmosphere of marvel. the beauty of the view from its palisades, the vast concourse of indians encamped on the plains below, and those men guarding its safety--the faithful comrades of la salle in explorations of the unknown, de tonty, boisrondet, and all the others, had long since become to my mind the incarnation of romantic adventure. wilderness born, i could comprehend and appreciate their toils and dangers, and my dreams centered about this great, lonely rock on which they had established a home. but the end was not yet. just below the confluence of the rivers there was a village of the tamaroas, and the prow of our canoe touched the bank, while de artigny stepped ashore amid a tangle of low-growing bushes, that he might have speech with some of the warriors, and thus learn conditions at the fort. with his foot on the bank, he turned laughing, and held out his hand to me. "come, madame," he said pleasantly, "you have never seen a village of our western tribes; it will interest you." i joined him gladly, my limbs feeling awkward under me, from long cramping in the boat, yet the climb was not difficult, and he held back the boughs to give me easy passage. beyond the fringe of brush there was an open space, but as we reached this, both paused, stricken dumb by horror at the sight which met our view. the ground before us was strewn with dead, and mutilated bodies, and was black with ashes where the tepees had been burned, and their contents scattered broadcast. never before had i seen such view of devastation, of relentless, savage cruelty, and i gave utterance to a sudden sob, and shrank back against de artigny's arm, hiding my eyes with my hand. he stood and stared, motionless, breathing heavily, unconsciously gripping my arm. "_mon dieu_!" he burst forth, at last. "what meaneth this? are the wolves again loose in the valley?" he drew me back, until we were both concealed behind a fringe of leaves, his whole manner alert, every instinct of the woodsman instantly awakened. "remain here hidden," he whispered, "until i learn the truth; we may face grave peril below." he left me trembling, and white-lipped, yet i made no effort to restrain him. the horror of those dead bodies gripped me, but i would not have him know the terror which held me captive. with utmost caution he crept forth, and i lay in the shadow of the covert, watching his movements. body after body he approached seeking some victim alive, and able to tell the story. but there was none. at last he stood erect, satisfied that none beside the dead were on that awful spot, and came back to me. "not one lives," he said soberly, "and there are men, women and children there. the story is one easily told--an attack at daylight from the woods yonder. there has been no fighting; a massacre of the helpless and unarmed." "but who did such deed of blood?" "'tis the work of the iroquois; the way they scalped tells that, and besides i saw other signs." "the iroquois," i echoed incredulous, for that name was the terror of my childhood. "how came these savages so far to the westward?" "their war parties range to the great river," he answered. "we followed their bloody trail when first we came to this valley. it was to gain protection from these raiders that the algonquins gathered about the fort. we fought the fiends twice, and drove them back, yet now they are here again. come, adele, we must return to the canoe, and consult with barbeau. he has seen much of indian war." the canoe rode close in under the bank, barbeau holding it with grasp on a great root. he must have read in our faces some message of alarm, for he exclaimed before either of us could speak. "what is it?--the iroquois?" "yes; why did you guess that?" "i have seen signs for an hour past which made me fear this might be true. that was why i held the boat so close to the bank. the village has been attacked?" "ay, surprised, and massacred; the ground is covered with the dead, and the tepees are burned. madame is half crazed with the shock." barbeau took no heed, his eyes scarce glancing at me, so eager was he to learn details. "the fiends were in force then?" "their moccasin tracks were everywhere. i could not be sure where they entered the village, but they left by way of the fox. i counted on the sand the imprint of ten canoes." "deep and broad?" "ay, war boats; 'tis likely some of them would hold twenty warriors; the beasts are here in force." it was all so still, so peaceful about us that i felt dazed, incapable of comprehending our great danger. the river swept past, its waters murmuring gently, and the wooded banks were cool and green. not a sound awoke the echoes, and the horror i had just witnessed seemed almost a dream. "where are they now?" i questioned faintly. "have they gone back to their own country?" "small hope of that," answered de artigny, "or we would have met with them before this, or other signs of their passage. they are below, either at the fort, or planning attack on the indian villages beyond. what think you, barbeau?" "i have never been here," he said slowly, "so cannot tell what chance the red devils might have against the white men at st. louis. but they are below us on the river, no doubt of that, and engaged in some hell act. i know the iroquois, and how they conduct war. 'twill be well for us to think it all out with care before we venture farther. come, de artigny, tell me what you know--is the fort one to be defended against iroquois raiders?" "'tis strong; built on a high rock, and approachable only at the rear. given time they might starve the garrison, or drive them mad with thirst, for i doubt if there be men enough there to make sortie against a large war party." "but the indian allies--the algonquins?" "one war whoop of an iroquois would scatter them like sheep. they are no fighters, save under white leadership, and 'tis likely enough their villages are already like this one yonder, scenes of horror. i have seen all this before, barbeau, and this is no mere raid of a few scattered warriors, seeking adventure and scalps; 'tis an organized war party. the iroquois have learned of the trouble in new france, of la salle's absence from this valley; they know of the few fighting men at the rock, and that de tonty is no longer in command. they are here to sweep the french out of this illinois country, and have given no warning. they surprised the indian villages first, killed every algonquin they could find, and are now besieging the rock. and what have they to oppose them? more than they thought, no doubt, for cassion and de la durantaye must have reached there safely, yet at the best, the white defenders will scarcely number fifty men, and quarreling among themselves like mad dogs. there is but one thing for us to do, barbeau--reach the fort." "ay, but how? there will be death now, haunting us every foot of the way." de artigny turned his head, and his eyes met mine questioningly. "there is a passage i know," he said gravely, "below the south banks yonder, but there will be peril in it--a peril to which i dread to expose the lady." i stood erect, no longer paralyzed by fear, realizing my duty. "do not hesitate because of me, monsieur," i said calmly. "french women have always done their part, and i shall not fail. explain to us your plan." chapter xxiii the words of love his eyes brightened, and his hand sought mine. "the spirit of the old days; the words of a soldier's daughter, hey, barbeau?" "a la chesnayne could make no other choice," he answered loyally. "but we have no time to waste here in compliment. you know a safe passage, you say?" "not a safe one, yet a trail which may still remain open, for it is known to but few. let us aboard, and cross to the opposite shore, where we will hide the canoe, and make our way through the forest. once safely afoot yonder i will make my purpose clear." a dozen strokes landed us on the other bank, where the canoe was drawn up, and concealed among the bushes, while we descended a slight declivity, and found ourselves in the silence of a great wood. here de artigny paused to make certain his sense of direction. "i will go forward slightly in advance," he said, at last, evidently having determined upon his course. "and we will move slowly, and as noiselessly as possible. no one ever knows where the enemy are to be met with in indian campaign, and we are without arms, except for barbeau's gun." "i retain my pistol," i interrupted. "of small value since its immersion in the lake; as to myself i must trust to my knife. madame you will follow me, but merely close enough to make sure of your course through the woods, while barbeau will guard the rear. are both ready?" "perhaps it might be well to explain more clearly what you propose," said the soldier. "then if we become separated we could figure out the proper direction to follow." "not a bad thought that. it is a rough road ahead, heavily wooded, and across broken land. my route is almost directly west, except that we bear slightly south to keep well away from the river. three leagues will bring us to a small stream which empties into the illinois. there is a faint trail along its eastern bank which leads to the rear of the rock, where it is possible for one knowing the way to attain the palisades of the fort. if we can attain this trail before dark we can make the remaining distance by night. here, let me show you," and he drew with a sharp stick a hasty map on the ground. "now you understand; if we become separated, keep steadily westward until you reach a stream flowing north." in this order we took up the march, and as i had nothing to bear except a blanket, which i twisted about my shoulders, i found little difficulty in following my leader. at first the underbrush was heavy, and the ground very broken, so that oftentimes i lost sight entirely of de artigny, but as he constantly broke branches to mark his passage, and the sun served as guidance, i had small difficulty in keeping the proper direction. to our right along the river appeared masses of isolated rock, and these we skirted closely, always in the shadow and silence of great trees. within half an hour we had emerged from the retarding underbrush, and came out into an open wood, where the walking was much easier. i could look down the aisles of the trees for long distances, and no longer experienced any difficulty in keeping within sight of my leader. all sense of fear had passed away, we seemed so alone in the silent forest, although once i thought i heard the report of a distant gun, which brought back to mind a vision of that camp of death we had left behind. it was a wearisome tramp over the rough ground, for while de artigny found passage through the hollows wherever possible, yet we were obliged to climb many hills, and once to pick our way cautiously through a sickly swamp, springing from hummock to hummock to keep from sinking deep in slimy ooze. de artigny came back and aided me here, speaking words of encouragement, and assuring me that the trail we sought was only a short distance beyond. i laughed at his solicitude, claiming to be good for many a mile yet, and he left me, never realizing that i already staggered from weariness. however we must have made excellent progress, for the sun had not entirely disappeared when we emerged from the dark wood shadows into a narrow, grassy valley, through which flowed a silvery stream, not broad, but deep. assured that this must be the water we sought, i sank to the ground, eager for a moment's rest, but de artigny, tireless still, moved back and forward along the edge of the forest to assure himself of the safety of our surroundings. barbeau joined him, and questioned. "we have reached the trail?" "ay, beside the shore yonder; see you anything of indian tepees across the stream to the left?" "below, there are wigwams there just in the edge of the grove. you can see the outlines from here; but i make out no moving figures." "deserted then; the cowards have run away. they could not have been attacked, or the tepees would have been burned." "an algonquin village?" "miamis. i had hoped we might gain assistance there, but they have either joined the whites in the fort, or are hiding in the woods. 'tis evident we must save ourselves." "and how far is it?" "to the fort? a league or two, and a rough climb at the farther end through the dark. we will wait here until after dusk, eat such food as we have without fire, and rest up for a bit of venture. the next trip will test us all, and madame is weary enough already." "an hour will put me right," i said, smiling at him, yet making no attempt to rise. "i have been in a boat so long i have lost all strength in my limbs." "we feel that, all of us," cheerily, "but come barbeau, unpack, and let us have what cheer we can." i know not when food was ever more welcome, although it was simple enough to be sure--a bit of hard cracker, and some jerked deer meat, washed down by water from the stream--yet hunger served to make these welcome. we were at the edge of the wood, already growing dark and dreary with the shadows of approaching night. the wind, what there was, was from the south, and, if there was any firing at the fort, no sound of it reached us. once we imagined we saw a skulking figure on the opposite bank--an indian barbeau insisted--but it disappeared so suddenly as to make us doubt our own eyes. the loneliness and peril of our situation had tendency to keep us silent, although de artigny endeavored to cheer me with kindly speech, and gave barbeau careful description of the trail leading to the fort gate. if aught happened to him, we were to press on until we attained shelter. the way in which the words were said brought a lump into my throat, and before i knew the significance of the action, my hand clasped his. i felt the grip of his fingers, and saw his face turn toward me in the dusk. barbeau got to his feet, gun in hand, and stood shading his eyes. "i would like a closer view of that village yonder," he said, "and will go down the bank a hundred yards or so." "'twill do no harm," returned de artigny, still clasping my hand. "there is time yet before we make our venture." he disappeared in the shadows, leaving us alone, and i glanced aside at de artigny's face, my heart beating fiercely. "you did not like to hear me speak as i did?" he questioned quietly. "no," i answered honestly, "the thought startled me. if--if anything happened to you, i--i should be all alone." he bent lower, still grasping my fingers, and seeking to compel my eyes to meet his. "adele," he whispered, "why is it necessary for us to keep up this masquerade?" "what masquerade, monsieur?" "this pretense at mere friendship," he insisted, "when we could serve each other better by a frank confession of the truth. you love me--" "monsieur," and i tried to draw my hand away. "i am the wife of francois cassion." "i care nothing for that unholy alliance. you are his only by form. do you know what that marriage has cost me? insults, ever since we left quebec. the coward knew i dare not lay hand upon him, because he was your husband. we would have crossed steel a hundred times, but for my memory of you. i could not kill the cur, for to do so would separate us forever. so i bore his taunts, his reviling, his curses, his orders that were insults. you think it was easy? i am a woodsman, a lieutenant of la salle's, and it has never before been my way to receive insult without a blow. we are not of that breed. yet i bore it for your sake--why? because i loved you." "oh, monsieur!" "'tis naught to the shame of either of us," he continued, now speaking with a calmness which held me silent. "and i wish you to know the truth, so far as i can make it clear. this has been in my mind for weeks, and i say it to you now as solemnly as though i knelt before a father confessor. you have been to me a memory of inspiration ever since we first met years ago at that convent in quebec. i dreamed of you in the wilderness, in the canoe on the great river, and here at st. louis. never did _voyageur_ go eastward but i asked him to bring me word from you, and each one, bore from me a message of greeting." "i received none, monsieur." "i know that; even sieur de la salle failed to learn your dwelling place. yet when he finally chose me as his comrade on this last journey, while i would have followed him gladly even to death, the one hope which held me to the hardships of the trail, was the chance thus given of seeking you myself." "it was i you sought then at the home of hugo chevet? not service under francois cassion? yet, when we met, you knew me not." "nay; i had no thought that you were there. 'twas told me in quebec--for what cause i cannot decide--that you had returned to france. i had given up all hope, and that very fact made me blind to your identity. indeed, i scarce comprehended that you were really adele la chesnayne, until we were alone together in the palace of the intendant. after i left you there, left you facing la barre; left you knowing of your forced engagement to his commissaire, i reached a decision--i meant to accompany his party to montreal, find some excuse on the way for quarrel, and return to quebec--and you." he paused, but i uttered no word, conscious that my cheeks were burning hotly, and afraid to lift my eyes to his face. "you know the rest. i have made the whole journey; i have borne insult, the charge of crime, merely that i might remain, and serve you. why do i say this? because tonight--if we succeed in getting through the indian lines--i shall be again among my old comrades, and shall be no longer a servant to francois cassion. i shall stand before him a man, an equal, ready to prove myself with the steel--" "no, monsieur," i burst forth, "that must not be; for my sake you will not quarrel!" "for your sake? you would have me spare him?" "oh, why do you put it thus, monsieur! it is so hard for me to explain. you say you love me, and--and the words bring me joy. ay, i confess that. but do you not see that a blow from your hand struck at francois cassion would separate us forever? surely that is not the end you seek. i would not have you bear affront longer, yet no open quarrel will serve to better our affairs. certainly no clash of swords. perhaps it cannot be avoided, for cassion may so insult you when he sees us together, as to let his insolence go beyond restraint. but i beg of you, monsieur, to hold your hand, to restrain your temper--for my sake." "you make it a trial, a test?" "yes--it is a test. but, monsieur, there is more involved here than mere happiness. you must be cleared of the charge of crime, and i must learn the truth of what caused my marriage. without these facts the future can hold out no hope for either of us. and there is only one way in which this end can be accomplished--a confession by cassion. he alone knows the entire story of the conspiracy, and there is but one way in which he can be induced to talk." "you mean the same method you proposed to me back on the ottawa?" i faced him frankly, my eyes meeting his, no shade of hesitation in my voice. "yes, monsieur, i mean that. you refused me before, but i see no harm, no wrong in the suggestion. if the men we fought were honorable i might hesitate--but they have shown no sense of honor. they have made me their victim, and i am fully justified in turning their own weapons against them. i have never hesitated in my purpose, and i shall not now. i shall use the weapons which god has put into my hands to wring from him the bitter truth--the weapons of a woman, love, and jealousy. monsieur, am i to fight this fight alone?" at first i thought he would not answer me, although his hand grip tightened, and his eyes looked down into mine, as though he would read the very secret of my heart. "perhaps i did not understand before," he said at last, "all that was involved in your decision. i must know now the truth from your own lips before i pledge myself." "ask me what you please; i am not too proud to answer." "i think there must be back of this choice of yours something more vital than hate, more impelling than revenge." "there is, monsieur." "may i ask you what?" "yes, monsieur, and i feel no shame in answering; i love you! is that enough?" "enough! my sweetheart--" "hush!" i interrupted, "not now--barbeau returns yonder." chapter xxiv we attack the savages it was already so dark that the soldier was almost upon us before i perceived his shadow, but it was evident enough from his first words that he had overheard none of our conversation. "there are no indians in the village," he said gruffly, leaning on his gun, and staring at us. "i got across to a small island, along the trunk of a dead tree, and had good view of the whole bank yonder. the tepees stand, but not a squaw, nor a dog is left." "were there any canoes in sight along the shore?" "only one, broken beyond repair." "then, as i read the story, the tribe fled down the stream, either to join the others on the illinois, or the whites at the fort. they were evidently not attacked, but had news of the coming of the iroquois, and escaped without waiting to give battle. 'tis not likely the wolves will overlook this village long. are we ready to go forward?" "ay, the venture must be made, and it is dark enough now." de artigny's hand pressed my shoulder. "i would that i could remain with you, madame," he said quietly, "but as i know the way my place is in advance. barbeau must be your protector." "nor could i ask for a braver. do not permit any thought of me to make you less vigilant, monsieur. you expect to gain the fort unseen?" "'tis merely a chance we take--the only one," he explained briefly. "i cannot even be certain the fort is in state of siege, yet, without doubt those warriors who went down the river would be in position to prevent our approaching the rock by canoe. there is a secret path here, known only to la salle's officers, which, however, should give us entrance, unless some wandering iroquois has discovered it by accident. we must approach with the utmost caution, yet i do not anticipate great peril. barbeau, do not become separated from madame, but let me precede you by a hundred paces--you will have no trouble following the trail." he disappeared in the darkness, vanishing silently, and we stood motionless waiting our turn to advance. neither spoke, barbeau leaning forward, his gun extended, alert and ready. the intense darkness, the quiet night, the mystery lurking amid those shadows beyond, all combined to arouse within me a sense of danger. i could feel the swift pounding of my heart, and i clasped the sleeve of the soldier's jacket merely to assure myself of his actual presence. the pressure of my fingers caused him to glance about. "do not be frightened, madame," he whispered encouragingly. "there would be firing yonder if the iroquois blocked our path." "fear not for me," i answered, surprised at the steadiness of my voice. "it is the lonely silence which makes me shrink; as soon as we advance i shall have my nerve again. have we not waited long enough?" "ay, come; but be careful where you place your feet." he led the way, walking with such slow caution, that, although i followed step by step, not a sound reached my ears. dark as the night was, our eyes, accustomed to the gloom, were able to distinguish the marks of the trail, and follow its windings without much difficulty. many a moccasined foot had passed that way before us, beating down a hard path through the sod, and pressing aside the low bushes which helped to conceal the passage. at first we followed rather closely the bank of the stream; then the narrow trail swerved to the right, entering a gap between two hills, ever tending to a higher altitude. we circled about large rocks, and up a ravine, through which we found barely room for passage, the walls rising steep and high on either side. it was intensely dark down there, yet impossible for us to escape the trail, and at the end of that passage we emerged into an open space, enclosed with woods, and having a grit of sand under foot. here the trail seemed to disappear, but barbeau struck straight across, and in the forest shade beyond we found de artigny waiting. "do not shoot," he whispered. "i was afraid you might misjudge the way here, as the sand leaves no clear trace. the rest of the passage is through the woods, and up a steep hill. you are not greatly wearied, madame?" "oh, no; i have made some false steps in the dark, but the pace has been slow. do we approach the fort?" "a half league beyond; a hundred yards more, and we begin the climb. there we will be in the zone of danger, although thus far i perceive no sign of indian presence. have you, barbeau?" "none except this feather of a war bonnet i picked up at the big rock below." "a feather! is it iroquois?" "it is cut square, and no algonquin ever does that." "ay, let me see! you are right, barbeau; 'twas dropped from a tuscarora war bonnet. then the wolves have been this way." "could it not be possible," i asked, "that the feather was spoil of war dropped by some miami in flight?" he shook his head. "possible perhaps, but not probable; some white man may have passed this way with trophy, but no illinois indian would dare such venture. i have seen them before in iroquois foray. i like not the sign, barbeau, yet there is naught for us to do now, but go on. we dare not be found without the fort at daybreak. keep within thirty paces of me, and guard the lady well." it was a dense woods we entered, and how barbeau kept to the trail will ever be to me a mystery. no doubt the instinct of a woodsman guided him somewhat, and then, with his moccasined feet, he could feel the slight depression in the earth, and thus cling to the narrow path. i would have been lost in a moment, had i not clung to him, and we moved forward like two snails, scarcely venturing to breathe, our motions as silent as a wild panther stalking its prey. except for a faint rustling of leaves overhead no sound was distinguishable, although once we were startled by some wild thing scurrying across our path, the sudden noise it made causing me to give utterance to a half-stifled cry. i could feel how tense was every muscle in the soldier's body, as he advanced steadily step by step, his gun flung forward, each nerve strained to the utmost. we crossed the wood, and began to climb among loose stones, finally finding solid rock beneath our feet, the path skirting the edge of what seemed to be a deep gash in the earth, and winding about wherever it could find passage. the way grew steeper and steeper, and more difficult to traverse, although, as we thus rose above the tree limit, the shadows became less dense, and we were able dimly to perceive objects a yard or two in advance. i strained my eyes over barbeau's shoulder, but could gain no glimpse of de artigny. then we rounded a sharp edge of rock, and met him blocking the narrow way. "the red devils are there," he said, his voice barely audible. "beyond the curve in the bank. 'twas god's mercy i had glimpse in time, or i would have walked straight into their midst. a stone dropping into the ravine warned me, and i crept on all fours to where i could see." "you counted them?" "hardly that in this darkness; yet 'tis no small party. 'twould be my judgment there are twenty warriors there." "and the fort?" "short rifle shot away. once past this party, and the way is easy. here is my thought barbeau. there is no firing, and this party of wolves are evidently hidden in ambush. they have found the trail, and expect some party from the fort to pass this way." "or else," said the other thoughtfully, "they lie in wait for an assault at daylight--that would be indian war." "true, such might be their purpose, but in either case one thing remains true--they anticipate no attack from below. all their vigilance is in the other direction. a swift attack, a surprise will drive them into panic. 'tis a grave risk i know, but there is no other passage to the fort." "if we had arms, it might be done." "we'll give them no time to discover what we have--a shot, a yell, a rush forward. 'twill all be over with before a devil among them gets his second breath. then 'tis not likely the garrison is asleep. if we once get by there will be help in plenty to hold back pursuit. 'tis a desperate chance i admit, but have you better to propose?" the soldier stood silent, fingering his gun, until de artigny asked impatiently: "you have none?" "i know not the passage; is there no way around?" "no; this trail leads alone to the fort gate. i anticipated this, and thought it all out as i came along. in the surprise at the first attack, the savages will never know whether we be two or a dozen. they will have no guard in this direction, and we can creep almost upon them before attempting a rush. the two in advance should be safely past before they recover sufficiently to make any fight. it will be all done in the dark, you know." "you will go first, with the lady?" "no; that is to be your task; i will cover the rear." i heard these words, yet it was not my privilege to protest. indeed, i felt that he was right, and my courage made response to his decision. "if this be the best way possible," i said quietly, for both men glanced questioningly at me, "then do not think of me as helpless, or a burden. i will do all i can to aid you." "never have i doubted that," exclaimed de artigny heartily. "so then the affair is settled. barbeau, creep forward about the bank; be a savage now, and make no noise until i give the word. you next, madame, and keep close enough to touch your leader. the instant i yell, and barbeau fires, the two of you leap up, and rush forward. pay no heed to me." "you would have us desert you, monsieur?" "it will be every one for himself," he answered shortly. "i take my chance, but shall not be far behind." we clasped hands, and then, as barbeau advanced to the corner, i followed, my only thought now to do all that was required of me. i did not glance backward, yet was aware that de artigny was close behind. my heart beat fiercely, but i was not conscious of fear, although a moment later, i could perceive the dim figures of savages. they were but mere vague shadows in the night, and i made no attempt to count them, only realizing that they were grouped together in the trail. i could not have told how they faced, but there was a faint sound of guttural speech, which proved them unsuspicious of danger. barbeau, lying low like a snake, crept cautiously forward, making not the slightest noise, and closely hugging the deeper shadow of the bank. i endeavored to imitate his every motion, almost dragging my body forward by gripping my fingers into the rock-strewn earth. we advanced by inches, pausing now and then to listen breathlessly to the low murmur of the indian voices, and endeavoring to note any change in the posture of the barely distinguishable figures. there was no alarm, no changing of places, and the success of our approach brought to us new confidence. once a savage form, appearing grotesque in its blanket, suddenly stood erect, and we shrunk close to the ground in terror of discovery. an instant of agony followed, in which we held our breath, staring through the dark, every nerve throbbing. but the fellow merely stretched his arms lazily, uttered some guttural word, and resumed his place. once the gleam of a star reflected from a rifle barrel as its owner shifted position; but nothing else occurred to halt our steady advance. we were within a very few yards of them, so close, indeed, i could distinguish the individual forms, when barbeau paused, and, with deliberate caution, rose on one knee. realizing instantly that he was preparing for the desperate leap, i also lifted my body, and braced myself for the effort. de artigny touched me, and spoke, but his voice was so low it scarcely reached my ears. "do not hesitate; run swift, and straight. give barbeau the signal." what followed is to me a delirium of fever, and remains in memory indistinct and uncertain. i reached out, and touched barbeau; i heard the sudden roar of de artigny's voice, the sharp report of the soldier's rifle. the flame cut the dark as though it was the blade of a knife, and, in the swift red glare, i saw a savage fling up his arms and fall headlong. then all was chaos, confusion, death. nothing touched me, not even a gripping hand, but there were indian shots, giving me glimpse of the hellish scene, of naked bodies, long waving hair, eyes mad with terror, and red arms brandished, the rifles they bore shining in the red glare. i saw barbeau grip his gun by the barrel and strike as he ran. again and again it fell crunching against flesh. a savage hand slashed at him with a gleaming knife, but i struck the red arm with my pistol butt, and the indian fell flat, leaving the way open. we dashed through, but barbeau grasped me, and thrust me ahead of him, and whirled about, with uplifted rifle to aid de artigny who faced two warriors, naked knife in hand. "run, madame, for the fort," he shouted above the uproar. "to my help, barbeau!" chapter xxv within the fort i doubt if i paused a second, yet that was enough to give me glimpse of the weird scene. i saw de artigny lunge with his knife, a huge savage reeling beneath the stroke, and barbeau cleave passage to the rescue, the stock of his gun shattered as he struck fiercely at the red devils who blocked his path. outnumbered, helpless for long in that narrow space, their only hope lay in a sortie by the garrison, and it was my part to give the alarm. even as i sprang forward, a savage leaped from the ruck, but i escaped his hand, and raced up the dark trail, the one thought urging me on. god knows how i made it--to me 'tis but a memory of falls over unseen obstacles, of reckless running; yet the distance could have been scarce more than a hundred yards, before my eyes saw the darker shadow of the stockade outlined against the sky. crying out with full strength of my voice i burst into the little open space, then tripped and fell just as the gate swung wide, and i saw a dozen dark forms emerge. one leaped forward and grasped me, lifting me partly to my feet. "_mon dieu_! a woman!" he exclaimed in startled voice. "what means this, in heaven's name?" "quick," i gasped, breaking away, able now to stand on my own feet. "they are fighting there--two white men--de artigny--" "what, rene! ay, lads, to the rescue! cartier, take the lady within. come with me you others." they swept past me, the leader well in advance. i felt the rush as they passed, and had glimpse of vague figures 'ere they disappeared in the darkness. then i was alone, except for the bearded soldier who grasped my arm. "who was that?" i asked, "the man who led?" "boisrondet, francois de boisrondet." "an officer of la salle's? you then are of his company?" "i am," a bit proudly, "but most of the lads yonder belong with de baugis. now we fight a common foe, and forget our own quarrel. did you say rene de artigny was in the fighting yonder?" "yes; he and a soldier named barbeau." the fellow stood silent, shifting his feet. "'twas told us he was dead," he said finally, with effort. "some more of la barre's men arrived three days ago by boat, under a popinjay they call cassion to recruit de baugis' forces. de la durantaye was with him from the portage, so that now they outnumber us three to one. you know this cassion, madame?" "ay, i traveled with his party from montreal." "ah, then you will know the truth no doubt. de tonty and cassion were at swords points over a charge the latter made against rene de artigny--that he had murdered one of the party at st. ignace." "hugo chevet, the fur trader." "ay, that was the name. we of la salle's company know it to be a lie. _sacre_! i have served with that lad two years, and 'tis not in his nature to knife any man in the back. and so de tonty said, and he gave cassion the lie straight in his teeth. i heard their words, and but for de baugis and de la durantaye, francois cassion would have paid well for his false tongue. now you can tell him the truth." "i shall do that, but even my word, i fear, will not clear de artigny of the charge. i believe the man to be innocent; in my heart there is no doubt, yet there is so little to be proven." "cassion speaks bitterly; he is an enemy." "monsieur cassion is my husband," i said regretfully. "your pardon, madame. ah, i understand it all now. you were supposed to have been drowned in the great lake, but were saved by de artigny. 'twill be a surprise for monsieur, but in this land, we witness strange things. _mon dieu_! see, they come yonder; 'tis boisrondet and his men." they approached in silence, mere shadowy figures, whose numbers i could not count, but those in advance bore a helpless body in their arms, and my heart seemed to stop its beating, until i heard de artigny's voice in cheerful greeting. "what, still here, madame, and the gate beyond open," he took my hand, and lifted it to his lips. "my congratulations; your work was well done, and our lives thank you. madame cassion, this is my comrade, francois boisrondet, whose voice i was never more glad to hear than this night. i commend him to your mercy." boisrondet, a mere shadow in the night, swept the earth with his hat. "i mind me the time," he said courteously, "when rene did me equal service." "the savages have fled?" "'twas short, and sweet, madame, and those who failed to fly are lying yonder." "yet some among you are hurt?" "barbeau hath an ugly wound--ay, bear him along, lads, and have the cut looked to--but as for the rest of us, there is no serious harm done." i was gazing at de artigny, and marked how he held one hand to his side. "and you, monsieur; you are unscathed?" "except for a small wound here, and a head which rings yet from savage blows--no more than a night's rest will remedy. come, madame 'tis time we were within, and the gates closed." "is there still danger then? surely now that we are under protection there will be no attack?" "not from those we have passed, but 'tis told me there are more than a thousand iroquois warriors in the valley, and the garrison has less than fifty men all told. it was luck we got through so easily. ay, boisrondet, we are ready." that was my first glimpse of the interior of a frontier fort, and, although i saw only the little open space lighted by a few waving torches, the memory abides with distinctness. a body of men met us at the gate, dim, indistinct figures, a few among them evidently soldiers from their dress, but the majority clothed in the ordinary garb of the wilderness. save for one indian squaw, not a woman was visible, nor did i recognize a familiar face, as the fellows, each man bearing a rifle, surged about us in noisy welcome, eagerly questioning those who had gone forth to our rescue. yet we were scarcely within, and the gates closed, when a man pressed his way forward through the throng, in voice of authority bidding them stand aside. a blazing torch cast its red light over him, revealing a slender figure attired in frontier garb, a dark face, made alive by a pair of dense brown eyes, which met mine in a stare of surprise. "back safe, boisrondet," he exclaimed sharply, "and have brought in a woman. 'tis a strange sight in this land. were any of our lads hurt?" "none worth reporting, monsieur. the man they carried was a soldier of m. de la durantaye. he was struck down before we reached the party. there is an old comrade here." "an old comrade! lift the torch, jacques. faith, there are so few left i would not miss the sight of such a face." he stared about at us, for an instant uncertain; then took a quick step forward, his hand outstretched. "rene de artigny!" he cried, his joy finding expression in his face. "ay, an old comrade, indeed, and only less welcome here than m. de la salle himself. 'twas a bold trick you played tonight, but not unlike many another i have seen you venture. you bring me message from monsieur?" "only that he has sailed safely for france to have audience with louis. i saw him aboard ship, and was bidden to tell you to bide here in patience, and seek no quarrel with de baugis." "easy enough to say; but in all truth i need not seek quarrel--it comes my way without seeking. de baugis was not so bad--a bit high strung, perhaps, and boastful of his rank, yet not so ill a comrade--but there is a newcomer here, a popinjay named cassion, with whom i cannot abide. ah, but you know the beast, for you journeyed west in his company. _sacre_! the man charged you with murder, and i gave him the lie to his teeth. not two hours ago we had our swords out, but now you can answer for yourself." de artigny hesitated, his eyes meeting mine. "i fear, monsieur de tonty," he said finally, "the answer may not be so easily made. if it were point of sword now, i could laugh at the man, but he possesses some ugly facts difficult to explain." "yet 'twas not your hand which did the deed?" "i pledge you my word to that. yet this is no time to talk of the matter. i have wounds to be looked to, and would learn first how barbeau fares. you know not the lady; but of course not, or your tongue would never have spoken so freely--monsieur de tonty, madame cassion." he straightened up, his eyes on my face. for an instant he stood motionless; then swept the hat from his head, and bent low. "your pardon, madame; we of the wilderness become rough of speech. i should have known, for a rumor reached me of your accident. you owe life, no doubt, to sieur de artigny." "yes, monsieur; he has been my kind friend." "he would not be the one i love else. we know men on this frontier, madame, and this lad hath seen years of service by my side." his hand rested on de artigny's shoulder. "'twas only natural then that i should resent m. cassion's charge of murder." "i share your faith in the innocence of m. de artigny," i answered firmly enough, "but beyond this assertion i can say nothing." "naturally not, madame. yet we must move along. you can walk, rene?" "ay, my hurts are mostly bruises." the torches led the way, the dancing flames lighting up the scene. there was hard, packed earth under our feet, nor did i realize yet that this fort st. louis occupied the summit of a great rock, protected on three sides by precipices, towering high above the river. sharpened palisades of logs surrounded us on every side, with low log houses built against them, on the roofs of which riflemen could stand in safety to guard the valley below. the central space was open except for two small buildings, one from its shape a chapel, and the other, as i learned later, the guardhouse. a fire blazed at the farther end of the enclosure, with a number of men lounging about it, and illumined the front of a more pretentious building, which apparently extended across that entire end. this building, having the appearance of a barrack, exhibited numerous doors and windows, with a narrow porch in front, on which i perceived a group of men. as we approached more closely, de tonty walking between de artigny and myself, a soldier ran up the steps, and made some report. instantly the group broke, and two men strode past the fire, and met us. one was a tall, imposing figure in dragoon uniform, a sword at his thigh, his face full bearded; the other whom i recognized instantly with a swift intake of breath, was monsieur cassion. he was a stride in advance, his eyes searching me out in the dim light, his face flushed from excitement. "_mon dieu_! what is this i hear," he exclaimed, staring at the three of us as though doubting the evidence of his own eyes. "my wife alive? ay, by my faith, it is indeed adele." he grasped me by the arm, but even at that instant his glance fell upon de artigny, and his manner changed. "saint anne! and what means this! so 'tis with this rogue you have been wandering the wilderness!" he tugged at his sword, but the dragoon caught his arm. "nay, wait, cassion. 'twill be best to learn the truth before resorting to blows. perchance monsieur tonty can explain clearly what has happened." "it is explained already," answered the italian, and he took a step forward as though to protect us. "these two, with a soldier of m. de la durantaye, endeavored to reach the fort, and were attacked by iroquois. we dispatched men to their rescue, and have all now safe within the palisades. what more would you learn, messieurs?" cassion pressed forward, and fronted him, angered beyond control. "we know all that," he roared savagely. "but i would learn why they hid themselves from me. ay, madame, but i will make you talk when once we are alone! but now i denounce this man as the murderer of hugo chevet, and order him under arrest. here, lads, seize the fellow." chapter xxvi in de baugis' quarters de tonty never gave way an inch, as a dozen soldiers advanced at cassion's order. "wait men!" he said sternly. "'tis no time, with iroquois about, to start a quarrel, yet if a hand be laid on this lad here in anger, we, who are of la salle's company, will protect him with our lives--" "you defend a murderer?" "no; a comrade. listen to me, cassion, and you de baugis. i have held quiet to your dictation, but no injustice shall be done to comrade of mine save by force of arms. i know naught of your quarrel, or your charges of crime against de artigny, but the lad is going to have fair play. he is no _courier du bois_ to be killed for your vengeance, but an officer under sieur de la salle, entitled to trial and judgment." "he was my guide; i have authority." "not now, monsieur. 'tis true he served you, and was your _engagé_ on the voyage hither. but even in that service, he obeyed the orders of la salle. now, within these palisades, he is an officer of this garrison, and subject only to me." de baugis spoke, his voice cold, contemptuous. "you refuse obedience to the governor of new france?" "no, monsieur; i am under orders to obey. there will be no trouble between us if you are just to my men. la barre is not here to decide this, but i am." he put his hand on de artigny's shoulder. "monsieur cassion charges this man with murder. he is an officer of my command, and i arrest him. he shall be protected, and given a fair trial. what more can you ask?" "you will protect him! help him to escape, rather!" burst out cassion. "that is the scheme, de baugis." "your words are insult, monsieur, and i bear no more. if you seek quarrel, you shall have it. i am your equal, monsieur, and my commission comes from the king. ah, m. de la durantaye, what say you of this matter?" a man, broad shouldered, in the dress of a woodsman, elbowed his way through the throng of soldiers. he had a strong, good-humored face. "in faith, i heard little of the controversy, yet 'tis like i know the gist of it, as i have just conversed with a wounded soldier of mine, barbeau, who repeated the story as he understood it. my hand to you, sieur de artigny, and it seems to me, messieurs, that de tonty hath the right of it." "you take his side against us who hath the authority of the governor?" "pah! that is not the issue. tis merely a question of justice to this lad here. i stand for fair trial with henri de tonty, and will back my judgment with my sword." they stood eye to eye, the four of them, and the group of soldiers seemed to divide, each company drawing together. cassion growled some vague threat, but de baugis took another course, gripping his companion by the arm. "no, francois, 'tis not worth the danger," he expostulated. "there will be no crossing of steel. monsieur cassion, no doubt, hath reason to be angered--but not i. the man shall have his trial, and we will learn the right and wrong of all this presently. monsieur tonty, the prisoner is left in your charge. fall back men--to your barracks. madame, permit me to offer you my escort." "to where, monsieur?" "to the only quarters fitted for your reception," he said gallantly, "those i have occupied since arrival here." "you vacate them for me?" "with the utmost pleasure," bowing gallantly. "i beg of you their acceptance; your husband has been my guest, and will join with me in exile." i glanced at de tonty, who yet stood with hand on de artigny's shoulder, a little cordon of his own men gathered closely about them. my eyes encountered those of the younger officer. as i turned away i found myself confronted by cassion. the very sight of his face brought me instant decision, and i spoke my acceptance before he could utter the words trembling on his lips. "i will use your quarters gladly, captain de baugis," i said quietly, "but will ask to be left there undisturbed." "most assuredly, madame--my servant will accompany you." "then good-night, messieurs," i faced cassion, meeting his eyes frankly. "i am greatly wearied, and would rest; tomorrow i will speak with you, monsieur. permit me to pass." he stood aside, unable to affront me, although the anger in his face, was evidence enough of brewing trouble. no doubt he had boasted of me to de baugis, and felt no desire now to have our true relations exposed thus publicly. i passed him, glancing at none of the others, and followed the soldier across the beaten parade. a moment later i was safely hidden within a two-roomed cabin. everything within had an appearance of neatness, almost as if a woman had arranged its furnishings. i glanced about in pleased surprise, as the soldier placed fresh fuel on the cheerful fire blazing in the fireplace, and drew closer the drapery over the single window. "madame will find it comfortable?" he said, pausing at the door. "quite so," i answered. "one could scarcely anticipate so delightful a spot in this indian land." "monsieur de baugis has the privilege of sieur de la salle's quarters," he answered, eager to explain, "and besides brought with him many comforts of his own. but for the iroquois we would be quite happy." "they have proven dangerous?" "not to us within the fort. a few white men were surprised without and killed, but, except for shortness of provisions and powder and ball, we are safe enough here. tomorrow you will see how impregnable is the rock from savage attack." "i have heard there are a thousand iroquois in the valley." "ay, and possibly more, and we are but a handful in defense, yet their only approach is along that path you came tonight. the cowardly illini fled down the river; had they remained here we would have driven the vermin out before this, for 'tis said they fight well with white leaders." i made no reply, and the man disappeared into the darkness, closing the heavy door behind him, and leaving me alone. i made it secure with an oaken bar, and sank down before the fire on a great shaggy bear skin. i was alone at last, safe from immediate danger, able to think of the strange conditions surrounding me, and plan for the future. the seriousness of the situation i realized clearly, and also the fact that all depended on my action--even the life of rene de artigny. i sat staring into the fire, no longer aware of fatigue, or feeling any sense of sleepiness. the thick log walls of the cabin shut out all noise; i was conscious of a sense of security, of protection, and yet comprehended clearly what the new day would bring. i should have to face cassion, and in what spirit could i meet him best? thus far i had been fortunate in escaping his denunciation, but i realized the reason which had compelled his silence--pride, the fear of ridicule, had sealed his lips. i was legally his wife, given to him by holy church, yet for weeks, months, during all our long wilderness journey, i had held aloof from him, mocking his efforts, and making light of his endeavors. it had been maddening, no doubt, and rendered worse by his growing jealousy of de artigny. then i had vanished, supposedly drowned in the great lake. he had sought me vainly along the shore, and finally turned away, convinced of my death, and that de artigny had also perished. once at the fort, companioning with de baugis, and with no one to deny the truth of his words, his very nature would compel him to boast of his marriage to adele la chesnayne. no doubt he had told many a vivid tale of happiness since we left quebec. ay, not only had he thus boasted of conquests over me, but he had openly charged de artigny with murder, feeling safe enough in the belief that we were both dead. and now when we appeared before him alive and together, he had been for the moment too dazed for expression. before de baugis he dare not confess the truth, yet this very fact would only leave him the more furious. and i knew instinctively the course the man would pursue. his one thought, his one purpose, would be revenge--nothing would satisfy him except the death of de artigny. personally i had little to fear; i knew his cowardice, and that he would never venture to use physical force with me. even if he did i could rely upon the gallantry of de tonty, and of de baugis for protection. no, he would try threats, entreaties, slyness, cajolery, but his real weapon to overcome my opposition would be de artigny. and there he possessed power. i felt in no way deceived as to this. the ugly facts, as cassion was able to present them, would without doubt, condemn the younger man. he had no defense to offer, except his own assertion of innocence. even if i told what i knew it would only strengthen the chain of circumstance, and make his guilt appear clearer. de tonty would be his friend, faithful to the end; and i possessed faith in the justice of de baugis, yet the facts of the case could not be ignored--and these, unexplained, tipped with the venom of cassion's hatred, were sufficient to condemn the prisoner. and he was helpless to aid himself; if he was to be saved, i must save him. how? there was but one possible way--discovery of proof that some other committed the crime. i faced the situation hopelessly, confessing frankly to myself that i loved the man accused; that i would willingly sacrifice myself to save him. i felt no shame at this acknowledgment, and in my heart there was no shadow of regret. yet i sat there stunned, helpless, gazing with heavy eyes into the fire, unable to determine a course of action, or devise any method of escape. unable longer to remain quiet, i got to my feet, and my eyes surveyed the room. so immersed in thought i had not before really noted my surroundings, but now i glanced about, actuated by a vague curiosity. the hut contained two rooms, the walls of squared logs, partially concealed by the skins of wild animals, the roof so low i could almost touch it with my hand. a table and two chairs, rudely made with axe and knife, comprised the entire furniture, but a small mirror, unframed, hung suspended against the farther wall. i glanced at my reflection in the glass, surprised to learn how little change the weeks had made in my appearance. it was still the face of a girl which gazed back at me, with clear, wide-open eyes, and cheeks flushed in the firelight. strange to say the very sight of my youthfulness was a disappointment and brought with it doubt. how could i fight these men? how could i hope to win against their schemes, and plans of vengeance? i opened the single window, and leaned out, grateful for the fresh air blowing against my face, but unable to perceive the scene below shrouded in darkness. far away, down the valley, was the red glow of a fire, its flame reflecting over the surface of the river. i knew i stared down into a great void, but could hear no sound except a faint gurgle of water directly beneath. i closed the window shutter, and, urged by some impulse, crossed over to the door leading to the other apartment. it was a sleeping room, scarcely more than a large closet, with garments hanging on pegs against the logs, and two rude bunks opposite the door. but the thing which captured my eyes was a bag of brown leather lying on the floor at the head of one of the bunks--a shapeless bag, having no distinctive mark about it, and yet which i instantly recognized--since we left quebec it had been in our boat. as i stood staring at it, i remembered the words of de baugis, "your husband has been my guest." ay, that was it--this had been cassion's quarters since his arrival, and this was his bag, the one he kept beside him in the canoe, his private property. my heart beat wildly in the excitement of discovery, yet there was no hesitation; instantly i was upon my knees tugging at the straps. they yielded easily, and i forced the leather aside, gaining glimpse of the contents. chapter xxvii i send for de tonty i discovered nothing but clothes at first--moccasins, and numerous undergarments--together with a uniform, evidently new, and quite gorgeous. the removal of these, however, revealed a pocket in the leather side, securely fastened, and on opening this with trembling fingers, a number of papers were disclosed. scarcely venturing to breathe, hardly knowing what i hoped to find, i drew these forth, and glanced hastily at them. surely the man would bear nothing unimportant with him on such a journey; these must be papers of value, for i had noted with what care he had guarded the bag all the way. yet at first i discovered nothing to reward my search--there was a package of letters, carefully bound with a strong cord, a commission from la barre, creating cassion a major of infantry, a number of receipts issued in montreal, a list of goods purchased at st. ignace, and a roster of men composing the expedition. at last from one corner of the pocket, i drew forth a number of closely written pages, evidently the governor's instruction. they were traced in so fine a hand that i was obliged to return beside the fire to decipher their contents. they were written in detail, largely concerned with matters of routine, especially referring to relations with the garrison of the fort, and cassion's authority over de baugis, but the closing paragraph had evidently been added later, and had personal interest. it read: "use your discretion as to de artigny, but violence will hardly be safe; he is thought too well of by la salle, and that fox may get louis' ear again. we had best be cautious. chevet, however, has no friends, and, i am told, possesses a list of the la chesnayne property, and other documents which had best be destroyed. do not fail in this, nor fear results. we have gone too far to hesitate now." i took this page, and thrust it into my breast. it was not much, and yet it might prove the one needed link. i ran through the packet of letters, but they apparently had no bearing on the case. several were from women; others from officers, mere gossipy epistles of camp and field. only one was from la barre, and that contained nothing of importance, except the writer urged cassion to postpone marriage until his return from the west, adding, "there is no suspicion, and i can easily keep things quiet until then." assured that i had overlooked nothing, i thrust the various articles back, restrapped the bag, and returned to the outer room. as i paused before the fire, someone rapped at the door. i stood erect, my fingers gripping the pistol which i still retained. again the raps sounded, clearly enough defined in the night, yet not violent, or threatening. "who is there?" i asked. "your husband, my dear--francois cassion." "but why do you come? it was the pledge of de baugis that i was to be left here alone." "a fair pledge enough, although i was not consulted. from the look of your eyes little difference if i had been. you are as sweet in disposition as ever, my dear; yet never mind that--we'll soon settle our case now, i warrant you. meanwhile i am content to wait until my time comes. 'tis not you i seek tonight, but my dressing case." "your dressing case?" "ay, you know it well, a brown leather bag i bore with me during our journey." "and where is it, monsieur?" "beneath the bunk in the sleeping room. pass it out to me, and i will ask no more." "'twill be safer if you keep your word," i said quietly, "for i still carry hugo chevet's pistol, and know how to use it. draw away from the door, monsieur, and i will thrust out the bag." i lowered the bar, opening the door barely wide enough to permit the bag's passage. the light from the fire gleamed on the barrel of the pistol held in my hand. it was the work of an instant, and i saw nothing of cassion, but, as the door closed, he laughed scornfully. "tis your game tonight, madame," he said spitefully, "but tomorrow i play my hand. i thank you for the bag, as it contains my commission. by virtue of it i shall assume command of this fort st. louis, and i know how to deal with murderers. i congratulate you on your lover, madame--good night." i dropped into the nearest seat, trembling in every limb. it was not personal fear, nor did i in my heart resent the insult of his last words. de artigny was my lover, not in mere lip service, but in fact. i was not ashamed, but proud, to know this was true. the only thing of which i was ashamed was my relationship with cassion; and my only thought now was how that relationship could be ended, and de artigny's life saved. the paper i had found was indeed of value, yet i realized it alone was not enough to offset the charges which cassion would support by his own evidence and that of his men. this mere suggestion in la barre's handwriting meant nothing unless we could discover also in cassion's possession the documents taken from chevet and these, beyond doubt, had been destroyed. over and over again in my mind i turned these thoughts, but only to grow more confused and uncertain. all the powers of hate were arrayed against us, and i felt helpless and alone. i must have slept finally from sheer exhaustion, although i made no attempt to lie down. it was broad daylight, when i awoke, aroused by pounding on the door. to my inquiry a voice announced food, and i lowered the bar, permitting an orderly to enter bearing a tray, which he deposited on the table. without speaking he turned to leave the room, but i suddenly felt courage to address him. "you were not of our party," i said gravely. "are you a soldier of m. de baugis?" "no, madame," and he turned facing me, his countenance a pleasant one. "i am not a soldier at all, but i serve m. de tonty." "ah, i am glad of that. you will bear to your master a message?" "perhaps, madame," his tone somewhat doubtful. "you are the wife of monsieur cassion?" "do not hesitate because of that," i hastened to say, believing i understood his meaning. "while it is true i am legally the wife of francois cassion, my sympathies now are altogether with the sieur de artigny. i would have you ask m. de tonty to confer with me." "yes, madame." "you have served with de artigny? you know him well?" "three years, madame; twice he saved my life on the great river. m. de tonty shall receive your message." i could not eat, although i made the endeavor, and finally crossed to the window, opened the heavy wooden shutters, and gazed without. what a marvelous scene that was! never before had my eyes looked upon so fair a view, and i stood silent, and fascinated. my window opened to the westward, and i gazed down from the very edge of the vast rock into the wide valley. great tree tops were below, and i had to lean far out to see the silvery waters lapping the base of the precipice, but, a little beyond, the full width of the noble stream became visible, decked with islands, and winding here and there between green-clad banks, until it disappeared in the far distance. the sun touched all with gold; the wide meadows opposite were vivid green, while many of the trees crowning the bluffs had already taken on rich autumnal coloring. nor was there anywhere in all that broad expanse, sign of war or death. it was a scene of peace, so silent, so beautiful, that i could not conceive this as a land of savage cruelty. far away, well beyond rifle shot, two loaded canoes appeared, skimming the surface of the river. beyond these, where the meadows swept down to the stream, i could perceive black heaps of ashes, and here and there spirals of smoke, the only visible symbols of destruction. a haze hid the distant hills, giving to them a purple tinge, like a frame encircling the picture. it was all so soft in coloring my mind could not grasp the fact that we were besieged by warriors of the iroquois, and that this valley was even now being swept and harried by those wild raiders of the woods. i had neglected to bar the door, and as i stood there gazing in breathless fascination, a sudden step on the floor caused me to turn in alarm. my eyes encountered those of de tonty, who stood hat in hand. "tis a fair view, madame," he said politely. "in all my travels i have seen no nobler domain." "it hath a peaceful look," i answered, still struggling with the memory. "can it be true the savages hold the valley?" "all too true--see, yonder, where the smoke still shows, dwelt the kaskaskias. not a lodge is left, and the bodies of their dead strew the ground. along those meadows three weeks since there were the happy villages of twelve tribes of peaceful indians; today those who yet live are fleeing for their lives." "and this fort, monsieur?" "safe enough, i think, although no one of us can venture ten yards beyond the gate. the rock protects us, madame, yet we are greatly outnumbered, and with no ammunition to waste. 'twas the surprise of the raid which left us thus helpless. could we have been given time to gather our friendly indians together the story would be different." "they are not cowards then?" "not with proper leadership. we have seen them fight often since we invaded this land. 'tis my thought many of them are hiding now beyond those hills, and may find some way to reach us. i suspected such an effort last night, when i sent out the rescue party which brought you in. ah, that reminds me, madame; you sent for me?" "yes, m. de tonty. i can speak to you frankly? you are the friend of sieur de artigny?" "faith, i hope i am, madame, but i know not what has got into the lad--he will tell me nothing." "i suspected as much, monsieur. it was for that reason i have sent for you. he has not even told you the story of our journey?" "ay, as brief as a military report--not a fact i could not have guessed. there is a secret here, which i have not discovered. why is m. cassion so wild for the lad's blood? and how came there to be trouble between rene, and the fur trader? bah! i know the lad is no murderer, but no one will tell me the facts." "then i will, monsieur," i said gravely. "it was because of my belief that sieur de artigny would refuse explanation that i sent for you. the truth need not be concealed; not from you, at least, the commander of fort st. louis--" "pardon, madame, but i am not that. la salle left me in command with less than a dozen men. de baugis came later, under commission from la barre, but he also had but a handful of followers. to save quarrel we agreed to divide authority, and so got along fairly well, until m. cassion arrived with his party. then the odds were altogether on the other side, and de baugis assumed command by sheer force of rifles. 'twas la salle's wish that no resistance be made, but, faith, with the indians scattered, i had no power. this morning things have taken a new phase. an hour ago m. cassion assumed command of the garrison by virtue of a commission he produced from the governor la barre, naming him major of infantry. this gives him rank above captain de baugis, and, besides, he bore also a letter authorizing him to take command of all french troops in this valley, if, in his judgment, circumstances rendered it necessary. no doubt he deemed this the proper occasion." "to assure the conviction, and death of de artigny?" i asked, as he paused. "that is your meaning, monsieur?" "i cannot see it otherwise," he answered slowly, "although i hesitate to make so grave a charge in your presence, madame. our situation here is scarcely grave enough to warrant his action, for the fort is in no serious danger from the iroquois. de baugis, while no friend of mine, is still a fair minded man, and merciful. he cannot be made a tool for any purpose of revenge. this truth major cassion has doubtless learned, and hence assumes command himself to carry out his plans." i looked into the soldier's dark, clear-cut face, feeling a confidence in him, which impelled me to hold out my hand. "m. de tonty," i said, determined now to address him in all frankness. "it is true that i am legally the wife of this man of whom you speak, but this only enables me to know his motives better. this condemnation of sieur de artigny is not his plan alone; it was born in the brain of la barre, and cassion merely executes his orders. i have here the written instructions under which he operates." i held out to him the page from la barre's letter. chapter xxviii the court martial de tonty took the paper from my hand, glanced at it, then lifted his eyes inquiringly to mine. "'tis in the governor's own hand. how came this in your possession?" "i found it in cassion's private bag last night, under the berth yonder. later he came and carried the bag away, never suspecting it had been opened. his commission was there also. read it, monsieur." he did so slowly, carefully, seeming to weigh every word, his eyes darkening, and a flush creeping into his swarthy cheeks. "madame," he exclaimed at last. "i care not whether the man be your husband, but this is a damnable conspiracy, hatched months ago in quebec." i bowed my head. "beyond doubt, monsieur." "and you found nothing more? no documents taken from hugo chevet?" "none, monsieur; they were either destroyed in accordance with la barre's instructions, or else m. cassion has them on his person." "but i do not understand the reason for such foul treachery. what occurred back in new france to cause the murder of chevet, and this attempt to convict de artigny of the crime?" "sit here, monsieur," i said, my voice trembling, "and i will tell you the whole story. i must tell you, for there is no one else in fort st. louis whom i can trust." he sat silent, and bareheaded, his eyes never leaving my face as i spoke. at first i hesitated, my words hard to control, but as i continued, and felt his sympathy, speech became easier. all unconsciously his hand reached out and rested on mine, as though in encouragement, and only twice did he interrupt my narrative with questions. i told the tale simply, concealing nothing, not even my growing love for de artigny. the man listening inspired my utmost confidence--i sought his respect and faith. as i came to the end his hand grasp tightened, but, for a moment, he remained motionless and silent, his eyes grave with thought. "'tis a strange, sad case," he said finally, "and the end is hard to determine. i believe you, madame, and honor your choice. the case is strong against de artigny; even your testimony is not for his defense. does m. cassion know you saw the young man that night?" "he has dropped a remark, or two, which shows suspicion. possibly some one of the men saw me outside the mission house, and made report." "then he will call you as witness. if i know the nature of cassion his plan of trial is a mere form, although doubtless he will ask the presence of captain de baugis, and m. de la durantaye. neither will oppose him, so long as he furnishes the proof necessary to convict. he will give his evidence, and call the indian, and perchance a soldier or two, who will swear to whatever he wishes. if needed he may bring you in also to strengthen the case. de artigny will make no defense, because he has no witnesses, and because he has a fool notion that he might compromise you by telling the whole truth." "then there is no hope? nothing we can do?" "no, madame; not now. i shall not be consulted, nor asked to be present. i am under strict order from la salle not to oppose la barre's officers, and, even if i were disposed to disobey my chief, i possess no force with which to act. i have but ten men on whom i could rely, while they number over forty." he leaned closer, whispering, "our policy is to wait, and act after the prisoner has been condemned." "how? you mean a rescue?" "ay, there lies the only hope. there is one man here who can turn the trick. he is de artigny's comrade and friend. already he has outlined a plan to me, but i gave no encouragement. yet, now, that i know the truth, i shall not oppose. have you courage, madame, to give him your assistance? 'tis like to be a desperate venture." i drew a deep breath, but with no sense of fear. "yes, monsieur. who is the man i am to trust?" "francois de boisrondet, the one who led the rescue party last night." "a gallant lad." "ay, a gentleman of france, a daring heart. tonight--" the door opened, and the figure of a man stood outlined against the brighter glow without. de tonty was on his feet fronting the newcomer, ere i even realized it was cassion who stood there, glaring at us. behind him two soldiers waited in the sunshine. "what is the meaning of this, m. de tonty?" he exclaimed, with no pretense at friendliness. "a rather early morning call, regarding which i was not even consulted. have husbands no rights in this wilderness paradise?" "such rights as they uphold," returned the italian, erect and motionless. "i am always at your service, m. cassion. madame and i have conversed without permission. if that be crime i answer for it now, or when you will." it was in cassion's heart to strike. i read the desire in his eyes, in the swift clutch at his sword hilt; but the sarcastic smile on de tonty's thin lips robbed him of courage. "'tis best you curb your tongue," he snarled, "or i will have you in the guardhouse with de artigny. i command now." "so i hear. doubtless you could convict me as easily." "what do you mean?" "only that your whole case is a tissue of lies." "pah! you have her word for it, no doubt. but you will all sing a different song presently. ay, and it will be her testimony which will hang the villain." "what is this you say, monsieur--my testimony?" "just that--the tale of what you saw in the mission garden at st. ignace. _sacre_, that shot hits, does it! you thought me asleep, and with no knowledge of your escapade, but i had other eyes open that night, my lady. now will you confess the truth?" "i shall conceal nothing, monsieur." "'twill be best that you make no attempt," he sneered, his old braggart spirit reasserting itself as de tonty kept silent. "i have guard here to escort you to the commandant's office." "you do me honor." i turned to de tonty. "shall i go, monsieur?" "i think it best, madame," he replied soberly, his dark eyes contemptuously surveying cassion. "to refuse would only strengthen the case against the prisoner. m. cassion will not, i am sure, deny me the privilege of accompanying you. permit me to offer my arm." i did not glance toward cassion, but felt no doubt as to the look on his face; yet he would think twice before laying hand on this stern soldier who had offered me protection. the guard at the door fell aside promptly, and permitted us to pass. some order was spoken, in a low tone, and they fell in behind with rifles at trail. once in the open i became, for the first time, aware of irregular rifle firing, and observed in surprise, men posted upon a narrow staging along the side of the log stockade. "is the fort being attacked?" i asked. "there has been firing for some days," he answered, "but no real attack. the savages merely hide yonder amid the rocks and woods, and strive to keep us from venturing down the trail. twice we have made sortie, and driven them away, but 'tis a useless waste of fighting." he called to a man posted above the gate. "how is it this morning, jules?" the soldier glanced about cautiously, keeping his head below cover. "thick as flies out there, monsieur," he answered, "and with a marksman or two among them. not ten minutes since bowain got a ball in his head." "and no orders to clear the devils out?" "no, monsieur--only to watch that they do not form for a rush." the commandant's office was built against the last stockade--a log hut no more pretentious than the others. a sentry stood at each side of the closed door, but de tonty ignored them, and ushered me into the room. it was not large, and was already well filled, a table littered with papers occupying the central space, de baugis and de la durantaye seated beside it, while numerous other figures were standing pressed against the walls. i recognized the familiar faces of several of our party, but before i recovered from my first embarrassment de baugis arose, and with much politeness offered me a chair. de tonty remained beside me, his hand resting on my chair back, as he coolly surveyed the scene. cassion pushed past, and occupied a vacant chair, between the other officers, laying his sword on the table. my eyes swept about the circle of faces seeking de artigny, but he was not present. but for a slight shuffling of feet, the silence was oppressive. cassion's unpleasant voice broke the stillness. "m. de tonty, there is a chair yonder reserved for your use." "i prefer remaining beside madame cassion," he answered calmly. "it would seem she has few friends in this company." "we are all her friends," broke in de baugis, his face flushing, "but we are here to do justice, and avenge a foul crime. 'tis told us that madame possesses certain knowledge which has not been revealed. other witnesses have testified, and we would now listen to her word. sergeant of the guard, bring in the prisoner." he entered by way of the rear door, manacled, and with an armed soldier on either side. coatless and bareheaded, he stood erect in the place assigned him, and as his eyes swept the faces, his stern look changed to a smile as his glance met mine. my eyes were still upon him, seeking eagerly for some message of guidance, when cassion spoke. "m. de baugis will question the witness." "the court will pardon me," said de artigny. "the witness to be heard is madame?" "certainly; what means your interruption?" "to spare the lady unnecessary embarrassment. she is my friend, and, no doubt, may find it difficult to testify against me. i merely venture to ask her to give this court the exact truth." "your words are impertinent." "no, m. de baugis," i broke in, understanding all that was meant. "sieur de artigny has spoken in kindness, and has my thanks. i am ready now to bear witness frankly." cassion leaned over whispering, but de baugis merely frowned, and shook his head, his eyes on my face. i felt the friendly touch of m. de tonty's hand on my shoulder, and the slight pressure brought me courage. "what is it you desire me to tell, monsieur?" "the story of your midnight visit to the mission garden at st. ignace, the night hugo chevet was killed. tell it in your own words, madame." as i began my voice trembled, and i was obliged to grip the arms of the chair to keep myself firm. there was a mist before my eyes, and i saw only de artigny's face, as he leaned forward eagerly listening. not even he realized all i had witnessed that night, and yet i must tell the truth--the whole truth, even though the telling cost his life. the words came faster, and my nerves ceased to throb. i read sympathy in de baugis' eyes, and addressed him alone. twice he asked me questions, in so kindly a manner as to win instant reply, and once he checked cassion when he attempted to interrupt, his voice stern with authority. i told the story simply, plainly, with no attempt at equivocation, and when i ceased speaking the room was as silent as a tomb. de baugis sat motionless, but cassion stared at me across the table, his face dark with passion. "wait," he cried as though thinking me about to rise. "there are questions yet." "monsieur," said de baugis coldly. "if there are questions it is my place to ask them." "ay," angrily beating his hand on the board, "but it is plain to be seen the woman has bewitched you. no, i will not be denied; i am commandant here, and with force enough behind me to make my will law. scowl if you will, but here is la barre's commission, and i dare you ignore it. so answer me, madame--you saw de artigny bend over the body of chevet--was your uncle then dead?" "i know not, monsieur; but there was no movement." "why did you make no report?--was it to shield de artigny?" i hesitated, yet the answer had to be made. "the sieur de artigny was my friend, monsieur. i did not believe him guilty, yet my evidence would have cast suspicion upon him. i felt it best to remain still, and wait." "you suspected another?" "not then, monsieur, but since." cassion sat silent, not overly pleased with my reply, but de baugis smiled grimly. "by my faith," he said, "the tale gathers interest. you have grown to suspicion another since, madame--dare you name the man?" my eyes sought the face of de tonty, and he nodded gravely. "it can do no harm, madame," he muttered softly. "put the paper in de baugis' hand." i drew it, crumpled, from out the bosom of my dress, rose to my feet, and held it forth to the captain of dragoons. he grasped it wonderingly. "what is this, madame?" "one page from a letter of instruction. read it, monsieur; you will recognize the handwriting." chapter xxix condemned he opened the paper gravely, shadowing the page with one hand so that cassion was prevented from seeing the words. he read slowly, a frown on his face. "'tis the writing of governor la barre, although unsigned," he said at last. "yes, monsieur." "how came the page in your possession?" "i removed it last night from a leather bag found beneath the sleeping bunk in the quarters assigned me." "do you know whose bag it was?" "certainly; it was in the canoe with me all the way from quebec--m. cassion's." "your husband?" "yes, monsieur." de baugis' eyes seemed to darken as he gazed at me; then his glance fell upon cassion, who was leaning forward, his mouth open, his face ashen gray. he straightened up as he met de baugis' eyes, and gave vent to an irritating laugh. "_sacre_, 'tis quite melodramatic," he exclaimed harshly. "but of little value else. i acknowledge the letter, m. de baugis, but it bears no relation to this affair. perchance it was unhappily worded, so that this woman, eager to save her lover from punishment--" de tonty was on his feet, his sword half drawn. "'tis a foul lie," he thundered hotly. "i will not stand silent before such words." "messieurs," and de baugis struck the table. "this is a court, not a mess room. be seated, m. de tonty; no one in my presence will be permitted to besmirch the honor of captain la chesnayne's daughter. yet i must agree with major cassion that this letter in no way proves that he resorted to violence, or was even urged to do so. the governor in all probability suggested other means. i could not be led to believe he countenanced the commission of crime, and shall ask to read the remainder of his letter before rendering decision. you found no other documents, madame?" "none bearing on this case." "the papers supposed to be taken from the dead body of chevet?" "no, monsieur." "then i cannot see that the status of the prisoner is changed, or that we have any reason to charge the crime to another. you are excused, madame, while we listen to such other witnesses as may be called." "you wish me to retire?" "i would prefer you do so." i arose to my feet, hesitating and uncertain. it was evident enough that the court intended to convict the prisoner. all the hatred and dislike engendered by years of controversy with la salle, all the quarrels and misunderstandings of the past few months between the two rival commanders at the fort, was now finding natural outlet in this trial of rene de artigny. he was officer of la salle, friend of de tonty, and through his conviction they could strike at the men they both hated and feared. more, they realized also that such action would please la barre. whatever else had been accomplished by my exhibit of the governor's letter, it had clearly shown de baugis that his master desired the overthrow of the young explorer. and while he felt slight friendship for cassion, he was still la barre's man, and would obey his orders. he wished me out of the way for a purpose. what purpose? that i might not hear the lying testimony of those soldiers and indians, who would swear as they were told. tears misted my eyes, so the faces about me were blurred, but, before i could find words in which to voice my indignation, de tonty stood beside me, and grasped my arm. "there is no use, madame," he said coldly enough, although his voice shook. "you only invite insult when you deal with such curs. they represent their master, and have made verdict already--let us go." de baugis, cassion, de la durantaye were upon their feet, but the dragoon first found voice. "were those words addressed to me, m. de tonty?" "ay, and why not! you are no more than la barre's dog. listen to me, all three of you. 'twas sieur de la salle's orders that i open the gates of this fort to your entrance, and that i treat you courteously. i have done so, although you took my kindness to be sign of weakness, and have lorded it mightily since you came. but this is the end; from now it is war between us, messieurs, and we will fight in the open. convict rene de artigny from the lies of these hirelings, and you pay the reckoning at the point of my sword. i make no threat, but this is the pledged word of henri de tonty. make passage there! come, madame." no one stopped us; no voice answered him. almost before i realized the action, we were outside in the sunlight, and he was smiling into my face, his dark eyes full of cheer. "it will make them pause and think--what i said," he exclaimed, "yet will not change the result." "they will convict?" "beyond doubt, madame. they are la barre's men, and hold commission only at his pleasure. with m. de la durantaye it is different, for he was soldier of frontenac's, yet i have no hope he will dare stand out against the rest. we must find another way to save the lad, but when i leave you at the door yonder i am out of it." "you, monsieur! what can i hope to accomplish without your aid?" "far more than with it, especially if i furnish a good substitute. i shall be watched now, every step i take. 'tis like enough de baugis will send me challenge, though the danger that cassion would do so is slight. it is the latter who will have me watched. no, madame, boisrondet is the lad who must find a way out for the prisoner; they will never suspicion him, and the boy will enjoy the trick. tonight, when the fort becomes quiet, he will find way to explain his plans. have your room dark, and the window open." "there is but one, monsieur, outward, above the precipice." "that will be his choice; he can reach you thus unseen. 'tis quite possible a guard may be placed at your door." he left me, and walked straight across the parade to his own quarters, an erect, manly figure in the sun, his long black hair falling to his shoulders. i drew a chair beside the door, which i left partially open, so that i might view the scene without. there was no firing now, although soldiers were grouped along the western stockade, keeping guard over the gate. i sat there for perhaps an hour, my thoughts sad enough, yet unconsciously gaining courage and hope from the memory of de tonty's words of confidence. he was not a man to fail in any deed of daring, and i had already seen enough of this young boisrondet, and heard enough of his exploits, to feel implicit trust in his plans of rescue. occasionally a soldier of the garrison, or a _courier du bois_, of la salle's company, passed, glancing at me curiously, yet i recognized no familiar face, and made no attempt to speak, lest the man might prove an enemy. i could see the door of the guardhouse, and, at last, those in attendance at the trial emerged, talking gravely, as they scattered in various directions. the three officers came forth together, proceeding directly across toward de tonty's office, evidently with some purpose in view. no doubt, angered at his words, they sought satisfaction. i watched until they disappeared within the distant doorway, de baugis the first to enter. a moment later one of the soldiers who had accompanied us from quebec, a rather pleasant-faced lad, whose injured hand i had dressed at st. ignace, approached where i sat, and lifted his hand in salute. "a moment, jules," i said swiftly. "you were at the trial?" "yes, madame." "and the result?" "the sieur de artigny was held guilty, madame," he said regretfully, glancing about as though to assure himself alone. "the three officers agreed on the verdict, although i know some of the witnesses lied." "you know--who?" "my own mate for one--georges descartes; he swore to seeing de artigny follow chevet from the boats, and that was not true, for we were together all that day. i would have said so, but the court bade me be still." "ay, they were not seeking such testimony. no matter what you said, jules, de artigny would have been condemned--it was la barre's orders." "yes, madame, so i thought." "did the sieur de artigny speak?" "a few words, madame, until m. cassion ordered him to remain still. then m. de baugis pronounced sentence--it was that he be shot tomorrow." "the hour?" "i heard none mentioned, madame." "and a purpose in that also to my mind. this gives them twenty-four hours in which to consummate murder. they fear de tonty and his men may attempt rescue; 'tis to find out the three have gone now to his quarters. that is all, jules; you had best not be seen talking here with me." i closed the door, and dropped the bar securely into place. i knew the worst now, and felt sick and faint. tears would not come to relieve, yet it seemed as though my brain ceased working, as if i had lost all physical and mental power. i know not how long i sat there, dazed, incompetent to even express the vague thoughts which flashed through my brain. a rapping on the door aroused me. the noise, the insistent raps awoke me as from sleep. "who wishes entrance?" "i--cassion; i demand speech with you." "for what purpose, monsieur?" "_mon dieu!_ does a man have to give excuse for desiring to speak with his own wife? open the door, or i'll have it broken in. have you not yet learned i am master here?" i drew the bar, no longer with any sense of fear, but impelled by a desire to hear the man's message. i stepped back, taking refuge behind the table, as the door opened, and he strode in, glancing first at me, then suspiciously about the apartment. "you are alone?" "assuredly, monsieur; did you suspect others to be present?" "hell's fire! how did i know; you have time enough to spare for others, although i have had no word with you since you came. i come now only to tell you the news." "if it be the condemnation of sieur de artigny, you may spare your words." "you know that! who brought you the message?" "what difference, monsieur? i would know the result without messenger. you have done your master's will. what said de tonty when you told him?" cassion laughed, as though the memory was pleasant. "faith, madame, if you base your hopes there on rescue you'll scarce meet with great result. de tonty is all bark. _mon dieu!_ i went in to hold him to account for his insult, and the fellow met us with such gracious speech, that the four of us drank together like old comrades. the others are there yet, but i had a proposition to make you--so i left them." "a proposition, monsieur?" "ay, a declaration of peace, if you will. listen adele, for this is the last time i speak you thus fairly. i have this de artigny just where i want him now. his life is in my hands. i can squeeze it out like that; or i can open my fingers, and let him go. now you are to decide which it is to be. here is where you choose, between that forest brat and me." "choose between you? monsieur you must make your meaning more clear." "_mon dieu_, is it not clear already? then i will make it so. you are my wife by law of holy church. never have you loved me, yet i can pass that by, if you grant me a husband's right. this de artigny has come between us, and now his life is in my hands. i know not that you love the brat, yet you have that interest in him which would prevent forgiveness of me if i show no mercy. so now i come and offer you his life, if you consent to be my wife in truth. is that fair?" "it may so sound," i answered calmly, "yet the sacrifice is all mine. how would you save the man?" "by affording him opportunity to escape during the night; first accepting his pledge never to see you again." "think you he would give such pledge?" cassion laughed sarcastically. "bah, what man would not to save his life! it is for you to speak the word." i stood silent, hesitating to give final answer. had i truly believed de artigny's case hopeless i might have yielded, and made pledge. but as i gazed into cassion's face, smiling with assurance of victory, all my dislike of the man returned, and i shrank back in horror. the sacrifice was too much, too terrible; besides i had faith in the promises of de tonty, in the daring of boisrondet. i would trust them, aye, and myself, to find some other way of rescue. "monsieur," i said firmly, "i understand your proposition, and refuse it. i will make no pledge." "you leave him to die?" "if it be god's will. i cannot dishonor myself, even to save life. you have my answer. i bid you go." never did i see such look of beastly rage in the face of any man. he had lost power of speech, but his fingers clutched as though he had my throat in their grip. frightened, i stepped back, and chevet's pistol gleamed in my hand. "you hear me, monsieur--go!" chapter xxx i choose my future he backed out the door, growling and threatening. i caught little of what he said, nor did i in the least care. all i asked, or desired, was to be alone, to be free of his presence. i swung the door in his very face, and fastened the bar. through the thick wood his voice still penetrated in words of hatred. then it ceased, and i was alone in the silence, sinking down nerveless beside the table, my face buried in my hands. i had done right; i knew i had done right, yet the reaction left me weak and pulseless. i saw now clearly what must be done. never could i live with this cassion; never again could i acknowledge him as husband. right or wrong, whatever the church might do, or the world might say, i had come to the parting of the ways; here and now i must choose my own life, obey the dictates of my own conscience. i had been wedded by fraud to a man i despised; my hatred had grown until now i knew that i would rather be dead than live in his presence. if this state of mind was sin, it was beyond my power to rid myself of the curse; if i was already condemned of holy church because of failure to abide by her decree, then there was naught left but for me to seek my own happiness, and the happiness of the man i loved. i lifted my head, strengthened by the very thought, the red blood tingling again through my veins. the truth was mine; i felt no inclination to obscure it. the time had come for rejoicing, and action. i loved rene de artigny, and, although he had never spoken the word, i knew he loved me. tomorrow he would be in exile, a wanderer of the woods, an escaped prisoner, under condemnation of death, never again safe within reach of french authority. ay, but he should not go alone; in the depths of those forests, beyond the arm of the law, beyond even the grasp of the church, we should be together. in our own hearts love would justify. without a qualm of conscience, without even a lingering doubt, i made the choice, the final decision. i know not how long it took me to think this all out, until i had accepted fate; but i do know the decision brought happiness and courage. food was brought me by a strange indian, apparently unable to speak french; nor would he even enter the room, silently handing me the platter through the open door. two sentries stood just without--soldiers of de baugis, i guessed, as their features were unfamiliar. they gazed at me curiously, as i stood in the doorway, but without changing their attitudes. plainly i was held prisoner also; m. cassion's threat was being put into execution. this knowledge merely served to strengthen my decision, and i closed, and barred the door again, smiling as i did so. it grew dusk while i made almost vain effort to eat, and, at last, pushing the pewter plate away, i crossed over, and cautiously opened the wooden shutter of the window. the red light of the sunset still illumined the western sky, and found glorious reflection along the surface of the river. it was a dizzy drop to the bed of the stream below, but indians were on the opposite bank, beyond rifle shot, in considerable force, a half-dozen canoes drawn up on the sandy shore, and several fires burning. they were too far away for me to judge their tribe, yet a number among them sported war bonnets, and i had no doubt they were iroquois. so far as i could perceive elsewhere there was no movement, as my eyes traveled the half circle, over a wide vista of hill and dale, green valley and dark woods, although to the left i could occasionally hear the sharp report of a rifle, in evidence that besieging savages were still watchful of the fort entrance. i could not lean out far enough to see in that direction, yet as the night grew darker the vicious spits of fire became visible. above me the solid log walls arose but a few feet--a tall man might stand upon the window ledge, and find grip of the roof; but below was the sheer drop to the river--perchance two hundred feet beneath. already darkness shrouded the water, as the broad valley faded into the gloom of the night. there was naught for me to do but sit and wait. the guard which m. cassion had stationed at the door prevented my leaving the room, but its more probable purpose was to keep others from communicating with me. de tonty had evidently resorted to diplomacy, and instead of quarreling with the three officers when they approached him, had greeted them all so genially as to leave the impression that he was disposed to permit matters to take their natural course. he might be watched of course, yet was no longer suspicioned as likely to help rescue the prisoner. all their fear now was centered upon me, and my possible influence. if i could be kept from any further communication with either de artigny, or de tonty, it was scarcely probable that any of the garrison would make serious effort to interfere with their plans. de tonty's apparent indifference, and his sudden friendliness with de baugis and cassion, did not worry me greatly. i realized his purpose in thus diverting suspicion. his pledge of assistance had been given me, and his was the word of a soldier and gentleman. in some manner, and soon--before midnight certainly--i would receive message from boisrondet. yet my heart failed me more than once as i waited. how long the time seemed, and how deadly silent was the night. crouched close beside the door i could barely hear the muttered conversation of the soldiers on guard; and when i crossed to the open window i looked out upon a black void, utterly soundless. not even the distant crack of a rifle now broke the solemn stillness, and the only spot of color visible was the dull red glow of a campfire on the opposite bank of the river. i had no way of computing time, and the lagging hours seemed centuries long, as terrifying doubts assailed me. every new thought became an agony of suspense. had the plans failed? had boisrondet discovered the prisoner so closely guarded as to make rescue impossible? had his nerve, his daring, vanished before the real danger of the venture? had de artigny refused to accept the chance? what had happened; what was happening out there in the mystery? all i could do was pray, and wait. perhaps no word would be given me--the escape might already be accomplished, and i left here to my fate. boisrondet knew nothing of my decision to accompany de artigny in his exile. if the way was difficult and dangerous, he might not consider it essential to communicate with me at all. de tonty had promised, to be sure, yet he might have failed to so instruct the younger man. i clung to the window, the agony of this possibility, driving me wild. _mon dieu!_ was that a noise overhead? i could see nothing, yet, as i leaned further out, a cord touched my face. i grasped it, and drew the dangling end in. it was weighted with a bit of wood. a single coal glowed in the fireplace, and from this i ignited a splinter, barely yielding me light enough to decipher the few words traced on the white surface: "safe so far; have you any word?" my veins throbbed; i could have screamed in delight, or sobbed in sudden joy and relief. i fairly crept to the window on hands and knees, animated now with but one thought, one hope--the desire not to be left here behind, alone. i hung far out, my face upturned, staring into the darkness. the distance was not great, only a few feet to the roof above, yet so black was the night that the edge above me blended imperceptibly against the sky. i could perceive no movement, no outline. could they have already gone? was it possible that they merely dropped this brief message, and instantly vanished? no, the cord still dangled; somewhere in that dense gloom, the two men peered over the roof edge waiting my response. "monsieur," i called up softly, unable to restrain my eagerness. "yes, madame," it was de artigny's voice, although a mere whisper. "you have some word for me?" "ay, listen; is there any way by which i can join you?" "join me--here?" astonishment at my request made him incoherent. "why, madame, the risk is great--" "never mind that; my reason is worthy, nor have we time now to discuss the matter. monsieur boisrondet is there a way?" i heard them speak to each other, a mere murmur of sound; then another voice reached my ears clearly. "we have a strong grass rope, madame, which will safely bear your weight. the risk will not be great. i have made a noose, and will lower it." i reached it with my hand, but felt a doubt as my fingers clasped it. "'tis very small, monsieur." "but strong enough for double your weight, as 'twas indian woven. put foot in the noose, and hold tight. there are two of us holding it above." the memory of the depth below frightened me, yet i crept forth on the narrow sill, clinging desperately to the taut rope, until i felt my foot safely pressed into the noose, which tightened firmly about it. "now," i said, barely able to make my lips speak. "i am ready." "then swing clear, madame; we'll hold you safe." i doubt if it was a full minute in which i swung out over that gulf amid the black night. my heart seemed to stop beating, and i retained no sense other than to cling desperately to the swaying cord which alone held me from being dashed to death on the jagged rocks below. inch by inch they drew me up, the continuous jerks yielding a sickening sensation, but the distance was so short, i could scarcely realize the full danger, before de artigny grasped me with his hands, and drew me in beside him on the roof. i stood upon my feet, trembling from excitement, yet encouraged in my purpose, by his first words of welcome. "adele," he exclaimed, forgetful of the presence of his comrade. "surely you had serious cause for joining us here." "am i welcome, monsieur?" "can you doubt? yet surely it was not merely to say farewell that you assumed such risk?" "no, monsieur, it was not to say farewell. i would accompany you in your flight. do not start like that at my words; i cannot see your face--perhaps if i could i should lose courage. i have made my choice, monsieur. i will not remain the slave of m. cassion. whether for good or evil i give you my faith." "you--you," his hands grasped mine. "you mean you will go with me into exile, into the woods?" "yes, monsieur." "but do you realize what it all means? i am a fugitive, a hunted man; never again can i venture within french civilization. i must live among savages. no, no, adele, the sacrifice is too great. i cannot accept of it." "do you love me, monsieur?" "_mon dieu_--yes." "then there is no sacrifice. my heart would break here. god! would you doom me to live out my life with that brute--that murderer? i am a young woman, a mere girl, and this is my one chance to save myself from hell. i am not afraid of the woods, of exile, of anything, so i am with you. i would rather die than go to him--to confess him husband." "the lady is right, rene," boisrondet said earnestly. "you must think of her as well as yourself." "think of her! _mon dieu_, of whom else do i think. adele, do you mean your words? would you give up all for me?" "yes, monsieur." "but do you know what your choice means?" i stood before him, brave in the darkness. "monsieur i have faced it all. i know; the choice is made--will you take me?" then i was in his strong arms, and for the first time, his lips met mine. chapter xxxi we reach the river it was the voice of boisrondet which recalled us to a sense of danger. "it is late, and we must not linger here," he insisted, touching de artigny's sleeve. "the guard may discover your absence, rene, before we get beyond the stockade. come, we must move quickly." "ay, and with more than ever to give us courage, francois. yet how can we get madame safely over the logs?" "she must venture the same as we. follow me closely, and tread with care." so dark was the night i was obliged to trust entirely to de artigny's guidance, but it was evident that both men were familiar with the way, and had thoroughly considered the best method of escape. no doubt de tonty and his young lieutenant had arranged all details, so as to assure success. we traversed the flat roofs of the chain of log houses along the west side of the stockade until we came to the end. the only light visible was a dull glow of embers before the guardhouse near the center of the parade, which revealed a group of soldiers on duty. the stockade extended some distance beyond where we halted, crouched low on the flat roof to escape being seen. there would be armed men along that wall, especially near the gates, guarding against attack, but the darkness gave us no glimpse. there was no firing, no movement to be perceived. the two men crept to the edge, and looked cautiously over, and i clung close to de artigny, nervous from the silence, and afraid to become separated. below us was the dense blackness of the gorge. "this is the spot," whispered de artigny, "and no alarm yet. how far to the rocks?" "de tonty figured the distance at forty feet below the stockade; we have fifty feet of rope here. the rock shelf is narrow, and the great risk will be not to step off in the darkness. there should be an iron ring here somewhere--ay, here it is; help me draw the knot taut, rene." "do we--do we go down here, monsieur?" i questioned, my voice faltering. "here, or not at all; there are guards posted yonder every two yards. this is our only chance to escape unseen." boisrondet tested the rope, letting it slip slowly through his hands down into the darkness below, until it hung at full length. "it does not touch," he said, "yet it cannot lack more than a foot or two. faith! we must take the risk. i go first rene--hush! 'tis best so--the lady would prefer that you remain, while i test the passage. the devil himself may be waiting there." he gazed down, balancing himself on the edge, the cord gripped in his hands. "now mind my word; once on the rock below i will signal with three jerks on the cord. haul up then slowly, so as to make no noise; make a noose for the lady's foot, and lower her with care. you have the strength?" "ay, for twice her weight." "good; there will be naught to fear, madame, for i will be below to aid your footing. when i give the signal again rene will descend and join us." "the rope is to be left dangling?" "only until i return. once i leave you safe beyond the iroquois, 'tis my part to climb this rope again. some task that," cheerfully, "yet de tonty deems it best that no evidence connect us with this escape. what make you the hour?" "between one and two." "which will give me time before daydawn; so here, i chance it." he swung himself over the edge, and slipped silently down into the black mystery. we leaned over to watch, but could see nothing, our only evidence of his progress, the jerking of the cord. de artigny's hand closed on mine. "dear," he whispered tenderly, "we are alone now--you are sorry?" "i am happier than i have ever been in my life," i answered honestly. "i have done what i believe to be right, and trust god. all i care to know now is that you love me." "with every throb of my heart," he said solemnly. "it is my love which makes me dread lest you regret." "that will never be, monsieur; i am of the frontier, and do not fear the woods. ah! he has reached the rock safely--'tis the signal." de artigny drew up the cord, testing it to make sure the strands held firm, and made careful noose, into which he slipped my foot. "now, adele, you are ready?" "yes, sweetheart; kiss me first." "you have no fear?" "not with your strong hands to support, but do not keep me waiting long below." ay, but i was frightened as i swung off into the black void, clinging desperately to that slight rope, steadily sinking downward. my body rubbed against the rough logs, and then against rock. once a jagged edge wounded me, yet i dare not release my grip, or utter a sound. i sank down, down, the strain ever greater on my nerves. i retained no knowledge of distance, but grew apprehensive of what awaited me below. would the rope reach to the rock? would i swing clear? even as these thoughts began to horrify, i felt a hand grip me, and boisrondet's whisper gave cheerful greeting. "it is all right, madame; release your foot, and trust me. good, now do not venture to move, until rene joins us. faith, he wastes little time; he is coming now." i could see nothing, not even the outlines of my companion, who stood holding the cord taut. i could feel the jagged face of the rock, against which i stood, and ventured, by reaching out with one foot, to explore my immediate surroundings. the groping toe touched the edge of the narrow shelf, and i drew back startled at thought of another sheer drop into the black depths. my heart was still pounding when de artigny found foothold beside me. as he swung free from the cord, his fingers touched my dress. "a fine test of courage that, adele," he whispered, "but with francois here below there was small peril. now what next?" "a ticklish passage for a few yards. stand close until i get by; now cling to the wall, and follow me. once off this shelf we can plan our journey. madame, take hold of my jacket. rene, you have walked this path before." "ay, years since, but i recall its peril." we crept forward, so cautiously it seemed we scarcely moved, the rock shelf we traversed so narrow in places that i could scarce find space in which to plant my feet firmly. boisrondet whispered words of guidance back to me, and i could feel de artigny touch my skirt as he followed, ready to grip me if i fell. yet then i experienced no fear, no shrinking, my every thought centered on the task. nor was the way long. suddenly we clambered onto a flat rock, crossed it, and came to the edge of a wood, with a murmur of water not far away. here boisrondet paused, and we came close about him. there seemed to be more light here, although the tree shadows were grim, and the night rested about us in impressive silence. "here is where the river trail comes down," and boisrondet made motion to the left. "you should remember that well, rene." "i was first to pass over it; it leads to the water edge." "yes; not so easily followed in the night, yet you are woodsman enough to make it. so far as we know from above the iroquois have not discovered there is a passage here. listen, rene; i leave you now, for those were de tonty's orders. he said that from now on you would be safe alone. of course he knew nothing of madame's purpose." "monsieur shall not find me a burden," i interrupted. "i am sure of that," he said gallantly, "and so think it best to return while the night conceals my movements. there will be hot words when m. cassion discovers your escape, and my chief may need my sword beside him, if it comes to blows. is my decision to return right, rene?" "ay, right; would that i might be with you. but what plan did m. de tonty outline for me to follow?" "'twas what i started to tell. at the edge of the water, but concealed from the river by rocks, is a small hut where we keep hidden a canoe ready fitted for any secret service. 'twas sieur de la salle's thought that it might prove of great use in time of siege. no doubt it is there now just as we left it, undiscovered of the iroquois. this will bear you down the river until daylight, when you can hide along shore." "there is a rifle?" "two of them, with powder and ball." he laid his hand on the other's shoulder. "there is nothing more to say, and time is of value. farewell, my friend." "farewell," their fingers clasped. "there will be other days, francois; my gratitude to m. de tonty." boisrondet stepped back, and, hat in hand, bowed to me. "adieu, madame; a pleasant journey." "a moment, monsieur," i said, a falter in my voice. "you are m. de artigny's friend, an officer of france, and a catholic." "yes, madame." "and you think that i am right in my choice? that i am doing naught unworthy of my womanhood?" even in the darkness i saw him make the symbol of the cross, before he bent forward and kissed my hand. "madame," he said gravely, "i am but a plain soldier, with all my service on the frontier. i leave to the priests the discussion of doctrines, and to god my punishment and reward. i can only answer you as de artigny's friend, and an officer of france. i give you honor, and respect, and deem your love and trust far more holy than your marriage. my faith, and my sword are yours, madame." i felt his lips upon my hand, yet knew not he had gone. i stood there, my eyes blinded with tears at his gallant words, only becoming conscious of his disappearance, when de artigny drew me to him, his cheek pressed against my hair. "he has gone! we are alone!" "yes, dear one; but i thank god for those last words. they have given me courage, and faith. so my old comrades believe us right the criticism of others does not move me. you love me, adele? you do not regret?" my arms found way about his neck; my lips uplifted to his. "monsieur, i shall never regret; i trust god, and you." how he ever found his way along that dim trail i shall never know. some memory of its windings, together with the instinct of a woodsman, must have given guidance, while no doubt his feet, clad in soft indian moccasins, enabled him to feel the faint track, imperceivable in the darkness. it led along a steep bank, through low, tangled bushes, and about great trees, with here and there a rock thrust across the path, compelling detour. the branches scratched my face, and tore my dress, confusing me so that had i not clung to his arm, i should have been instantly lost in the gloom. our advance was slow and cautious, every step taken in silence. snakes could not have moved with less noise, and the precaution was well taken. suddenly de artigny stopped, gripping me in warning. for a moment there was no sound, except the distant murmur of waters, and the chatter of some night bird. yet some instinct of the woods held the man motionless, listening. a twig cracked to our left, and then a voice spoke, low and rumbling. it sounded so close at hand the fellow could scarcely have been five yards away. another voice answered, and we were aware of bodies, stealing along through the wood; there was a faint rustling of dead leaves, and the occasional swish of a branch. we crouched low in the trail, fairly holding our breath, every nerve tense. there was no sound from below, but in the other direction one warrior--i could see the dim outline of his naked figure--passed within reach of my outstretched hand. assured that all had passed beyond hearing de artigny rose to his feet, and assisted me to rise, his hand still grasping mine. "iroquois, by the look of that warrior," he whispered, "and enough of them to mean mischief. i would i knew their language." "'twas the tongue of the tuscaroras," i answered. "my father taught me a little of it years ago. the first words spoken were a warning to be still; the other answered that the white men are all asleep." "and i am not sure but that is true. if de tonty was in command the walls would be well guarded, but de baugis and cassion know nothing of indian war." "you believe it to be an assault?" "it hath the look; 'tis not indian nature to gather thus at this night hour, without a purpose. but, _pouf_, there is little they can do against that stockade of logs for all their numbers. it is our duty to be well away by daylight." the remaining distance to the water's edge was not far--a direct descent amid a litter of rocks, shadowed by great trees. nothing opposed our passage, nor did we hear any sound from the savages concealed in the forest above. de artigny led the way along the shore until we reached the log hut. its door stood open; the canoe was gone. chapter xxxii we meet surprise not until we had felt carefully from wall to wall did we admit our disappointment. there were no overshadowing trees here, and what small glimmer of light came from the dull skies found reflection on river and rocks, so that we could perceive each other, and gain dim view of our surroundings. of the canoe there was absolutely no trace, and, if arms had been hidden there also, they had likewise disappeared. the very fact that the door stood wide open, its wooden lock broken, told the story clearly. i remained silent, staring about through the semi-darkness of the interior, rendered speechless by a feeling of utter helplessness. de artigny, after an utterance of disappointment, felt his way along the walls; as he came back to the open door our eyes met, and he must have read despair in mine, for he smiled encouragingly. "swept bare, little girl," he said. "not so much as an ounce of powder left. the savages got here before us, it seems. never mind; we shall have to travel a ways on woodcraft, and it will not be the first wilderness journey i have made without arms. did de tonty mention to you where he believed the illini were in hiding?" "no, monsieur--are they indians?" "yes; the river tribes, the most loyal of all to la salle. it was one of their villages we saw on the bank of the stream as we approached the fort from the west, i told boisrondet that it stood there deserted, but not destroyed, and it was our judgment the inhabitants were hiding among the river bluffs. without canoes they could not travel far, and are probably concealed out yonder. if we can find them our greatest peril is past." "they are friendly?" "ay, and have never shed white blood. i know them well, and with leadership they would be a match even for the iroquois. de tonty led them once against these same warriors, and they fought like fiends. come, we will follow the stream, and see if we cannot find trace of their covert." it was but a cluster of rocks where the hut stood, and a few yards below we found the forest creeping down to the very bank of the river. the sky had lightened above us, the obscuring clouds opening to let the silver gleam of stars through, and we paused a moment gazing back, and upward at the vast rock on which perched the beleaguered fort. we could dimly perceive the vague outline of it silhouetted against the lighter arch of sky. in massive gloom and silence it seemed to dominate the night, the grim forest sweeping up to its very walls. not a gleam of light appeared; not a sound reached us. i felt de artigny's arm about me. "i would that i really knew what was going on yonder 'neath the screen of trees," he said gravely. "some indian trick, perchance, which it might be in my power to circumvent--at least bear to the lads fair warning." "you would risk life for that?" "ay, my own readily. that is a lesson of the wilderness; the duty of a comrade. but for your presence i should be climbing the hill seeking to learn the purpose of those savages--else i was no true soldier of france." "what think you their purpose is, monsieur?" "an attack in force at dawn. those who passed us were heavily armed, and crept forward stealthily, stripped and painted for war. there were other parties, no doubt, creeping up through the woods from all sides. 'tis my thought the hour has struck for them to make their great effort. they have scattered the friendly indians, killed them, or driven them in terror down the river. their villages have been destroyed. now all the warriors who have been at that business have returned, filled with blood lust, and eager to strike at the french." "but they cannot win? surely they cannot capture the fort, monsieur? why it is all rock?" "on three sides--yes; but to the south there is ample space for attack in force. those woods yonder would conceal a thousand savages within a few hundred yards of the fort gates. and what of the defense? opposing them is one hundred and fifty feet of stockade, protected at best by fifty rifles. there are no more in the fort, officers, indians, and all; and boisrondet says scarcely a dozen rounds of powder and ball to a man. if the iroquois know this--and why should they not?--'twill be no great feat of arms to batter their way in. i would do that which is right, adele, if i saw clearly." i clung to his hands, staring back still at the grim outline of the silent fort. i understood his thoughts, his desire to aid his comrades; but, for a moment, my mind was a blank. i could not let him go, alone, to almost certain death. no, nor would he abandon me on such a mission! was there no other way by which we could serve? suddenly a thought crept into my mind. "monsieur," i asked breathlessly, "where do you suppose those illini indians to be?" "back from the river, in a glen of caves and rocks." "how far from here?" "four or five miles; there is a trail from the mouth of the creek." "and you know the way? and there might be many warriors there? they will remember you, and obey your orders?" he straightened up, aroused as the full meaning of my questioning occurred to him. "ay, there is a chance there, if we find them in time, and in force enough to make foray. _sacre!_ i know not why such thought has not come to me before. could we but fall on those devils from the rear in surprise, even with a third their number, they would run like cats. _mon dieu!_ i thank you for the thought." we plunged into the forest, no longer endeavoring to advance silently, but inspired with a desire to achieve our goal as soon as possible. at the mouth of a stream entering the river, de artigny picked me up in his arms, and waded across. on the opposite bank he sought eagerly on hands and knees for the old trace he dimly remembered. at last he stood erect. "ay, lass, it's here, and to be easily followed. what hour do you make it now?" "about three." "so i would have said; and 'tis not daylight until after five. we can scarce make it, yet we will try." it was not as dark here away from the gloom of the rock; the forest was open, and yet i will never know how de artigny succeeded in following that dim trail at so rapid a gait. as for me i could see nothing of any path, and merely followed him blindly, not even certain of the nature of the ground under my feet. again and again i tripped over some obstacles--a root, a tuft of grass--and continually unnoted branches flapped against my face. once i fell prone, yet so noiselessly that rene passed beyond view before he realized my misfortune, and returned to help me regain my feet. not until then, i think, did he comprehend the rapidity of his movements. "your pardon, dear girl," and his lips brushed my hair, as he held me in his arms. "i forgot all but our comrades yonder. the night is dark to your eyes." "i can see nothing," i confessed regretfully, "yet you have no difficulty." "'tis a woodsman's training. i have followed many a dim trail in dark forests, and this is so plain i could keep to it on a run if necessary. ah! the fort is awake and vigilant--that was rifle fire." i had not only heard the sharp reports, but seen the flash of fire cleaving the darkness. "the discharges came from the woods yonder--they were indian guns, monsieur. see! those two last were from the stockade; i could perceive the logs in the flare." "ay, and that is all; the lads will waste no ammunition in the gloom, except to tell the savages they are awake and ready." "how far have we traveled, monsieur?" "a mile, perhaps. at the crooked oak yonder we leave the stream. you met with no harm when you fell?" "no more than a bruise. i can go on now." we turned to the right, and plunged into the thicket, the way now so black that i grasped his jacket in fear of becoming lost. we were clambering up a slight hill, careless of everything but our footing, when there was a sudden rustling of the low branches on either side our path. de artigny stopped, thrusting me back, while at that very instant, indistinct forms seemed to leap forth from the covert. it occurred so quickly, so silently, that before i even realized danger, he was struggling madly with the assailants. i heard the crash of blows, an oath of surprise, a guttural exclamation, a groan of pain. hands gripped me savagely; i felt naked bodies, struggled wildly to escape, but was flung helplessly to the ground, a hand grasping my hair. i could see nothing only a confused mass of legs and arms, but de artigny was still on his feet, struggling desperately. from some hand he had grabbed a rifle, and swung it crashing into the faces of those grappling him. back he came step by step, fighting like a fiend, until he stood over me. with one wide sweep of his clutched weapon he struck me free, a blow which shattered the gun stock, and left him armed only with the iron bar. but the battle fury was on him; dimly i could see him towering above me, bareheaded, his clothes torn to rags, the grim barrel poised for a blow. "st. ann!" he cried exultantly. "'tis a good fight so far--would you have more of it?" "hold!" broke in a french voice from out the darkness. "what means this? are you of white blood?" "i have always supposed so." "a renegade consorting with devils of the iroquois?" "_mon dieu!_ no! an officer of fort st. louis." i could see the white man thrust aside the indian circle, and strike through. his face was invisible, although i was upon my knees now, but he was a short, heavily built fellow. "stand back! ay, make room. saint guise, we are fighting our own friends. if you are of the garrison name yourself." de artigny, still clasping his rifle barrel, reached out his other hand, and lifted me to my feet. "perchance," he said coolly, "if i were a stickler for etiquette, i might ask you first for some explanation of this attack. however, we have made some heads ring, so i waive that privilege. i am the sieur de artigny, a lieutenant of la salle's." "_mon dieu!_" the other stepped forward, his hand outstretched. "'tis no unknown name to me, although we have never before met by some chance--i am francois de la forest." "la forest! you were in france three months ago." "aye; i was there when sieur de la salle landed. he told me the whole tale. i was with him when he had audience with louis. i am here now bearing the orders of the king, countersigned by la barre at quebec, restoring de tonty to command at fort st. louis, and bidding de baugis and that fool cassion return to new france." de artigny crushed the man's hand in both his own, dropping the rifle barrel to the ground. his voice trembled as he made answer. "he won the king's favor? he convinced louis?" "no doubt of that--never saw i a greater miracle." "and the sieur de la salle--has he returned?" "nay; he remains in france, to fit out an expedition to sail for the mouth of the great river. he hath special commission from the king. to me was given the honor of bearing his message. ah! but la barre raved like a mad bull when i handed him the king's order. i thought he would burst a blood vessel, and give us a new governor. but no such luck. pah! i stood there, struggling to keep a straight face, for he had no choice but obey. 'twas a hard dose to swallow, but there was louis' orders in his own hand, all duly sealed; and a command that i be dispatched hither with the message." "how made you the journey in so short a time?" "overland from detroit, the same trail you traveled with la salle; 'tis much the shorter." "alone?" "with two _courier de bois_; they are with me now. but what is this de artigny you have with you--a woman?" chapter xxxiii warriors of the illini "yes, m. de la forest," i said, stepping forward to save rene from a question which would embarrass him. "i am the daughter of captain la chesnayne, whom the sieur de artigny hath taken under his protection." "la chesnayne's daughter! ah, i heard the story told in quebec--'twas la barre's aid who gave me the facts with many a chuckle as though he held it an excellent joke. but why are you here, madame? is not m. cassion in the fort yonder?" "'tis a long tale, la forest," broke in de artigny, laying his hand on the other's shoulder, "and will bide a better time for telling. i am a soldier, and you may trust my word. we are la salle's men; let it go at that, for there is graver duty fronting us now than the retelling of camp gossip. madame is my friend, and my hand will defend her reputation. is that enough, comrade?" "ay, enough. my best regards, madame," and he bowed low before me, his words ringing true. "whoever sieur de la salle has learned to trust hath my faith also. you have come from the fort i take it, de artigny? how are matters there?" "ill enough; the officers at swords' points, and the men divided into three camps, for where de la durantaye stands there is no evidence. m. cassion holds command by virtue of la barre's commission, and knows no more of indian war than a quebec storekeeper. the garrison numbers fifty men all told; two-thirds soldiers, and a poor lot." "with ammunition, and food?" "ample to eat, so far as i know, but boisrondet tells me with scarce a dozen rounds per man. the iroquois are at the gates, and will attack at daylight." "you know this?" "the signs are plain. we passed one party clambering up the cliff--no less than fifty warriors, naked and painted for war. tuscaroras, madame said from the words she overheard as they slipped past where we hid. 'tis not likely they made reconnoissance alone. the fiends have been a week in this valley, and have swept all clear of our indian allies; now they can bring their full force against the fort." "no doubt you are right." "'twas my judgment, at least, and we sought help when we ran into you. what indians have you?" "illini, mostly, with a handful of miamis and kickapoos. we met them at the crossing, hiding in the hills. they were sadly demoralized, and filled with horror at what they had seen, yet agreed to return here under my leadership." "who is their chief?" "old sequitah--you know him?" "ay, a real warrior. 'tis better than i dared hope, for i have been in battle with him before. do you number a hundred?" "and fifty more, though indifferently armed. never have i seen the illini in action, de artigny; they seem to me a poor lot, so frightened of the wolves as to be valueless." "so they are if left to themselves, but under white leadership they stiffen. they will fight if given the indian style. they will never stand in defense, but if we lead them to a surprise, they'll give good account of themselves. that is my plan la forest--that we creep up through the woods behind the iroquois lines. they will expect no attack from the rear, and will have no guard. if we move quickly while it remains dark, we ought to get within a few yards of the red demons without discovery. they will fight desperately, no doubt, for their only hope of escape would be to either plunge down the rocky banks on either side, or cut a way through. you have been at the fort?" "twice before." "then you know the nature of the ground. 'tis all woodland until within a few hundred yards of the gates. you recall the great rock beside the trail?" "ay, and the view from the top." "my plan would be to creep up that far, with flanking parties on the slopes below. in front, as you may remember, there is an open space, then a fringe of forest hiding the clearing before the stockade. the iroquois will be gathered behind that fringe of trees waiting daylight. is my thought right?" "'tis the most likely spot." "then listen; i have thought this all out. you and i, with sequitah, will take a hundred of your indians, cross the small river, and advance up the trail. that leaves fifty warriors to creep through the woods on either slope, twenty-five to a side, led by your two _couriers de bois_. we will wait at the great rock, and give the signal." la forest stood silent a moment, thinking; then rested his hand on de artigny's shoulder. "it looks feasible enough, but the flanking parties may not reach their positions in time." "the one from the west will not have as far to travel as we do. the other does not make so much difference, for if the iroquois break they will come in this direction--the other side of the trail is sheer rock." "true; and what about the lady?" "i shall go with you, messieurs," i said quietly. "there will be no more danger there than here; besides you would not leave me alone without a guard, and you will need every fighting man." i felt the grip of rene's hand but it was la forest's voice that spoke. "the right ring to that, hey, de artigny! madame answers my last argument. but first, let us have word with the chief." he addressed a word into the crowd of indistinguishable figures, and an indian came forward. dim as the light was i was impressed with the dignity of his carriage, the firm character of his facial outline. "i am sequitah, chief of the mascoutins," he said gravely, "for whom the white chief sent." de artigny stepped forth, standing as erect as the other. "sequitah is great chief," he said quietly, "a warrior of many battles, the friend of la salle. we have smoked the peace-pipe together, and walked side by side on the war-trail. sequitah knows who speaks?" "the french warrior they call de artigny." "right; 'tis not the first time you and i have met the iroquois! the wolves are here again; they have burned the villages of the illini, and killed your women and children. the valley is black with smoke, and red with blood. what says the war chief of the mascoutins--will his warriors fight? will they strike with us a blow against the beasts?" the chief swept his hand in wide circle. "we are warriors; we have tasted blood. what are the white man's words of wisdom?" briefly, in quick, ringing sentences, de artigny outlined his plan. sequitah listened motionless, his face unexpressive of emotion. twice, confused by some french phrase, he asked grave questions, and once a _courier de bois_ spoke up in his own tongue, to make the meaning clear. as de artigny ceased the chief stood for a moment silent. "we leap upon them from cover?" he asked calmly, "and the white men will sally forth to aid us?" "'tis so we expect--m. de tonty is never averse to a fight." "i believe in the iron hand; but 'tis told me others command now. if they fail we are but few against many." "they will not fail, sequitah; they are frenchmen." the indian folded his hands across his breast, his eyes on the two men facing him. there was silence, but for the slight rustle of moving bodies in the darkness. "sequitah hears the voice of his friend," he announced at last, "and his words sound wise. the warriors of the illini will fight beside the white men." there was no time lost although i know but little of what occurred, being left alone there while la forest and de artigny divided the men, and arranged the plans of advance. the dense night shrouded much of this hasty preparation, for all i could perceive were flitting figures, or the black shadow of warriors being grouped together. i could hear voices, never loud, giving swift orders, or calling to this or that individual through the gloom. a party tramped by me, and disappeared, twenty or more naked warriors, headed by a black-bearded frenchman, bearing a long rifle--the detachment, no doubt, dispatched to guard the slope east of the trail, and hurried forth to cover the greater distance. yet these could have scarcely advanced far through that jungle when the others were also in line, waiting the word. the very silence in which all this was accomplished, the noiseless bodies, the almost breathless attention, scarcely enabled me to realize the true meaning of it all. these men were going into battle, into a death grapple. they meant to attack five times their own number. this was no boy's play; it was war, savage, relentless war. the stern horror of it seemed to suddenly grip me as with icy fingers. here was what i had read of, dreamed of, being enacted before my very eyes. i was even a part of it, for i was going with them to the field of blood. yet how different everything was from those former pictures of imagination. there was no noise, no excitement, no shrinking--just those silent, motionless men standing in the positions assigned them, the dim light gleaming on their naked bodies, their ready weapons. i heard the voices of the white men, speaking quietly, giving last instructions as they passed along the lines. sequitah took his place, not two yards from me, standing like a statue, his face stern and emotionless. it was like a dream, rather than a reality. i was conscious of no thrill, no sense of fear. it was as though i viewed a picture in which i had no personal interest. out of the darkness came de artigny, pausing an instant before the chief. "all is well, sequitah?" "good--'tis as the white chief wishes." "then we move at once; la forest will guide the rear; you and i will march together. give your warriors the word." he turned and took my hand. "you will walk with me, dear one; you are not afraid?" "not of the peril of coming battle," i answered. "i--i think i hardly realize what that all means; but the risk you run. rene! if--if you win, you will be a prisoner condemned to death." he laughed, and bent low, so i felt his lips brush my cheek. "you do not understand, dear girl. a moment and i will explain--once we are beyond the stream. now i must see that all move together." chapter xxxiv we wait in ambush we advanced through the woods down a slight incline, the indians moving like so many phantoms. not a branch rattled as they glided silently forward, not a leaf rustled beneath the soft tread of moccasined feet. de artigny led me by the hand, aiding me to move quietly over the uneven ground, but made no effort to speak. beside us, not unlike a shadow, strode the chief sequitah, his stern face uplifted, shadowed by long black hair, a rifle gripped in his sinewy arms. we crossed the little river, de artigny bearing me easily in his grasp, and, on the opposite shore, waited for the others to follow. they came, a long line of dark, shadowy forms, wading cautiously through the shallow water, and ranged themselves just below the bank, many still standing in the stream. what light there was flickered over naked bodies, and revealed savage eyes gleaming from out masses of black hair. de artigny stepped forward on the exposed root of a tree to where he could see his dusky followers, and la forest climbed the bank, and joined him. a moment the two men conferred, turning about to question sequitah. as they separated i could distinguish de artigny's final words. "very well, then, if it is your wish i take command. sequitah, a hundred warriors will follow you along the trail--you know it well. have your best scouts in advance, and circle your braves so as to make attack impossible. your scouts will not go beyond the great rock except on my order. m. la forest will accompany them. this is clear?" the indian muttered response in his own tongue; then spoke more sharply, and the mass of warriors below changed formation, the greater number climbing the bank, and grouping themselves in the darker shadow of the woods. "who has charge of the others?" asked de artigny. "bastian courtray," replied la forest. "he is yonder." "then courtray, listen; you follow the stream, but do not venture from cover. post your men below the stockade and wait to intercept fugitives. we will do the fighting above. are the warriors with you armed?" "all but ten have rifles, monsieur, but i know not if they be of value." "you must make the best use of them you can. above all things be quiet, and do nothing to alarm the iroquois. you may go." i leaned forward watching them as they waded down stream, and then climbed the bank, disappearing in the undergrowth. sequitah had moved past me, and i heard his voice speaking in indian dialect. along the forest aisles his warriors glided by where i stood, noiselessly as shadows. in another moment de artigny and i were alone, the black night all about us, and not a sound reaching our ears to tell of those vanished allies. he took my hand, a caress in his touch, a suggestion of pride in his voice. "the old chief is warrior still," he said, "and, unless all signs fail, the iroquois will long remember this day. come, adele, 'twill not do for us to be far behind, and we have walked this trail before together." had i not tested it with my own ears never would i have believed a hundred men could have made way so noiselessly in the dark, through such thick forest, rock strewn and deeply rutted. yet not a sound of their stealthy passage was wafted back to us on the wind--no echo of voice, no rasping of foot, no rustle of leaves. ghosts could not have moved more silently. some way the very thought that these grim savages were thus creeping forward to attack, and kill, their hearts mad with hate, wild beasts of prey stalking their victims, yielded me a strange feeling of horror. i clung to de artigny's arm, shrinking from the shadows, my mind filled with nameless fear. "adele," he whispered, tenderly, "you still fear for me in this venture?" "yes, monsieur." "there is no need. you heard la forest say he bore orders of the king which gave de tonty command once more of fort st. louis." "yes, monsieur; but you have already been tried and condemned. even if they have not authority to shoot you here, they have power to transport to quebec." "there would be battle first, if i know my old comrades well. no, as to that there is no cause to fear. i shall be given fair trial now, and welcome it. my fear has been for you--the vengeance of cassion, if ever you came within his grasp again. but that also is settled." "settled? what is it you would tell me?" "this, sweetheart; you should know, although i would that some other might tell you. la forest whispered it to me while we were alone yonder, for he knew not you were estranged from your husband. he bears with him the king's order for the arrest of m. cassion. captain de baugis is commissioned by la barre to return him safely to quebec for trial." "on what charge?" "treason to france; the giving of false testimony against a king's officer, and the concealing of official records." "_mon dieu!_ was it the case of my father?" "yes; the truth has been made clear. there is, as i understand from what la forest told me, not sufficient evidence against la barre to convict, yet 'tis believed the case will cost him his office. but m. cassion was his agent, and is guilty beyond a doubt." "but, monsieur, who made the charges? who brought the matter to the attention of louis?" "the comte de frontenac; he was your father's friend, and won him restoration of his property. not until la forest met him in france was he aware of the wrong done captain la chesnayne. later he had converse with la salle, a franciscan once stationed at montreal, and two officers of the regiment carignan-salliers. armed with information thus gained he made appeal to louis. 'tis told me the king was so angry he signed the order of arrest with his own hand, and handed it to la forest to execute." "the governor knows?" "not yet. la forest felt it best to keep the secret, fearing he might be detained, or possibly ambushed on the way hither." i cannot describe my feelings--joy, sorrow, memory of the past, overwhelming me. my eyes were wet with tears, and i could find no words. de artigny seemed to understand, yet he made no effort to speak, merely holding me close with his strong arm. so in silence, our minds upon the past and the future, we followed the savages through the black night along the dim trail. for the time i forgot where i was, my weird, ghastly surroundings, the purpose of our stealthy advance, and remembered only my father, and the scenes of childhood. he must have comprehended, for he made no attempt to interrupt my reverie, and his silence drew me closer--the steady pressure of his arm brought me peace. suddenly before us loomed the shadow of the great rock, which rose a mighty barrier across the trail, its crest outlined against the sky. the indians had halted here, and we pressed forward through them, until we came to where the chief and la forest waited. there was a growing tinge of light in the eastern sky, enabling us to perceive each other's faces. all was tense, expectant, the indians scarcely venturing to breathe, the two white men conversing in whispers. sequitah stood motionless as a statue, his lips tightly closed. "your scouts ventured no further?" questioned de artigny. "no, 'twas not safe; one man scaled the rock, and reports the iroquois just beyond." "they hide in covert where i suspected then; but i would see with my own eyes. there is crevice here, as i remember, to give foothold. ay, here it is, an easy passage enough. come, la forest, a glance ahead will make clear my plans." the two clambered up noiselessly, and outstretched themselves on the flat surface above. the dawn brightened, almost imperceptibly, so i could distinguish the savage forms on either side, some standing, some squatting on the grass, all motionless, but alert, their weapons gleaming, their cruel eyes glittering from excitement. la forest descended cautiously, and touched the arm of the chief. "you see?" the indian shook his head. "sequitah know now; he not need see. we do what white chief says." la forest turned toward me. "and you, madame, de artigny would have you join him." surprised at the request i rested my foot in his hand, and crept forward along the smooth surface until i lay beside rene. he glanced aside into my face. "do not lift your head," he whispered. "peer through this cleft in the stone." had i the talent i could sketch that scene now from memory. it must ever abide in my mind, distinct in every detail. the sky overcast with cloud masses, a dense mist rising from the valley, the pallid spectral light barely making visible the strange, grotesque shapes of rocks, trees and men. before us was a narrow opening, devoid of vegetation, a sterile patch of stone and sand, and beyond this a fringe of trees, matted with underbrush below so as to make good screen, but sufficiently thinned out above, so that, from our elevation, we could look through the interlaced branches across the cleared space where the timber had been chopped away to the palisades of the fort. the first space was filled with warriors, crouching behind the cover of underbrush. most of these were lying down, or upon their knees, watchfully peering through toward the fort gates, but a few were standing, or moving cautiously about bearing word of command. the attention of all was in front riveted upon the silent, seemingly deserted fort. not a face did i note turned in our direction, not a movement to indicate our presence was suspected. it was a line, in many places two deep, of naked red bodies, stretching down the slope on either side; the coarse black hair of the warriors gave them savage look, while here and there a chief sported gaudy war bonnet, and all along was the gleam of weapons. the number of them caused me to gasp for breath. "monsieur," i whispered timidly, "you can never attack; there are too many." "they appear more numerous than they are," he answered confidently, "but it will be a stiff fight. not all tuscaroras either; there are eries yonder to the right, and a few renegade mohawks with them. look, by the foot of that big tree, the fellow in war bonnet, and deerskin shirt--what make you of him?" "a white man in spite of his paint." "'twas my guess also. i thought it likely they had a renegade with them, for this is not indian strategy. la forest was of the same opinion, although 'twas too dark when he was here for us to make sure." "for what are they waiting, and watching?" "the gates to open, no doubt. if they suspect nothing within, they will send out a party soon to reconnoiter the trail, and reach the river below for water. it is the custom, and, no doubt, these devils know, and will wait their chance. they urge the laggards now." we lay and watched them, his hand clasping mine. those warriors who had been lying prone, rose to their knees, and weapons in hand, crouched for a spring; the chiefs scattered, careful to keep concealed behind cover. not a sound reached us, every movement noiseless, the orders conveyed by gesture of the hand. de artigny pressed my fingers. "action will come soon," he said, his lips at my ear, "and i must be ready below to take the lead. you can serve us best here, adele; there is no safer spot if you lie low. you have a bit of cloth--a handkerchief?" "yes, monsieur." "then watch the fort gates, and if you see them open drop the cloth over the edge of the rock there in signal. i will wait just below, but from where we are we can see nothing. you understand?" "surely, monsieur; i am to remain here and watch; then signal you when the fort gates open." "ay, that is it; or if those savages advance into the open--they may not wait." "yes, monsieur." his lips touched mine, and i heard him whisper a word of endearment. "you are a brave girl." "no, monsieur; i am frightened, terribly frightened, but--but i love you, and am a frenchwoman." he crept back silently, and i was left alone on the great rock, gazing out anxiously into the gray morning. chapter xxxv the charge of the illini it seemed a long time, yet it could scarcely have exceeded a few moments, for the light of early dawn was still dim and spectral, making those savage figures below appear strange and inhuman, while, through the tree barrier, the more distant stockade was little more than a vague shadow. i could barely distinguish the sharp pointed logs, and if any guard passed, his movements were indistinguishable. had i not known where they were even the position of the gates would have been a mystery. yet i lay there, my eyes peering through the cleft in the rock, every nerve in my body throbbing. all had been entrusted to me; it was to be my signal which would send de artigny, la forest, and their indian allies forward. i must not fail them; i must do my part. whatever the cost--even though it be his life--nothing could absolve me from this duty. the iroquois were massing toward the center, directly in front of the closed gates. the change in formation was made with all the stealthiness of indian cunning, the warriors creeping silently behind the concealing bushes, and taking up their new positions according to motions of their chiefs. those having rifles loaded their weapons, while others drew knives and tomahawks from their belts, and held them glittering in the gray light. the white leader remained beside the big tree, paying no apparent heed to anything excepting the stockade in front. the daylight brightened, but mist clouds overhung the valley, while floating wreaths of fog drifted between the great rock and the fort gates, occasionally even obscuring the iroquois in vaporous folds. there was no sound, no sight, of those hidden below, waiting my word. i seemed utterly alone. suddenly i started, lifting myself slightly, on one arm so as to see more clearly. ay, the gates were opening, slowly at first as though the great wooden hinges made resistance; then the two leaves parted, and i had glimpse within. two soldiers pushed against the heavy logs, and, as they opened wider, a dozen, or more men were revealed, leaning carelessly on their rifles. boisrondet, bearing gun in the hollow of his arm stepped forward into the opening, and gazed carelessly about over the gray, mist shrouded scene. it was evident enough he felt no suspicion that anything more serious than the usual indian picket would be encountered. he turned and spoke to the soldiers, waiting while they shouldered their rifles, and tramped forth to join him. his back was toward the fringe of wood. the arm of the white renegade shot into the air, and behind him the massed iroquois arose to their feet, crouching behind their cover ready to spring. i reached over the rock edge, and dropped the handkerchief. i must have seen what followed, yet i do not know; the incidents seem burned on my memory, yet are so confused i can place them in no order. the white renegade seemed waiting, his arm upraised. ere it fell in signal to dispatch his wild crew to the slaughter, there was a crash of rifles all about me, the red flare leaping into the gray mist--a savage yell from a hundred throats, and a wild rush of naked bodies. i saw warriors of the iroquois fling up their arms and fall; i saw them shrink, and shrivel, break ranks and run. surprised, stricken, terrified by the war-whoops of the maddened illini, realizing only that they were caught between enemies, their one and only thought was escape. two of their chiefs were down, and the white renegade, stumbling and falling as though also hurt, dived into the underbrush. before they could rally, or even comprehend what had occurred, their assailants were upon them. leaping across the open, over rock and sand, yelling like fiends, weapons gleaming in the dull light, the frenzied illini, enflamed with revenge, maddened with hate, flung themselves straight at them. rifles flashed in their faces, tomahawks whirled in the air, but nothing stopped that rush. warriors fell, but the others stumbled over the naked bodies. i saw de artigny, stripped to his shirt, and that in rags from the bushes he had plunged through, his rifle barrel gripped, a yard in front of them all. i saw la forest, bareheaded, and sequitah, his indian stoicism forgotten in mad blood lust. then they struck and were lost in the fierce maelstrom of struggle, striking, falling, red hands gripping at red throats, rifle butts flung high, tomahawks dealing the death blow, knives gleaming as sinewy arms drove them home. i could no longer distinguish enemy from friend; they were interlocked, struggling like mad dogs, fighting as devils might, a wild tangled mass of bodies, of waving hair, of blazing eyes, of uplifted steel. the iroquois had rallied from their first shock; already they realized the small number of the attackers. those who had fled were turning back; those on either flank were running toward the scene of fight. i saw the white renegade burst from the press, urging these laggards forward. scarcely had he attained the outer edge, when de artigny fought his way forth also, tearing the mass asunder with sweep of rifle. they stood face to face, glaring into each other's eyes. the rifle in de artigny's hand was but a twisted bar of iron; this renegade's only weapon was a murderous knife, its point reddened with blood. what word was said, i know not, but i saw de artigny fling his bar aside, and draw the knife at his belt. _mon dieu!_ i could not look; i know not how they fought; i hid my eyes and prayed. when i glanced up again both were gone, the fighting mass was surging over the spot--but the iroquois were in flight, seeking only some means of escape, while out through the fort gates the soldiers of the garrison were coming on a run, pouring volleys of lead into the fleeing savages. i saw de tonty, de baugis, de la durantaye--ay! and there was m. cassion, back among the stragglers, waving his sword gallantly in the air. it was all over with so quickly i could but sit and stare; they ran past me in pursuit, wild yells echoing through the woods, but all i thought of then was m. de artigny. i scrambled down the rock, falling heavily in my haste, yet once upon my feet again, rushed forth, reckless of danger. the ground was strewn with dead and wounded, the victorious illini already scattered in merciless, headlong pursuit. only a group of soldiers remained at the edge of the forest. among these were de tonty and la forest. neither noticed my approach until i faced them. "what, madame," exclaimed de tonty, "you here also?" he paused as though in doubt, "and the sieur de artigny--had he part in this feat of arms?" "a very important part, monsieur," returned la forest, staunching a wound on his forehead, yet bowing gallantly to me. "'twas indeed his plan, and i permitted him command as he knows these illini indians better than i." "but does he live, monsieur?" i broke in anxiously. "live! ay, very much alive--see, he comes yonder now. faith, he fought jules lescalles knife to knife, and ended the career of that renegade. is that not a recommendation, m. de tonty?" the other did not answer; he was watching de artigny approach, his eyes filled with doubt. i also had scarce thought otherwise, and stepped forward to greet him, with hands outstretched. he was rags from head to foot, spattered with blood, an ugly wound showing on one cheek, yet his lips and eyes smiled. "'twas good work, well done," he said cheerily. "'twill be a while before the iroquois besiege this fort again. is that not your thought, m. de tonty?" "i appreciate the service rendered," replied the other gravely. "but you are in peril here. m. cassion is yonder, and still in command." de artigny glanced inquiringly at la forest, and the latter stepped forward, a leather bound packet in his hands. "your pardon, m. de tonty," he said. "i had forgotten my true mission here. i bear orders from the king of france." "from louis? la salle has reached the king's ear?" "ay, to good results. these are for you, monsieur." de tonty took them, yet his thought was not upon their contents, but with his absent chief. "you saw sieur de la salle in france? you left him well?" "more than well--triumphant over all his enemies. he sails for the mouth of the great river with a french colony; louis authorized the expedition." "and is that all?" "all, except it was rumored at the court that la barre would not for long remain governor of new france." the face of the italian did not change expression; slowly he opened the papers, and glanced at their contents; then folded them once more, and lifted his eyes to our faces. "by grace of the king," he said simply, "i am again in command of fort st. louis. i see the order is countersigned by la barre." "yes, monsieur; he had no choice--'twas not done happily." "i presume not. but messieurs, it may be well for us to return within the fort. madame, may i have the pleasure of escorting you?" we made our way slowly through the fringe of woods, and across the open space before the fort gates which still stood open. the dead bodies of savages were on all sides, so horribly mutilated, many of them, that i hid my eyes from the sight. de tonty tried to speak of other things, and to shield me from the view, but i was so sick at heart i could hardly answer him. de la durantaye, with a dozen men to aid, was already busily engaged in seeking the wounded, and i caught sight of de baugis far down the western slope clambering up, a body of indians at his heels. cassion had disappeared; indeed there was not so much as a single guard at the gate when we entered, yet we were greeted instantly by his voice. "'tis well you return, m. de tonty," he said loudly. "i was about to call those soldiers yonder, and close the gates. 'tis hardly safe to have them left thus with all these strange indians about." "they are illini, monsieur--our allies." "pah! an indian is an indian to my mind; bid m. de la durantaye come hither." he stared at de artigny and me, seeing us first as he stepped forward. a moment he gasped, his voice failing; then anger conquered, and he strode forward, sword in hand. "_mon dieu!_ what is this? you here again, you bastard wood ranger? i had hopes i was rid of you, even at the cost of a wife. well, i soon will be. here, durantaye, bring your men; we have a prisoner here to stretch rope. de tonty, i command you in the name of france!" chapter xxxvi the clearing of mystery the point of his sword was at de artigny's breast, but the younger man stood motionless, his lips smiling, his eyes on the other's face. "perchance, monsieur," he said quietly, "it might be best for you first to speak with this friend of mine." "what friend? _sacre!_ what is the fellow to me? who is he? another one of la salle's spawn?" la forest, still bareheaded, his forehead bleeding, pressed down the swordblade. "the company is a good one," he said bluntly enough, "and just now well worth belonging to. i am francois de la forest, monsieur, one time commandant at detroit; at present messenger from the king of france." "king's messenger--you! _mon dieu!_ you look it. come, man, what mummery is this?" "no mummery, monsieur. i left france two months since, bearing the king's own word to m. la barre. 'tis with his endorsement i journeyed hither to restore henri de tonty to his rightful command of fort st. louis." "you lie!" cassion cried hotly, eyes blazing hatred and anger, "'tis some hellish trick." "monsieur, never before did man say that to me, and live. were you not felon, and thief i would strike you where you stand. ay, i mean the words--now listen; lift that sword point and i shoot you dead. monsieur de tonty, show the man the papers." cassion took them as though in a daze, his hand trembling, his eyes burning with malignant rage. i doubt if he ever saw clearly the printed and written words of the document, but he seemed to grasp vaguely the fact of la barre's signature. "a forgery," he gasped. "ah, de baugis, see here; these damned curs of la salle would play trick on me. look at the paper." the dragoon took it, and smoothed it out in his hands. his face was grave, as his eyes searched the printed lines. "'tis the great seal of france," he said soberly, looking about at the faces surrounding him, "and the signature of the governor. how came it here?" "by my hand," returned la forest proudly. "you know me--monsieur francois la forest." "ay, i know you, ever a follower of la salle, and friend of frontenac. 'twas through his influence you got this. 'tis little use for us to quarrel, m. cassion--the order is genuine." "_mon dieu_, i care not for such an order; it does not supersede my commission; i outrank this de tonty." "hush, do not play the fool." "better the fool than the coward." "wait," said la forest sharply, "the matter is not ended. you are francois cassion, of quebec?" "major of infantry, commissaire of the governor la barre." "so the titles read in this document. i arrest you by king's order for treason to france, and mutilation of official records. here is the warrant, m. de baugis, and your orders to convey the prisoner to quebec for trial." cassion's face went white, and he struggled madly for breath. de baugis grasped the paper, so startled at this new development as to be incapable of comprehension. "under arrest? for what, monsieur? treason, and mutilation of official records? what does it mean?" "this--the man knows, and will not deny the charge. false testimony sworn to, and signed by this francois cassion, charged captain la chesnayne with cowardice and treason. in consequence the latter was broken of his command, and his estates forfeited to the crown. later, through the efforts of frontenac, the king was convinced of injustice, and the estates were restored by royal order. this order reached quebec, but was never recorded. this cassion was then private secretary to the governor, and the paper came into his hands. later, to hush up the scandal, he married captain la chesnayne's daughter against her will. the day this was accomplished the lost order was placed on file." "you saw it?" "yes, i had the files searched secretly. the order was dispatched from france five years ago, but was stamped as received the day cassion departed from quebec." my eyes were upon the speaker and i failed to note how the accused man met this damning charge. it was his voice which drew my attention--high pitched, harsh, unnatural. "_mon dieu!_ 'twas not i--'twas la barre!" "tell that in quebec; though little good 'twill do you. m. de baugis, in the king's name i order this man's arrest." i saw de baugis step forward, his hand outstretched; then all was confusion and struggle. with the hoarse snarl of a beast, cassion leaped forward, struck la forest with his shoulder, and drove sword point into de artigny. de tonty gripped him, but was hurled aside by insane strength, reeling back so that the weight of his body struck me to my knees. the next instant, his sword-point dripping blood, the runner was beyond reach, speeding for the open gate. what followed i know from word of others, and no view i had of it. de artigny had fallen, huddled in a heap on the grass, and i dragged myself across to him on my knees. i heard oaths, a shuffling of feet, a rush of bodies, a voice i did not recognize shouting some order--then the sharp crack of a rifle, and silence. i cared not what had occurred; i had de artigny's head in my arms, and his eyes opened and smiled up at me full of courage. "you are badly hurt?" "no, i think not; the thrust was too high. lift me, and i breathe better. the man must have been mad." "surely yes, monsieur; think you he had hope of escape?" "'tis likely he thought only of revenge. ah, you are here also, de tonty." "yes, lad; there is small use for me yonder. you are not seriously struck?" "i bleed freely, but the thrust was in the shoulder. i could stand, i think, with your aid." on his feet he leaned heavily on us both, yet would not be led away, until la forest joined us. he held in his hand some papers, yet neither of us questioned him. "monsieur de tonty," he said, "i would have private word with you." "when i help de artigny to his bed, and have look at his wound. yet is it not matter of interest to these as well?" "i take it so." "then speak your message--m. cassion is dead?" "the sentry's bullet found his heart, monsieur." "i saw him fall. those papers were upon him--are they of value?" "that i know not; they possess no meaning to me, but they were addressed to the man killed at st. ignace." "hugo chevet?" i exclaimed. "my uncle; may i not see them, monsieur?" de tonty placed them in my hands--a letter from a lawyer in quebec, with a form of petition to the king, and a report of his search of the archives of new france. the other document was the sworn affidavit of jules beaubaou, a clerk of records, that he had seen and read a paper purporting to be a restoration from the king to the heirs of captain la chesnayne. it was signed and sealed. i looked up at the faces surrounding me; startled and frightened at this witness from the dead. "they are papers belonging to chevet?" asked de tonty. "yes, monsieur--see. he must have known, suspected the truth before our departure, yet had no thought such villainy was the work of m. cassion. he sought evidence." "that is the whole story, no doubt. la barre learned of his search, for he would have spies in plenty, and wrote his letter of warning to cassion. the latter, fearing the worst, and desperate, did not even hesitate at murder to gain possession of these documents. fate served him well, and gave him de artigny as victim. i wonder only that he did not long ago destroy the papers." "there is always some weakness in crime," commented la forest, "and the man has paid penalty for his. it would be my guess he desired to place them in la barre's hands in proof of his loyalty. but, messieurs, de artigny needs to have his wound dressed. we can discuss all this later." * * * * * it was two days later, and the bright sunshine rested on fort st. louis flecking the sides of the great rock with gold, and bridging the broad valley below. de artigny, yet too weak to rise unaided, sat in a chair barbeau had made beside the open window, and to his call i joined him, my arm on his shoulder as i also gazed down upon the scene below. it was one of peace now, the silvery illinois winding hither and yon among its green islands, the shadowy woods darkening one bank, and the vast meadows stretching northward from the other. below the bend an indian village, already rebuilt and occupied, slept in the sun, and i could see children and dogs playing before the tepees. down the sharp trail from the fort a line of indian packers were toiling slowly, their backs supporting heavy burdens which they bore to two canoes resting against the bank. about these were grouped a little party of white men, and when at last the supplies were all aboard, several took their places at the paddles, and pushed off into the stream. there was waving of hands, and shouts, and one among them--even at that distance i could tell la forest--looked up at our window, and raised his hat in gesture of farewell. i watched until they rounded the rock and disappeared on their long journey to quebec, until the others--exiles of the wilderness--turned away and began to climb upward to the fort gates. de artigny's hand closed softly over mine. "you are sad, sweetheart; you long too for new france?" "no, dear one," i answered, and he read the truth in my eyes. "wherever you are is my home. on this rock in the great valley we will serve each other--and france." popular copyright novels at moderate prices ask your dealer for a complete list of a. l. burt company's popular copyright fiction abner daniel will n. harben adventures of gerard a. conan doyle adventures of a modest man r. w. chambers adventures of sherlock holmes a. conan doyle after house, the mary roberts rinehart ailsa paige robert w. chambers alternative, the george barr mccutcheon alton of somasco harold bindloss amateur gentleman, the jeffery farnol andrew the glad maria thompson daviess ann boyd will n. harben annals of ann, the kate t. sharber anna the adventuress e. phillips oppenheim armchair at the inn, the f. hopkinson smith ariadne of allan water sidney mccall at the age of eve kate t. sharber at the mercy of tiberius augusta evans wilson auction block, the rex beach aunt jane of kentucky eliza c. hall awakening of helena ritchie margaret deland bambi marjorie benton 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depot master, the joseph c. lincoln desired woman, the will n. harben destroying angel, the louis joseph vance diamond master, the jacques futrelle dixie hart will n. harben el dorado baroness orczy elusive isabel jacques futrelle mary louise and the liberty girls by edith van dyne author of "mary louise," "mary louise in the country," "mary louise solves a mystery," "the aunt jane's nieces series," etc. frontispiece by alice casey the reilly & lee co. chicago copyright, by the reilly & britton co. --- _made in the u.s.a._ _mary louise and the liberty girls_ just a word the object of this little story is not especially to encourage loyalty and devotion to one's country, for these are sentiments firmly enshrined in the hearts of all true american girls. it is rather intended to show what important tasks girls may accomplish when spurred on by patriotism, and that none is too humble to substantially serve her country. organizations of liberty girls are possible in every city and hamlet in america, and are effective not only in times of war but in times of peace, for always their country needs them--always there is work for their busy hands. one other message the story hopes to carry--the message of charity towards all and malice towards none. when shadows are darkest, those who can lighten the gloom are indeed the blessed ones. edith van dyne contents i the mass-meeting ii mary louise takes command iii the liberty girls iv the traitor v unconvincing testimony vi to help win the war vii the liberty shop viii the detective's daughter ix gathering up the threads x the explosion xi a font of type xii josie buys a desk xiii joe langley, soldier xiv the professor is annoyed xv suspenders foe sale xvi mrs. charleworth xvii the black satchel xviii a hint from annie boyle xix the printing office xx one girl's wits xxi suprises xxii a slight mistake xxiii the flashlight xxiv after the crisis xxv decorating xxvi keeping busy mary louise and the liberty girls chapter i the mass-meeting one might reasonably think that "all dorfield" had turned out to attend the much advertised meeting. the masses completely filled the big public square. the flaring torches, placed at set intervals, lighted fitfully the faces of the people--faces sober, earnest, thoughtful--all turned in the direction of the speakers' platform. mr. peter conant, the chairman, a prominent attorney of dorfield, was introducing the orator of the evening, colonel james hathaway, whose slender, erect form and handsome features crowned with snow-white hair, arrested the attention of all. "you have been told," began the old colonel in a clear, ringing voice, "of our nation's imperative needs. money must be provided to conduct the great war on which we have embarked--money for our new army, money for ship-building, money for our allies. and the people of america are permitted to show their loyalty and patriotism by subscribing for bonds--bonds of the rich and powerful united states--that all may participate in our noble struggle for the salvation of democracy and the peace of the world. these bonds, which you are asked to buy, bear interest; you will be investing in the corporation of right, justice and freedom, with the security of the nation as your shield. as a stockholder in this noblest of corporations you risk nothing, but you gain the distinction of personally assisting to defeat civilization's defiant and ruthless enemy." loud applause interrupted the speaker. on one of the rows of seats at the back of the stand sat mary louise burrows, the granddaughter of colonel hathaway, with several of her girl friends, and her heart leaped with pride to witness the ovation accorded her dear "gran'pa jim." with well chosen words the old gentleman continued his discourse, stating succinctly the necessity of the liberty bond issue and impressing upon his hearers the righteousness of the cause for which this money was required. "the allotment of dorfield," he added, "is one million dollars, seemingly a huge sum for our little city to raise and invest, but really insignificant when apportioned among those who can afford to subscribe. there is not a man among you who cannot without hardship purchase at least one fifty-dollar bond. many of you can invest thousands. yet we are approaching our time limit and, so far, less than two hundred thousand dollars' worth of these magnificent liberty bonds have been purchased in our community! but five days remain to us to subscribe the remaining eight hundred thousand dollars, and thereby preserve the honor of our fair city. that eight hundred thousand dollars will be subscribed! we _must_ subscribe it; else will the finger of scorn justly be pointed at us forever after." another round of applause. mr. conant, and mr. jaswell, the banker, and other prominent members of the liberty loan committee began to look encouraged and to take heart. "of course they'll subscribe it!" whispered mary louise to her friend alora jones. "the thing has looked like a failure, lately, but i knew if gran'pa jim talked to the slackers, they'd see their plain duty. gran'pa jim knows how to stir them to action." gradually the applause subsided. the faces of the multitude that thronged about the stand seemed to mary louise stern and resolved, determined to prove their loyalty and devotion to their country. and now mr. jaswell advanced and seated himself at a table, while mr. conant requested those present to come forward and enter their subscriptions for the bonds. he urged them to subscribe generously, in proportion to their means, and asked them not to crowd but to pass in line across the platform as swiftly as possible. "let us raise that entire eight hundred thousand to-night!" shouted the colonel, in clarion tones. then the band struck up a popular war tune, and the banker dipped a pen in ink and held it ready for the onslaught of signers. but no one came forward. each man looked curiously at his neighbor but stood fast in his place. the city, even to its furthermost suburbs, had already been systematically canvassed by the committee and their efforts had resulted in a bare two hundred thousand dollars. of this sum, colonel hathaway had himself subscribed twenty-five thousand. noting the hesitation of his townsmen, the old gentleman again arose and faced them. the band had stopped playing and there was an ominous silence. "let me encourage you," said colonel hathaway, "by taking another twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of these wonderful bonds. put me down for that amount, mr. jaswell. now, then, who are the patriots eager to follow my lead!" there was applause--somewhat more mild in character--but none came forward. alora's father, jason jones, who had already signed for fifty thousand dollars, rose and added another twenty-five thousand to that sum. this act elicited another ripple of applause; more questioning looks were exchanged between those assembled, but there were no further offers to subscribe. the hearts of the committeemen fell. was this meeting, on which they had so greatly depended, destined to prove a failure, after all? jake kasker, the owner of "kasker's clothing emporium," finally made his way to the platform and mounting the steps faced his townspeople. there was a little murmur of surprise and a sudden tension. the man had been distrusted in dorfield, of late. "you all know what i think about this war," said kasker in a loud voice and with a slight german accent. "i don't approve of it, whatever anyone says, and i think we were wrong to get into it, anyhow." a storm of hisses and cries of "shame!" saluted him, but he waited stolidly for the demonstration to subside. then he continued: "but, whatever i think about the war, i want to tell you that this flag that now waves over my head is as much _my_ flag as it is _yours,_ for i'm an american citizen. where that flag goes, jake kasker will follow, no matter what fools carry the standard. if they don't think i'm too old to go to france, i'll pack up and go to-morrow. that's jake kasker--with a dutch name but a yankee heart. some of you down there got yankee names an' hearts that make the kaiser laugh. i wouldn't trade with you! now, hear this: i ain't rich; you know that; but i'll take two thousand dollars' worth of liberty bonds." some one laughed, jeeringly. another shouted: "make it three thousand, jake!" "i will," said kasker; "and, if there ain't enough of you war-crazy, yellow-hearted patriots in dorfield to take what we got to take, then i'll make it five thousand. but if i have to do that--an' i can't afford it, but i'll do it!--it's me, jake kasker, that'll cry 'shame!' and hiss like a goose whenever you slackers pass my door." there was more laughter, a few angry shouts, and a movement toward the platform. the german signed the paper mr. jaswell placed before him and withdrew. soon there was a line extending from the banker's table to the crowd below, and the signatures for bonds were slowly but steadily secured. colonel hathaway faced the german clothier, who stood a few paces back, a cynical grin upon his features. "thank you, kasker," said the old gentleman, in a cold voice. "you have really helped us, although you should have omitted those traitorous words. they poisoned a deed you might have been proud of." "we don't agree, colonel," replied kasker, with a shrug. "when i talk, i'm honest; i say what i think." he turned and walked away and colonel hathaway looked after him with an expression of dislike. "i wonder why he did it?" whispered mary louise, who had overheard the exchange of words and marked kasker's dogged opposition. "he bought the bonds as a matter of business," replied laura hilton. "it's a safe investment, and kasker knows it. besides that, he may have an idea it would disarm suspicion." "also," added alora jones, "he took advantage of the opportunity to slam the war. that was worth something to a man like kasker." chapter ii mary louise takes command when mary louise entered the library the next morning she found her grandfather seated at the table, his head resting on his extended arms in an attitude of great depression. the young girl was startled. "what is it, gran'pa jim?" she asked, going to his side and laying a hand lovingly on his shoulder. the old gentleman looked up with a face drawn and gray. "i'm nervous and restless, my dear," he said; "that's all. go to breakfast, mary louise; i--i'll join you presently." she sat down on the arm of his chair. "haven't you slept well, gran'pa?" she asked anxiously, and then her eyes wandered through the open door to the next room and rested on the undisturbed bed. "why, you haven't slept at all, dear!" she cried in distress. "what is wrong? are you ill?" "no, no, mary louise; don't worry. i--i shall be all right presently. but--i was terribly disappointed in last night's meeting, and--" "i see. they didn't subscribe what they ought to. but you can't help that, gran'pa jim! you did all that was possible, and you mustn't take it so much to heart." "it is so important, child; more important, i fear, than many of them guess. this will be a desperate war, and without the money to fight--" "oh, the money'll come, gran'pa; i'm sure of that. if dorfield doesn't do it's duty, the rest of the country will, so you mustn't feel badly about our failure. in fact, we haven't failed, as yet. how much did they subscribe last night?" "in all, a hundred and thirty thousand. we have now secured barely a third of our allotment, and only five days more to get the balance!" mary louise reflected, eyeing him seriously. "gran'pa," said she, "you've worn yourself out with work and worry. they ought not to have put you on this liberty bond committee; you're too old, and you're not well or strong enough to endure all the anxiety and hard work." "for the honor of--" "yes, i know, dear. our country needs you, so you mustn't break down. now come and drink a cup of coffee and i'll talk to you. i've a secret to tell you." he smiled, rather wanly and hopelessly, but he permitted the girl to assist him to rise and to lead him to the breakfast room. there mary louise poured his coffee and attacked her own breakfast, although with indifferent appetite. gran'pa jim was the only relative she had in all the world and she loved him devotedly. their life in the pretty little town had been peaceful and happy until recently--until the war. but the old colonel, loyal veteran that he was, promptly made it _his_ war and was roused as mary louise had never seen him roused before. in his mind was no question of the justice of our country's participation in the world struggle; he was proud to be an american and gloried in america's sacrifice to the cause of humanity. too old to fight on the battlefield, he felt honored at his appointment to the membership of the liberty bond committee and threw all his energies into the task assigned him. so it is easy to understand that the coldness and reluctance to subscribe for bonds on the part of his fellow townsmen had well nigh broken his heart. this the girl, his closest companion, fully appreciated. "gran'pa," she said, regarding him across the table after their old black mammy, aunt sally, had left them together, "i love my country, as you know; but i love _you_ better." "oh, mary louise!" "it's true; and it's right that i should. if i had to choose between letting the germans capture the united states, or losing you, i'd let the germans come! that's honest, and it's the way i feel. love for one's country is a fine sentiment, but my love for you is deeper. i wouldn't whisper this to anyone else, for no one else could understand it, but you will understand it, gran'pa jim, and you know my love for you doesn't prevent my still being as good an american as the average. however," continued the young girl, in a lighter tone, "i've no desire to lose you or allow the germans to whip us, if i can help it, so i've got two battles to fight. the truth is, gran'pa, that you're used up with the hard work of the last few weeks, and another five days of begging for subscriptions would wreck you entirely. so you're to stop short--this very minute--and rest up and take it easy and not worry." "but--my dear!" "see here, gran'pa jim," with assumed sternness, "you've worked hard to secure dorfield's quota, and you've failed. why, the biggest subscribers for bonds in the whole city are you and jason jones! there's plenty of wealth in dorfield, and over at the mills and factories are thousands of workmen who can buy bonds; but you and your committee don't know how to interest the people in your proposition. the people are loyal enough, but they don't understand, and you don't understand how to make them understand." "no," he said, shaking his head dolefully, "they're a dense lot, and we can't _make_ them understand." "well, _i_ can," said mary louise, cheerfully. "you, child?" "yes. you mustn't imagine i've tackled the problem this very morning; i've been considering it for some time, and i've talked and consulted with alora and irene and laura and the other girls about the best way to redeem the situation. we knew the situation was desperate long before last night's meeting. so all our plans are made, and we believe we can sell all the bonds required. it was our policy to keep silent until we knew what the big mass-meeting last night would accomplish, but we suspected it would turn out just the way it did--a fizzle. so the job's up to us, and if you'll sit quiet, gran'pa jim, and let us girls do the work, we'll put dorfield in the honor column by saturday night." "this is nonsense!" exclaimed the colonel, but there was an accent of hope in his voice, nevertheless. "we girls are thoroughly organized," said mary louise, "and we'll sell the bonds." "girls!" "why, just think of it, gran'pa. who would refuse a group of young girls--earnest and enthusiastic girls? the trouble with you men is that you accept all sorts of excuses. they tell you they're hard up and can't spare the money; there's a mortgage to pay, or taxes or notes to meet, and they can't afford it, anyway. but that kind of talk won't do when we girls get after them." "what arguments can you use that we have disregarded?" "first, we'll coax; then we'll appeal to their patriotism; then we'll threaten them with scorn and opprobrium, which they'll richly deserve if they hang on till it comes to that. if the threats don't make 'em buy, we'll cry--and every tear will sell a bond!" the colonel stirred his coffee thoughtfully. "you might try it," he suggested. "i've read that in some cities the boy scouts have been successful in placing the bonds. it's an honorable undertaking, in any event, but--i hope you will meet with no insults." "if that rank pro-german, jake kasker, will buy bonds, there isn't a man in dorfield who can give a logical excuse for not doing likewise," declared mary louise. "i'm going to use kasker to shame the rest of them. but, before i undertake this job, i shall make a condition, gran'pa. you must stay quietly at home while we girls do the work." "oh, i could not do that, mary louise." "you're not fit to leave the house. will you try my plan for one day--just for to-day." "i'll think it over, dear," he said, rising. she assisted him to the library and then ran down the street to the doctor's office. "dr. mcgruer," she said, "go over at once and see my grandfather. he's completely exhausted with the work of selling liberty bonds. be sure you order him to keep at home and remain quiet--at least for to-day." chapter iii the liberty girls an hour later six girls met at the home of alora jones, who lived with her father in a fine mansion across the street from colonel hathaway's residence. these girls were prepared to work, and work diligently, under the leadership of mary louise, for they had been planning and discussing this event for several days, patiently awaiting the word to start their campaign. "some girls," said mary louise, "are knitting, and that's a good thing to do, in a way. others are making pajamas and pillows for the red cross, and that's also an admirable thing to do. but our duty lies on a higher plane, for we're going to get money to enable uncle sam to take care of our soldier boys." "do--do you think we can make people buy bonds?" asked little laura hilton, with a trace of doubt in her voice. mary louise gave her a severe look. "we not only can, but we _shall_ make people buy," she replied. "we shall ask them very prettily, and they cannot refuse us. we've all been loaded to the brim with arguments, if arguments are necessary, but we haven't time to gossip with folks. a whole lot of money must be raised, and there's a short time to do it in." "seems to me," remarked edna barlow, earnestly, "we're wasting time just now. let's get busy." "well, get on your costumes, girls," suggested alora jones. "they are all here, in this big box, and the banners are standing in the hall. it's after nine, now, and by ten o'clock we must all be at work." they proceeded to dress themselves in the striking costumes they had secretly prepared; a blue silk waist with white stars scattered over it, a red-and-white striped skirt, the stripes running from waistband to hem, a "godess of liberty" cap and white canvas shoes. attired in this fashion, the "liberty girls," as they had dubbed themselves, presented a most attractive and patriotic appearance, and as they filed out through the hall each seized a handsome silken banner, gold fringed, which bore the words: "buy bonds of dorfield's liberty girls." "now, then," said mary louise, "we have each been allotted a certain district in the business part of the city, for which we are individually responsible. each one knows what she is expected to do. let no one escape. if any man claims to have already bought bonds, make him buy more. and remember, we're all to meet at my house at one o'clock for luncheon, and to report progress." a block away they secured seats in a streetcar and a few minutes thereafter reached the "four corners," the intersection of the two principal streets of dorfield. but on the way they had sold old jonathan dodd, who happened to be in the car and was overawed by the display of red-white-and-blue, two hundred dollars' worth of bonds. as for old man dodd, he realized he was trapped and bought his limit with a sigh of resignation. as they separated at the four corners, each to follow her appointed route, many surprised, if not startled, citizens regarded the liberty girls with approving eyes. they were pretty girls, all of them, and their silken costumes were really becoming. the patriots gazed admiringly; the more selfish citizens gave a little shiver of dismay and scurried off to escape meeting these aggressive ones, whose gorgeous banners frankly proclaimed their errand. mary louise entered the bank on the corner and made inquiry for mr. jaswell, the president. "we're off at last, sir," she said, smiling at his bewildered looks, "and we girls are determined to make the dorfield people do their full duty. may we depend upon your bank to fulfill your promises, and carry those bond buyers who wish to make time payments?" "to be sure, my dear," replied the banker. "i'd no idea you young ladies were to wear uniforms. but you certainly look fascinating, if you're a fair sample of the others, and i don't see how anyone can refuse to back up our girls in their patriotic 'drive.' god bless you, mary louise, and help you to achieve your noble object." there were many offices in the building, above the bank, and the girl visited every one of them. her appearance, garbed in the national colors and bearing her banner, was a sign of conquest, for it seemed to these busy men as if uncle sam himself was backing this crusade and all their latent patriotism was stirred to the depths. so they surrendered at discretion and signed for the bonds. mary louise was modest and sweet in demeanor; her pleas were as pleasant as they were persuasive; there was nothing virulent or dominant in her attitude. but when she said: "really, mr. so-and-so, you ought to take more bonds than that; you can afford it and our country needs the money," the argument was generally effective, and when she had smilingly pinned the bond button on a man's coat and passed on to interview others, she left him wondering why he had bought more bonds than he ever had intended to, or even provoked with himself that he had subscribed at all. these were the people who had generally resisted all former pleadings of the regular committee and had resolved to ignore the bond sale altogether. but perhaps their chagrin was equalled by their satisfaction in having been won over by a pretty girl, whose manner and appearance were alike irresistible. the men of dorfield are a fair sample of men everywhere. at this period the full meaning of the responsibilities we had assumed in this tremendous struggle was by no means fully realized. the war was too far away, and life at home was still running in its accustomed grooves. they could not take the european war to themselves, nor realize that it might sweep away their prosperity, their liberties--even their homes. fear had not yet been aroused; pity for our suffering and hard-pressed allies was still lightly considered; the war had not struck home to the hearts of the people as it has since. i doubt if even mary louise fully realized the vital importance of the work she had undertaken. when the liberty girls met at colonel hathaway's for a light luncheon, their eyes were sparkling with enthusiasm and their cheeks rosy from successful effort. their individual sales varied, of course, for some were more tactful and winning than others, but all had substantial results to report. "we've taken dorfield by storm!" was their exultant cry. "altogether," said mary louise, figuring up the amounts, "we've sold thirty-two thousand dollars' worth of bonds this morning. that's encouraging for three hours' work, but it's not enough to satisfy us. we must put in a busy afternoon and try to get a total of at least one hundred thousand by to-night. to-morrow we must do better than that. work as late as you can, girls, and at eight o'clock we will meet again at alora's house and compare results." the girls needed no urging to resume their work, for already they had gained confidence in their ability and were inspired to renewed effort. mary louise had optimistic plans for that afternoon's work. she first visited the big flour mill, where she secured an interview with mr. chisholme, the president and general manager. "we can't buy bonds," he said peevishly. "our business is being ruined by the high price of wheat and the absurd activities of hoover. we stand to operate at a loss or else shut down altogether. the government ought to pay us compensation, instead of asking us to contribute to the war." "however, if we fail to win the war," mary louise quietly replied, "your enormous investment here will become worthless. isn't it better to lose a little now, for the sake of future winnings, than to sacrifice the past and future and be reduced to poverty? we are asking you to save yourself from threatened danger--the national calamity that would follow our defeat in this war." he sat back in his chair and looked at the girl in amazement. she was rather young to have conceived such ideas. "well, there's time enough to consider all that," he said, less gruffly. "you'll have to excuse me now, miss burrows. i'm busy." but mary louise kept her seat and redoubled her arguments, which were logical and straight to the point. mr. chisholme's attitude might have embarrassed her had she been pleading a personal favor, but she felt she was the mouthpiece of the president, of the nation, of worldwide democracy, and would not allow herself to feel annoyed. she devoted three-quarters of an hour to mr. chisholme, who gradually thawed in her genial sunshine. she finally sold him fifty thousand dollars worth of liberty bonds and went on her way elated. the regular bond committee had labored for weeks with this stubborn man, who managed one of the largest enterprises in dorfield, yet they had signally failed to convince him or to induce him to subscribe a dollar. the girl had succeeded in less than an hour, and sold him exactly the amount he should have bought. the mill subscription was a powerful leverage with which to pry money from other reluctant ones. stacks, sellem & stacks, the big department store heretofore resisting all appeals, bought from mary louise bonds to the amount of twenty-five thousand; the denis hardware company took ten thousand. then mary louise met her first serious rebuff. she went into silas herring's wholesale grocery establishment and told mr. herring she wanted to sell him bonds. "this is outrageous!" cried herring indignantly. "when the men can't rob us, or force us to back england in her selfish schemes, they set girls on us to wheedle us out of money we have honestly earned. this hold-up game won't work, i assure you, and i advise you to get into more respectable business. my money is mine; it doesn't belong to the allies, and they won't get a cent of it." he was getting more angry as he proceeded in his harangue. "moreover," he continued, "our weak administration can't use me to help it out of the hole it has foolishly stumbled into, or make america the cat's-paw to pull british chestnuts out of the fire. you ought to be ashamed, miss burrows, to lend yourself to such unpatriotic methods of bulldozing honest citizens!" mary louise was distressed, but undaunted. the man was monstrously wrong, and she knew it. sitting in mr. herring's private office at the time were professor john dyer, the superintendent of dorfield's schools, and the hon. andrew duncan, a leading politician, a former representative and now one of the county supervisors. the girl looked at professor dyer, whom she knew slightly, and said pleadingly: "won't you defend our administration and our country, mr. dyer?" he smiled deprecatingly but did not speak. he was a tall, lean man, quite round-shouldered and of studious appearance. he wore double eyeglasses, underneath which his eyes were somewhat watery. the smile upon his thin features was a stationary one, not as if assumed, but molded with the features and lacking geniality. it was the hon. andrew duncan who answered the liberty girl. "the difference between mr. herring and eighty percent of the american people," said he in stilted, pompous tones, "is that our friend herring unwisely voices his protest, while the others merely think--and consider it the part of wisdom to say nothing." "i don't believe that!" cried mary louise indignantly. "the american people are loyal to their president. there may be a few traitors; we're gradually discovering them; but--" "i am busy," herring interrupted her, scowling, and he swung his chair so that his back was toward her. "you won't be busy long, if you keep talking that way," predicted the girl. "tut-tut!" said the hon. andrew, warningly. "your threats, young lady, are as unwise as mr. herring's speech." "but they carry more weight," she asserted stoutly. "do you think any grocery man in dorfield would buy goods of mr. herring if he knew him to be disloyal in this, our country's greatest crisis? and they're going to know it, if i have to visit each one and tell him myself what mr. herring has said." a tense, if momentary silence, followed, broken by the professor, who now said in his smooth, unctuous way: "mr. herring's blunt expression of his sentiments was not intended for other ears than ours, i am sure. in confidence, one may say many things to friends which he would prefer to withhold from an indiscriminating public. we are well assured, indeed, that mr. herring is a loyal american, with america's best interests at heart, but he does not regard our present national activities as leniently as we do. i have been endeavoring, in my humble way, to change his attitude of mind," here herring swung around and looked at the speaker stolidly, "and though i admit he is a bit obstinate, i venture to assure you, miss burrows, that silas herring will stand by the stars and stripes as long as there is a shred of our banner to wave in the breeze of freedom, justice and democracy." a cynical smile gradually settled on the grocer's stern face. the hon. andrew was smiling with undisguised cheerfulness. "we are all loyal--thoroughly loyal," said the latter. "i've bought some liberty bonds already, my girl, but you can put me down for a hundred dollars more. we must support our country in every possible way, with effort, with money, with our flesh and blood. i have no children, but my two nephews and a second cousin are now in france!" "for my part," added professor dyer, "i have hesitated as to how much of my meagre salary i can afford to spend. but i think i can handle five hundred dollars' worth." "thank you," said mary louise, somewhat puzzled by these offers. "it isn't like risking the money; it's a solid investment in the best securities in the world." "i know," returned the professor, nodding gravely, "but i'm not thinking of that. i'm a poor man, as you probably know, but what i have is at my country's disposal, since it is evident that my country needs it." "doesn't that shame you, sir?" asked mary louise brightly, as she turned to silas herring. "you're a business man, and they say--although i confess i doubt it--that you're a loyal american. you can convince me of the fact by purchasing a liberal share of bonds. then i can forget your dreadful words. then i can carry to everyone the news that you've made a splendid investment in liberty bonds. even if you honestly think the administration has been at fault, it won't do any good to grumble. we are in this war, sir, and we've got to win it, that you and every other american may enjoy prosperity and freedom. how much shall i say that you have subscribed, mr. herring?" he studied her face, his expression never changing. mary louise wondered if he could read her suspicion and dislike of him, despite her efforts to smother those feelings in the cause of liberty. then herring looked at professor dyer, who stood meekly, with downcast eyes. next the grocer gazed at the supervisor, who smiled in a shrewd way and gave a brief nod. mr. herring frowned. he drummed nervously with his fingers on his mahogany desk. then he reached for his check-book and with grim deliberation wrote a check and handed it to mary louise. "you've won, young lady," he admitted. "i'm too good an american to approve what has been done down at washington, but i'll help keep our flag waving, as the professor suggests. when we've won our war--and of course we shall win--there will be a day of reckoning for every official who is judged by our citizens to have been disloyal, however high his station. good afternoon!" the first impulse of mary louise was to crumple up the check and throw it in the man's face, to show her resentment of his base insinuations. but as she glanced at the check she saw it was for ten thousand dollars, and that meant sinews of war--help for our soldiers and our allies. she couldn't thank the man, but she bowed coldly and left the private office. professor dyer accompanied her and at the outer door he said to the girl: "silas herring's heart is in the right place, as you see by his generous check. of course, he might have bought more bonds than that, as he is very wealthy, but he is an obstinate man and it is a triumph for our sacred cause that he was induced to buy at all. you are doing a noble work, my child, and i admire you for having undertaken the task. if i can be of service to you, pray command me." "urge everyone you meet to buy bonds," suggested mary louise. she did not care to discuss silas herring. "i'll do that, indeed," promised the school superintendent. but as he watched her depart, there was a queer expression on his lean face that it was well mary louise did not see. chapter iv the traitor when the liberty girls met that evening at the home of alora jones, it was found that mary louise had sold more bonds than any of the others, although laura hilton had secured one subscription of fifty thousand dollars from the dorfield national steel works, the manager of which industry, mr. colton, was a relative of the girl. altogether, the day's work had netted them two hundred and fourteen thousand dollars, and as soon as she could escape mary louise rushed home to report their success to her grandfather. "in one day, gran'pa jim!" she cried exultantly, and the old colonel's eyes sparkled as he replied: "that makes our great mass-meeting look pretty small; doesn't it, my dear? i consider it wonderful! with four more such days our quota would be over-subscribed." "that's what we shall try for," she declared, and then told him who the biggest bond buyers had been--mostly those who had refused to listen to the regular committee or had not been influenced by their carefully prepared arguments. "it's just because we are girls, and they are ashamed to refuse us," she acknowledged. "it seems like taking an unfair advantage of them, i know, but those who need urging and shaming, to induce them to respond loyally to the nation's needs, deserve no consideration. we're not robbing them, either," she added, "but just inducing them to make a safe investment. isn't that true, gran'pa jim?" "what surprises me most," he responded, "is how you ever managed to load your little head with so much mature wisdom. i'd no idea, mary louise, you were so interested in the war and our national propaganda for waging it successfully." "why, i read the newspapers, you know, and i've listened to you spout patriotism, and ever since we joined the allies against germany, my girl chums and i have been secretly organized as a band of liberty girls, determined to do our bit in winning the war. this is the first chance, though, that we've ever had to show what we can do, and we are very proud and happy to-night to realize that we're backing uncle sam to some purpose." "this war," remarked the old soldier, thoughtfully, "is bringing the women of all nations into marked prominence, for it is undeniable that their fervid patriotism outranks that of the men. but you are mere girls, and i marvel at your sagacity and devotion, heretofore unsuspected. if you can follow to-day's success until saturday, and secure our quota of subscriptions to the bonds, not only dorfield but all the nation will be proud of your achievement." "we shall do our best," replied the girl, simply, although her cheeks glowed pink under such praise. "there are enough slackers still to be interviewed to bring the quota up to the required amount and with to-day's success to hearten us, i am sure we shall end the week triumphantly." next morning the liberty girls sallied forth early, all six aglow with enthusiasm. mary louise consulted her carefully prepared list and found that her first calf was to be at mcgill's drug store. she found mr. mcgill looking over his morning's mail, but moments were precious, so she at once stated her errand. the old druggist glanced up at the girl under his spectacles, noted her patriotic attire and the eager look on her pretty face, and slowly shook his head. "i'm sorry, miss burrows, but i can't afford it," he said evasively. "oh, mr. mcgill! i'm sure you are mistaken," she replied. "you can afford insurance, you know, to protect your stock, and this money for uncle sam is an insurance that your home and business will be protected from the ravages of a ruthless foe." he stared at her thoughtfully a moment. then he selected a paper from his mail and handed it to her. "read that," he said briefly. mary louise read it. it was a circular, printed in small, open-faced, capital type on plain white paper, and unsigned. it said: "the treasury department is asking us to invest billions in what are termed liberty bonds. it has the 'liberty' to lend these billions to irresponsible or bankrupt nations of europe, who are fighting an unprofitable war. some of our dollars will equip an army of amer- ican boys to fight on europe's battle- fields. this may be good business. our excited politicians down at washington may think they are acting for our best good. but what becomes of the money, finally? will our millionaire government contractors become billionaires when the money--our money--is spent? do you think the days of graft are past and gone? have politicians become honest now that they are handling untold sums? let us consider these questions when we are asked to subscribe for liberty bonds." "why, this is treason!" cried mary louise, gasping from sheer amazement and indignation. "it's a--a--treacherous, vile, disloyal insinuation. some german spy wrote that, and he ought to be hanged for it!" the druggist nodded. he picked up the envelope that had contained the circular and scrutinized it closely. "really, it looks like foreign handwriting; doesn't it?" he agreed, handing her the envelope. "it is postmarked 'dorfield' and was posted last evening. the whole town is buzzing about the wonderful work of the liberty girls yesterday. perhaps your success is responsible for this-- this--opposition." mary louise's cheeks were burning. her eyes flashed. "may i keep this--_thing?"_ she asked, with a shudder of disgust as she thrust the circular into its envelope. "certainly, if you wish." "and will you let an enemy attack like that influence you, mr. mcgill?" he smiled, rather grimly. "yes. i'll invest five hundred in the bonds. i had already decided to put in a hundred dollars, but for a moment this veiled accusation bewildered me. you're right; it's treasonable. it will be hard for me to raise five hundred, just now, but i'll do it. i want that to be my answer to the german." mary louise thanked him and hurried away. next door was lacey's shoe store, and mr. lacey was reading a duplicate of that identical circular when the liberty girl approached him. the man bowed low to mary louise, a deference she felt rendered to her red-white-and-blue uniform. "good morning!" he said pleasantly, recognizing the girl as one of his good customers. "glad to see you, mary louise, for if i give you a good fat check it may take a nasty taste out of my mouth, acquired by reading a bit of german propaganda." "i know, mr. lacey," she replied earnestly. "i've seen that circular before. do you mind my having it--and the envelope?" "i wouldn't touch the filth, if i were you," he protested. "i'm going to run the traitor down," she said. "no man has the right to live in dorfield--or in america--who could be guilty of such disloyalty." he gave her the circular and his check for liberty bonds, and she passed on to the next store. during the morning mary louise discovered several more of the traitorous circulars. some merchants would not admit having received the warning; others, through their arguments, convinced the girl they had not only read the screed but had been influenced by it. perhaps it did not seriously affect her sales of bonds, but she felt that it did and her indignation grew steadily. by noon she was tingling with resentment and when she joined the other liberty girls at luncheon, she found them all excited over the circular and demanding vengeance on the offender--whoever he might happen to be. "isn't it dreadful!" exclaimed lucile neal, "and what could the person hope to gain by it?" "why, he wanted to kill the liberty bond sale," explained alora jones. "a suspicion that this money is to be misapplied, or that officials will steal part of it, is likely to prevent a lot of foolish people from investing in the bonds. all this morning i could see that men were influenced by this circular, which has been pretty generally distributed." "yes; one or two repeated the very words of the circular to me," said laura hilton; "but i just asked them if they considered the united states able to pay its bonds and they were forced to admit it was a safe investment, however the money might be used." "i'd like to know who sent that circular," exclaimed edna barlow. "i'm going to find out!" asserted mary louise. "how, my dear?" "there must be ways of tracing such a bunch of circulars as were mailed last evening. i'm going to see the chief of police and put him on the trail." "do you know," said edna, a thoughtful and rather quiet girl, "i already have a suspicion who the traitor is." "who?" an eager chorus. "i'm not sure i ought to speak his name, for it's only a suspicion and i may be wrong. it would be an awful thing to accuse one unjustly of such a dastardly act, wouldn't it? but--think, girls!--who is known to be against the war, and pro-german? who did we consider an enemy to the cause of liberty until--until he happened to buy some bonds the other night and indulge in some peanut patriotism to disarm a criticism he knew was becoming dangerous?" they looked at one another, half frightened at the suggestion, for all knew whom she meant. "perhaps," said alora, slowly, "jake kasker really believes in the bonds. he certainly set the example to others and led them to buy a lot of bonds. it doesn't seem reasonable, after that, to credit him with trying to prevent their sale." "those pro-germans," remarked little jane donovan, "are clever and sly. they work in the dark. kasker said he hated the war but loved the flag." "i'm afraid of those people who think devotion to our flag can cover disloyalty to our president," said mary louise earnestly. "but the flag represents the president, and kasker said he'd stand by the flag to the last." "all buncombe, my dear," said edna decidedly. "that flag talk didn't take the curse off the statement that the war is all wrong." "he had to say something patriotic, or he'd have been mobbed," was lucile's serious comment. "i hadn't thought of jake kasker, before, but he may be the culprit." "isn't he the only german in town who has denounced our going into the european war?" demanded edna. "no," said mary louise; "gran'pa has told me of several others; but none has spoken so frankly as kasker. anyhow, there's no harm in suspecting him, for if he is really innocent he can blame his own disloyal speeches for the suspicion. but now let us check up the morning's work and get busy again as soon as possible. we mustn't lose a single minute." "and, as we go around," suggested alora, "let us keep our eyes and ears open for traces of the traitor. there may be more than one pro-german in the conspiracy, for the circular was printed by somebody, and there are several kinds of handwriting on the addressed envelopes we have gathered. we've no time to do detective work, just now, but we can watch out, just the same." mary louise did not mention the circular to colonel hathaway that evening, for he was still ill and she did not wish to annoy him. the next day she found another circular had been put in the mails, printed from the same queer open-faced type as the first. not so many had been sent out of these, but they were even more malicious in their suggestions. the girls were able to collect several of them for evidence and were 'more angry and resentful than ever, but they did not allow such outrageous antagonism to discourage them in their work. of course the liberty girls were not the only ones in dorfield trying to sell bonds. mr. jaswell and other bankers promoted the bond sale vigorously and the regular committee did not flag in its endeavors to secure subscriptions. on account of colonel hathaway's illness, professor dyer was selected to fill his place on the committee and proved himself exceedingly industrious. the only trouble with the professor was his reluctance to argue. he seemed to work early and late, visiting the wealthier and more prosperous citizens, but he accepted too easily their refusals to buy. on several occasions the liberty girls succeeded in making important sales where professor dyer had signally failed. he seemed astonished at this and told mary louise, with a deprecating shrug, that he feared his talents did not lie in the direction of salesmanship. despite the natural proportion of failures--for not all will buy bonds in any community--on the fourth day following the mass-meeting dorfield's quota of one million was fully subscribed, and on saturday another hundred and fifty thousand was added, creating jubilation among the loyal citizens and reflecting great credit on the liberty girls, the committee, and all who had labored so well for the cause. "really," said professor dyer, his voice sounding regretful when he congratulated the girls, "our success is due principally to your patriotic organization. the figures show that you secured subscriptions for over half a million. dear me, what a remarkable fact!" "more than that," added jason jones, alora's father, who was a wealthy artist and himself a member of the committee, "our girls encouraged the faltering ones to do their duty. many a man who coldly turned our committee down smiled at the pretty faces and dainty costumes of our liberty girls and wrote their checks without a murmur." "all the credit is due mary louise," declared alora. "it was she who proposed the idea, and who organized us and trained us and designed our liberty costumes. also, mary louise made the most sales." "nonsense!" cried mary louise, blushing red. "i couldn't have done anything at all without the help of you girls. no one of us is entitled to more credit than the others, but all six of us may well feel proud of our success. we've done our bit to help uncle sam win the war." chapter v unconvincing testimony on sunday "gran'pa jim," relieved of all worry, felt "quite himself again," as he expressed it, and the old gentleman strutted somewhat proudly as he marched to church with his lovely granddaughter beside him, although her uniform was to-day discarded for a neat tailor-suit. mary louise had always been a favorite in dorfield, but the past week had made her a heroine in the eyes of all patriotic citizens. many were the looks of admiration and approval cast at the young girl this morning as she passed along the streets beside the old colonel. in the afternoon, as they sat in the cosy study at home, the girl for the first time showed her grandfather the disloyal circulars, relating how indignant the liberty girls had been at encountering such dastardly opposition. colonel hathaway studied the circulars carefully. he compared the handwritings on the different envelopes, and when mary louise said positively: "that man must be discovered and arrested!" her grandfather nodded his head and replied: "he is a dangerous man. not especially on account of these mischievous utterances, which are too foolish to be considered seriously, but because such a person is sure to attempt other venomous deeds which might prove more important. german propaganda must be dealt with sternly and all opposition to the administration thoroughly crushed. it will never do to allow a man like this to go unrebuked and unpunished." "what, then, would you suggest?" asked the girl. "the police should be notified. chief farnum is a clever officer and intensely patriotic, from all i have heard. i think he will have no difficulty in discovering who is responsible for these circulars." "i shall go to him to-morrow," decided mary louise. "i had the same idea, gran'pa jim; it's a matter for the police to handle." but when she had obtained an interview with chief of police farnum the next morning and had silently laid one of the circulars on his desk before him, an announcement of her errand, farnum merely glanced at it, smiled and then flashed a shrewd look into the girl's face. "well!" said the chief, in an interrogative tone. "those treasonable circulars have been mailed to a lot of our citizens," said she. "i know." "they are pro-german, of course. the traitor who is responsible for them ought to be arrested immediately." "to be sure," replied farnum, calmly. "well, then do it!" she exclaimed, annoyed by his bland smile. "i'd like to, miss burrows," he rejoined, the smile changing to a sudden frown, "and only two things prevent my obeying your request. one is that the writer is unknown to me." "i suppose you could find him, sir. that's what the police are for. criminals don't usually come here and give themselves up, i imagine, or even send you their address. but the city isn't so big that any man, however clever, could escape your dragnet." "thank you for the compliment," said the chief, again smiling. "i believe we could locate the fellow, were such a task not obviated by the second objection." "and that?" "if you'll read this circular--there are two others, by the way, mailed at different times--you will discover that our objectionable friend has skillfully evaded breaking our present laws. he doesn't assert anything treasonable at all; he merely questions, or suggests." "he is disloyal, however," insisted mary louise. "in reality, yes; legally, no. we allow a certain amount of free speech in this country, altogether too much under present conditions. the writer of this circular makes certain statements that are true and would be harmless in themselves were they not followed by a series of questions which insinuate that our trusted officials are manipulating our funds for selfish purposes. a simple denial of these insinuations draws the fangs from every question. we know very well the intent was to rouse suspicion and resentment against the government, but if we had the author of these circulars in court we could not prove that he had infringed any of the existing statutes." "and you will allow such a traitor as that to escape!" cried mary louise, amazed and shocked. for a moment he did not reply, but regarded the girl thoughtfully. then he said: "the police of a city, miss burrows, is a local organization with limited powers. i don't mind telling you, however, that there are now in dorfield certain government agents who are tracing this circular and will not be so particular as we must be to abide by established law in making arrests. their authority is more elastic, in other words. moreover, these circulars were mailed, and the postoffice department has special detectives to attend to those who use the mails for disloyal purposes." "are any of these agents or detectives working on this case?" asked the girl, more hopefully. "let us suppose so," he answered. "they do not confide their activities to the police, although if they call upon us, we must assist them. i personally saw that copies of these circulars were placed in the hands of a government agent, but have heard nothing more of the affair." "and you fear they will let the matter drop?" she questioned, trying to catch the drift of his cautiously expressed words. he did not answer that question at all. instead, he quietly arranged some papers on his desk and after a pause that grew embarrassing, again turned to mary louise. "whoever issued these circulars," he remarked, "is doubtless clever. he is also bitterly opposed to the administration, and we may logically suppose he will not stop in his attempts to block the government's conduct of the war. at every opportunity he will seek to poison the minds of our people and, sooner or later, he will do something that is decidedly actionable. then we will arrest him and put an end to his career." "you think that, sir?" "i'm pretty sure of it, from long experience with criminals." "i suppose the kaiser is paying him," said the girl, bitterly. "we've no grounds for that belief." "he is helping the kaiser; he is pro-german!" "he is helping the kaiser, but is not necessarily pro-german. we know he is against the government, but on the other hand he may detest the germans. that his propaganda directly aids our enemies there is no doubt, yet his enmity may have been aroused by personal prejudice or intense opposition to the administration or to other similar cause. such a person is an out-and-out traitor when his sentiments lead to actions which obstruct his country's interests. the traitors are not all pro-german. let us say they are anti-american." mary louise was sorely disappointed. "i think i know who this traitor is, in spite of what you say," she remarked, "and i think you ought to watch him, mr. farnum, and try to prevent his doing more harm." the chief studied her face. he seemed to have a theory that one may glean as much from facial expression as from words. "one ought to be absolutely certain," said he, "before accusing anyone of disloyalty. a false accusation is unwarranted. it is a crime, in fact. you have no idea, miss burrows, how many people come to us to slyly accuse a neighbor, whom they hate, of disloyalty. in not a single instance have they furnished proof, and we do not encourage mere telltales. i don't want you to tell me whom you suspect, but when you can lay before me a positive accusation, backed by facts that can be proven, i'll take up the case and see that the lawbreaker is vigorously prosecuted." the girl went away greatly annoyed by the chief's reluctance to act in the matter, but when she had related the interview to gran'pa, the old colonel said: "i like farnum's attitude, which i believe to be as just as it is conservative. suspicion, based on personal dislike, should not be tolerated. why, mary louise, anyone might accuse you, or me, of disloyalty and cause us untold misery and humiliation in defending ourselves and proving our innocence--and even then the stigma on our good name would be difficult to remove entirely. thousands of people have lost their lives in the countries of europe through false accusations. but america is an enlightened nation, and let us hope no personal animosities will influence us or no passionate adherence to our country's cause deprive us of our sense of justice." "our sense of justice," asserted mary louise, "should lead us to unmask traitors, and i know very well that somewhere in dorfield lurks an enemy to my country." "we will admit that, my dear. but your country is watching out for those 'enemies within,' who are more to be feared than those without; and, if i were you, mary louise, i'd allow the proper officials to unmask the traitor, as they are sure to do in time. this war has placed other opportunities in your path to prove your usefulness to your country, as you have already demonstrated. is it not so?" mary louise sighed. "you are always right, gran'pa jim," she said, kissing him fondly. "drat that traitor, though! how i hate a snake in the grass." chapter vi. to help win the war the activities of the liberty girls of dorfield did not cease with their successful liberty bond "drive." indeed, this success and the approbation of their fellow townspeople spurred the young girls on to further patriotic endeavor, in which they felt sure of enthusiastic encouragement. "as long as uncle sam needs his soldiers," said peter conant, the lawyer, "he'll need his liberty girls, for they can help win the war." when mary louise first conceived the idea of banding her closest companions to support the government in all possible ways, she was a bit doubtful if their efforts would prove of substantial value, although she realized that all her friends were earnestly determined to "do their bit," whatever the bit might chance to be. the local red cross chapter had already usurped many fields of feminine usefulness and with a thorough organization, which included many of the older women, was accomplishing a 'vast deal of good. of course the liberty girls could not hope to rival the red cross. mary louise was only seventeen and the ages of the other liberty girls ranged from fourteen to eighteen, so they had been somewhat ignored by those who were older and more competent, through experience, to undertake important measures of war relief. the sensational bond sale, however, had made the youngsters heroines--for the moment, at least-- and greatly stimulated their confidence in themselves and their ambition to accomplish more. mary louise burrows was an orphan; her only relative, indeed, was colonel james hathaway, her mother's father, whose love for his granddaughter was thoroughly returned by the young girl. they were good comrades, these two, and held many interests in common despite the discrepancy in their ages. the old colonel was "well-to-do," and although he could scarcely be called wealthy in these days of huge fortunes, his resources were ample beyond their needs. the hathaway home was one of the most attractive in dorfield, and mary louise and her grandfather were popular and highly respected. their servants consisted of an aged pair of negroes named "aunt sally" and "uncle eben," who considered themselves family possessions and were devoted to "de ole mar'se an' young missy." alora jones, who lived in the handsomest and most imposing house in the little city, was an heiress and considered the richest girl in dorfield, having been left several millions by her mother. her father, jason jones, although he handled alora's fortune and surrounded his motherless daughter with every luxury, was by profession an artist--a kindly man who encouraged the girl to be generous and charitable to a degree. they did not advertise their good deeds and only the poor knew how much they owed to the practical sympathy of alora jones and her father. alora, however, was rather reserved and inclined to make few friends, her worst fault being a suspicion of all strangers, due to some unfortunate experiences she had formerly encountered. the little band of liberty girls included all of alora's accepted chums, for they were the chums of mary louise, whom alora adored. their companionship had done much to soften the girl's distrustful nature. the other liberty girls were laura hilton, petite and pretty and bubbling with energy, whose father was a prominent real estate broker; lucile neal, whose father and three brothers owned and operated the neal automobile factory, and whose intelligent zeal and knowledge of war conditions had been of great service to mary louise; edna barlow, a widowed dressmaker's only child, whose sweet disposition had made her a favorite with her girl friends, and jane donovan, the daughter of the mayor of dorfield and the youngest of the group here described. these were the six girls who had entered the bond campaign and assisted to complete dorfield's quota of subscriptions, but there was one other liberty girl who had been unable to join them in this active work. this was irene macfarlane, the niece of peter conant. she had been a cripple since childhood and was confined to the limits of a wheeled chair. far from being gloomy or depressed, however, irene had the sunniest nature imaginable, and was always more bright and cheerful than the average girl of her age. "from my knees down," she would say confidentially, "i'm no good; but from my knees up i'm as good as anybody." she was an excellent musician and sang very sweetly; she was especially deft with her needle; she managed her chair so admirably that little assistance was ever required. mrs. conant called her "the light of the house," and to hear her merry laughter and sparkling conversation, you would speedily be tempted to forget that fate had been unkind to her and decreed that for life she must be wedded to a wheeled chair. if irene resented this decree, she never allowed anyone to suspect it, and her glad disposition warded off the words of sympathy that might have pained her. while unable to sally forth in the liberty bond drive, irene was none the less an important member of the band of liberty girls. "she's our inspiration," said mary louise with simple conviction. teeming with patriotism and never doubting her ability to do something helpful in defeating her country's foes, irene had many valuable suggestions to make to her companions and one of these she broached a few days after the bond sale ended so triumphantly. on this occasion the liberty girls had met with irene at peter conant's cosy home, next door to the residence of colonel hathaway, for consultation as to their future endeavors. "everyone is knitting for the soldiers and sailors," said irene, "and while that is a noble work, i believe that we ought to do something different from the others. such an important organization ought to render unusual and individual service on behalf of our beloved country. is it not so?" "it's all very well, irene, to back our beloved country," remarked laura, "but the whole nation is doing that and i really hanker to help our soldier boys." "so do i," spoke up lucile. "the government is equal to the country's needs, i'm sure, but the government has never taken any too good care of its soldiers and they'll lack a lot of things besides knitted goods when they get to the front." "exactly," agreed mary louise. "seems to me it's the girls' chief duty to look after the boys, and a lot of the drafted ones are marching away from dorfield each day, looking pretty glum, even if loyally submitting to the inevitable. i tell you, girls, these young and green soldiers need encouraging, so they'll become enthusiastic and make the best sort of fighters, and we ought to bend our efforts to cheering them up." irene laughed merrily. "good!" she cried; "you're like a flock of sheep: all you need is a hint to trail away in the very direction i wanted to lead you. there are a lot of things we can do to add to our soldiers' comfort. they need chocolate--sweets are good for them--and 'comfort-kits' of the real sort, not those useless, dowdy ones so many well-intentioned women are wasting time and money to send them; and they'll be grateful for lots and lots of cigarettes, and--" "oh, irene! do you think that would be right?" from edna barlow. "of course it would. the government approves cigarettes and the french girls are supplying our boys across the pond with them even now. surely we can do as much for our own brave laddies who are still learning the art of war. not all smoke, of course, and some prefer pipes and tobacco, which we can also send them. another thing, nearly every soldier needs a good pocket knife, and a razor, and they need games of all sorts, such as dominoes and checkers and cribbage-boards; and good honest trench mirrors, and--" "goodness me, irene," interrupted jane donovan, "how do you think we could supply all those things? to equip a regiment with the articles you mention would cost a mint of money, and where's the money coming from, and how are we to get it?" "there you go again, helping me out!" smiled irene. "in your question, my dear, lies the crux of my suggestion. we liberty girls must raise the money." "how, irene?" "i object to begging." "the people are tired of subscribing to all sorts of schemes." "we certainly are not female croesuses!" "perhaps you expect us to turn bandits and sandbag the good citizens on dark nights." irene's smile did not fade; she simply glowed with glee at these characteristic protestations. "i can't blame you, girls, for you haven't thought the thing out, and i have," she stated. "my scheme isn't entirely original, for i read the other day of a similar plan being tried in another city, with good success. a plan similar, in some ways, but quite different in others. yet it gave me the idea." "shoot us the idea, then," said jane, who was inclined to favor slang. "in order to raise money," said irene, slowly and more seriously than she had before spoken, "it is necessary for us to go into business. the other day, when i was riding with alora, i noticed that the store between the post-office and the citizens' bank is vacant, and a sign in the window said 'apply to peter conant, agent.' peter conant being my uncle, i applied to him that evening after dinner, on behalf of the liberty girls. it's one of the best locations in town and right in the heart of the business district. the store has commanded a big rental, but in these times it is not in demand and it has been vacant for the last six months, with no prospect of its being rented. girls, peter conant will allow us to use this store room without charge until someone is willing to pay the proper rent for it, and so the first big problem is solved. three cheers for uncle peter!" they stared at her rather suspiciously, not yet understanding her idea. "so far, so good, my dear," said mary louise. "we can trust dear old peter conant to be generous and patriotic. but what good is a store without stock, and how are we going to get a stock to sell--and sell it at a profit that will allow us to do all the things we long to do for the soldiers?" "explain that, and i'm with you," announced alora. "explain that, and we're all with you!" declared lucile neal. "all i need is the opportunity," protested irene. "you're such chatterboxes that you won't let me talk! now--listen. i'm not much of an executioner, girls, but i can plan and you can execute, and in that way i get my finger in the pie. now, i believe i've a practical idea that will work out beautifully. dorfield is an ancient city and has been inhabited for generations. almost every house contains a lot of articles that are not in use--are put aside and forgotten--or are not in any way necessary to the comfort and happiness of the owners, yet would be highly prized by some other family which does not possess such articles. for instance, a baby-carriage or crib, stored away in some attic, could be sold at a bargain to some young woman needing such an article; or some old brass candlesticks, considered valueless by their owner, would be eagerly bought by someone who did not possess such things and had a love for antiques. "my proposition is simply this: that you visit all the substantial homes in dorfield and ask to be given whatever the folks care to dispense with, such items to be sold at 'the liberty girls' shop' and the money applied to our war fund to help the soldier boys. lucile's brother, joe neal, will furnish us a truck to cart all the things from the houses to our store, and i'm sure we can get a whole lot of goods that will sell readily. the people will be glad to give all that they don't want to so good a cause, and what one doesn't want, another is sure to want. whatever money we take in will be all to the good, and with it we can supply the boys with many genuine comforts. now, then, how does my idea strike you?" approval--even the dawn of enthusiasm--was written on every countenance. they canvassed all the pros and cons of the proposition at length, and the more they considered it the more practical it seemed. "the only doubtful thing," said mary louise, finally, "is whether the people will donate the goods they don't need or care for, but that can be easily determined by asking them. we ought to pair off, and each couple take a residence street and make a careful canvass, taking time to explain our plan. one day will show us whether we're to be successful or not, and the whole idea hinges on the success of our appeal." "not entirely," objected alora. "we may secure the goods, but be unable to sell them." "nonsense," said little laura hilton; "nothing in the world sells so readily as second-hand truck. just think how the people flock to auctions and the like. and we girls should prove good 'salesladies,' too, for we can do a lot of coaxing and get better prices than an auctioneer. all we need do is appeal to the patriotism of the prospective buyers." "anyhow," asserted edna, "it seems worth a trial, and we must admit the idea is attractive and unique--at least a novelty in dorfield." so they planned their method of canvassing and agreed to put in the next day soliciting articles to sell at the liberty girls' shop. chapter vii the liberty shop mary louise said to her grandfather that night, after explaining irene's novel scheme to raise money: "we haven't been housekeeping many years in dorfield and i'm not sure i can find among our household possessions anything to give the liberty shop. but i've some jewelry and knickknacks that i never wear and, if you don't mind, gran'pa jim, i'll donate that to our shop." the colonel was really enthusiastic over the plan and not only approved his granddaughter's proposition to give her surplus jewelry but went over the house with her and selected quite an imposing lot of odds and ends which were not in use and could readily be spared. eager to assist the girls, the old colonel next morning went to town and ordered a big sign painted, to be placed over the store entrance, and he also induced the editors of the two newspapers to give the liberty girls' latest venture publicity in their columns, inviting the cooperation of the public. peter conant turned over the keys of the big store to the girls and the first load of goods to be delivered was that from the hathaway residence. the liberty girls were astonished at the success of their solicitations. from almost every house they visited they secured donations of more or less value. it may have seemed "rubbish" to some of the donors, but the variety of goods that soon accumulated in the store room presented an interesting collection and the girls arranged their wares enticingly and polished up the brass and copper ornaments and utensils until they seemed of considerable value. they did not open their doors to the public for ten days, and joe neal began to grumble because one of his trucks was kept constantly running from house to house, gathering up the articles contributed to the liberty girls' shop. but the girls induced other trucks to help joe and the enthusiasm kept growing. curiosity was spurred by the big sign over the closed doors, and every woman who donated was anxious to know what others had given to the shop. it was evident there would be a crowd at the formal "opening," for much was expected from the unique enterprise. meantime, the girls were busily occupied. each day one group solicited donations while another stayed at the store to arrange the goods. many articles of furniture, more or less decrepit, were received, and a man was hired to varnish and patch and put the chairs, stands, tables, desks and whatnots into the best condition possible. alora jones thought the stock needed "brightening," so she induced her father to make purchases of several new articles, which she presented the girls as her share of the donations. and peter conant, finding many small pieces of jewelry, silverware and bric-a-brac among the accumulation, rented a big showcase for the girls, in which such wares were properly displayed. during these ten days of unflagging zeal the liberty girls were annoyed to discover that another traitorous circular had been issued. a large contingent of the selective draft boys had just been ordered away to the cantonment and the day before they left all their parents received a circular saying that the draft was unconstitutional and that their sons were being sacrificed by autocratic methods to further the political schemes of the administration. "mr. wilson," it ended, "is trying to make for himself a place in history, at the expense of the flesh and blood of his countrymen." this vile and despicable screed was printed from the same queer type as the former circulars denouncing the liberty bond sale and evidently emanated from the same source. mary louise was the first to secure one of the papers and its envelope, mailed through the local post-office, and her indignation was only equalled by her desire to punish the offender. she realized, however, her limitations, and that she had neither the time nor the talent to unmask the traitor. she could only hope that the proper authorities would investigate the matter. that afternoon, with the circular still in her handbag, she visited the clothing store of jacob kasker and asked the proprietor if he had any goods he would contribute to the liberty girls' shop. kasker was a stolid, florid-faced man, born in america of naturalized german parents, and therefore his citizenship could not be assailed. he had been quite successful as a merchant and was reputed to be the wealthiest clothing dealer in dorfield. "no," said kasker, shortly, in answer to the request. mary louise was annoyed by the tone. "you mean that you _won't_ help us, i suppose?" she said impatiently. he turned from his desk and regarded her with a slight frown. usually his expression was stupidly genial. "why should i give something for nothing?" he asked. "it isn't my war; i didn't make it, and i don't like it. say, i got a boy--one son. do you know they've drafted him--took him from his work without his consent, or mine, and marched him off to a war that there's no good excuse for?" "well," returned mary louise, "your boy is one of those we're trying to help." "you won't help make him a free american again; you'll just help give him knickknacks so he won't rebel against his slavery." the girl's eyes flashed. "mr. kasker," she said sternly, "i consider that speech disloyal and traitorous. men are being jailed every day for less!" he shrugged his shoulders. "i believe that is true, and it proves what a free country this is--does it not? mr. wilson's democracy is the kind that won't allow people to express their opinions, unless they agree with him. if i say i will stand by the american constitution, they will put me in jail." mary louise fairly gasped. she devoutly wished she had never approached this dreadful man. she felt ashamed to breathe the same air with him. but she hated to retreat without a definite display of her disgust at his perfidious utterances. drawing the circular from her bag she spread it before him on his desk and said: "read that!" he just glanced at it, proving he knew well its wording. mary louise was watching him closely. "well, what about it?" he asked brusquely. "it expresses your sentiments, i believe." he turned upon her suspiciously. "you think i wrote it?" he demanded. "my thoughts are my own," retorted mary louise. kasker's frown deepened. "your thoughts may get you into trouble, my girl," he said slowly. "let me tell you this: however much i hate this war, i'm not fighting it publicly. to you i have spoken in private--just a private conversation. the trouble with me is, i talk too much; i don't know enough to keep my mouth shut. i guess i'll never learn that. i ain't a hypocrite, and i ain't a pacifist. i say the united states must win this war because it has started the job, and right or wrong, must finish it. i guess we could beat the whole world, if we had to. but i ain't fool enough to say that all they do down at washington is right, 'cause i know it ain't. but i'm standing by the flag. my boy is standing by the flag, and he'll fight as well as any in the whole army to keep the flag flying over this great republic. by and by we'll get better congressmen; the ones we got now are accidents. but in spite of all accidents--and they're mostly our own fault--i'm for america first, last and all the time. that's jake kasker. i don't like the germans and i don't like the english, for jake kasker is a george washington american. what are you doing, girl?" he suddenly asked with a change of tone. "i'm putting down that speech in shorthand in my notebook," said mary louise, "and i think i've got every word of it." she slipped the book in her bag and picked up the circular. "good afternoon, mr. kasker!" the german seemed bewildered; he ran his fingers through his bushy hair as if trying to remember what he had said. "wait!" he cried, as she turned away. "i've changed my mind about those goods; i'll send some over to your shop to be sold." "don't do it," she replied, "for we won't accept them. only those whose patriotism rings true are allowed to help us." then she marched out of the big store, the proprietor at the desk staring at her fixedly until she had disappeared. "that's it, jake," he said to himself, turning to his papers; "you talk too much. if a man prints a thing, and nobody knows who printed it, he's safe." chapter viii the detective's daughter "i'm pretty sure, gran'pa jim," said mary louise that evening, "that i've trailed the traitor to his lair, and he's none other than--jake kasker!" this was the first time she had mentioned her suspicion of kasker to him, and her statement was received by the colonel with moderate surprise, followed by a doubtful smile. "i know jake," he remarked, "and while he is uneducated and his mind is unformed concerning most things outside the clothing business, i should hesitate to accuse him of downright disloyalty." "he's a german, and sympathizes with the kaiser," asserted mary louise. "did he say that?" "well, not in so many words." "a german-american is not usually pro-german," the colonel declared, "for germans who come to america come to escape the militarism and paternalism of the junkers, which is proof in itself that they disapprove of what we term kaiserism. i know that kasker talks foolishly against the war and resents the drafting of his son, but i think he is a good american at heart. he has bought liberty bonds more liberally than some who proclaim their patriotism from the housetops. i don't fear these outspoken objectors, my dear, as much as those who work slyly in the dark--such as the writers of those disgraceful circulars." "i practically accused kasker of sending out those circulars," said mary louise, "and his defense was very lame and unconvincing. listen, grand'pa, to what he said. i took the speech down in shorthand, and that worried him, i'm sure." the colonel listened and shook his head gravely. "yes, jake kasker talks too much," he confessed, "and much that he says is disloyal to our government and calculated to do much harm, especially if widely circulated. this is no time to criticise the men who are working hard to win the war; we should render them faithful support. the task before us is difficult and it will require a united country to defeat our enemies. i must talk to jake kasker." "won't it be better to let the authorities deal with him?" suggested the girl. "they're certain to get him, in time, if he goes on this way. i believe i frightened him a bit this afternoon, but he's too dull to take warning. anyhow, i shall relate the whole interview to chief farnum to-morrow morning." this she did, but the chief gave her little satisfaction. "no one pays any attention to kasker," he said. "he's a german, and a traitor!" she insisted. "a woman's intuition is seldom at fault, and i'm convinced he's responsible for this latest and most dreadful circular," and she laid it before him. "a girl's intuition is not as mature as a woman's intuition," the chief answered in an impatient tone. "you force me to say, my dear young lady, that you are dabbling in affairs that do not concern you. i've plenty of those circulars on file and i'm attending to my duty and keeping an eye open for the rascal who wrote them. but there is no proof that kasker is the man. the federal officers are also investigating the case, and i imagine they will not require your assistance." mary louise flushed but stood her ground. "isn't it the duty of every patriotic person to denounce a traitor?" she inquired. "yes, if there is proof. i think you are wrong about kasker, but if you are able to bring me proof, i'll arrest him and turn him over to the federal agents for prosecution. but, for heaven's sake, don't bother me with mere suspicions." mary louise did not accept this rebuke graciously. she went away with the feeling that chief farnum was, for some reason, condoning a crime, and she was firmly resolved to obtain the required proof if it could be secured without subjecting herself to the annoyance of such rebuffs as the one she had just endured. "we ought not to permit such a snake in the grass to exist in dear old dorfield," she told her girl associates. "let us all try to discover absolute proof of kasker's treachery." the other liberty girls were as indignant as mary louise, but were too intent on their present duties to pay much attention to jake kasker. for the liberty girls' shop was now open to the public, and men, women and children crowded in to see what the girls had to offer. sales were so brisk during the first week that the stock became depleted and once more they made a house to house canvass to obtain a new supply of material. this kept all six of the girls busily occupied. irene each morning rode down to the shop in the hathaway automobile--wheel-chair and all--and acted as cashier, so as to relieve the others of this duty. she could accomplish this work very nicely and became the liberty girls' treasurer and financial adviser. each day she deposited in the bank the money received, and the amounts were so liberal that enthusiasm was easily maintained. "the soldier boys have reason to rejoice," said irene complacently, "for we shall soon be able to provide them with numerous comforts and luxuries--all of which they are surely entitled to." so the new enterprise was progressing finely when, one evening, on reaching home from a busy day at the shop, mary louise found a letter that greatly pleased her. it was from an old and valued girl friend in washington and after rambling along pleasantly on a variety of subjects the writer concluded as follows: "but we can talk all this over at our leisure, my dear, for i'm going to accept one of your many pressing invitations (the _first_ one, of course) and make you another little visit. i love dorfield, and i love you, and the dear colonel, and irene and alora, and i long to see all of you again. moreover, daddy is being sent abroad on a secret mission, and i should be lonely without him. so expect me at any time. in my usual erratic fashion i may follow on the heels of this letter, or i may lag behind it for a few days, but whenever i turn up at the hathaway gate, i'll demand a kiss and a welcome for "josie o'gorman." now, this girl was in many ways so entirely unlike mary louise that one might wonder what link of sympathy drew them together, unless it was "the law of opposites." however, there was one quality in both their natures that might warrant the warm friendship existing between the two girls. mary louise was sweet and winning, with a charming, well-bred manner and a ready sympathy for all who were in trouble. she was attractive in person, particular as to dress, generous and considerate to a fault. the girl had been carefully reared and had well repaid the training of the gallant old colonel, her grandfather, who had surrounded her with competent instructors. yet mary louise had a passion for mysteries and was never quite so happy as when engaged in studying a baffling personality or striving to explain a seeming enigma. gran'pa jim, who was usually her confidant when she "scented a mystery," often accused her of allowing her imagination to influence her judgment, but on several occasions the girl had triumphantly proven her intuitions to be correct. you must not think, from this statement, that mary louise was prone to suspect everyone she met; it was only on rare occasions she instinctively felt there was more beneath the surface of an occurrence than appeared to the casual observer, and then, if a wrong might be righted or a misunderstanding removed--but only in such event--she eagerly essayed to discover the truth. it was in this manner that she had once been of great service to her friend alora jones, and to others as well. it was this natural quality, combined with sincere loyalty, which made her long to discover and bring to justice the author of the pro-german circulars. josie o'gorman was small and "pudgy"--her own expression--red-haired and freckled-faced and snub-nosed. her eyes redeemed much of this personal handicap, for they were big and blue as turquoises and as merry and innocent in expression as the eyes of a child. also, the good humor which usually pervaded her sunny features led people to ignore their plainness. in dress, josie was somewhat eccentric in her selections and careless in methods of wearing her clothes, but this might be excused by her engrossing interest in people, rather than in apparel. the girl was the daughter--the only child, indeed--of john o'gorman, an old and trusted lieutenant of the government's secret-service. from josie's childhood, the clever detective had trained her in all the subtle art of his craft, and allowing for her youth, which meant a limited experience of human nature and the intricacies of crime, josie o'gorman was now considered by her father to be more expert than the average professional detective. while the astute secret-service agent was more than proud of his daughter's talent, he would not allow her to undertake the investigation of crime as a profession until she was older and more mature. sometimes, however, he permitted and even encouraged her to "practise" on minor or unimportant cases of a private nature, in which the united states government was not interested. josie's talent drew mary louise to her magnetically. the detective's daughter was likewise a delightful companion. she was so well versed in all matters of national import, as well as in the foibles and peculiarities of the human race, that even conservative, old colonel hathaway admired the girl and enjoyed her society. josie had visited mary louise more than once and was assured a warm welcome whenever she came to dorfield. most of the liberty girls knew josie o'gorman, and when they heard she was coming they straightway insisted she be made a member of their band. "she'll just _have_ to be one of us," said mary louise, "for i'm so busy with our wonderful shop that i can't entertain josie properly unless she takes a hand in our game, which i believe she will be glad to do." and josie _was_ glad, and proclaimed herself a liberty girl the first hour of her arrival, the moment she learned what the patriotic band had already accomplished and was determined to accomplish further. "it's just play, you know, and play of the right sort--loyal and helpful to those who deserve the best we can give them, our brave soldiers and sailors. count me in, girls, and you'll find me at the liberty shop early and late, where i promise to sell anything from an old hoopskirt to a decayed piano at the highest market price. we've had some 'rummage sales' in washington, you know, but nothing to compare with this thorough and businesslike undertaking of yours. but i won't wear your uniform; i can't afford to allow the glorious red-white-and-blue to look dowdy, as it would on my unseemly form." chapter ix gathering up the threads josie o'gorman had been in dorfield several days before mary louise showed her the traitorous circulars that had been issued by some unknown obstructionist. at first she had been a little ashamed to acknowledge to her friend that a citizen of her own town could be so disloyal, but the matter had weighed heavily on her mind and so she decided to unload it upon josie's shrewder intelligence. "i feel, dear, that the best service you can render us while here--the best you can render the nation, too--will be to try to discover this secret enemy," she said earnestly. "i'm sure he has done a lot of harm, already, and he may do much more if he is left undisturbed. some folks are not too patriotic, even now, when we are facing the most terrible ordeal in our history, and some are often so weak as to be influenced by what i am sure is pro-german propaganda." josie studied the various circulars. she studied the handwriting on the envelopes and the dates of the postmarks. her attitude was tense, as that of a pointer dog who suddenly senses a trail. finally she asked: "do the police know?" mary louise related her two interviews with chief farnum. "how about the agents of the department of justice?" "i don't know of any," confessed mary louise. josie put the circulars in her pocket. "now, then, tell me whom you suspect, and why," she said. until now mary louise had not mentioned the clothing merchant to josie, but she related jake kasker's frank opposition to the war at the liberty bond mass-meeting and her interview with him in his store, in which he plainly showed his antagonism to the draft and to the administration generally. she read to josie the shorthand notes she had taken and supplemented all by declaring that such a man could be guilty of any offense. "you see," she concluded, "all evidence points to kasker as the traitor; but chief farnum is stubborn and independent, and we must obtain positive proof that kasker issued those circulars. then we can put an end to his mischief-making. i don't know how to undertake such a job, josie, but you do; i'm busy at the liberty shop, and we can spare you from there better than any one else; so, if you want to 'practise,' here's an opportunity to do some splendid work." josie was a good listener. she did not interrupt mary louise, but let her say all she had to say concerning this interesting matter. when her friend paused for lack of words, josie remarked: "every american's watchword should be: 'swat the traitor!' war seems to breed traitors, somehow. during the civil war they were called 'copperheads,' as the most venomous term that could be applied to the breed. we haven't yet coined an equally effective word in this war, but it will come in time. meanwhile, every person--man or woman--who is not whole-heartedly with president wilson and intent on helping win the war, is doing his country a vital injury. that's the flat truth, and i'd like to shake your jake kasker out of his suit of hand-me-down clothing. if he isn't a traitor, he's a fool, and sometimes fools are more dangerous than traitors. there! all this has got me riled, and an investigator has no business to get riled. they must be calm and collected." she slapped her forehead, settled herself in her chair and continued in a more moderate tone: "now, tell me what other people in dorfield have led you to suspect they are not in accord with the administration, or resent our entry into the great war." mary louise gave her a puzzled look. "oughtn't we to finish with kasker, first?" she asked, hesitatingly, for she respected josie's judgment. the girl detective laughed. "i've an impression we've already finished with him--unless i really give him that shaking," she replied. "i'll admit that such a person is mischievous and ought to be shut up, either by jailing him or putting a plaster over his mouth, but i can't believe jake kasker guilty of those circulars." "why not?" in an aggrieved tone. "well, in spite of his disloyal mutterings, his deeds are loyal. he's disgruntled over the loss of his son, and doesn't care who knows it, but he'll stand pat and spank the kid if he doesn't fight like a tartar. he hates the war--perhaps we all hate it, in a way--but he'll buy liberty bonds and help win a victory. i know that sort; they're not dangerous; just at war with themselves, with folly and honesty struggling for the mastery. let him alone and in a few months you'll find kasker making patriotic speeches." "oh, josie!" "think of someone else." mary louise shook her head. "what, only one string to your bow of distrust? fie, mary louise! when you were selling liberty bonds, did you meet with no objectors?" "well--yes; there's a wholesale grocer here, who is named silas herring, a very rich man, but sour and disagreeable." "did he kick on the bonds?" "yes." "then tell me all about him." "when i first entered his office, mr. herring made insulting remarks about the bonds and accused our government of being dominated by the english. he was very bitter in his remarks, but in his office were two other men who remonstrated with him and--" "what were the two men doing there?" "why, they were talking about something, when i entered; i didn't hear what, for when they saw me they became silent." "were they clerks, or grocers--customers?" "no; one was our supervisor, andrew duncan--" "and the other man?" asked josie. "our superintendent of schools, professor dyer." "oh; then they were talking politics." "i suppose likely. i was obliged to argue with mr. herring and became so incensed that i threatened him with the loss of his trade. but mr. duncan at once subscribed for liberty bonds, and so did professor dyer, and that shamed silas herring into buying a big bunch of them also." "h-m-m," murmured josie contentedly. "then neither of the three had purchased any bonds until then?" "i think not. gran'pa jim had himself tried to sell mr. herring and had been refused." "i see. how much did the supervisor invest in bonds?" "one hundred dollars." "too little. and the professor?" "five hundred." "too much. he couldn't afford it, could he?" "he said it was more than his salary warranted, but he wanted to be patriotic." "oh, well; the rich grocer took them off his hands, perhaps. no disloyal words from the professor or the supervisor?" "no, indeed; they rebuked mr. herring and made him stop talking." josie nodded, thoughtfully. "well, who else did you find disloyal?" "no one, so far as i can recollect. everyone i know seems genuinely patriotic--except," as an afterthought, "little annie boyle, and she doesn't count." "who is little annie boyle?" "no one much. her father keeps the mansion house, one of the hotels here, but not one of the best. it's patronized by cheap traveling men and the better class of clerks, i'm told, and mr. boyle is said to do a good business. annie knows some of our girls, and they say she hates the war and denounces mr. wilson and everybody concerned in the war. but annie's a silly little thing, anyhow, and of course she couldn't get out those circulars." josie wrote annie boyle's name on her tablets--little ivory affairs which she always carried and made notes on. "do you know anyone else at the mansion house?" she inquired. "not a soul." "how old is annie?" "fourteen or fifteen." "she didn't conceive her unpatriotic ideas; she has heard someone else talk, and like a parrot repeats what she has heard." "perhaps so; but--" "all right. i'm not going to the liberty girls' shop to-morrow, mary louise. at your invitation i'll make myself scarce, and nose around. to be quite frank, i consider this matter serious; more serious than you perhaps suspect. and, since you've put this case in my hands, i'm sure you and the dear colonel won't mind if i'm a bit eccentric in my movements while i'm doing detective work. i know the town pretty well, from my former visits, so i won't get lost. i may not accomplish anything, but you'd like me to try, wouldn't you?" "yes, indeed. that's why i've told you all this. i feel something ought to be done, and i can't do it myself." josie slipped the tablets into her pocket. "mary louise, the united states is honeycombed with german spies," she gravely announced. "they're keeping daddy and all the department of justice pretty busy, so i've an inkling as to their activities. german spies are encouraged by german propagandists, who are not always german but may be americans, or even british by birth, but are none the less deadly on that account. the paid spy has no nationality; he is true to no one but the devil, and he and his abettors fatten on treachery. his abettors are those who repeat sneering and slurring remarks about our conduct of the war. you may set it down that whoever is not pro-american is pro-german; whoever does not favor the allies--all of them, mind you--favors the kaiser; whoever is not loyal in this hour of our country's greatest need is a traitor." "you're right, josie!" "now," continued josie, reflectively, "you and i must both understand that we're undertaking a case that is none of our business. it's the business of mr. bielaski, of the department of justice, first of all; then it's the business of mr. flynn, of the secret service; then it's the business of the local police. together, they have a thousand eyes, but enemy propagandists are more numerous and scattered throughout the nation. your chief of police doesn't want to interfere with the federal agents here, and the federal agents are instructed not to pay attention to what is called 'spy hysteria,' and so they're letting things slide. but you believe, and i believe, that there's more treachery underlying these circulars than appears on the surface, and if we can secure evidence that is important, and present it to the proper officials, we shall be doing our country a service. so i'll start out on my own responsibility." "doesn't your secret service badge give you authority?" asked mary louise. "no," replied josie; "that badge is merely honorary. daddy got it for me so that if ever i got into trouble it would help me out, but it doesn't make me a member of the secret service or give me a bit of authority. but that doesn't matter; when i get evidence, i know what authority to give it to, and that's all that is necessary." "anyhow," said mary louise, with a relieved sigh, "i'm glad you are going to investigate the author of those awful circulars. it has worried me a good deal to think that dorfield is harboring a german spy, and i have confidence that if anyone can discover the traitor, you can." "that's good of you," returned josie, with a grimace, "but i lack a similar confidence in myself. don't you remember how many times i've foozled?" "but sometimes, josie, you've won, and i hope you'll win now." "thank you," said josie; "i hope so, myself." chapter x the explosion day was just beginning to break when a terrible detonation shook all dorfield. houses rocked, windows rattled, a sudden wind swept over the town and then a glare that was not a presage of the coming sun lit the sky. a brief silence succeeded the shock, but immediately thereafter whistles shrieked, fire-bells clanged, a murmur of agitated voices crying aloud was heard on every side, and the people began pouring from the houses into the streets demanding the cause of the alarm. colonel hathaway, still weak and nervous, stood trembling in his bathrobe when mary louise came to him. "it's the airplane factory, gran'pa jim," she said. "i can see it from my windows. something must have exploded and the buildings are on fire." the airplane works of dorfield had been one of the city's most unique institutions, but until we entered the world war it was not deemed of prime importance. the government's vast airplane appropriations, however, had resulted in the dorfield works securing contracts for the manufacture of war machines that straightway raised the enterprise to an important position. the original plant had been duplicated a dozen times, until now, on the big field south of the city, the cluster of buildings required for the construction of aircraft was one of the most imposing manufacturing plants in that part of the state. skilled government aviators had been sent to dorfield to inspect every machine turned out. although backed by local capital, it was, in effect, a government institution because it was now devoted exclusively to government contracts; therefore the explosion and fire filled every loyal heart with a sinister suspicion that an enemy had caused the calamity. splendid work on the part of the fire department subdued the flames after but two of the huge shed-like buildings had been destroyed. by noon the fire was controlled; a cordon of special police surrounded the entire plant and in one of the yards a hundred and fifty workmen were corralled under arrest until the federal officers had made an investigation and decided where to place the blame. reassuring reports had somewhat quieted colonel hathaway and mary louise, but although they returned to their rooms, they could not sleep. aunt sally, realizing the situation, had an early breakfast prepared, but when she called josie o'gorman the girl was not in her room or in the house. she appeared just as the others were finishing their meal and sat down with a sigh of content. "my, but the coffee smells good!" she exclaimed. "i'm worn out with the excitement." "did you go to the fire, josie?" asked mary louise. "yes, and got there in time to help drag some of the poor fellows out. three men in the building where the explosion occurred were killed outright, and two others seriously injured. fortunately the night shift had just quit work or the casualties would have been much greater." "it's dreadful, as it is," said mary louise with a shudder. "what was the cause of the explosion!" inquired the colonel. "dynamite," replied josie calmly. "then it was not an accident?" "they don't use dynamite in making airplanes. twenty-two machines, all complete and packed ready for shipment, were blown to smithereens. a good many others, in course of construction, were ruined. it's a pretty bad mess, i can tell you, but the machines can be replaced, and the lives can't." "i wonder who did it," said mary louise, staring at her friend with frightened eyes. "the kaiser," declared josie. "he must be in fine fettle this morning, since his propaganda of murder and arson has been so successful." "i--i don't quite understand you," faltered mary louise. "josie means that this is the work of a direct emissary of the kaiser," explained the colonel. "we know that among us are objectors and pacifists and those who from political motives are opposing the activities of our president, but these are not dynamiters, nor do they display their disloyalty except through foolish and futile protests. one who resorts to murder and arson in an attempt to block the government's plans, and so retard our victory, is doubtless a hired assassin and in close touch with the german master-spies who are known to be lurking in this country." "that's the idea, sir," approved josie, nodding her tousled red head, "and better expressed than any answer of mine could have been." "well, then, can't this demon be arrested and punished?" asked mary louise. "that remains to be seen," said josie. "an investigation is already under way. all the outgoing night shift and some of the incoming day shift have been held under suspicion, until they can be examined and carefully questioned. i heard your chief of police--whom i know and knows me--assert that without doubt the bomb had been placed by one of the workmen. i wonder what makes him think that. also the police are hunting for everyone seen loitering about the airplane plant during the past twenty-four hours. they'll spend days--perhaps weeks--in investigating, and then the affair will quiet down and be forgotten." "you fear they will not be able to apprehend the criminal?" from the colonel. "not the way the police are going at it. they're virtually informing the criminal that they're hunting for him but don't know where to find him, and that if he isn't careful they'll get him. so he's going to be careful. it is possible, of course, that the fellow has left traces-- clues that will lead to his discovery and arrest. still, i'm not banking much on that. such explosions have been occurring for months, in various parts of the country, and the offenders have frequently escaped. the government suspects that german spies are responsible, but an indefinite suspicion is often as far as it gets. evidence is lacking." "how about your boasted department of justice, and the secret service?" asked mary louise. "they're as good as the german spy system, and sometimes a bit better. don't think for a minute that our enemies are not clever," said josie earnestly. "sometimes our agents make a grab; sometimes the german spy remains undiscovered. it's diamond cut diamond--fifty-fifty. but when we get every alien enemy sequestered in zones removed from all factories doing government work, we're going to have less trouble. a lot of these germans and austrians are liberty-loving americans, loyal and true, but we must round up the innocent many, in order to squelch the guilty few." the following week was one of tense excitement for dorfield. federal officers poured into the city to assist in the investigation; the victims were buried with honor and ceremony, wrapped in american flags to show that these "soldiers of industry" had been slain by their country's foe; the courtrooms were filled with eager mobs hoping that evidence would be secured against some one of the many suspects. gradually, however, the interest decreased, as josie had predicted it would. a half dozen suspects were held for further examination and the others released. new buildings were being erected at the airplane plant, and although somewhat crippled, the business of manufacturing these necessary engines of war was soon going on much as usual. chapter xi a font of type mary louise went into josie o'gorman's room and found the young girl bent over a table on which were spread the disloyal circulars. "you've been studying those things for nearly two weeks, josie," she said. "have you made any discoveries?" "i know a lot more about the circulars than i did," answered josie. "for instance, there are nineteen printing offices in dorfield, and only two of them have this kind of type." "oh, that's something, indeed!" cried mary louise. "one of the two offices must have printed the circulars." "no; the curious fact is that neither printed them," returned josie, regarding the circulars with a frown. "how do you know?" "it's an old style of type, not much in use at present," explained the youthful detective. "in one printing office the case that contains this type face hasn't been used for months and months. i found all the compartments covered with dust a quarter of an inch thick. there wasn't a trace of the type having been disturbed. i proved this by picking out a piece of type, which scattered the dust and brought to light the shining bodies of the other type in that compartment. so the circulars could never have been printed from that case of type." "but the other printing office?" "well, there they had a font of the same style of type, which is occasionally used in job printing; but it's a small font and has only twenty-four small a's. i rummaged the whole shop, and found none of the type standing, out of the case. another thing, they had only three capital g's, and one of those was jammed and damaged. in the last circular issued, no less than seven capital g's appear. in the first one sent out i find fifty-eight small a's. all this convinces me the circulars were issued from no regular printing office." "then how did it get printed?" asked mary louise. "that's what puzzles me," confessed josie. "three of the four big manufacturing concerns here have outfits and do their own printing--or part of it, anyhow--and i don't mind saying i expected to find my clue in one of those places, rather than in a regular printing office. but i've made an exhaustive search, aided by the managers, and there's no type resembling that used in the circulars in any of the private print shops. in fact, i'm up a stump!" "but why do you attach so much importance to this matter?" queried mary louise. "it's the most direct route to the traitor. find who printed the circulars and you've got your hand on the man who wrote and mailed them. but the printing baffles me, and so i've started another line of investigation." "what line is that, josie?" "the circular envelopes were addressed by hand, with pen and ink. the ink is a sort in common use. the envelopes are an ordinary commercial kind. the circulars are printed on half a sheet of letter-size typewriting paper, sold in several stationery store in large quantities. no clue there. but the handwriting is interesting. it's disguised, of course, and the addressing was done by two different people--that's plain." "you are wonderful, josie!" "i'm stupid as a clam, mary louise. see here!" she went to a closet and brought out a large card-board box, which she placed upon the table. it was filled to the brim with envelopes, addressed to many business firms in dorfield, but all bearing the local postmark. "now, i've been days collecting these envelopes," continued the girl, "and i've studied them night after night. i'm something of a handwriting expert, you know, for that is one of the things that daddy has carefully taught me. these envelopes came from all sorts of people--folks making inquiries, paying bills, ordering goods, and the like. i've had an idea from the first that some prominent person--no ordinary man--is responsible for the circulars. they're well worded, grammatical, and the malicious insinuations are cleverly contrived to disconcert the loyal but weak brethren. however, these envelopes haven't helped me a bit. neither of the two persons who addressed the envelopes of the circulars addressed any of these business envelopes. of that i'm positive." "dear me," said mary louise, surprised, "i'd no idea you'd taken so much trouble, josie." "well, i've undertaken a rather puzzling case, my dear, and it will mean more trouble than you can guess, before i've solved it. this pro-german scoundrel is clever; he suspected that he'd be investigated and has taken every precaution to prevent discovery. nevertheless, the cleverest criminal always leaves some trace behind him, if one can manage to find it, so i'm not going to despair at this stage of the game." "do you know," said mary louise thoughtfully, "i've had an idea that there's some connection between the explosion at the airplane works and the sender of these circulars." josie gave her a queer look. "what connection do you suspect?" she asked quickly. "why, the man who wrote those circulars would not stop at any crime to harass the government and interfere with the promotion of the war." "is that as far as you've gone?" "have you gone any farther, josie?" "a step, mary louise. it looks to me as if there is an organized band of traitors in dorfield. no one person is responsible for it all. didn't i say two different people addressed the circulars in disguised handwriting? now, a bomb has to be constructed, and placed, and timed, and i don't credit any one person with handling such a job and at the same time being aware that the utmost damage to the war department's plans would be accomplished by blowing up the airplane works. that argues intelligent knowledge of national and local affairs. there may be but two conspirators, and there may be more, but the more there are, the easier it will be for me to discover them." "naturally," agreed mary louise. "but, really, josie, i don't see how you're going to locate a clue that will guide you. have you attended the trial of those suspected of the bomb outrage?" "i've seen all the testimony. there isn't a culprit in the whole bunch. the real criminal is not even suspected, as yet," declared josie. "the federal officers know this, and are just taking things easy and making the trials string out, to show they're wide awake. also i've met two secret service men here--norman addison and old jim crissey. i know nearly all of the boys. but they haven't learned anything important, either." "are these men experienced detectives?" "they've done some pretty good work, but nothing remarkable. in these times the government is forced to employ every man with any experience at all, and crissey and addison are just ordinary boys, honest and hard-working, but not especially talented. daddy would have discovered something in twenty-four hours; but daddy has been sent abroad, for some reason, and there are many cases of espionage and sabotage fully as important as this, in this spy-infested land. that's why poor josie o'gorman is trying to help the government, without assignment or authority. if i succeed, however, i'll feel that i have done my bit." "don't you get discouraged, dear, at times?" "never! why, mary louise, discouragement would prove me a dub. i'm puzzled, though, just now, and feeling around blindly in the dark to grab a thread that may lead me to success. if i have luck, presently i'll find it." she put away the envelopes, as she spoke, and resuming her seat drew out her tablets and examined the notes she had made thereon. josie used strange characters in her memoranda, a sort of shorthand she had herself originated and which could be deciphered only by her father or by herself. "here's a list of suspects," she said. "not that they're necessarily connected with our case, but are known to indulge in disloyal sentiments. hal grober, the butcher, insists on selling meat on meatless days and won't defer to the wishes of mr. hoover, whom he condemns as a born american but a naturalized englishmen. he's another jake kasker, too noisy to be guilty of clever plotting." "they're both un-american!" exclaimed mary louise. "there ought to be a law to silence such people, josie." "don't worry, my dear; they'll soon be silenced," predicted her friend. "either better judgment will come to their aid or the federal courts will get after them. we shouldn't allow anyone to throw stones at the government activities, just at this crisis. they may _think_ what they please, but must keep their mouths shut." "i'm sorry they can even think disloyalty," said mary louise. "well, even that will be remedied in time," was the cheerful response. "no war more just and righteous was ever waged than this upon which our country has embarked, and gradually that fact will take possession of those minds, which, through prejudice, obstinacy or ignorance, have not yet grasped it. i'm mighty proud of my country, mary louise, and i believe this war is going to give us americans a distinction that will set us up in our own opinion and in the eyes of the world. but always there is a willful objection, on the part of some, toward any good and noble action, and we must deal charitably with these deluded ones and strive to win them to an appreciation of the truth." "isn't that carrying consideration too far?" asked mary louise. "no. our ministers are after the unregenerates, not after the godly. the noblest act of humanity is to uplift a fellow creature. even in our prisons we try to reform criminals, to make honest men of them rather than condemn them to a future of crime. it would be dreadful to say: 'you're _all_ yellow; go to thunder!'" "yes; i believe you're right," approved the other girl. "that is, your theory is correct, but the wicked sometimes refuse to reform." "usually the fault of the reformers, my dear. but suppose we redeem a few of them, isn't it worth while? now, let me see. here's a washwoman who says the kaiser is a gentleman, and a street-car driver who says it's a rich man's war. no use bothering with such people in our present state of blind groping. and here's the list that you, yourself, gave to me: one silas herring, a wholesale grocer. i'm going to see him. he's a big, successful man, and being opposed to the administration is dangerous. herring is worth investigating, and with him is associated professor john dyer, superintendent of schools." "oh, professor dyer is all right," said mary louise hastily. "it was he who helped bring mr. herring to time, and afterward he took gran'pa jim's place on the bond committee and solicited subscriptions." "did he get any?" "any what?" "subscriptions." "--i believe so. really, i don't know." "well, _i_ know," said josie, "for i've inspected the records. your professor--who, by the way, is only a professor by courtesy and a politician by profession--worked four days on the bond sale and didn't turn in a single subscription. he had a lot of wealthy men on his list and approached them in such a manner that they all positively declined to buy bonds. dyer's activities kept these men from investing in bonds when, had they been properly approached, they would doubtless have responded freely." "good gracious! are you sure, josie?" "i'm positive. i've got a cross opposite the name of professor john dyer, and i'm going to know more about him--presently. his bosom chum is the honorable andrew duncan, a man with an honest scotch name but only a thirty-second or so of scotch blood in his veins. his mother was a german and his grandmother irish and his greatgrandmother a spanish gipsy." "how did you learn all that, josie?" "by making inquiries. duncan was born in dorfield and his father was born in the county. he's a typical american--a product of the great national melting-pot--but no patriot because he has no sympathy for any of the european nations at war, or even with the war aims of his native land. he's a selfish, scheming, unprincipled politician; an office-holder ever since he could vote; a man who would sacrifice all america to further his own personal ends." "then, you think mr. duncan may--might be--is--" "no," said josie, "i don't. the man might instigate a crime and encourage it, in a subtle and elusive way, but he's too shrewd to perpetrate a crime himself. i wouldn't be surprised if duncan could name the man--or the band of traitors--we're looking for, if he chose to, but you may rest assured he has not involved his own personality in any scheme to balk the government." "i can't understand that sort of person," said mary. louise, plaintively. "it's because you haven't studied the professional politician. he has been given too much leeway heretofore, but his days, i firmly believe, are now numbered," josie answered. "now, here's my excuse for investigating silas herring and his two cronies, dyer and duncan. all three of them happen to be political bosses in this section. it is pretty generally known that they are not in sympathy with president wilson and the administration. they are shrewd enough to know that the popularity of the war and the president's eloquent messages have carried the country by storm. so they cannot come right out into the open with their feelings. at the same time, they can feel themselves losing control of the situation. in fact, the herring gang is fearful that at the coming elections they will be swept aside and replaced with out-and-out loyal supporters of the president. so they're going to try to arouse sentiment against the administration and against the war, in order to head off the threatened landslide. dyer hoped to block the sale of liberty bonds, blinding folks to his intent by subscribing for them himself; but you girls foiled that scheme by your enthusiastic 'drive.' what the other conspirators have done, i don't know, but i imagine their energies will not be squelched by one small defeat. i don't expect to land any of the three in jail, but i think they all ought to be behind the bars, and if i shadow them successfully, one or the other may lead me to their tools or confederates--the ones directly guilty of issuing the disloyal circulars and perhaps of placing the bomb that damaged the airplane works and murdered some of its employes." mary louise was pale with horror when josie finished her earnest and convincing statement. she regarded her friend's talent with profound admiration. nevertheless, the whole matter was becoming so deep, so involved that she could only think of it with a shudder. "i'm almost sorry," said the girl, regretfully, "that i ever mixed up in this dreadful thing." "i'm not sorry," returned josie. "chasing traitors isn't the pleasantest thing in the world, even for a regular detective, but it's a duty i owe my country and i'm sufficiently interested to probe the affair to the extent of my ability. if i fail, nothing is lost, and if i win i'll have done something worth while. here's another name on the list of suspects you gave me--annie boyle, the hotel-keeper's daughter." "don't bother about annie, for goodness' sake," exclaimed mary louise. "she hasn't the brains or an opportunity to do any harm, so you'd better class her with kasker and the butcher." but josie shook her head. "there's a cross opposite her name," said she. "i don't intend to shuffle annie boyle into the discard until i know more about her." chapter xii josie buys a desk the "liberty girls' shop" was proving a veritable mint. expenses were practically nothing, so all the money received could be considered clear profit. it was amusing to observe the people who frequented the shop, critically examining the jumble of wares displayed, wondering who had donated this or that and meantime searching for something that could be secured at a "bargain." most of the shrewd women had an idea that these young girls would be quite ignorant of values and might mark the articles at prices far below their worth, but the "values" of such goods could only be conjectural, and therefore the judgment of the older women was no more reliable than that of the girls. they might think they were getting bargains, and perhaps were, but that was problematic. the one outstanding fact was that people were buying a lot of things they had no use for, merely because they felt they were getting them cheaply and that their money would be devoted to a good cause. mrs. brown, who had given the shop a lot of discarded articles, purchased several discarded articles donated by mrs. smith, her neighbor, while mrs. smith eagerly bought the cast-off wares of mrs. brown. either would have sneered at the bare idea of taking "truck" which the other had abandoned, had the medium of exchange not been the popular liberty girls' shop. for it was a popular shop; the "best families" patronized it; society women met there to chat and exchange gossip; it was considered a mark of distinction and highly patriotic to say: "oh, yes; i've given the dear girls many really valuable things to sell. they're doing such noble work, you know." even the eminent mrs. charleworth, premier aristocrat of dorfield, condescended to visit the shop, not once but many times. she would sit in one of the chairs in the rear of the long room and hold open court, while her sycophants grouped around her, hanging on her words. for mrs. charleworth's status was that of social leader; she was a middle-aged widow, very handsome, wore wonderful creations in dress, was of charming personality, was exceedingly wealthy and much traveled. when she visited new york the metropolitan journals took care to relate the interesting fact. mrs. charleworth was quite at home in london, paris, berlin and vienna; she was visiting friends in dresden when the european war began, and by advice of herr zimmerman, of the german foreign office, who was in some way a relative, had come straight home to avoid embarrassment. this much was generally known. it had been a matter of public information in the little town for a generation that dick charleworth had met the lady in paris, when she was at the height of her social glory, and had won the hand of the beautiful girl and brought her to dorfield as his wife. but the wealthy young manufacturer did not long survive his marriage. on his death, his widow inherited his fortune and continued to reside in the handsome residence he had built, although, until the war disrupted european society, she passed much time abroad. the slight taint of german blood in mrs. charleworth's veins was not regarded seriously in dorfield. her mother had been a russian court beauty; she spoke several languages fluently; she was discreet in speech and negative in sympathy concerning the merits of the war. this lasted, however, only while the united states preserved neutrality. as soon as we cast our fortunes with the allies, mrs. charleworth organized the "daughters of helpfulness," an organization designed to aid our national aims, but a society cult as well. under its auspices two private theatrical entertainments had been given at the opera house and the proceeds turned over to the red cross. a grand charity ball had been announced for a future date. it may easily be understood that when mrs. charleworth became a patroness of the liberty girls' shop, and was known to have made sundry purchases there, the high standing of that unique enterprise was assured. some folks perhaps frequented the place to obtain a glimpse of the great mrs. charleworth herself, but of course these were without the pale of her aristocratic circle. their social triumph, however, was but one reason for the girls' success; the youngsters were enticing in themselves, and they proved to be clever in making sales. the first stock soon melted away and was replaced by new contributions, which the girls took turns in soliciting. the best residences in dorfield were first canvassed, then those of people in moderate circumstances. the merchants were not overlooked and mary louise took the regular stores personally in charge. "anything you have that you can't sell, we will take," was her slogan, and most of the merchants found such articles and good-naturedly contributed them to the shop. "sooner or later we shall come to the end of our resources," predicted alora jones. "we've ransacked about every house in town for contributions." "let's make a second canvas then," suggested lucile. "and especially, let us make a second appeal to those who did not give us anything on our first round. our scheme wasn't thoroughly understood at first, you know, but now folks regard it an honor to contribute to our stock." "yes," said jane donovan, "i had to laugh when mrs. charleworth asked mrs. dyer yesterday what she had given us, and mrs. dyer stammered and flushed and said that when we called on her the dyers were only renting the house and furniture, which belonged to the dudley-markhams, who are in south america; but, mrs. dyer added, they have now bought the place--old furniture and all--and perhaps she would yet find some items she can spare." "very good," said edna barlow; "the dyers are in my district and i'll call upon them at once." "have the dyers really bought the dudley-markham place?" asked mary louise. "so it seems," replied jane. "but--'it must have cost a lot of money." "isn't the professor rich?" inquired josie o'gorman, who was present and had listened quietly to the conversation. "i-don't-know," answered mary louise, and the other girls forbore to answer more definitely. that evening, however, josie approached the subject when she and mary louise were sitting quietly at home and the conversation more confidential. "the dyers," explained her friend, "were not very prosperous until the professor got the appointment as superintendent of schools. he was a teacher in a boys' school for years, on a small salary, and everyone was surprised when he secured the appointment." "how did it happen?" asked josie. mary louise looked across at her grandfather. "how did it happen, gran'pa jim?" she repeated. the old colonel lowered his book. "we haven't been residents of dorfield many years," said he, "so i am not well acquainted with the town's former history. but i remember to have heard that the herring political ring, which elected our board of education, proposed john dyer for the position of school superintendent--and the board promptly gave him the appointment." "was he properly qualified?" josie asked. "i think so. a superintendent is a sort of business manager. he doesn't teach, you know. but i understand the professor received his education abroad--at heidelburg--and is well versed in modern educational methods. our schools seem to be conducted very well." josie was thoughtful for a time, and after the colonel had resumed his book, she asked mary louise: "who was mrs. dyer, before her marriage?" "that is ancient history, as far as i am concerned, but i heard the girls talking about her, just the other day. her family, it seems, was respectable but unimportant; yet mrs. dyer is very well liked. she's not brilliant, but kindly. when we first came here, the dyers lived in a little cottage on juniper street, and it is only lately that they moved to the big house they've just bought. mrs. dyer is now trying hard for social recognition, but seems to meet with little encouragement. mrs. charleworth speaks to her, you know, but doesn't invite mrs. dyer to her affairs." next day edna barlow, after a morning's quest of contributions, returned to the shop in triumph. "there's almost a truck-load of stuff outside, to be unloaded," she announced, "and a good half of it is from mrs. dyer--a lot of the old dudley-markham rubbish, you know. it has class to it, girls, and when it has been freshened up, we're sure to get good prices for the lot." "i'm surprised that mrs. dyer was so liberal," said mary louise. "well, at first she said the professor had gone to chicago on business, and so she couldn't do anything for us," replied edna; "but i insisted that we needed goods right now, so she finally said we could go up in the attic, and rummage around, and take whatever we could find. my, what a lot of useless stuff there was! that attic has more smashed and battered and broken-legged furniture in it than would furnish six houses--provided it was in shape. the accumulation of ages. but a lot of it is antique, girls, and worth fixing up. i've made the best haul of our career, i verily believe." then laura hilton, who had accompanied edna, added: "when mrs. dyer saw our men carrying all that stuff down, she looked as if she regretted her act and would like to stop us. but she didn't--was ashamed to, probably--so we lugged it off. never having been used to antique furniture, the poor woman couldn't realize the value of it." "this seems to me almost like robbery," remarked lucile, doubtfully. "do you think it right for us to take advantage of the woman's ignorance?" "remember the cause for which we fight!" admonished irene, from her chair. "if the things people are not using, and do not want, can provide comforts for our soldier boys, we ought to secure them--if we have to take them by force." the attic of the old house had really turned out a number of interesting articles. there were tables, stands, settees, chairs, and a quaint old desk, set on a square pedestal with a base of carved lions' feet. this last interested josie as soon as it was carried into the shop. the top part was somewhat dilapidated, the cover of the desk being broken off and some of the "pigeonhole" compartments smashed. but there was an odd lot of tiny drawers, located in every conceivable place, all pretty well preserved, and the square pedestal and the base were in excellent condition. josie open drawer after drawer and looked the old cabinet-desk over thoroughly, quite unobserved because the others in the shop were admiring a chippendale chair or waiting upon their customers. presently josie approached mary louise and asked: "what will you take for the pedestal-desk--just as it stands?" "why, i'll let irene put a price on it," was the reply. "she knows values better than the rest of us." "if it's fixed up, it will be worth twenty dollars," said irene, after wheeling her chair to the desk for a critical examination of it. "well, what will it cost to fix it up?" demanded josie. "perhaps five dollars." "then i'll give you fifteen for it, just as it stands," proposed josie. "you? what could you do with the clumsy thing?" "ship it home to washington," was the prompt reply. "it would tickle daddy immensely to own such an unusual article, so i want to make him a present of it on his birthday." "hand over the fifteen dollars, please," decided irene. josie paid the money. she caught the drayman who had unloaded the furniture and hired him to take the desk at once to the hathaway residence. she even rode with the man, on the truck, and saw the battered piece of furniture placed in her own room. leaving it there, she locked her door and went back to the shop. the girls were much amused when they learned they had made so important a sale to one of themselves. "if we had asked mrs. dyer to give us fifteen dollars, cold cash," remarked laura, "she would have snubbed us properly; but the first article from her attic which we sold has netted us that sum and i really believe we will get from fifty to seventy-five dollars more out of the rest of the stuff." mrs. charleworth dropped in during the afternoon and immediately became interested in the dudley-markham furniture. the family to whom it had formerly belonged she knew had been one of the very oldest and most important in dorfield. the dudley-markhams had large interests in argentine and would make their future home there, but here were the possessions of their grandmothers and great-grandmothers, rescued from their ancient dust, and mrs. charleworth was a person who loved antiques and knew their sentimental and intrinsic values. "the dyers were foolish to part with these things," she asserted. "of course, mary dyer isn't supposed to know antiques, but the professor has lived abroad and is well educated." "the professor wasn't at home," explained edna. "perhaps that was lucky for us. he is in chicago, and we pleaded so hard that mrs. dyer let us go into the attic and help ourselves." "well, that proves she has a generous heart," said the grand lady, with a peculiar, sphinx-like smile. "i will buy these two chairs, at your price, when you are ready to sell them." "we will hold them for you," replied edna. "they're to be revarnished and properly 'restored,' you know, and we've a man in our employ who knows just how to do it." when mary louise told colonel hathaway, jokingly, at dinner that evening, of josie's extravagant purchase, her girl friend accepted the chaffing composedly and even with a twinkle in her baby-blue eyes. she made no comment and led mary louise to discourse on other subjects. that night josie sat up late, locked in her own room, with only the pedestal-desk for company. first she dropped to her knees, pushed up a panel in the square base, and disclosed the fact that in this inappropriate place were several cleverly constructed secret compartments, two of which were well filled with papers. the papers were not those of the dudley-markhams; they were not yellowed with age; they were quite fresh. "there!" whispered the girl, triumphantly; "the traitor is in my toils. is it just luck, i wonder, or has fate taken a hand in the game? how the kaiser would frown, if he knew what i am doing to-night; and how daddy would laugh! but--let's see!--perhaps this is just a wedge, and i'll need a sledge-hammer to crack open the whole conspiracy." the reason josie stayed up so late was because she carefully examined every paper and copied most of those she had found. but toward morning she finished her self-imposed task, replaced the papers, slid the secret panel into place and then dragged the rather heavy piece of furniture into the far end of the deep closet that opened off her bedroom. before the desk she hung several dresses, quite masking it from observation. then she went to bed and was asleep in two minutes. chapter xiii joe langley, soldier strange as it may seem, mary louise and her liberty girls were regarded with envy by many of the earnest women of dorfield, who were themselves working along different lines to promote the interests of the government in the great war. every good woman was anxious to do her duty in this national emergency, but every good woman loves to have her efforts appreciated, and since the advent of the bevy of pretty young girls in the ranks of female patriotism, they easily became the favorites in public comment and appreciation. young men and old cheerfully backed the liberty girls in every activity they undertook. the dorfield red cross was a branch of the wonderful national organization; the "hoover conservation club" was also national in its scope; the "navy league knitting knot" sent its work to washington headquarters; all were respectfully admired and financially assisted on occasion. but the "liberty girls of dorfield" were distinctly local and a credit to the city. their pretty uniforms were gloriously emblematic, their fresh young faces glowed with enthusiasm, their specialty of "helping our soldier boys" appealed directly to the hearts of the people. many a man, cold and unemotional heretofore in his attitude toward the war, was won to a recognition of its menace, its necessities, and his personal duty to his country, by the arguments and example of the liberty girls. if there was a spark of manhood in him, he would not allow a young girl to out-do him in patriotism. mary louise gradually added to her ranks, as girl after girl begged to be enrolled in the organization. after consulting the others, it was decided to admit all desirable girls between the ages of and , and six companies were formed during the following weeks, each company consisting of twenty girls. the captains were the original six--alora, laura, edna, lucile, jane and mary louise. irene macfarlane was made adjutant and quartermaster, because she was unable to participate actively in the regimental drills. mary louise wanted josie to be their general, but josie declined. she even resigned, temporarily, from membership, saying she had other duties to attend to that would require all her time. then the girls wanted mary louise to be general of the dorfield liberty girls, but she would not consent. "we will just have the six companies and no general at all," she said. "nor do we need a colonel, or any officers other than our captains. each and every girl in our ranks is just as important and worthy of honor as every other girl, so the fewer officers the better." about this time joe langley came back from france with one arm gone. he was sergeant joe langley, now, and wore a decoration for bravery that excited boundless admiration and pride throughout all dorfield. joe had driven a milk wagon before he left home and went to canada to join the first contingent sent abroad, but no one remembered his former humble occupation. a hero has no past beyond his heroism. the young man's empty sleeve and his decoration admitted him to intercourse with the "best society" of dorfield, which promptly placed him on a pedestal. "you know," said joe, rather shamefacedly deprecating the desire to lionize him, "there wasn't much credit in what i did. i'm even sorry i did it, for my foolishness sent me to the hospital an' put me out o' the war. but there was tom mcchesney, lyin' out there in no man's land, with a bullet in his chest an' moanin' for water. tom was a good chum o' mine, an' i was mad when i saw him fall--jest as the boches was drivin' us back to our trenches. i know'd the poor cuss was in misery, an' i know'd what i'd expect a chum o' mine to do if i was in tom's place. so out i goes, with my cap'n yellin' at me to stop, an' i got to tom an' give him a good, honest swig. the bullets pinged around us, although i saw a german officer--a decent young fellow--try to keep his men from shootin'. but he couldn't hold 'em in, so i hoisted tom on my back an' started for our trenches. got there, too, you know, jest as a machine-gun over to the right started spoutin'. it didn't matter my droppin' tom in the trench an' tumblin' after him. the boys buried him decent while the sawbones was cuttin' what was left of my arm away, an' puttin' me to sleep with dope. it was a fool trick, after all, 'though god knows i'll never forget the look in tom's eyes as he swallered that swig o' cool water. that's all, folks. i'm out o' the game, an' i s'pose the gen'ral jus' pinned this thing on my coat so i wouldn't take my discharge too much to heart." that was joe langley. do you wonder they forgot he was once a milk-man, or that every resident of dorfield swelled with pride at the very sight of him? just one of "our soldier boys," just one of the boys the liberty girls were trying to assist. "they're all alike," said mary louise. "i believe every american soldier would be a joe langley if he had the chance." joe took a mighty interest in the liberty girls. he volunteered to drill and make soldiers of them, and so well did he perform this task-- perhaps because they admired him and were proud of their drill-master-- that when the last big lot of selected draft men marched away, the entire six companies of liberty girls marched with them to the train-- bands playing and banners flying--and it was conceded to be one of the greatest days dorfield had ever known, because everyone cheered until hoarse. chapter xiv the professor is annoyed josie o'gorman, after resigning from the liberty girls, became--so she calmly stated--a "loafer." she wandered around the streets of dorfield in a seemingly aimless manner, shopped at the stores without buying, visited the houses of all sorts of people, on all sorts of gossipy errands, interviewed lawyers, bankers and others in an inconsequential way that amused some and annoyed others, and conducted herself so singularly that even mary louise was puzzled by her actions. but josie said to mary louise: "my, what a lot i'm learning! there's nothing more interesting--or more startling--or, sometimes, more repulsive--than human nature." "have you learned anything about the german spy plot?" questioned mary louise eagerly. "not yet. my quest resembles a cart-wheel. i go all around the outer rim first, and mark the spokes when i come to them. then i follow each spoke toward the center. they'll all converge to the hub, you know, and when i've reached the hub, with all my spokes of knowledge radiating from it, i'm in perfect control of the whole situation." "oh. how far are you from the hub, josie?" "i'm still marking the spokes, mary louise." "are there many of them?" "more than i suspected." "well, i realize, dear, that you'll tell me nothing until you are ready to confide in me; but please remember, josie, how impatient i am and how i long to bring the traitors to justice." "i won't forget, mary louise. we're partners in this case and perhaps i shall ask your help, before long. some of my spokes may be blinds and until i know something positive there's no use in worrying you with confidences which are merely surmises." soon after this conversation mary louise found herself, as head of the liberty girls, in an embarrassing position. professor dyer returned from chicago on an evening train and early next morning was at the shop even before its doors were opened, impatiently awaiting the arrival of mary louise. "there has been a mistake," he said to her, hastily, as she smilingly greeted him; "in my absence mrs. dyer has thoughtlessly given you some old furniture, which i value highly. it was wife's blunder, of course, but i want back two of the articles and i'm willing to pay your shop as much for them as you could get elsewhere." "oh, i'm awfully sorry, professor," said the girl, really distressed, as she unlocked the shop door. "come in, please. mrs. dyer told our girls to go into the attic and help themselves to anything they wanted. we've done splendidly with the old furniture, and fenders, and brassware, but i hope the two articles you prize are still unsold. if so, you shall not pay us for them, but we will deliver them to your house immediately." he did not reply, for already he was searching through the accumulation of odds and ends with which the store-room was stocked. "perhaps i can help you," suggested mary louise. he turned to her, seeming to hesitate. "one was a chair; a chair with spindle legs and a high back, richly carved. it is made of black oak, i believe." "oh, i remember that well," said the girl. "mrs. charleworth bought it from us." "mrs. charleworth? well, perhaps she will return it to me. i know the lady slightly and will explain that i did not wish to part with it." still his eyes were roving around the room, and his interest in the chair seemed somewhat perfunctory. "the other piece of furniture was a sort of escritoire, set on a square pedestal that had a carved base of lions' feet." his voice had grown eager now, although he strove to render it calm, and there was a ring of anxiety in his words. mary louise felt relieved as she said assuringly: "that, at least, i can promise you will be returned. my friend, josie o'gorman, bought it and had it sent to our house, where she is visiting. as soon as some of the girls come here to relieve me, i'll take you home with me and have uncle eben carry the desk to your house in our motor car. it isn't so very big, and uncle eben can manage it easily." the tense look on the man's face relaxed. it evident that professor dyer was greatly relieved. "thank you," he said; "i'd like to get it back as soon as possible." but when, half an hour later, they arrived at the hathaway residence, and met josie just preparing to go out, the latter said with a bewildered look in her blue eyes: "the old desk? why, i sent that home to washington days ago!" "you did?" mary louise was quite surprised. "why, you said nothing to me about that, josie." "i didn't mention it because i'd no idea you were interested. daddy loves old things, and i sent it home so he would have it on his return. by freight. you are away at the shop all day, you know, so i asked uncle eben to get me a big box, which he brought to my room. the desk fitted it nicely. i nailed on the cover myself, and uncle eben took it to the freight office for me. see; here's the receipt, in my pocket-book." she unfolded a paper and held it out to professor dyer, who read it with a queer look on his face. it was, indeed, a freight receipt for "one piece of furniture, boxed," to be shipped to john o'gorman, washington, d. c, the sender was described as "miss j. o'gorman, dorfield." there was no questioning josie's veracity, but she called the black servant to substantiate her story. "yes, miss josie," said uncle eben, "i done took de box to de freight office an' got de receipt, lak yo' tol' me. tuesday, it were; las' tuesday." professor dyer was thoughtful. "you say your father is away from home at present?" he asked. "yes; he's abroad." "do you suppose the freight office in washington would deliver the box to me, on your order?" "i'm afraid not," said josie, "it's consigned to john o'gorman, and only john o'gorman can sign for its receipt." again the professor reflected. he seemed considerably disturbed. "what is the business of john o'gorman, your father?" he presently inquired. "he's a member of the government's secret service," josie replied, watching his face. the professor's eyes widened; he stood a moment as if turned to stone. then he gave a little, forced laugh and said: "i'm obliged to make a trip to washington, on business, and i thought perhaps i'd pick up the--ah--the box, there, and ship to dorfield. the old desk isn't valuable, except--except that it's--ah--antique and--unusual. i'd like to get it back and i'll return to you the money you paid for it, and the freight charges. if you'll write a note to the railway company, saying the box was wrongly addressed and asking that it be delivered to my order, i think i can get it." josie agreed to this at once. she wrote the note and also gave professor dyer the freight receipt. but she refused to take his money. "there might be some hitch," she explained. "if you get the box, and it reaches dorfield safely, then i'll accept the return of my money; but railroads are unreliable affairs and have queer rules, so let's wait and see what happens." the professor assured her, however, that there was no doubt of his getting the box, but he would wait to pay her, if she preferred to let the matter rest. when he had gone away--seeming far more cheerful than when he came--mary louise said to josie: "this is a very unfortunate and embarrassing affair, all around. i'm so sorry we took that furniture from mrs. dyer before her husband came home and gave his consent. it is very embarrassing." "i'm glad, for my part," was the reply. josie's blue eyes were shining innocently and her smile was very sweet. mary louise regarded her suspiciously. "what is it, josie!" she demanded. "what has that old desk to do with--with--" "the german spy plot? just wait and see, mary louise." "you won't tell me?" "not now, dear." "but why did you ship the thing to washington, if it is likely to prove a valuable clue?" "why ask questions that i can't answer? see here, mary louise: it isn't wise, or even safe, for me to tell you anything just yet. what i know frightens me--even _me!_ can't you wait and--trust me?" "oh, of course," responded mary louise in a disappointed voice. "but i fail to understand what professor dyer's old desk can possibly have to do with our quest." josie laughed. "it used to belong to the dudley-markhams." "the dudley-markhams! great heavens, but--see here--they left dorfield long before this war started, and so--" "i'm going out," was josie's inconsequent remark. "do you think those are rain clouds, mary louise? i hate to drag around an umbrella if it's not needed." chapter xv suspenders for sale the two girls parted at the liberty shop. mary louise went in "to attend to business," while josie o'gorman strolled up the street and paused thoughtfully before the windows of kasker's clothing emporium. at first she didn't notice that it was kasker's; she looked in the windows at the array of men's wear just so she could think quietly, without attracting attention, for she was undecided as to her next move. but presently, realizing this was kasker's place, she gave a little laugh and said to herself: "this is the fellow poor little mary louise suspected of being the arch traitor. i wonder if he knows anything at all, or if i could pump it out of him if he does? guess i'll interview old jake, if only to satisfy myself that he's the harmless fool i take him to be." with this in mind she walked into the store. a clerk met her; other clerks were attending to a few scattered customers. "is mr. kasker in?" she asked the young man. "in his office, miss; to the right, half way down." he left her to greet another who entered and josie walked down the aisle, as directed. the office was raised a step above the main floor and was railed in, with a small swinging gate to allow entrance. this was not the main business office but the proprietor's special den and his desk was placed so he could overlook the entire establishment, with one glance. just at present kasker was engaged in writing, or figuring, for his bushy head was bent low. josie opened the gate, walked in and took a chair that stood beside the desk. "good morning, mr. kasker," she said sweetly. he looked up, swept her with a glance and replied: "what's the matter? can't one of the clerks attend to you? i'm busy." "i'll wait," was josie's quiet reply. "i'd rather deal with you than a clerk." he hesitated, laid down his pen and turned his chair toward her. she knew the man, by sight, but if he had ever seen the girl he did not recall the fact. his tone was now direct and businesslike. "very well, miss; tell me what i can do for you." it had only taken her an instant to formulate her speech. "i'm interested in the poor children of dorfield," she began, "having been sent here as the agent of an organization devoted to clothing our needy little ones. i find, since i have been soliciting subscriptions in dorfield and investigating the requirements of the poor, that there are a lot of boys, especially, in this city who are in rags, and i want to purchase for them as many outfits as my money will allow. but on account of the war, and its demands on people formerly charitably inclined, i realize my subscription money is altogether too little to do what i wish. that's too bad, but it's true. everywhere they talk war--war---war and its hardships. the war demands money for taxes, bonds, mess funds, the red cross and all sorts of things, and in consequence our poor are being sadly neglected." he nodded, somewhat absently, but said nothing. josie felt her clever bait had not been taken, as she had expected, so she resolved to be more audacious in her remarks. "it seems a shame," she said with assumed indignation, "that the poor of the country must starve and be in want, while the money is all devoted to raising an army for the germans to shoot and mangle." he saw the point and answered with a broad smile: "is that the alternative, young lady? must one or the other happen? well--yes; the soldiers must be killed, god help 'em! but _himmel!_ we don't let our kiddies freeze for lack of clothes, do we? see here; they're taking everything away from us merchants--our profits, our goods, everything!--but the little we got left the kiddies can have. the war is a robber; it destroys; it puts its hand in an honest man's pocket without asking his consent; all wars do that. the men who make wars have no souls--no mercy. but they make wars. wars are desperate things and require desperate methods. there is always the price to pay, and the people always pay it. the autocrats of war do not say 'please!' to us; they say 'hold up your hands!' and so--what is there to do but hold up our hands?" josie was delighted; she was exultant; jake kasker was falling into her trap very swiftly. "but the little ones," he continued, suddenly checking himself in his tirade, "must not be made to suffer like the grown-up folks. they, at least, are innocent of it all. young lady, i'd do more for the kids than i'd do for the war--and i'll do it willingly, of my own accord. tell me, then, how much money you got and i'll give you the boys' suits at cost price. i'll do more; for every five suits you buy from me at cost, i'll throw an extra one in, free--jake kasker's own contribution." this offer startled and somewhat dismayed josie. she had not expected the interview to take such a turn, and kasker's generosity seriously involved her, while, at the same time, it proved to her without a doubt that the man was a man. he was loud mouthed and foolish; that was all. while she gathered her wits to escape from an unpleasant situation, a quick step sounded on the aisle and a man brusquely entered the office and exclaimed: "hello, jake; i'm here again. how's the suspender stock?" kasker gave him a surly look. "you come pretty often, abe kauffman," he muttered. "suspenders? bah! i only buy 'em once a year, and you come around ev'ry month or so. i don't think it pays you to keep pesterin' merchants." abe kauffman laughed--a big laugh--and sat down in a chair. "one time you buy, jake, and other times i come to dorfield somebody else buys. how do i know you don't get a run on suspenders some time? and if i don't visit all my customers, whether they buy or not, they think i neglect 'em. who's this, jake? your daughter?" he turned his bland smile on josie. he was a short, thickset man with a german cast of countenance. he spoke with a stronger german accent than did kasker. though his face persistently smiled, his eyes were half closed and shrewd. when he looked at her, josie gave a little shudder and slightly drew back. "ah, that's a wrong guess," said mr. kauffman quickly. "i must beg your pardon, my girl. but i meant a compliment to you both. accept my card, please," and he drew it from his pocket and handed it to her with a bow. josie glanced at it: "kauffman suspender company, chicago. abe kauffman, president." "my business does not interest ladies," he went on in a light tone meant to be jovial. "but with the men--ah!--with the men it's a hold-up game. ha, ha, hee! one of our trade jokes. it's an elastic business; kauffman's suspenders keep their wearers in suspense. ha, ha; pretty good, eh?" "do you ever sell any?" asked josie curiously. "do i? do i, jake? ha, ha! but not so many now; the war has ruined the suspender business, like everything else. kasker can tell you that, miss." "kasker won't, though," asserted jake in a surly tone. the girl, however, was now on another scent. "don't you like the war, then?" josie asked the salesman. "like it?" the eyes half opened with a flash. "who likes war, then? does humanity, which bears the burden? for me--myself--i'll say war is a good thing, but i won't tell you why or how i profit by it; i'll only say war is a curse to humanity and if i had the power i'd stop it tomorrow--to-day--this very hour! and, at that, i'd lose by it." his voice shook with a passion almost uncontrollable. he half rose from his chair, with clinched fists. but, suddenly remembering himself, or reading the expression on the girl's face, he sank back again, passed his hand over his face and forced another bland, unmirthful smile. "i'd hate to be the man who commits his country to war," he said in mild, regretful tones. but here, kasker, who had been frowning darkly on the suspender man, broke in. "see here, abe; i don't allow that kind of talk in my store," he growled. "you? you're like me; you hate the war, jake." "i did once, abe, but i don't now. i ain't got time to hate it. it's here, and i can't help it. we're in the war and we're going ahead to win it, 'cause there ain't no hope in backing down. stop it? why, man, we _can't_ stop it. it's like a man who is pushed off a high bank into a river; he's got to swim to a landing on the other side, or else--sink. we americans ain't goin' to sink, abe kauffman; we'll swim over, and land safe. it's got to be; so it will be." "all right. i said, didn't i, that it won't hurt my pocket? but it hurts my heart." (josie was amazed that he claimed a heart.) "but it's funny to hear _you_ talk for the war, jake, when you always hated it." "well, i've quit kickin' till we're out of the woods. i'm an american, abe, and the american flag is flying in france. if our boys can't hold it in the face of the enemy, jake kasker will go do it himself!" kauffman stood up, casting a glance of scorn on his customer. "you talk like a fool, jake; you talk like you was talking for the papers--not honest, but as if someone had scared you." "yes; it's the fellows like you that scare me," retorted the clothing merchant. "ev'ry time you curse the war you're keeping us from winning the war as quick as we ought to; you're tripping the soldiers, the government, the president--the whole machine. i'll admit i don't _like_ the war, but i'm _for_ it, just the same. can you figure that out, abe kauffman? once i had more sense than you have, but now i got a better way of thinking. it ain't for me to say whether the war's right or not; my country's honor is at stake, so i'll back my country to the last ditch." kauffman turned away. "i guess you don't need any suspenders," he said, and walked out of the store. kasker gave a sigh of relief and sat down again. "now, young lady," he began, "we'll talk about--" "excuse me," said josie hastily. "i'm going, now; but i'll be back. i want to see you again, mr. kasker." she ran down the aisle to the door, looked up and down the street and saw the thick-set form of the suspender salesman just disappearing around the corner to the south. instantly she stepped out. josie was an expert in the art of shadowing. chapter xvi mrs. charleworth when mary louise reached home that evening she was surprised to find a note from josie which said: "i've decided to change my boarding place for a week or so, although i shall miss aunt sally's cooking and a lot of other comforts. but this is business. if you meet me in the street, don't recognize me unless i'm quite alone. we've quarrelled, if anyone asks you. pretty soon we'll make up again and be friends. of course, you'll realize i'm working on our case, which grows interesting. so keep mum and behave." "i wish i knew where she's gone," was mary louise's anxious comment, as she showed the note to gran'pa jim. "don't worry, my dear," advised the colonel. "josie possesses the rare faculty of being able to take care of herself under all circumstances. had she not been so peculiarly trained by her detective father i would feel it a duty to search for her, but she is not like other girls and wouldn't thank us for interfering, i'm sure." "i can't see the necessity of her being so mysterious about it," declared the girl. "josie ought to know i'm worthy of her confidence. and she said, just the other day, that we're partners." "you must be the silent partner, then," said her grandfather, smiling at her vexed expression. "josie is also worthy of confidence. she may blunder, but if so, she'll blunder cleverly. i advise you to be patient with her." "well, i'll try, gran'pa. when we see her again she will probably know something important," said mary louise resignedly. as for little, red-headed josie o'gorman, she walked into the office of the mansion house that afternoon, lugging a battered suit-case borrowed from aunt sally, and asked the clerk at the desk for weekly rates for room and board. the clerk spoke to mr. boyle, the proprietor, who examined the girl critically. "where are you from?" he asked. "new york," answered josie. "i'm a newspaper woman, but the war cost me my job, because the papers are all obliged to cut down their forces. so i came here to get work." "the war affects dorfield, too, and we've only two papers," said the man. "but your business isn't my business, in any event. i suppose you can pay in advance?" "for a week, anyhow," she returned; "perhaps two weeks: if the papers can't use me, i'll try for some other work." "know anybody here?" "i know colonel hathaway, but i'm not on good terms with his granddaughter, mary louise. we had a fight over the war. give me a quiet room, not too high up. this place looks like a fire-trap." as she spoke, she signed her name on the register and opened her purse. boyle looked over his keyboard. "give me , if you can," said josie carelessly. she had swiftly run her eye over the hotel register. "forty-seven is always my lucky number." "it's taken," said the clerk. "well, is the next best," asserted josie. "i made forty-three dollars the last week i was in new york. is taken, also?" "no," said boyle, "but i can do better by you. forty-three is a small room and has only one window." "just the thing!" declared josie. "i hate big rooms." he assigned her to room and after she had paid a week in advance a bellboy showed her to the tiny apartment and carried her suitcase. "number 'll be vacant in a day or two," remarked the boy, as he unlocked her door. "kauffman has it now, but he won't stay long. he's a suspender drummer and comes about every month--sometimes oftener--and always has . when he goes, i'll let you know, so you can speak for it. forty-five is one of our best rooms." "thank you," said josie, and tipped him a quarter. as she opened her suitcase and settled herself in the room, she reflected on the meeting in kasker's store which had led her to make this queer move. "a fool for luck, they say," she muttered. "i wonder what intuition induced me to interview jake kasker. the clothing merchant isn't a bad fellow," she continued to herself, looking over the notes she had made on her tablets. "he didn't make a single disloyal speech. hates the war, and i can't blame him for that, but wants to fight it to a finish. now, the other man--kauffman--hates the war, too, but he did not make any remark that was especially objectionable; but that man's face betrayed more than his words, and some of his words puzzled me. kauffman said, at two different times, that the war would make him money. there's only one way a man like him can make money out of the war, and that is--by serving the kaiser. i suppose he thought we wouldn't catch that idea, or he'd been more careful what he said. all criminals are reckless in little ways; that's how they betray themselves and give us a chance to catch them. however, i haven't caught this fellow yet, and he's tricky enough to give me a long chase unless i act boldly and get my evidence before he suspects i'm on his trail. that must be my programme--to act quickly and lose no time." kauffman saw her when she entered the hotel dining room for dinner that evening, and he walked straight over to her table and sat down opposite her. "met again!" he said with his broad smile. "you selling something?" "brains," returned josie composedly. "good! did jake kasker buy any of you?" "i've all my stock on hand, sir. i'm a newspaper woman--special writer or advertising expert. quit new york last week and came on here." "wasn't new york good enough for you?" he asked, after ordering his dinner of the waitress. "i'm too independent to suit the metropolitan journals. i couldn't endorse their gumshoe policies. for instance, they wanted me to eulogize president wilson and his cabinet, rave over the beauties of the war and denounce any congressman or private individual who dares think for himself," explained josie, eating her soup the while. "so--i'm looking for another job." kauffman maintained silence, studying the bill-of-fare. when he was served he busied himself eating, but between the slits of his half-closed eyes he regarded the girl furtively from, time to time. his talkative mood had curiously evaporated. he was thoughtful. only when josie was preparing to leave the table did he resume the conversation. "what did you think of jake kasker's kind of patriotism?" he asked. "oh; the clothing man? i didn't pay much attention. never met kasker before, you know. isn't he like most of the rabble, thinking what he's told to think and saying what he's told to say?" she waited for a reply, but none was forthcoming. even this clever lead did not get a rise out of abe kauffman. indeed, he seemed to suspect a trap, for when she rose and walked out of the dining room she noticed that his smile had grown ironical. on reaching her room through the dimly lighted passage, josie refrained from turning on her own lights, but she threw open her one little window and leaned out. the window faced a narrow, unlighted alley at the rear of the hotel. one window of room , next to her, opened on an iron fire-escape that reached to within a few feet of the ground. josie smiled, withdrew her head and sat in the dark of her room for hours, with a patience possible only through long training. at ten o'clock kauffman entered his room. she could distinctly hear him moving about. a little later he went away, walking boldly down the corridor to the elevator. josie rose and slipped on her hat and coat. leaving the hotel, kauffman made his way down the street to broadway, dorfield's main thoroughfare. he wore a soft hat and carried a cane. the few people he passed paid no attention to him. steadily proceeding, he left the business district and after a while turned abruptly to the right. this was one of the principal residence sections of the city. kauffman turned the various corners with a confidence that denoted his perfect acquaintance with the route. but presently his pace slowed and he came to a halt opposite an imposing mansion set far back in ample grounds, beautifully cared for and filled with rare shrubbery. only for a moment, however, did the man hesitate--just long enough to cast a glance up and down the deserted street, which was fairly well lighted. no one being in sight, he stepped from the sidewalk to the lawn, and keeping the grass under his feet, noiselessly made his way through the shrubbery to the south side of the residence. here a conservatory formed a wing which jutted into the grounds. the german softly approached, mounted the three steps leading to a glass door, and rapped upon the sash in a peculiar manner. almost immediately the door was opened by a woman, who beckoned him in. the conservatory was unlighted save by a mellow drift that filtered through the plants from a doorway beyond, leading to the main house. from behind the concealment of a thick bush josie o'gorman had noted the woman's form but was unable to see her face. the girl happened to know the house, however. it was the residence of dorfield's social leader, mrs. charleworth. josie squatted behind that bush for nearly half an hour. then the glass door opened and kauffman stepped out. "by the way," he said in a low voice, "it's just as well we didn't take kasker in with us. he's a loud-mouthed fool. i've tested him and find he blats out everything he knows." "we do not need him, since i've decided to finance the affair," returned the woman, and josie recognized her voice. it was the great mrs. charleworth herself. mrs. charleworth, in secret conference with abe kauffman, the suspender salesman! then josie experienced another surprise. a second man stepped through the shadowy doorway, joining kauffman on the steps. "it seems to me," said this last person, "that there is danger in numbers. of course, that's your affair, kauffman, and none of my business, but if i'm to help you pull it off, i'd rather there wouldn't be too many of us. it's a ticklish thing, at the best, and--" "shut up!" growled kauffman, suspiciously peering around him into the darkness. "the less we talk in the open, the better." "that is true. good night," said the woman, and went in, closing the door behind her. "i think i will light a cigar," said kauffman. "wait until you are in the street," cautioned the other. they walked on the grass, avoiding the paths and keeping in the darkest places. finally they emerged upon the sidewalk, and finding the coast clear, traveled on side by side. at times they conversed in low tones, so low that the little red-headed girl, dodging through the parkings in their wake, could not overhear the words they spoke. but as they approached the more frequented part of the town, they separated, kauffman turning into broadway and the other continuing along a side street. josie o'gorman followed the latter person. he was tall and thin and stooped a trifle. she had been unable, so far, to see his face. he seemed, from the turnings he made, to be skirting the business section rather than pass directly through it. so the girl took a chance, darted down one street and around the corner of another, and then slipped into a dim doorway near which hung an electric street-light. she listened eagerly and soon was rewarded by a sound of footsteps. the man she was shadowing leisurely approached, passed under the light and continued on his way, failing to note the motionless form of the girl in the doorway. josie gave a little laugh. "you're a puzzling proposition, professor," she whispered to herself, "and you came near fooling me very properly. for i imagined you were on your way to washington, and here you've mixed up with another important job!" chapter xvii the black satchel when josie reached the hotel it was nearly midnight. half the lights in the office had been extinguished and behind the desk, reading a novel, the night clerk sprawled in an easy chair. she hadn't seen the night clerk before. he was a sallow-faced boy, scarcely twenty years old, attired in a very striking suit of clothes and wearing a gorgeous jewelled scarf-pin in his cravat. as he read, he smoked a cigarette. "hello," said this brilliant individual, as josie leaned over the counter and regarded him with a faint smile. "you're no. , i guess, and it's lucky old boyle ain't here to read you a lecture--or to turn you out. he won't stand for unmarried lady guests bein' out till this hour, an' you may as well know it first as last." "he's quite right," was josie's calm reply. "i'll not do it again. my key, please!" he rose reluctantly and gave her the key. "do you sit up all night?" she asked sweetly. "i'm s'posed to," he answered in a tone less gruff, "but towards mornin' i snooze a little. only way to pass the time, with noth'n' to do an' nobody to talk to. it's a beastly job, at the best, an' i'm goin' to quit it." "why don't you start a hotel of your own?" she suggested. "you think you're kiddin' me, don't you? but i might even do that, if i wanted to," he asserted, glaring at her as if he challenged contradiction. "it ain't money that stops me, but hotel keepin' is a dog's life. i've made a bid for a cigar-store down the street, an' if they take me up, somebody can have this job." "i see you're ambitious," said josie. "well, i hope you get the cigar-store. good night, mr.--" "my name's tom linnet. i won't tell the ol' boy you was out so late. so long." the elevator had stopped running, so josie climbed the stairs and went thoughtfully to her room. kauffman had preceded her. she heard him drop his shoes heavily upon the floor as he undressed. she turned on the light and made some notes on her tablets, using the same queer characters that she always employed. the last note read: "tom linnet, night clerk at the mansion house. new clothes; new jewelry. has money. recently acquired, for no one with money would be a night clerk. wants to quit his job and buy a cigar store. query: who staked tom? and why?" as she crawled into bed josie reflected: "mary louise would be astonished if she knew what i have learned to-night. but then, i'm astonished myself. i feel like the boy who went fishing for sunfish and caught a whale." next morning she was up early, alert to continue her investigations. when she heard mr. kauffman go down to breakfast she took a bunch of pass-keys from her bag, went boldly through the hall to the door of , unlocked it with ease and walked in. a hurried glance showed her a large suitcase lying open upon a table. she examined its contents. one side was filled with samples of suspenders, the other with miscellaneous articles of male apparel. josie was not satisfied. she peered under the bed, softly opened all the drawers in the dresser and finally entered the closet. here, on the rear shelf, a newspaper was placed in such manner as to hide from observation anything behind it. to an ordinary person, glancing toward it, the newspaper meant nothing; to josie's practised eye it was plainly a shield. being short of stature, the girl had to drag in a chair in order to reach the high shelf. she removed the newspaper, took down a black hand-satchel--it was dreadfully heavy and she almost dropped it--and then replaced the paper as it had been before. josie was jubilant. she removed the chair, again closed the closet door, and leaving the room practically as she had found it stole back to her own apartment, the heavy satchel concealed in the folds of her frock. but no one saw her, the hall being vacant, and she breathed a sigh of relief as she locked her own door against possible intruders. then she placed the black satchel on a stand and bent over it. the lock was an unusual one. she tried all the slender keys upon her bunch without effect--they were either too large or did not fit the keyhole. next she took a thin hairpin, bent and twisted it this way and that and tried to pry the lock open. failure. however, she was beginning to understand the mechanism of the lock by this time. from that all-containing handbag which was her inseparable companion she drew out a file, and taking one of the master-keys, began to file it to fit the lock of the black satchel. this operation consumed more time than she was aware, so interesting was the intricate work. she was presently startled by a sound in the corridor. mr. kauffman was coming back to his room, whistling an aria from "die walkure." josie paused, motionless; her heart almost stopped beating. the man unlocked his door and entered, still whistling. sometimes the whistle was soft and low, again it was louder and more cheerful. josie listened in suspense. as long as the whistling continued she realized that the theft of the black satchel remained undiscovered. kauffman remained in his room but a few moments. when he departed, carefully locking his door after him, he was still whistling. josie ran to her own door and when he had passed it opened it just a crack, to enable her to gaze after him. underneath his arm he carried a bundle of the sample suspenders. "good!" she whispered softly, retreating to bend over the satchel again. "mr. abe kauffman will sell suspenders this morning as a blind to his more important industries, so i needn't hurry." sooner than she expected the lock clicked and sprang open. her eyes at first fell upon some crumpled, soiled shirts, but these she hurriedly removed. the remainder of the satchel contained something enclosed in a green flannel bag. it was heavy, as she found when she tried to lift it out, and a sudden suspicion led her to handle the thing very gingerly. she put it on the table beside the satchel and cautiously untied the drawstring at the mouth of the bag. a moment later she had uncovered a round ball of polished blue steel, to which was attached a tube covered with woven white cotton. josie fell back on a chair, fairly gasping, and stared with big eyes at the ball. in her desire to investigate the possessions of the suspender salesman she had scarcely expected to find anything like this. the most she had hoped to discover were incriminating papers. "it's a bomb!" she stammered, regarding the thing fearfully; "a real, honest-for-true bomb. and it is meant to carry death and destruction to loyal supporters of our government. there's no doubt of that. but--" the thoughts that followed so amazing an assertion were too bewildering to be readily classified. they involved a long string of conjectures, implicating in their wide ramifications several persons of important standing in the community. the mere suggestion of what she had uncovered sufficed to fill josie's heart and brain with terror. "here! i mustn't try to think it out just yet," she told herself, trying with a little shiver of repulsion for the thing to collect her wits. "one idea at a time, josie, my girl, or you'll go nutty and spoil everything! now, here's a bomb--a live, death-dealing bomb--and that's the first and only thing to be considered at present." controlling her aversion and fear, the girl turned the bomb over and over, giving it a thorough examination. she had never seen such a thing before, but they had often been explained to her and she had an inkling as to the general method of their construction. this one before her was of beautiful workmanship, its surface as carefully turned and polished as if it had been intended for public exhibition. grooves had been cut in the outer surface and within these grooves lay the coils of the time fuse, which was marked with black ink into regular sections. the first section from the end of the fuse was marked " ;" the next section " " and so on down to the section nearest the bomb, which was divided by the marks " "--" / "--" / ." "i see," said josie, nodding her head with intelligent perception. "each section, when lighted, will burn for one hour, running along its groove but harmless until the end of the fuse is reached. if the entire fuse is lighted, it will require just six hours to explode the bomb, while if it is cut off to the last mark and then lighted, the bomb will explode in fifteen minutes. the operator can set it to suit himself, as circumstances require." the manner in which the fuse was attached to the bomb was simple. the hole made in the bomb was exactly the size of the fuse inserted into it. there were two little knobs, one on each side the hole. after pushing the fuse into the hole a fine wire was wound around it and attached to the tiny knobs, thus holding it firmly in place. josie took a pair of small pincers, unwound the wire and cautiously withdrew the fuse from the hole. examining the end of the fuse she saw it was filled with a powdery substance which, when ignited, would explode the bomb. she had recourse to her hairpin again and carefully picked the powder out of the fuse for the distance of the entire first section. this proved difficult and painstaking work, but when completed not a grain of the powder remained in the woven cotton casing for the distance of six inches from the end. having accomplished that much, josie sat looking at the thing in a speculative way. she could not have told you, at the moment, why her first act had been to render the bomb impotent in so queer a manner when she could have simply destroyed the entire fuse. but, of course, no one would try to use the fiendish contrivance unless it was supplied with a fuse. after a period of thought the girl decided what to do next. she removed the bomb, fuse, green bag--even the satchel--to the big lower drawer of her bureau, and turned the lock. "no one is likely to come in but the chambermaid, and she will be too busy to disturb anything," josie decided; and then she locked her room door and went down stairs to breakfast. chapter xviii a hint feom annie boyle josie was late. in the breakfast room she found but one guest besides herself, an old lady with a putty face. but there was also a young girl seated at a near-by table who was grumbling and complaining to the maid who waited upon her. "it ain't my fault, miss annie," protested the maid. "the cook says you ordered your breakfast half an hour ago, an' then went away. we tried to keep it hot for you, and if it's cold it's your own fault." "i was talking with mr. kauffman," pouted the girl, who seemed a mere child. "i've a good notion to order another breakfast." "if you do, cook will tell your father." this threat seemed effective. the girl, with a sour face, began eating, and the maid came over to take josie's order. the tables were near enough for conversation, so when the maid had gone to the kitchen josie said sweetly: "that mr. kauffman's a nice man, isn't he? i don't wonder you forgot your breakfast. isn't this miss annie boyle?" "yes," was the answer. "do you know abe kauffman?" "i've met him," said josie. "he an' pa used to be good friends," said annie boyle, who did not seem at all shy in conversing with strangers, "but pa's soured on him lately. i don't know why. p'raps because abe is a german, an' everybody's tryin' to fling mud at the germans. but abe says the german-americans are the back-bone of this country, and as good citizens as any." "he don't seem to like the war, though," remarked josie carelessly. "well, do you know why? abe's had two brothers and five cousins in the german army, and all of 'em's been killed. that's why he's sore on the war. says his brothers deserved what they got for not comin' to america an' bein' american citizens, like abe is. but i know he's dreadful sorry 'bout their bein' killed just the same. german folks seem to think a good, deal of their families, an' so jest to mention the war makes abe rave an' swear." "that's foolish," said josie. "he'll get himself into trouble." "abe's no fool; he knows how far he can go, an' when to stop talkin'. he'll cuss the war, but you never hear him cuss'n' the united states. he told me, just a while ago, that the war'll make him rich, 'cause he's smart enough to use it for his own good. but he said i mustn't talk about that," she added, with a sudden realization that josie was regarding her curiously. "abe an' me's chums, an' what he says is between us. p'raps he was only jokin', 'bout gettin' rich. abe's a great joker, anyhow." that this was a rather lame retraction was apparent even to annie boyle. she gave josie a suspicious look, but josie's face was absolutely expressionless. the maid was placing her order before her and she calmly began her breakfast. a moment later, the old lady rose and tottered out of the room. "gee! i wish i had her money," remarked annie boyle, looking after her. "she's got a wad of stocks an' just has to cut coupons off 'em. lives here easy an' don't worry. if i had her dough i'd--" she stopped suddenly. "money's a good thing to have," said josie. "there's tom linnet, now; he's going to buy a cigar store." "how'd you know?" asked annie quickly. "why, he told me." "oh; are you an' tom friends?" "we're not enemies. tom's in luck to have so much money." "wall," said annie, "he's a fool to flash it all of a sudden. pa took him for night clerk when he didn't have a cent--and it wasn't so long ago, either. he gets his board an' five dollars a week. folks are goin' to wonder where he got all his fine clothes, an' them di'monds, an' how he can afford to buy barker's cigar store. i asked abe about it an' abe says he guesses tom got the money from an aunt that jus' died." "perhaps he did." "well, where'd he get the aunt? tom's got two brothers that are peddlers an' a father who's a track-walker, an' he's got a mother what takes in washin'. if there's an aunt, she's some relation to the rest of the family, so why didn't she leave them some money, as well as tom?" "i don't know, but i'm glad tom is so well fixed," answered josie, rather absently, for her eye had fallen on the menu card beside her plate, and the menu card had somehow conveyed a new thought to her mind. she picked it up and examined it critically. part of it was printed in a queer, open-faced type--all capitals--while the balance of the list of dishes had been written in with pen and ink. these printed bills would do for a good many breakfasts, for they mentioned only the staples, while the supplementary dishes were day by day added in writing. "i wonder who prints your bills-of-fare?" she said to annie boyle. "why do you wonder that?" demanded annie. "i like the type, and i want to get some cards printed from it." "we print our own bills," said the child. "there's a press an' type an' the fixings in a room in the basement, an' tom linnet used to print a new card every day for all the three meals. he did it at night, you know, between two an' six o'clock, when nobody's ever around the hotel. they was swell bills-of-fare, but tom claimed he couldn't do so much printin', although that's part o' the night clerk's duty, an' pa thought it used up too much good cardboard at war-time prices. so now we jus' get out a new bill once a week, an' write the extry dishes on it." "that does very well," said josie. "does tom still do the printing?" "yes. pa hired him as night clerk 'cause he'd worked in a printin' office an' could do printin'. but since tom got rich he don't like to work, an the bills ain't printed as good as they used to be." "this looks pretty good to me," said josie, eyeing it approvingly. "i guess, if tom wasn't goin' to leave, pa would fire him," asserted annie, rising from the table. "good mornin', miss; i'll see you again, if you're stoppin' here." after she had gone, josie finished her breakfast thoughtfully. three distinct facts she had gleaned from annie boyle's careless remarks. first, tom linnet had acquired sudden riches. second, the type used on the hotel menu cards was identically the same that the disloyal circulars had been printed from. third, between the hours of two and five in the mornings, the night clerk's duties permitted him to be absent from the hotel office. josie decided that annie boyle had not been admitted to the inner confidences of the conspirators, and that tom linnet was their tool and had been richly paid for whatever services he had performed. she was now gathering "clues" so fast that it made her head swim. "that chance meeting with kauffman, at kasker's," she told herself, "led me directly into the nest of traitors. i'm in luck. not that i'm especially clever, but because they're so astonishingly reckless. that's usually the way with criminals; they close every loop-hole but the easiest one to peep through--and then imagine they're safe from discovery!" chapter xix the printing office after breakfast josie sallied out upon the street and found a hardware store. there, after some exploration, she purchased an asbestos table-mat. with this she returned to her room and locked herself in. the chambermaid had "been and gone," but josie's drawer was still locked and its precious contents intact. the girl scraped the surface of the table-mat with her pen-knife until she had secured enough loose fibre to serve her purpose and then she proceeded to restuff the fuse with the asbestos fibre the entire length of the section from which she had removed the powder. then she pushed the end of the fuse into the hole in the bomb, wired it as before, and replaced the long fuse in its grooves. "now," said josie, surveying her work with satisfaction, "if they light that fuse, and expect it to explode the bomb in an hour or more, they'll be badly fooled. also, i shall have prevented another catastrophe like the explosion at the airplane factory." she replaced the bomb in its bag, placed the bag in the black satchel, tucked in the soiled shirts to cover it and with her improvised key managed to relock the satchel. watching for a time when the corridor was vacant, she went to , entered the room and replaced the satchel on its shelf, taking care to arrange the newspaper before it as a mask. she had taken the chair from the closet and was about to leave the room when she heard footsteps coming down the hallway, accompanied by a whistle which she promptly recognized. "caught!" she exclaimed, and gave a hurried glance around her. to hide within the room was impossible, but the window was open and the iron fire-escape within easy reach. in an instant she had mounted it and seizing the rounds of the iron ladder climbed upward until she had nearly reached the next window directly above, on the third floor. then she paused, clinging, to get her breath. kauffman was annoyed to find the door of his room unlocked. he paused a moment in the middle of the room and looked around him. "confound that chambermaid!" josie heard him mutter, and then he opened the closet door and looked in. apparently reassured, he approached the open window, stuck out his head and looked _down_ the fire-escape. josie's heart gave a bound; but kauffman didn't look upward. he drew in his head, resumed his whistling and busied himself repacking the sample suspenders in his suitcase. josie hoped he would soon go out again, but he seemed to have no intention of doing so. so she climbed her ladder until she could look into the window above, which was also open. the old lady she had seen at breakfast was lying upon the bed, her eyes closed. josie wondered if she was asleep. the door leading from the room to the hallway also stood open. the weather was warm, and the old lady evidently wanted plenty of air. while josie hesitated what to do a boy came up the alley, noticed her on the fire-escape and paused to look at her in astonishment. the girl couldn't blame him for being interested, for her attitude was certainly extraordinary. others were likely to discover her, too, and might suspect her of burglary and raise a hue and cry. so she deliberately entered the room, tiptoed across to the hall and escaped without arousing the old lady. but it was a desperate chance and she breathed easier when she had found the stairs and descended to her own floor. safe in her own room she gave a little laugh at her recent predicament and then sat down to note her latest discoveries on her tablets. josie o'gorman was very particular in this regard. details seemingly of trifling moment but which may prove important are likely to escape one's memory. her habit was to note every point of progress in a case and often review every point from the beginning, fitting them into their proper places and giving each its due importance. a digest of such information enabled her to proceed to the next logical step in her investigation. "these items all dovetail very nicely," she decided, with a satisfied nod at the quaint characters on the tablets--which all the world might read and be no wiser. "i must, however, satisfy myself that tom linnet actually printed those circulars. the evidence at hand indicates that he did, but i want positive proof. also, i'd like to know which one of the gang employed him--and paid him so liberally. however, that suggestion opens up a new line of conjecture; i don't believe tom linnet got all his wealth merely for printing a few circulars, helping to address them, and keeping his mouth shut. but--what else has he been paid for?" she brooded on this for a while and then determined to take one thing at a time and follow it to a conclusion. so she once more quitted her room and descended by the elevator--openly, this time--to the office. it was now noon and the hotel office was filled with guests, and the clerks and bellboys were all busily occupied. josie wandered carelessly around until she found the stairway leading to the basement. watching her opportunity she slipped down the stairs. the basement was not as barren as she expected to find it. there was an open central space, on one side of which were rooms for the barber shop, baths, and a pool room, all more or less occupied by guests and attendants. on the opposite side, at the rear, were baggage and storerooms. just beside her she noted a boot-black's stand, where a colored boy listlessly waited for customers. "shine, miss?" he inquired. "no," said josie in a businesslike tone; "i'm looking for the printing office." "secon' door, miss," indicating it with a gesture; "but dey ain't nobody dere. de room's mos'ly kep' locked." "i know," said josie, and advancing to the door drew out her keys. her very boldness disarmed suspicion; the boy was not sufficiently interested to watch her, for a man came out of the barber-shop and seated himself in the boot-black's chair. this sort of lock didn't phase josie at all. at the second trial she opened the door, walked in and closed the door behind her. it was a small room, dimly lighted and very disorderly. scraps of paper were strewn around the floor. dust had settled on the ink-rollers of the foot-press. a single case of type stood on a rack and the form of a bill-of-fare--partly "pied"--was on a marble slab which formed the top of a small table. on an upturned soap-box was a pile of unprinted menu cards. josie noted a few cans of ink, a bottle of benzine, and a few printing tools lying carelessly about, but the room contained nothing more. having "sized up" tom linnet's printing room with one swift glance, the girl stooped down and began searching among the scraps that littered the floor. they were mostly torn bits of cardboard or crumpled papers on which trial impressions had been made. josie expected momentarily to be interrupted, so she conducted her search as rapidly as was consistent with thoroughness. she paid no attention to the card scraps but all papers she smoothed out, one by one. finally, with a little cry of triumph, she thrust one of these into her handbag. she made this discovery just back of the press, and glancing up, she noted a hook that had formerly been hidden from her view, on which were impaled a number of papers--the chef's "copy" from which various bills had been printed. running through these papers she suddenly paused, pulled one away from the hook and tucked it into her bag. she was fairly satisfied, now, but still continued her search amongst the litter. it was not easy to decipher writing or printing in that dim light, but her eyes were good and the longer she remained in the room the more distinctly she saw. there was an electric globe suspended over the press, but she dared not turn on the light for fear of attracting attention. several scraps on which writing appeared she secured without trying to read them, but presently she decided she had made as thorough an examination of the place as was necessary. she left the room, locked the door again and boldly mounted the stairs to the office, meeting and passing several men who scarcely noticed her. then she took the elevator to her room and washed her grimy hands and prepared for luncheon. at the table she slipped another of the printed bills into her bag, to use for comparison, and afterward ate her lunch as calmly as if she were not inwardly elated at the success of her morning's work. josie felt, indeed, that she had secured the proof necessary to confound the traitors and bring them to the bar of justice. but there might be other interesting developments; her trap was still set. "there's no hurry," she told herself. "let's see this thing through--to the end." indeed, on reflection, she realized that several threads of evidence had not yet been followed to their source. some points of mystification still remained to be cleared up. her facts were mingled with theories, and she had been taught that theories are mighty uncertain things. on leaving the dining room, josie got on her hat and jacket, went out to the street and caught an oak avenue car. "oh, josie!" cried a well-known voice, and there sat mary louise, on her way home from the shop. josie gave her a haughty look, walked straight to the far end of the car and sat down in a vacant seat. the car was half filled with passengers. mary louise pushed forward and sat beside her friend. josie stared straight ahead, stolidly. "no one here knows you," whispered mary louise, "won't you speak to me, josie?" no reply. "where are you stopping? what are you doing? how are you getting along on the case?" pleaded mary louise, so softly that no one else could overhear. josie maintained silence. her features were expressionless. "i know you told me, in case we met, not to recognize you," continued mary louise, "but i'm so anxious for news, dear! can't you come home, to-night, and have a good talk with me? you owe me that much consideration. josie." the car stopped at a street intersection. josie stood up. "not to-night," she replied, and alighted from the car just as it started to move again. "bother mary louise!" she muttered, "she has made me walk three whole blocks." mary louise was human and she was provoked. there was really no need for josie o'gorman to be so absurdly mysterious. had she not known her so well, mary louise would have felt that josie had deliberately insulted her. as it was, she blamed her friend for inexcusable affectation. "i'm not sure," she reflected, "that a girl can be a detective--a regular detective--without spoiling her disposition or losing to some an extent her maidenly modesty. of course, josie has been brought up in an atmosphere of mystery and can't be blamed for her peculiarities, but---i'm glad _i'm_ not a detective's daughter." josie, however, wasn't worrying over any resentment her friend might feel at the necessary snub. she was on a keen scent and already had forgotten her meeting with mary louise. three blocks farther on she turned into the walk leading to an old but picturesque residence, at one time a "show place" of dorfield and the pride of the dudley-markhams, but now overshadowed by modern and more imposing mansions. josie rang the door-bell and presently the door was opened by a young and rather untidy maid. "i'd like to see professor dyer," said josie. "he's gone to washington," was the reply. "indeed! are you quite sure?" "yes," said the maid; and then mrs. dyer's head appeared in the opening and she gave josie a curious if comprehensive examination. then: "if you're from one of the schools, i'm sorry to tell you that professor dyer went to washington by the early train this morning. i don't know how soon he will be back. professor harrington of the high school is in charge. but perhaps it is something i can do?" "no, thank you; i can wait," said josie, and went away. "so," she said to herself, as she made her way back to town in a street car, "if dyer has really gone to washington, he hopes to get possession of the old desk and its hidden papers. pretty important to him, those papers are, and i wouldn't blame him for chasing them up. but--has he really gone? mrs. dyer thinks so; but all evidence points to the fact that she's not in her husband's confidence. now, if dyer is on his way to washington, what did last night's secret meeting mean? his absence will complicate matters, i fear. anyhow, i must revise my conclusions a bit." chapter xx one girl's wits as she entered the hotel josie encountered joe langley, the one-armed soldier back from the war. she had taken a great interest in this young fellow and admired his simple, manly nature, having had several interesting conversations with him at the liberty girls' shop and at the drills. josie felt she needed an ally at this juncture, and here was one who could be trusted. "joe," she said earnestly, drawing him aside, "are you going to be busy this evening?" "yes, miss o'gorman, i'm busy every evening now," he replied. "i've taken a job, you know, and my loafing days and social stunts are over. there wasn't any bread-an'-butter in telling the society dames about my war experiences, so i had to go to work. i'm night watchman at the steel works, and go on duty at seven o'clock." josie was disappointed. looking at him musingly, she asked: "are they making munitions now, at the steel works?" "of course; it's practically under government control, they say, but is still operated by the old company. they make shells for the big guns, you know, and they've ten car-loads on hand, just now, ready to be shipped to-morrow." josie drew a long breath. this was real news and her active mind jumped to a quick conclusion. "are the shells loaded, joe?" she inquired. "all ready for war," replied the soldier. "you see, a night watchman in such a place has an important position. i guard those shells by night, and another man does nothing but guard them by day." "where are they stored?" was josie's next question. "in the room just back of mr. colton's office--the big main building." "so mr. colton is still the head of the company?" "he's vice-president and general manager, and he knows the steel and ammunition business from a to z," asserted joe langley. "mr. colton represents the government as well as the steel works. the president is mr. jaswell, the banker, but he doesn't do anything but attend the board meetings." "joe," said josie impressively, "you know who i am, don't you?" "why, you're one of the liberty girls, i guess." "i'm from washington," she said. "my father, john o'gorman, is one of the government's secret service officers; i'm working on a case here in the interests of our government, and i may want you to help me foil a german spy plot." "count on me!" said sergeant joe, emphatically. and then he added: "i'd like to make sure, though, that you're really what you claim to be." josie opened her hand bag and from a side pocket drew a silver badge engraved "u. s. secret service. no. l o ." that was her father's number and a complimentary badge, but joe was satisfied. he had to glance inside the handbag to see it, for the girl dared not exhibit it more openly. "if you want to know more about me, ask colonel hathaway," continued josie. "no," said joe; "i believe you're on the square. but i'd never have suspected it of you. tell me what i'm to do." "nothing, at present. but should a crisis arrive, stand by me and obey my instructions." "i'll do that," promised the man. when the girl had regained her room in the hotel, she sat down with a businesslike air and wrote upon a sheet of paper, in her peculiar cypher, the story of her discoveries and the conclusions they justified up to the present hour. this was to fix all facts firmly in her mind and to enable her to judge their merits. the story was concise enough, and perhaps josie was quite unaware how much she had drawn upon her imagination. it read this way: "disloyal circulars have been issued from time to time in dorfield, designed to interfere with sales' of liberty bonds, to cause resentment at conscription and to arouse antipathy for our stalwart allies, the english. these circulars were written by john dyer, superintendent of schools, who poses as a patriot. the circulars were printed in the basement of the mansion house by tom linnet, a night clerk, who was well paid for his work. papers found secreted in an old desk from the attic of dyer's house prove that dyer is in the pay of german agents in this country and has received fabulous sums for his 'services,' said services not being specified in the documents. in addition to these payments, there were found in the desk notes of the imperial german government, for large amounts, such notes to be paid 'after the war.' "dyer is clearly the head of the german spy plot in dorfield, but the person who acts as medium between dyer and the master spy is an alleged suspender salesman calling himself abe kauffman. this kauffman makes frequent trips to dorfield, giving orders to dyer, and on one occasion kauffman, who stops at the mansion house while in town, hired tom linnet to place a bomb in the airplane factory, causing an explosion which destroyed many government airplanes and killed several employees. the sum paid linnet for this dastardly act has made him rich and he has bought or is about to buy a cigar store. kauffman now has another bomb in his possession, doubtless brought here to be placed, when opportunity arrives, to do the most possible damage. indications are that he may attempt to blow up the steel works, where a large amount of shells are now completed and ready for shipment to-morrow--meaning that the job must be done to-night, if at all. perhaps linnet will place the bomb; perhaps kauffman will do it himself. dyer has lost his incriminating papers and notes and is on his way to washington in an endeavor to recover them. "associated with dyer in his horrible activities is mrs. augusta charleworth, occupying a high social position, but of german birth and therefore a german sympathizer. she is clever, and her brains supplement those of dyer, who seems more shrewd than initiative, being content to execute the orders of others. dyer was educated at heidelburg, in germany, which accounts, perhaps, for his being pro-german, although i suspect he is pro-anything that will pay him money. dyer and the hon. andrew duncan, while political pals, are not connected in this spy plot, but i suspect that peter boyle, the proprietor of the mansion house may be one of the gang. i've no evidence yet that implicates boyle, but he harbors kauffman as a guest and ought to know that his night clerk is printing traitorous propaganda. so far, the evidence incriminates kauffman, mrs. charleworth, dyer and tom linnet. i believe mrs. dyer to be innocent of any knowledge of her husband's crimes; otherwise, she would never have parted with that important desk--the desk that will prove his ruin and ought to cost him his life. "my plan is this," concluded the notation, "to catch kauffman or linnet in the act of placing the bomb to-night, make the arrest, round up the other guilty ones and jail them, and then turn the case over to the federal officers for prosecution. a telegram to washington will secure professor dyer's arrest on his arrival there." josie read this through twice and nodded her red head with intense satisfaction. "all clear as crystal," she asserted gleefully. "i have proof of every statement, and the finale can't go very wrong with such knowledge in my possession. to-night, unless all signs fail, will prove a warm night-- warm enough to scorch these dreadful, murderous tools of the kaiser!" and now josie skipped over to the police station and had a somewhat lengthy conference with chief farnum, who knew her father and treated the girl detective with professional consideration. after this she hunted up the two government agents--old jim crissey and young norman addison--who knew her well as "john o'gorman's clever kid, the pride of her doting daddy." they listened to her with interest and genuine respect for her talent and not only promised their assistance whenever it might be needed but congratulated her warmly on her good work. this concluded josie's afternoon labors, and it was with a sense of triumphant elation that she returned to her hotel to rest and prepare for the expected crisis. chapter xxi surprises josie went to dinner as soon as the dining room opened. when she came out she met abe kauffman going in. he stopped and spoke to her. "sell any brains yet?" in a jocular way. "not to-day," she replied, with her innocent, baby-like stare. "well, i didn't sell any suspenders, either. there are no spenders for _sus_penders. ha, ha, ha!" "that doesn't seem to worry you much," asserted josie, pointedly. he gave a shrug. "well, to-morrow morning i leave by the : train east, so if i don't see you any more, i hope the brains will find a market." "thank you." she went on, glad to escape the man. "he told me about leaving on the : , and is probably giving everyone else the same information, so he can't be connected with the explosion," she reflected. "clever mr. kauffman! but not clever enough to realize he is near the end of his infamous career." josie's plans, perfected during that afternoon, primarily involved the shadowing of abe kauffman every moment, from now on. abe kauffman and his black satchel. for it grew dark early at this time of year, and already the brief twilight was fading. so the girl hastened to her room and exchanged her gray walking suit for a darker one that was inconspicuous and allowed free movement. then she slipped her little pearl-mounted revolver--her father's gift--into her handbag and decided she was ready for any emergency. having extinguished the light in her room, she glanced from the window into the alley below, where the shadows were now gathering deeply. "i think kauffman will go down the fire-escape and drop into the alley," she mused; "but he must first come to his room for the black satchel, in any event, and from that instant i must never lose sight of him." suddenly she discovered a form pacing slowly up and down the otherwise deserted alley. fearful that other detectives were on the watch, and might disrupt her plans, she strained her eyes to discover this person's identity. there was but one light to relieve the gloom, and that was far down the alley, a spot the prowler for some time avoided. finally, however, he came to a point where the light touched his face and josie instantly recognized tom linnet. "he is waiting for someone," she decided, "and kauffman is still at dinner--killing time because it's yet too early to undertake his nefarious task. tom linnet may be the tool he has selected, and i ought to get in touch with the boy, somehow, before he meets the arch conspirator. kauffman is the one i prefer to land." with this in mind, she hurried down, passed out at the front office doorway and turned into a narrow drive at the south of the hotel, which led to the rear alley. a great business block, now dark and deserted, loomed on the other side of the driveway, which was used by the baggage and supply wagons in the daytime. when the girl reached the corner of the alley she found herself in very deep shadow; so she ventured to protrude her head far enough to look after tom linnet. to her surprise the party he had been waiting for had already joined him, for she discovered two dusky forms pacing the alley. it could not be kauffman. while she hesitated whether to steal closer or maintain her position, the two advanced almost to her corner and paused there--in the blackest spot they could find. "i tell you i won't do it!" said tom, in a hard, dogged tone that was tense with excitement. "i'm through, and that's all there is to it." "that's a mistaken notion," was the quiet reply. "you're too deep in the plot to draw back, and the pay is well worth while." "i don't want any more money," growled tom. "you'll get two thousand for this night's work. cash. and there is no risk; you know that." "risk? god, man! can't you guess how i dream of those poor devils i sent to their death in the airplane job? i hate the money i got! i--i--" "see here," said the other voice impatiently, "that was a mistake, and you know it. we didn't intend murder, but the explosion was delayed. no one will get hurt to-night." "not through me," declared tom. "if you fail us, you'll come to grief." "if i come to grief, so will you. peach on me, and i'll blow the whole deal." there was a moment's silence. "would three thousand satisfy you?" demanded the tempter. "no," asserted tom stoutly; "i'm goin' to quit. what's done can't be undone, but i'm through with you. it--it's too blamed terrible, that's what it is! leave me alone an' let me turn honest. why don't you do the job yourself?" "i think i will," said the other calmly. "if you intend to turn down a good thing, i'll do my own work and save the money. but remember, linnet, silence is your only salvation. don't talk at all; if you do, you're liable to say the wrong thing--and you can't afford to do that." "i'm no fool," responded the night clerk, a shade of relief in his tone. "but don't come to me again, professor. i'm done with you." professor! josie felt a distinct shock. she had to flatten herself against the wall, too, and remain rigid, for the man abruptly turned the corner and marched down the driveway. half way to the brilliantly lighted street he dodged behind the building opposite the hotel, threading his way through narrow back yards. josie followed, swift and silent. finally they reached a place where the man was forced to pass beneath the rays of a lamp and josie was near enough to see his face. it was, in reality, professor john dyer. that assurance was all the girl wanted, just now. she let him go his way and turned to regain the hotel. it was not quite eight o'clock, yet she felt it important to keep an eye on kauffman and the bomb. the bomb, especially, for until dyer took possession of the infernal contrivance he could do no mischief. in the hotel lobby she entered a public telephone booth and called up jim crissey; then she went straight to her room. she could hear a low whistling in , which informed her that kauffman had not yet gone out and that he was in a cheerful mood. "i'm beginning to understand their method of work," josie reflected. "kauffman prepares the bombs, or brings them here under the guise of a suspender salesman; dyer arranges for their being placed, having secured information as to where an explosion will do the most damage to the government, and tom linnet is used as the tool to do the actual work. mrs. charleworth probably assists dyer in getting special information, and advises the gang, but doesn't take an active part in the perpetration of the crimes. her brains and position would naturally place her at the head of the conspirators in dorfield, although i'm pretty sure kauffman, as the agent of the master spy, can dictate what they must do." kauffman slammed his door and locked it. he was going out. josie opened her own door a crack to look after him. he was walking deliberately down the corridor, openly carrying in his left hand the black satchel. to josie this seemed the essence of effrontery. he had no intention of using the fire-escape, after all. he trusted in bravado, as so many careless criminals do. as she stealthily followed him, she observed the man stop in the office and exchange commonplaces with one or two guests whom he knew. in reality, this was his safest plan. the black bag did not look suspicious. presently the bomb would be turned over to dyer and kauffman's responsibility would then end. his very boldness was calculated to prevent suspicion. leaving the hotel, kauffman walked leisurely up the lighted street. only when he turned a corner did josie momentarily lose sight of him. there were many pedestrians at this hour and they masked the girl's form and for a while enabled her to keep near to the man she was shadowing. the only thing that puzzled josie was the fact that kauffman was proceeding in a direction exactly opposite that taken by dyer a short time before. dyer went south and kauffman was going north. when the business section of dorfield was passed, the streets became more deserted. they were not well lighted either, which favored josie the more. kauffman kept steadily on, and as the houses along the way thinned, josie decided he was headed directly for the steel works. that upset her calculations a bit, for she knew he had not seen dyer since the latter's interview with tom linnet, nor had he seen linnet; therefore he could not know that any arrangements he had previously made with them had fallen through. the german's present actions, however, indicated that he had decided to place the bomb himself, without the assistance of his fellow conspirators. had he been warned of linnet's defection? had he means of communicating with dyer unknown to josie? dyer was a mystery; even his wife believed he was now on his way to washington. surprises, in josie's line of work were not uncommon, and this was no time to consider whys and wherefores. the one thing she was sure of was that the bomb was in the black satchel and the black satchel in kauffman's hand. no matter where the other conspirators might be or how they were implicated in tonight's plot, as long as she kept her eye on the bomb, she would be able to control the situation. chapter xxii a slight mistake from the edge of the town to the steel works the road led through a common, overgrown with brush and weeds. there was no moon and although the distance was not great it was a lonely, dark and "creepy" place. as soon as the girl saw kauffman take the road to the works she decided to get there before he could do so. knowing well she could not be seen, she branched off through the brush, and finding her way by instinct rather than sight, ran swiftly in a half circle over the fields and struck the road again considerably in advance of the more deliberate kauffman. she now set off at her swiftest run and on reaching the manager's office, in the front of the main building, perceived that it was lighted. josie rapped upon the door and it was opened by one-armed joe langley, the night watchman. "quick!" she said, "let me in and hide me somewhere, where i can't be seen." joe pulled her in, closed the outer door and locked it, and then faced her. "what's up?" he demanded. "there's a man coming here with a bomb in a black satchel," she panted. "he intends to blow up this building, in which all the shells axe stored. i want to catch him in the act, joe, and you must hide me somewhere." joe glanced around with a puzzled look. "where?" he asked helplessly. so josie looked around her, too. this end of the long building was partitioned off for offices, as it fronted the town. the central section was a big space containing a table, benches, etc., while on either side were little glass rooms with partitions between them reaching about seven feet in height, the ceiling being some twelve feet from the floor. the first room to the left of the entrance was marked "manager" on its glass door; the next office "purchasing agent," and the third "chief engineer." on the right hand side, the corresponding offices were marked "secretary," "examiner," and "superintendent." all the office doors were locked except that of the purchasing agent, which stood ajar. josie sprang into that office and cast a hurried glance around. the glass division between that and the manager's office was "frosted" with white paint, but so carelessly done that she found places where she could see through into the office of the manager. also she could see into the main, or reception room, even with her door closed. while she examined this place a knock came on the outer door--a loud, imperative knock. "this will do," whispered josie to joe. "go an let him in, but don't let him suspect i'm here." joe was not quick-witted, but on the battlefields of france he had learned prompt obedience to orders. josie, as a government agent, was now his commander, so he merely nodded to her as he walked over to unlock the outer door. kauffman stepped in, satchel in hand. "you're the watchman, i suppose," he said cheerfully. "is mr. colton here?" "no," answered joe. "i was to meet him here at this time," said kauffman. "he said he'd be back this evening," returned joe, just recalling that fact, "but he isn't here yet." "all right," said the man, "i'll wait." he carefully placed the satchel on the table and sat down on a bench. joe regarded him suspiciously, remembering the girl's warning, but said nothing more. josie was watching kauffman from her retreat, but as her little office was dark and the german sat under a bright light it was impossible for him to know that his every movement was under observation. the minutes dragged. a big clock on the wall ticked with an ominous sound. kauffman drew out his watch and compared it with the clock. he appeared to grow restless. josie's quick ears caught the distant sound of a motor car coming down the road. perhaps kauffman heard it also. he rose from his seat and going to the table unlocked the black satchel, pressed the top open and looked inside it. still bending over the satchel he placed a cigarette in his mouth, lighted a match and applied the flame to his cigarette. his back was toward josie but she comprehended instantly the action. "he has lighted the fuse!" she murmured, triumphantly. the motor car came to a sudden halt outside the door, which joe had left unlocked; but while the german turned expectantly toward the door the maimed soldier, hearing josie's whisper, approached her little room and slightly opened her door. "he has lighted the fuse of the bomb," she said to him excitedly. "the bomb is in the satchel!" joe turned quickly to the table. he dived into the bag with his one good hand, drew out the heavy ball of steel and rushed with it to the door just as the manager, mr. colton, opened it and stepped in. so swift were joe's actions that kauffman had no time to interfere. both he and the manager stared in amazement as joe langley rushed outside and with all his might hurled the bomb far out upon the common. "confound you!" cried kauffman. "what did you do that for?" "what is it?" inquired the astonished manager. "a bomb!" cried josie, stepping from her retreat and confronting them. "a bomb with the fuse lighted, and timed to blow up this building after you had gone away, mr. colton. that man before you is a german spy, and i arrest him in the name of the law. put up your hands, abe kauffman!" the little revolver was in her hand, steadily covering him. kauffman gave an amused laugh, but he slowly raised his arms, as commanded. "i don't quite understand," said the puzzled manager, looking from one to the other. "well, i brought the new projectile, colton, as i had agreed," answered the german, coolly, "but your quaint watchman has thrown it away. as for the girl," he added, with a broad grin, "she has fooled me. she said she had brains, and i find she was mistaken." the manager turned to josie. "may i ask who you are, miss, and how you came to be in my office?" "i am josie o'gorman, an agent of the government secret service," she replied, not quite truthfully. "i've been shadowing this man for some time. i tell you, sir, he brought a bomb here, to destroy this building, and under pretense of lighting, a cigarette he has just lighted the time fuse. the bomb was in that satchel, but--" she added impressively, "as a matter of fact the thing was harmless, as i had already removed the powder from the fuse." kauffman gave a low whistle. "how did you manage that?" he asked curiously. "never mind how," she retorted; "i did it." kauffman turned to the manager. "will you please order your man to get the projectile?" he asked. "it is lucky for us all that the thing isn't loaded, or there really would have been an explosion." he now turned to josie, with his hands still in the air, and explained: "it is meant to explode through impact, and ordering it tossed out there was the most dangerous thing you could have done." at the manager's command joe took an electric searchlight and went out to find the steel ball. "if you please, miss," said kauffman, "may i put down my arms? they are tired, and i assure you i will not try to escape." josie lowered the revolver. her face was red. she was beginning to wonder if she had bungled the case. a second thought, however--a thought of the papers she had found in the old desk--reassured her. she might have been wrong in some respects, but surely she was right in the main. "this man," said mr. colton, pointing to kauffman, "is known to me as a munition expert. he bears the endorsement of the secretary of war and is the inventor of the most effective shells we now manufacture. what you have mistaken for a bomb is his latest design of projectile for an eight-inch gun. he had arranged to bring it here and explain to me its mechanism to-night, and also to submit a proposition giving our company the control of its manufacture. if you are a government agent, you surely understand that these arrangements must be conducted with great secrecy. if we purchase the right to make this projectile, we must first induce the government to use it, by demonstrating its effectiveness, and then secure our contracts. so your interference, at this time, is---ahem!--annoying." josie's face was a little more red than before. a second motor car drew up at the door and to her astonishment mrs. charleworth entered and greeted both the manager and kauffman in her usual charming manner. then she looked inquiringly at the girl. "pardon me, madam," said mr. colton. "there has been a singular misunderstanding, it seems, and our friend here has been accused of being a german spy by this young lady, who is a government detective-- or--or claims to be such. the precious projectile, in which you are so deeply interested, has just been tossed out upon the common, but joe langley is searching for it." mrs. charleworth's face wore an amused smile. "we are so beset with spies, on every hand, that such an error is quite likely to occur," said she. "i recognize this young lady as a friend of the hathaway family, and i have met her at the liberty girls' shop, so she is doubtless sincere--if misled. let us hope we can convince her-- miss o'gorman, isn't it?--that we are wholly innocent of attempting to promote the kaiser's interests." joe came in with the steel ball, which he deposited upon the table. then, at a nod from the manager, the soldier took his searchlight and departed through the door leading to the big room in the rear. it was time to make his regular rounds of the works, and perhaps mr. colton preferred no listeners to the conversation that might follow. chapter xxiii the flashlight "perhaps," said josie, her voice trembling a little, "i have assumed too much, and accused this man," pointing to kauffman, "unjustly. i was trying to serve my country. but i am somewhat confused, even yet, in regard to this affair. will you please tell me, mrs. charleworth, what connection you have with mr. kauffman, or with his--projectile?" "very gladly," said the lady, graciously. "i am a stockholder in this steel company--a rather important stockholder, i believe--and while i am not a member of the board of directors, mr. colton represents my interests. two years ago we bought the kauffman shell, and paid liberally for it, but mr. kauffman unfortunately invested his money in a transatlantic merchant ship which was sunk, with its entire cargo, by a german submarine. again penniless, he began the manufacture of suspenders, in a small way, with money i loaned him, but was not very successful. then he conceived the idea of a new projectile, very effective and quite different from others. he asked our company to finance him while he was experimenting and perfecting the new projectile. the company couldn't undertake to do that, but i personally financed mr. kauffman, having confidence in his ability. he has been six months getting the invention made, tested and ready to submit to government experts, and up to the present it has cost a lot of money. however, it is now considered perfect and mr. kauffman has brought it here to-night to exhibit and explain it to mr. colton. if mr. colton approves it from a manufacturing standpoint, our company will secure an option for the sole right to manufacture it." "mr. kauffman has been in dorfield several days," said josie. "why did he not show you the projectile before?" "i have been out of town," explained the manager. "i returned this afternoon, especially for this interview, and made the appointment for this evening. i am a busy man--these are war times, you know--and i must make my evenings count as well as my days." josie scented ignominous defeat, but she had one more shot to fire. "mrs. charleworth," she stated, with a severe look, "john dyer, the school superintendent, was at your house last night, in secret conference with mr. kauffman and yourself." "oh, so you are aware of that interview?" "clever!" said kauffman, "i'd no idea i was being shadowed." then the two exchanged glances and smiled. "it seems impossible," continued the man, "to keep any little matter of business dark, these days, although the war office insists on secrecy in regard to all munitions affairs and publicity would surely ruin our chances of getting the new projectile accepted for government use." "i am awaiting an explanation of that meeting," declared josie sternly. "perhaps you do not realize how important it may be." "well," answered mrs. charleworth, a thoughtful expression crossing her pleasant face, "i see no objection to acquainting you with the object of that mysterious meeting, although it involves confiding to you a bit of necessary diplomacy. mr. colton will tell you that the dorfield steel works will under no circumstances purchase the right to manufacture the kauffman projectile--or any other article of munition-- until it is approved and adopted by the war department. that approval is not easily obtained, because the officials are crowded with business and a certain amount of red tape must be encountered. experience has proved that the inventor is not the proper person to secure government endorsement; he labors under a natural disadvantage. neither is mr. colton, as the prospective manufacturer, free from suspicion of selfish interest. therefore it seemed best to have the matter taken up with the proper authorities and experts by someone not financially interested in the projectile. "now, professor dyer has a brother-in-law who is an important member of the munitions board, under general crozier, and we have induced the professor, after much urging, to take our projectile to washington, have it tested, and secure contracts for its manufacture. if he succeeds, we are to pay liberally for his services. that was how he came to be at our house last evening, when arrangements were finally made." "was such secrecy necessary?" asked josie suspiciously. it was kauffman who answered this question, speaking with apparent good humor but with a tinge of sarcasm in his voice: "my dear young lady, your own disposition to secrecy--a quality quite necessary in a detective--should show you the absurdity of your question. can we be too careful in these days of espionage? no emissary of the kaiser must know the construction of this wonderful projectile; none should even know that it exists. even should our government refuse to adopt it; we must not let the central powers know of it. my own negotiations with mr. colton and mrs. charleworth have been camouflaged by my disguise as a suspender merchant. it was equally important that mr. dyer's connection with us be wholly unsuspected. when the projectile is adopted, and these works are manufacturing it in quantities to help win the war, still no information concerning it must be made public. you must realize that." "that is all true," agreed mr. colton. "these frank statements, miss, have only been made to you because of your claim to being a government agent. if you fail to substantiate that claim, we shall place you under arrest and turn you over to the authorities, for our own protection." "to be sure," said josie; "that will be your duty. i am the daughter of john o'gorman, one of the high officers of the united states secret service, who is now in europe in the interests of the government. i came to dorfield to visit my friend, mary louise burrows, as mrs. charleworth is aware, and while here my suspicions were aroused of the existence of a german spy plot. therefore i set to work to bring the criminals to justice." "and, like the regulation detective, you have followed a false trail," commented kauffman, with his provoking smile. "not altogether," retorted josie. "i have already secured proof that will convict two persons, at least. and i am amazed that you have intrusted your secrets to that arch-traitor, professor dyer. will you tell me, mrs. charleworth, what you know about that man?" mrs. charleworth seemed astounded. "professor john dyer is one of dorfield's old residents, i believe," she answered slowly, as if carefully considering her words. "he is also the superintendent of schools, and in that capacity seems highly respected. i have never heard anything against the man, until now. his important public position should vouch for his integrity." "isn't his position a political appointment?" inquired josie. the lady looked at mr. colton. "yes," said the manager. "it is true that john dyer was active in politics long before he was made superintendent of schools. however, he was an educator, as well as a politician, so it seems his appointment was merited." "how well do you know him personally, madam?" asked the girl. "not very well," she admitted. "we do not meet socially, so our acquaintance until very recently was casual. but i have looked upon him as a man of importance in the community. on learning that he had a relative on the munitions board, i asked him to come, to my house, where i made him the proposition to take our projectile to washington and secure its adoption. i offered liberal terms for such service, but at first the professor seemed not interested. i arranged a second meeting, last evening, at which mr. kauffman was present to explain technical details, and we soon persuaded mr. dyer to undertake the commission. we felt that we could trust him implicity." "when did he intend to go to washington?" was josie's next question. "on the : , to-morrow morning. after exhibiting the projectile to mr. colton and securing the firm's option to manufacture it on a royalty basis, we are to take it to my house, where mr. dyer will receive it and obtain our final instructions." "one question more, if you please," said josie. "what connection with your enterprise has tom linnet?" "linnet? i do not know such a person," declared mrs. charleworth. "who is he?" asked the manager. "i know him," said kauffman. "he's the night clerk at the mansion house where i stop. sometimes i see him when i come in late. he's not of special account; he's weak, ignorant, and--" a sharp report interrupted him and alarmed them all. josie swung around quickly, for the sound--she knew it was a revolver shot--came from the rear. as colton and kauffman sprang to their feet and mrs. charleworth shrank back in a fright, the girl ran to the back door, opened it and started to make her way through the huge, dark building beyond the partition. the manager followed in her wake and as he passed through the door he turned a switch which flooded the big store-room with light. in the center of the building were long, broad tables, used for packing. a few shells still remained grouped here and there upon the boards. on either side the walls were lined with tiers of boxes bound with steel bands and ready for shipment. no person was visible in this room, but at the farther end an outer door stood ajar and just outside it a motionless form was outlined. josie and mr. colton, approaching this outer door nearly at the same time, controlled their haste and came to an abrupt halt. the upright figure was that of sergeant joe langley and the light from the room just reached a human form huddled upon the ground a few feet distant. joe had dropped his flashlight and in his one hand held a revolver. josie drew a long, shuddering breath. the manager took a step forward, hesitated, and returned to his former position, his face deathly white. "what is it? what's the matter?" called kauffman, coming upon the scene panting for he was too short and fat to run easily. joe turned and looked at them as if waking from a trance. his stolid face took on a shamed expression. "couldn't help it, sir," he said to the manager. "i caught him in the act. it was the flashlight that saved us. when it struck him he looked up and the bullet hit him fair." "who is it, and what was he doing?" asked mr. colton hoarsely. "it's under him, sir, and he was a-lighting of it." as he spoke, sergeant joe approached the form and with a shove of his foot pushed it over. it rolled slightly, unbent, and now lay at full length, facing them. josie picked up the flashlight and turned it upon the face. "oh!" she cried aloud, and shivered anew, but was not surprised. "i guess," said joe slowly, "they'll have to get another school superintendent." "but what's it all about? what did he do?" demanded kauffman excitedly. joe took the light from josie's hand and turned it upon a curious object that until now had been hidden by the dead man's body. "it's a infernal machine, sir, an' i ain't sure, even yet, that it won't go off an' blow us all up. he was leanin' down an' bendin' over it, twisting that dial you see, when on a sudden i spotted him. i didn't stop to think. my cap'n used to say 'act first an' think afterwards,' an' that's what i did. i didn't know till now it was the school boss, but it wouldn't have made any difference. i done my duty as i saw it, an' i hope i did it right, mr. colton." kauffman was already stooping over the machine, examining it with a skilled mechanical eye. "it's ticking!" he said, and began turning the dial backward to zero. the ticking stopped. then the inventor stood, up and with his handkerchief wiped the perspiration from his face. "gott!" he exclaimed, "this is no joke. we've all been too near death to feel comfortable." "this is horrible!" said mr. colton, "i can't yet believe that dyer could be guilty of so fiendish an act." "i can," asserted josie grimly, "and it isn't the first time he has planned murder, either. dyer was responsible for the explosion at the airplane factory." footsteps were heard. out of the darkness between the group of buildings appeared two men, crissey and addison. "are we too late, miss o'gorman?" asked crissey. "yes," she replied. "how did you lose track of dyer?" "he's a slippery fellow," said addison, "and threw us off the scent. but finally we traced him here and--" "and there he is," concluded josie in a reproachful tone. crissey caught sight of the machine. "great caesar!" he exclaimed, "who saved you?" "i did," answered joe, putting the revolver in his hip pocket, "but i wish you'd had the job, stranger." chapter xxiv after the crisis mrs. charleworth drove josie, who was sobbing nervously and quite bereft of her usual self-command, to colonel hathaway's residence. the woman was unnerved, too, and had little to say on the journey. the old colonel had retired, but mary louise was still up, reading a book, and she was shocked when josie came running in and threw herself into her friend's arms, crying and laughing by turns, hysterically. "what's the matter, dear?" asked mary louise in an anxious voice. "i've b-b-bungled that whole miserable g-ger-man spy plot!" wailed josie. "wasn't there any plot, then?" "of course; but i g-grabbed the wrong end of it. oh, i'm so glad daddy wasn't here to see my humiliation! i'm a dub, mary louise--a miserable, ignorant, foozle-brained dub!" "never mind, dear," said mary louise consolingly. "no one can know everything, josie, even at our age. now sit down and wipe that wet off your face and tell me all about it." josie complied. she snivelled a little as she began her story, but soon became more calm. indeed, in her relation she tried to place the facts in such order that she might herself find excuse for her erroneous theories, as well as prove to mary louise that her suspicions of abe kauffman and mrs. charleworth were well founded. "no girl is supposed to know the difference between a bomb and a cannon-ball--or projectile--or whatever it is," was her friend's comment, when josie had reached the scene in the manager's office, "and any man who is a german and acts queerly is surely open to suspicion. go on, josie; what happened next?" even mary louise was startled and horrified at the terrible retribution that had overtaken professor dyer, although josie's story had aroused her indignation toward him and prepared her for the man's final infamous attempt to wreck the steel plant. "and what about tom linnet?" she asked. "chief farnum is to arrest him to-night," said josie. "he will confess everything, of course, and then the whole plot will be made public." "poor mrs. dyer!" sighed mary louise. but fate decreed a different ending to the night's tragedy. when the police tried to arrest tom linnet the young man was not to be found. he had not bought the cigar store, but with what funds remained to him, he had absconded to parts unknown. chief farnum wired his description to all parts of the country. meantime, on the morning after the affair at the steel works, an earnest conference was held between mr. colton, colonel hathaway, josie o'gorman, mrs. charleworth, the chief of police and the two secret service agents. at this conference it was deemed inadvisable to acquaint the public with the truth about john dyer's villainy. the government would be fully informed, of course, but it seemed best not to tell the people of dorfield that a supposedly respectable citizen had been in the pay of the kaiser's agents. it would be likely to make them suspicious of one another and have a bad influence generally. the criminal had paid the penalty of his crimes. the murders he had committed and attempted to commit were avenged. so it was announced that the school superintendent had been killed by an accidental explosion at the munition works, and the newspapers stated that mrs. dyer did not desire a public funeral. indeed, she was too overwhelmed by the tragedy to express any desire regarding the funeral but left it all to colonel hathaway and mr. colton, who volunteered to attend to the arrangements. the burial was very unostentatious and the widow received much sympathy and did not suffer in the esteem of the community. mrs. dyer, in fact, was never told of her husband's dishonor and so mourned him sincerely. immediately following the conference referred to, josie brought the chief of police and the secret service men to her room and in their presence dragged the old pedestal-desk from her closet. mary louise, who had been admitted, exclaimed in surprise: "why, josie! i thought you sent the desk to washington." "no," answered josie, "i merely shipped an empty box. i knew very well that dyer would try to get back the desk, hoping i had not discovered its secret, so i deceived him and gained time by proving that i had sent a box home by freight." "that explains his decision to take the projectile to washington," commented detective crissey, "he believed he could kill two birds with one stone--get back his papers and earn a big fee from mrs. charleworth." "also," added josie, "he would be able to give the german master spy full information concerning the projectile, and so reap another reward. but all his diabolical schemes were frustrated by joe langley's bullet." "well, here's the desk," said chief farnum, "but where are those important papers, miss o'gorman?" "and what do they prove?" added crissey. josie slid back the panel in the square pedestal, disclosing the two compartments filled with papers. these she allowed the police and the detectives to read, arid they not only proved that john dyer was in the pay of an organized band of german spies having agents in washington, new york and chicago, but crissey was confident the notes, contracts and agreements would furnish clues leading to the discovery and apprehension of the entire band. so the papers were placed in his charge to take to washington, and their importance was a further argument for secrecy concerning john dyer's death. "so far as i am concerned," josie said afterward to colonel hathaway and mary louise, "the spy case is ended. when they arrest tom linnet they will be able to prove, from the scraps of paper i found in the printing room of the hotel, that linnet printed the circulars from copy furnished by dyer, and that dyer and linnet together directed the envelopes, probably in the still hours of the morning at the hotel desk, where they were not likely to be disturbed. the circulars may not be considered legally treasonable, but the fact that linnet personally placed the bomb that destroyed the airplane works will surely send him to the scaffold." "i suppose you will be called as a witness," suggested mary louise, "because you are the only one who overheard his verbal confession of the crime." "it wont take much to make linnet confess," predicted josie. "he is yellow all through, or he wouldn't have undertaken such dastardly work for the sake of money. his refusal to undertake the second job was mere cowardice, not repentance. i understand that sort of criminal pretty well, and i assure you he will confess as soon as he is captured." but, somewhat to the astonishment of the officers, tom linnet managed to evade capture. they found his trail once or twice, and lost it again. after a time they discovered he had escaped into mexico; afterward they heard of a young man of his description in argentine; finally he disappeared altogether. the arms of the law are long and strong, far-reaching and mercilessly persistent. they may embrace tom linnet yet, but until now he has miraculously avoided them. chapter xxv decorating colonel hathaway and mary louise were walking down the street one day when they noticed that the front of jake kasker's clothing emporium was fairly covered with american flags. even the signs were hidden by a fluttering display of the stars and stripes. "i wonder what this means?" said the colonel. "let's go in and inquire," proposed mary louise. "i don't suppose the man has forgiven me yet for suspecting his loyalty, but you've always defended him, gran'pa jim, so he will probably tell you why he is celebrating." they entered the store and kasker came forward to meet them. "what's the meaning of all the flags, jake?" asked the colonel. "didn't you hear?" said kasker. "my boy's been shot--my little jakie!" tears came to his eyes. "dear me!" exclaimed mary louise, with ready sympathy; "i hope he--he isn't dead?" "no," said kasker, wiping his eyes, "not that, thank god. a shell splinter took out a piece of his leg--my little jakie's leg!--and he's in a hospital at soissons. his letter says in a few weeks he can go back to his company. i got a letter from his captain, too. the captain says jakie is a good soldier and fights like wild-cats. that's what he says of jakie!" "still," said colonel hathaway, with a puzzled look, "i do not quite understand why you should decorate so profusely on account of so sad an event." "sad!" exclaimed the clothing man, "not a bit. that's glory, the way _i_ look at it, colonel. if my jakie's blood is spilled for his country, and he can go back and spill it again, it makes great honor for the name of kasker. say, once they called me pro-german, 'cause i said i hated the war. don't my jakie's blood put my name on america's honor roll? i'm pretty proud of jakie," he wiped his eyes again; "i'll give him an interest in the business, if he comes back. and if he don't--if those cursed germans put an end to him--then folks will say, 'see jake kasker over there? well, he gave his son for his country--his only son.' seems to me, colonel, that evens the score. america gives us germans protection and prosperity, and we give our blood to defend america's honor. i'm sorry i couldn't find a place for any more flags." the colonel and mary louise were both a little awed, but as kasker accompanied them to the door, they strove to express their sympathy and approval. as they parted, however, the man leaned over and whispered: "just the same, i hate the war. but, if it _has_ to be, let's stand together to fight and win it!" * * * * * * * * "gran'pa jim," said mary louise, when they were on the street again, "i'm ashamed. i once told you i loved you better than my country, but jake kasker loves his country better than his son." chapter xxvi keeping busy the liberty girls were forced to abandon their shop when a substantial offer was made by a business firm to rent the store they had occupied. however, they were then, near the end of their resources, with depleted stock, for they had begged about all the odds and ends people would consent to part with. what goods remained to them were of inferior worth and slow to dispose of, so they concluded their enterprise with a "grand auction," peter conant acting as auctioneer, and cleaned up the entire stock "in a blaze of glory," as mary louise enthusiastically described the event. the venture had been remarkably successful and many a soldier had cause to bless the liberty girls' shop for substantial comforts provided from its funds. "but what can we do now," inquired mary louise anxiously as the six captains met with irene one afternoon following the closing of the shop. "we must keep busy, of course. can't someone think of something?" one and all had been thinking on that subject, it seemed. various proposals were advanced, none of which, however, seemed entirely practical until irene said: "we mustn't lose our reputation for originality, you know, nor must we interfere with those who are doing war relief work as well, if not much better, than we could. i've pondered the case some, during the past few days, and in reading of the progress of events i find that quite the most important thing on the government programme, at present, is the conservation of foods. 'food will win the war' is the latest slogan, and anyone who can help mr. hoover will be doing the utmost for our final victory." "that's all very well, irene," said alora, "but i'm sure we are all as careful as possible to conserve food." "don't ask us to eat any less," pleaded edna, "for my appetite rebels as it is." "i don't see how we liberty girls can possibly help mr. hoover more than everyone else is doing," remarked laura. "well, i've an idea we can," replied irene. "but this is just another case where i can only plan, and you girls must execute. now, listen to my proposition. the most necessary thing to conserve, it seems, is wheat." "so it seems, dear." "people are eating large quantities of wheat flour simply because they don't know what else to eat," irene continued. "now, corn, properly prepared, is far more delicious and equally as nourishing as wheat. the trouble is that people don't know how to use corn-meal and corn-flour to the best advantage." "that is true; and they're not likely to learn in time to apply the knowledge usefully," commented mary louise. "not unless you girls get busy and teach them," admitted irene, while a smile went round the circle. "don't laugh, girls. you are all very fair cooks, and if properly trained in the methods of preparing corn for food, you could easily teach others, and soon all dorfield would be eating corn and conserving wheat. that would be worth while, wouldn't it?" "but who's to train us, and how could we manage to train others?" asked mary louise. "the proposition sounds interesting, irene, and if carried through would doubtless be valuable, but is it practical?" "let us see," was the reply. "some time ago i read of the wonderful success of mrs. manton in preparing corn for food. she's one of the most famous professional cooks in america and her name is already a household word. we use her cook-book every day. now, mrs. manton has been teaching classes in cleveland, and i wrote her and asked what she would charge to come here and teach the liberty girls the practical methods of preparing her numerous corn recipes. here's her answer, girls. she wants her expenses and one hundred dollars for two weeks' work, and she will come next week if we telegraph her at once." they considered and discussed this proposition very seriously. "at the masonic temple," said mary louise, "there is a large and fully equipped kitchen, adjoining the lodge room, and it is not in use except on special occasions. gran'pa jim is a high mason, and so is alora's father. perhaps they could secure permission for us to use the lodge kitchen for our class in cookery." the colonel and jason jones, being consulted, promised the use of the kitchen and highly approved the plan of the liberty girls. mrs. manton was telegraphed to come to dorfield and the cookery class was soon formed. alora confessed she had no talent whatever for cooking, but all the other five were ready to undertake the work and a selection was made from among the other liberty girls--of the rank and file--which brought the total number of culinary endeavorers up to fifteen--as large a class as mrs. manton was able to handle efficiently. while these fifteen were being trained, by means of practical daily demonstration, in the many appetizing preparations for the table from corn-meal and corn-flour, alora and one or two others daily visited the homes of dorfield and left samples of bread, buns, cookies, cakes, desserts and other things that had come fresh from the ovens and range of the cooking-school. at the same time an offer was made to teach the family cook--whether mistress or servant--in this patriotic branch of culinary art, and such offers were usually accepted with eagerness, especially after tasting the delicious corn dainties. when mrs. manton left dorfield, after two weeks of successful work, she left fifteen liberty girls fully competent to teach others how to prepare every one of her famous corn recipes. and these fifteen, divided into "shifts" and with several large kitchens at their disposal, immediately found themselves besieged by applicants for instruction. before winter set in, all dorfield, as predicted by irene, was eating corn, and liking it better than wheat, and in proof of their success, the liberty girls received a highly complimentary letter from mr. hoover, thanking them for their help in the time of the nation's greatest need. a fee, sufficient to cover the cost of the material used, had been exacted from all those willing and able to pay for instruction, so no expense was involved in this work aside from the charges of mrs. manton, which were cared for by voluntary subscription on the part of a few who were interested in the girls' patriotic project. another thing the liberty girls did was to start "community concerts" one evening each week, which were held in various churches and attended by throngs of men, women and children who joined lustily in the singing of patriotic and popular songs. this community singing became immensely popular and did much to promote patriotic fervor as well as to entertain those in attendance. and so mary louise's liberty girls, at the time this story ends, are still active workers in the cause of liberty, justice and democracy, and will continue to support their country's welfare as long as they can be of use. "we're a real part of the war," mary louise has often told her co-workers, "and i'm sure that in the final day of glorious victory our girls will be found to have played no unimportant part." the end the bent twig by dorothy canfield contents book i _in arcadia_ chapter i sylvia's home ii the marshalls' friends iii brother and sister iv every one's opinion of every one else v something about husbands vi the sights of la chance vii "we hold these truths to be self-evident ..." viii sabotage ix the end of childhood book ii _a false start to athens_ x sylvia's first glimpse of modern civilization xi arnold's future is casually decided xii one man's meat xiii an instrument in tune xiv higher education xv mrs. draper blows the coals xvi playing with matches xvii mrs. marshall sticks to her principles xviii sylvia skates merrily on thin ice xix as a bird out of a snare xx "blow, wind; swell, billow; and swim, bark!" xxi some years during which nothing happens book iii _in capua at last_ xxii a grateful carthaginian xxiii more talk between young moderns xxiv another brand of modern talk xxv nothing in the least modern xxvi molly in her element xxvii between windward and hemlock mountains xxviii sylvia asks herself "why not?" xxix a hypothetical livelihood xxx arnold continues to dodge the renaissance xxxi sylvia meets with pity xxxii much ado xxxiii "whom god hath joined..." xxxiv sylvia tells the truth xxxv "a milestone passed, the road seems clear" xxxvi the road is not so clear xxxvii "... _his wife and children perceiving it, began to cry after him to return; but the man put his fingers in his ears and ran on, crying, 'life! life eternal_!'" xxxviii sylvia comes to the wicket gate xxxix sylvia drifts with the majority book iv _the strait path_ xl a call from home xli home again xlii "_strange that we creatures of the petty ways, poor prisoners behind these fleshly bars, can sometimes think us thoughts with god ablaze, touching the fringes of the outer stars_" xliii "_call now; is there any that will answer thee_?" xliv "_a bruised reed will he not break, and a dimly burning wick will he not quench_" xlv "_that our soul may swim we sink our heart down, bubbling, under wave_" xlvi a long talk with arnold xlvii "...and all the trumpets sounded!" the bent twig book i _in arcadia_ chapter i sylvia's home like most happy childhoods, sylvia's early years lay back of her in a long, cheerful procession of featureless days, the outlines of which were blurred into one shimmering glow by the very radiance of their sunshine. here and there she remembered patches, sensations, pictures, scents: mother holding baby sister up for her to kiss, and the fragrance of the baby powder--the pine-trees near the house chanting loudly in an autumn wind--her father's alert face, intent on the toy water-wheel he was setting for her in the little creek in their field--the beautiful sheen of the pink silk dress aunt victoria had sent her--the look of her mother's steady, grave eyes when she was so sick--the leathery smell of the books in the university library one day when she followed her father there--the sound of the rain pattering on the low, slanting roof of her bedroom--these were the occasional clearly outlined, bright-colored illuminations wrought on the burnished gold of her sunny little life. but from her seventh birthday her memories began to have perspective, continuity. she remembered an occasional whole scene, a whole afternoon, just as it happened. the first of these must have marked the passing of some unrecognized mental milestone, for there was nothing about it to set it apart from any one of a hundred afternoons. it may have been the first time she looked at what was about her, and saw it. mother was putting the baby to bed for his nap--not the baby-sister--she was a big girl of five by this time, but another baby, a little year-old brother, with blue eyes and yellow hair, instead of brown eyes and hair like his two sisters'. and when mother stooped over the little bed, her white fichu fell forward and sylvia leaned to hold it back from the baby's face, a bit of thoughtfulness which had a rich reward in a smile of thanks from mother. that was what began the remembered afternoon. mother's smiles were golden coin, not squandered on every occasion. then, she and mother and judith tiptoed out of the bedroom into mother's room and there stood father, with his university clothes on and yet his hair rather rumpled up, as though he had been teaching very hard. he had a pile of papers in his hand and he said, "barbara, are you awfully busy just now?" mother said, oh no, she wasn't at all. (she never was busy when father asked her to do something, although sylvia could not remember ever once having seen her sit and do nothing, no, not even for a minute!) then father said, "well, if you _could_ run over these, i'd have time to have some ball with the seminar after they're dismissed. these are the papers the freshmen handed in for that economics quiz." mother said, "sure she could," or the equivalent of that, and father thanked her, turned judith upside-down and right-side-up again so quick that she didn't know what had happened, and left them all laughing as they usually were when father ran down from the study for something. so sylvia and judith, quite used to this procedure, sat down on the floor with a book to keep them quiet until mother should be through. neither of them could read, although sylvia was beginning to learn, but they had been told the stories so many times that they knew them from the pictures. the book they looked at that day had the story of the people who had rowed a great boat across the water to get a gold sheepskin, and sylvia told it to judith, word for word, as father always told it. she glanced up at mother from time to time to make sure she was getting it right; and ever afterwards the mention of the argonauts brought up before sylvia's eyes the picture of her mother that day, sitting very straight, her strong brown fingers making an occasional mark on the papers, as she turned them over with a crisp rustle, her quiet face bent, in a calm fixity of attention, over the pages. before they knew it, the work was done, father had come for the papers, and showed sylvia one more twist in the acrobatic stunt they were learning together. she could already take his hands and run up to his shoulders in one squirrel-like dash; but she was to learn the reverse and come down on the other side, and she still got tangled up with which foot to put first. so they practised whenever they had, as now, a minute or two to spare. then judith was set to play with her blocks like the baby she still was, while sylvia and mother had a lesson in reading. sylvia could remember the very sound of mother's clear voice as she corrected a mistake. they were reading a story about what happened to a drop of water that fell into the brook in their field; how, watering the thirsty cornfields as it flowed, the brook ran down to the river near la chance, where it worked ever so many mills and factories and things. then on through bigger and bigger rivers until it reached the mississippi, where boats rode on its back; and so on down to the ocean. and there, after resting a while, it was pumped up by the sun and made into a cloud, and the wind blew it back over the land and to their field again, where it fell into the brook and said, "why, how-de-do, sylvia--you still here?" father had written the story, and mother had copied it out on the typewriter so it would be easy for sylvia to read. after they had finished she remembered looking out of the window and watching the big white clouds drift across the pale bright april sky. they were full of hundreds of drops of water, she thought, that were going to fall into hundreds of other brooks, and then travel and work till they reached the sea, and then rest for a while and begin all over again. her dark eyes grew very wide as she watched the endless procession of white mountains move across the great arch of the sky. her imagination was stirred almost painfully, her mind expanding with the effort to take in the new conception of size, of great numbers, of the small place of her own brook, her own field in the hugeness of the world. and yet it was an ordered hugeness full of comforting similarity! now, no matter where she might go, or what brooks she might see, she would know that they were all of one family, that the same things happened to them all, that every one ended in the ocean. something she had read on a piece of paper made her see the familiar home field with the yellow water of the little creek, as a part of the whole world. it was very strange. she tried to tell mother something of what was in her mind, but, though mother listened in a sympathetic silence, it was evident that she could make nothing out of the incoherent account. sylvia thought that she would try to tell father, the next chance she had. even at seven, although she loved her mother passionately and jealously, she was aware that her father's mind was more like her own. he understood some things that mother didn't, although mother was always, always right, and father wasn't. she fell into silence again, standing by her mother's knee, staring out of the window and watching the clouds move steadily across the sky doing their share of the world's work for all they looked so soft and lazy. her mother did not break in on this meditative contemplation. she took up her sewing-basket and began busily to sew buttons on a small pair of half-finished night-drawers. the sobered child beside her, gazing up at the blue-and-white infinity of the sky, heard faintly and distantly, for the first time in her life, the whirring reverberations of the great mystic wheel of change and motion and life. then, all at once, there was a scraping of chairs overhead in father's study, a clattering on the stairs, and the sound of a great many voices. the saturday seminar was over. the door below opened, and the students came out, father at the head, very tall, very straight, his ruddy hair shining in the late afternoon sun, his shirt-sleeves rolled up over his arms, and a baseball in his hand. "come on, folks," sylvia heard him call, as he had so many times before. "let's have a couple of innings before you go!" sylvia must have seen the picture a hundred times before, but that was the first time it impressed itself on her, the close-cut grass of their yard as lustrous as enamel, the big pine-trees standing high, the scattered players, laughing and running about, the young men casting off their coats and hats, the detached fielders running long-legged to their places. at the first sound of the voices, judith, always alert, never wasting time in reveries, had scampered down the stairs and out in the midst of the stir-about. judith was sure to be in the middle of whatever was going on. she had attached herself to young professor saunders, a special favorite of the children, and now was dragging him from the field to play horse with her. father looked up to the window where sylvia and mother sat, and called: "come on, barbara! come on and amuse judith. she won't let saunders pitch." mother nodded, ran downstairs, coaxed judith over beyond first base to play catch with a soft rubber ball; and sylvia, carried away by the cheerful excitement, hopped about everywhere at once, screaming encouragement to the base runners, picking up foul balls, and sending them with proud importance back to the pitcher. so they all played and shouted and ran and laughed, while the long, pale-golden spring afternoon stood still, until mother held up her finger and stopped the game. "the baby's awake!" she said, and father went bounding off. when he came back with the downy pink morsel, everybody gathered around to see it and exclaim over the tiny fat hands and hungry little rosebud mouth. "he's starved!" said mother. "he wants his supper, poor little buddy! he doesn't want a lot of people staring at him, do you, buddy-baby?" she snatched him out of father's arms and went off with him, holding him high over her shoulders so that the sunshine shone on his yellow hair, and made a circle of gold around his flushed, sleepy face. then everybody picked up books and wraps and note-books and said, "good-by, 'perfessor!'" and went off. father and sylvia and judith went out in the garden to the hotbed to pick the lettuce for supper and then back in the kitchen to get things ready. when mother was through giving buddy his supper and came hurrying in to help, sylvia was proud that they had nearly everything done--all but the omelet. father had made cocoa and creamed potatoes--nobody in the world could make creamed potatoes as good as his--and sylvia and judith had between them, somewhat wranglingly, made the toast and set the table. sylvia was sure that judith was really too little to be allowed to help, but father insisted that she should try, for he said, with a turn in his voice that made sylvia aware he was laughing at her, "you only learned through trying, all those many years ago when you were judith's age!" mother put on one of her big gingham aprons and made the omelet, and they sat down to the table out on the veranda as they always did in warm weather. in la chance it begins to be warm enough for outdoor life in april. although it was still bright daylight for ever so long after the sun had set, the moon came and looked at them palely over the tops of the trees. after supper they jumped up to "race through the dishes," as the family catchword ran. they tried to beat their record every evening and it was always a lively occasion, with mother washing like lightning, and father hurrying to keep up, sylvia running back and forth to put things away, and judith bothering 'round, handing out dry dish-towels, and putting away the silver. she was allowed to handle that because she couldn't break it. mother and judith worked in a swift silence, but a great deal of talking and laughing went on between sylvia and her father, while buddy, from his high-chair where he was watching the others, occasionally broke out in a loud, high crow of delight. they did it all, even to washing and hanging out the dish-towels, in eleven and a half minutes that evening, sylvia remembered. then she and judith went to sit on the porch on the little bench mother had made them. they tried to see who could catch the first glimpse of the evening star every evening. mother was putting buddy to bed and father was starting the breakfast cereal cooking on the stove. after a while he went into the living-room and began to play something on the piano, something full of deep, swaying chords that lifted sylvia's heart up and down as though she were floating on the water. the air was full of the moist fragrance of spring. when the music held its breath for a moment you could hear the bedtime note of sleepy birds in the oaks. judith, who did not care much for music, began to get sleepy and leaned all her soft, warm weight against her big sister. sylvia for the first time in her life was consciously aware of being very happy. when, some time later, the evening star shone out through the trees, she drew a long breath. "see, judith," she cried softly and began to recite, "star-light, star-bright, first star i've seen tonight--" she stopped short--it was aunt victoria who had taught her that poem, the last time she had come to see them, a year ago, the time when she had brought sylvia the pink silk dress, the only dress-up dress with lace and ribbons on it sylvia had had up to that time. as suddenly as the evening star had shone out, another radiant vision flashed across sylvia's mind, aunt victoria, magnificent in her lacy dress, her golden hair shining under the taut silk of her parasol, her white, soft fingers gleaming with rings, her air of being a condescending goddess, visiting mortals ... after a time mother stepped out on the porch and said, "oh, quick, children, wish on the shooting star." judith had dropped asleep like a little kitten tired of play, and sylvia looked at her mother blankly. "i didn't see any shooting star," she said. mother was surprised. "why, your face was pointed right up at the spot." "i didn't see it," repeated sylvia. mother fixed her keen dark eyes on sylvia. "what's the matter?" she asked in her voice that always required an answer. sylvia wriggled uncomfortably. hers was a nature which suffers under the categorical question; but her mother's was one which presses them home. "what's the matter with you?" she said again. sylvia turned a clouded face to her mother. "i was wondering why it's not nice to be idyllic." "_what_?" asked her mother, quite at a loss. sylvia was having one of her unaccountable notions. sylvia went to lean on her mother's knee, looking with troubled eyes up into the kind, attentive, uncomprehending face. "why, the last time aunt victoria was here--that long time ago--when they were all out playing ball--she looked round and round at everything--at your dress and mine and the furniture--_you_ know--the--the uncomfortable way she does sometimes--and she said, 'well, sylvia--nobody can say that your parents aren't leading you a very idyllic life.'" mother laughed out. her rare laugh was too sudden and loud to be very musical, but it was immensely infectious, like a man's hearty mirth. "i didn't hear her say it--but i can imagine that she did. well, what _of_ it? what if she did?" for once sylvia did not respond to another's mood. she continued anxiously, "well, it means something perfectly horrid, doesn't it?" mother was still laughing. "no, no, child, what in the world makes you think that?" "oh, if you'd heard aunt victoria _say_ it!" cried sylvia with conviction. father came out on the veranda, saying to mother, "isn't that crescendo superb?" to sylvia he said, as though sure of her comprehension, "didn't you like the ending, dear--where it sounded like the argonauts all striking the oars into the water at once and shouting?" sylvia had been taught above everything to tell the truth. moreover (perhaps a stronger reason for frankness), mother was there, who would know whether she told the truth or not. "i didn't hear the end." father looked quickly from sylvia's face to her mother's. "what's the matter?" he asked. "sylvia was so concerned because her aunt victoria had called our life idyllic that she couldn't think of anything else," explained mother briefly, still smiling. father did not smile. he sat down by sylvia and had her repeat to him what she had said to her mother. when she had finished he looked grave and said: "you mustn't mind what your aunt victoria says, dear. her ideas are very different from ours." sylvia's mother cried out, "why, a child of sylvia's age couldn't have taken in the significance of--" "i'm afraid," said father, "that sylvia's very quick to take in such a significance." sylvia remained silent, uncomfortable at being discussed, vaguely ashamed of herself, but comforted that father had not laughed, had understood. as happened so frequently, it was father who understood and mother who did the right thing. she suddenly made an enigmatic, emphatic exclamation, "goodness _gracious_!" and reaching out her long arms, pulled sylvia up on her lap, holding her close. the last thought of that remembered time for sylvia was that mother's arms were very strong, and her breast very soft. the little girl laid her head down on it with a contented sigh, watching the slow, silent procession of the stars. chapter ii the marshalls' friends any one of the more sophisticated members of the faculty of the state university at la chance would have stated without hesitation that the marshalls had not the slightest part in the social activities of the university; but no one could have called their life either isolated or solitary. sylvia, in her memories of childhood, always heard the low, brown house ringing with music or echoing to the laughter and talk of many voices. to begin with, a good many of professor marshall's students came and went familiarly through the plainly furnished rooms, although there was, of course, in each year's class, a little circle of young people with a taste for social distinctions who held aloof from the very unselect and heterogeneous gatherings at the marshall house. these young aristocrats were, for the most part, students from the town itself, from la chance's "best families," who through parental tyranny or temporary financial depression were not allowed to go east to a well-known college with a sizable matriculation fee, but were forced to endure four years of the promiscuous, swarming, gratuitous education of the state university. all these august victims of family despotism associated as little as possible with the common rabble of their fellow-students, and accepted invitations only from such faculty families as were recognized by the inner circle of the town society. the marshalls were not among this select circle. indeed, no faculty family was farther from it. every detail of the marshalls' life was in contradiction not only to the standards and ideals of the exclusive "town set," but to those of their own colleagues. they did not live in the right part of town. they did not live in the right sort of a house. they did not live in the right sort of a way. and consequently, although no family had more visitors, they were not the right sort of visitors. this was, of course, not apparent to the children for a good many years. home was home, as it is to children. it did not seem strange to them that instead of living in a small rented house on a closely built-up street near the campus in the section of the city occupied by the other faculty families, they lived in a rambling, large-roomed old farmhouse with five acres of land around it, on the edge of the west side. they did not know how heartily this land-owning stability was condemned as folly by the rent-paying professors, perching on the bough with calculated impermanence so that they might be free to accept at any moment the always anticipated call to a larger salary. they did not know, not even sylvia, for many years, that the west side was the quite unfashionable part of town. it did not seem strange to them to see their father sweeping his third-floor study with his own hands, and they were quite used to a family routine which included housework for every one of them. indeed, a certain amount of this was part of the family fun. "come on, folks!" professor marshall would call, rising up from the breakfast table, "tuesday--day to clean the living-room--all hands turn to!" in a gay helter-skelter all hands turned to. the lighter furniture was put out on the porch. professor marshall, joking and laughing, donned a loose linen overall suit to protect his "university clothes," and cleaned the bare floor with a big oiled mop; mrs. marshall, silent and swift, looked after mirrors, windows, the tops of bookcases, things hard for children to reach; sylvia flourished a duster; and judith and lawrence out on the porch, each armed with a whisk-broom, brushed and whacked at the chairs and sofas. there were no rugs to shake, and it took but an instant to set things back in their places in the clean-smelling, dustless room. this daily drill, coming as it did early in the morning, usually escaped the observation of any but passing farmers, who saw nothing amiss in it; but facetiously exaggerated reports of its humors reached the campus, and a certain set considered it very clever to lay bets as to whether the professor of political economy would pull out of his pocket a handkerchief, or a duster, or a child's shirt, for it was notorious that the children never had nursemaids and that their father took as much care of them as their mother. the question of clothes, usually such a sorely insoluble problem for academic people of small means, was solved by the marshalls in an eccentric, easy-going manner which was considered by the other faculty families as nothing less than treasonable to their caste. professor marshall, it is true, having to make a public appearance on the campus every day, was generally, like every other professor, undistinguishable from a commercial traveler. but mrs. marshall, who often let a good many days pass without a trip to town, had adopted early in her married life a sort of home uniform, which year after year she wore in one form or another. it varied according to the season, and according to the occasion on which she wore it, but it had certain unchanging characteristics. it was always very plain as to line, and simple as to cut, having a skirt neither full nor scant, a waist crossed in front with a white fichu, and sleeves reaching just below the elbow with white turn-back cuffs. as mrs. marshall, though not at all pretty, was a tall, upright, powerfully built woman, with a dark, shapely head gallantly poised on her shoulders, this garb, whether short-skirted, of blue serge in the morning, or trailing, of ruby-colored cashmere in the evening, was very becoming to her. but there is no denying that it was always startlingly and outrageously unfashionable. at a time when every woman and female child in the united states had more cloth in her sleeves than in all the rest of her dress, the rounded muscles of mrs. marshall's arm, showing through the fabric of her sleeves, smote shockingly upon the eye of the ordinary observer, trained to the american habit of sheep-like uniformity of appearance. and at the time when the front of every woman's waist fell far below her belt in a copiously blousing sag, mrs. marshall's trim tautness had in it something horrifying. it must be said for her that she did not go out of her way to inflict these concussions upon the brains of spectators, since she always had in her closet one evening dress and one street dress, sufficiently approximating the prevailing style to pass unnoticed. these costumes lasted long, and they took in the long run but little from the marshall exchequer: for she wore them seldom, only assuming what her husband called, with a laugh, her "disguise" when going into town. for a long time, until sylvia's individuality began to assert itself, the question of dress for the children was solved, with similar ease, by the typical marshall expedient, most heartily resented by their faculty acquaintances, the mean-spirited expedient of getting along comfortably on inadequate means by not attempting to associate with people to whose society their brains and cultivation gave them the right--that is to say, those families of la chance whose incomes were from three to five times that of college professors. the marshall children played, for the most part, with the children of their neighbors, farmers, or small merchants, and continued this humble connection after they went into the public schools, where their parents sent them, instead of to "the" exclusive private school of town. consequently the plainest, simplest clothes made them indistinguishable from their fellows. sylvia and judith also enjoyed the unfair advantage of being quite unusually pretty little girls (judith being nothing less than a beauty), so that even on the few occasions when they were invited to a children's party in the faculty circle their burnished, abundant hair, bright eyes, and fresh, alert faces made up for the plainness of their white dresses and thick shoes. it was, moreover, not only in externals like clothes that the childhood of sylvia and judith and lawrence differed from that of the other faculty children. their lives were untouched by the ominous black cloud familiar to academic households, the fear for the future, the fear which comes of living from hand to mouth, the dread of "being obliged to hand in one's resignation," a truly academic periphasis which is as dismally familiar to most faculty children as its blunt anglo-saxon equivalent of "losing your job" is to children of plainer workpeople. once, it is true, this possibility had loomed up large before the marshalls, when a high-protection legislature objected loudly to the professor's unreverent attitude towards the tariff. but although the marshall children knew all about this crisis, as they knew all about everything that happened to the family, they had had no experience of the anxious talks and heartsick consultations which would have gone on in any other faculty household. their father had been angry, and their mother resolute--but there was nothing new in that. there had been, on professor marshall's part, belligerent, vociferous talk about "freedom of speech," and on mrs. marshall's a quiet estimate that, with her early training on a vermont farm, and with the high state of cultivation under which she had brought their five acres, they could successfully go into the truck-farming business like their neighbors. besides this, they had the resource, extraordinary among university families, of an account in the savings-bank on which to fall back. they had always been able to pay their debts and have a small surplus by the expedient of refusing to acknowledge a tenth part of the social obligations under which the rest of the faculty groaned and sweated with martyr's pride. perfidiously refusing to do their share in the heart-breaking struggle to "keep up the dignity" of the academic profession, they were not overwhelmed by the super-human difficulties of that undertaking. so it happened that the marshall children heard no forebodings about the future, but only heated statements of what seemed to their father the right of a teacher to say what he believed. professor marshall had gone of his own initiative to face the legislative committee which was "investigating" him, had quite lost his temper (never very securely held in leash), had told them his highly spiced opinion of their strictures on his teaching and of the worth of any teacher they could find who would submit to them. then he had gone home and put on his overalls. this last was rather a rhetorical flourish; for his cosmopolitan, urban youth had left him ineradicably ignorant of the processes of agriculture. but like all professor marshall's flourishes it was a perfectly sincere one. he was quite cheerfully prepared to submit himself to his wife's instruction in the new way of life. all these picturesque facts, as was inevitable in america, had instantly reached the newspapers, which, lacking more exciting news for the moment, took that matter up with headlined characterizations of professor marshall as a "martyr of the cause of academic freedom," and other rather cheap phrases about "persecution" and "america, the land of free speech." the legislative committee, alarmed, retreated from its position. professor marshall had not "been obliged to hand in his resignation," but quite the contrary, had become the hero of the hour and was warmly complimented by his colleagues, who hoped to profit by an action which none of them would have dared to imitate. it had been an exciting drama to the marshall children as long as it lasted. they had looked with pride at an abominable reproduction of their father's photograph in the evening paper of la chance, and they had added an acquaintance with the manners of newspaper reporters to their already very heterogeneous experience with callers of every variety; but of real anxiety the episode had brought them nothing. as to that same extraordinary assortment of visitors at the marshall house, one of the university co-eds had said facetiously that you met there every sort of person in the world, from spiritualists to atheists--everybody except swells. the atheist of her dictum was the distinguished and misanthropic old professor kennedy, head of the department of mathematics, whose ample means and high social connections with the leading family of la chance made his misanthropy a source of much chagrin to the faculty ladies, and who professed for the marshalls, for mrs. marshall in particular, a wrong-headed admiration which was inexplicable to the wives of the other professors. the faculty circle saw little to admire in the marshalls. the spiritualist of the co-ed's remark was, of course, poor foolish cousin parnelia, the children's pet detestation, whose rusty clothes and incoherent speech they were prevented from ridiculing only by stern pressure from their mother. she always wore a black straw hat, summer and winter, always carried a faded green shopping bag, with a supply of yellow writing paper, and always had tucked under one arm the curious, heart-shaped bit of wood, with the pencil attached, which spiritualists call "planchette." the marshall children thought this the most laughable name imaginable, and were not always successful in restraining the cruel giggles of childhood when she spoke of planchette's writing such beautiful messages from her long-since-dead husband and children. although he had a dramatic sympathy for her sorrow, professor marshall's greater vivacity of temperament made it harder for him than for his wife to keep a straight face when cousin parnelia proposed to be the medium whereby he might converse with milton or homer. indeed, his fatigued tolerance for her had been a positive distaste ever since the day when he found her showing sylvia, aged ten, how to write with planchette. with an outbreak of temper, for which he had afterwards apologized to his wife, he had forbidden her ever to mention her damn unseemly nonsense to his children again. he himself was a stout unbeliever in individual immortality, teaching his children that the craving for it was one of the egotistic impulses of the unregenerate human heart. between the two extremes represented by shabby, crack-brained cousin parnelia and elegant, sardonic old professor kennedy, there were many other habitual visitors at the house--raw, earnest, graceless students of both sexes, touchingly grateful for the home atmosphere they were allowed to enter; a bushy-haired single-tax fanatic named hecht, who worked in the iron-foundries by day, and wrote political pamphlets by night; miss lindström, the elderly swedish woman laboring among the poor negroes of flytown; a constant sprinkling from the scandinavian-americans whose well-kept truck-farms filled the region near the marshall home; one-armed mr. howell, the editor of a luridly radical socialist weekly paper, whom judith called in private the "old puss-cat" on account of his soft, rather weak voice and mild, ingratiating ways. yes, the co-ed had been right, one met at the marshalls' every variety of person except the exclusive. these habitués of the house came and went with the greatest familiarity. as they all knew there was no servant to answer the doorbell, they seldom bothered to ring, but opened the door, stepped into the hall, hung up their wraps on the long line of hooks, and went into the big, low-ceilinged living-room. if nobody was there, they usually took a book from one of the shelves lining the room and sat down before the fire to wait. sometimes they stayed to the next meal and helped wash up the dishes afterwards. sometimes they had a satisfactory visit with each other, two or three callers happening to meet together before the fire, and went away without having seen any of the marshalls. informality could go no further. the only occurrence in the marshall life remotely approaching the regularity and formality of a real social event was the weekly meeting of the string quartet which professor marshall had founded soon after his arrival in la chance. it was on sunday evening that the quartet met regularly for their seance. old reinhardt, the violin teacher, was first violin and leader; mr. bauermeister (in everyday life a well-to-do wholesale plumber) was second violin; professor marshall played the viola, and old professor kennedy bent his fine, melancholy face over the 'cello. any one who chose might go to the marshall house on sunday evenings, on condition that he should not talk during the music, and did not expect any attention. the music began at seven promptly and ended at ten. a little before that time, mrs. marshall, followed by any one who felt like helping, went out into the kitchen and made hot coffee and sandwiches, and when the last chord had stopped vibrating, the company adjourned into the dining-room and partook of this simple fare. during the evening no talk was allowed except the occasional wranglings of the musicians over tempo and shading, but afterwards, every one's tongue, chastened by the long silence, was loosened into loud and cheerful loquacity. professor marshall, sitting at the head of the table, talked faster and louder than any one else, throwing the ball to his especial favorite, brilliant young professor saunders, who tossed it back with a sureness and felicity of phrase which he had learned nowhere but in this give-and-take. mrs. marshall poured the coffee, saw that every one was served with sandwiches, and occasionally when the talk, running over every known topic, grew too noisy, or the discussion too hot, cast in one of the pregnant and occasionally caustic remarks of which she held the secret. they were never brilliant, mrs. marshall's remarks--but they were apt to have a dry humor, and almost always when she had said her brief say? there loomed out of the rainbow mist of her husband's flashing, controversial talk the outlines of the true proportions of the case. after the homely feast was eaten, each guest rose and carried his own cup and saucer and plate into the kitchen in a gay procession, and since it was well known that, for the most part, the marshalls "did their own work," several of the younger ones helped wash the dishes, while the musicians put away the music-racks and music, and the rest put on their wraps. then professor marshall stood at the door holding up a lamp while the company trooped down the long front walk to the gate in the hedge, and turned along the country road to the cross-roads where the big interurban cars whizzed by. all this happened with that unbroken continuity which was the characteristic of the marshall life, most marking them as different from the other faculty families. week after week, and month after month, this program was followed with little variation, except for the music which was played, and the slight picturesque uncertainty as to whether old reinhardt would or would not arrive mildly under the influence of long sunday imbibings. not that this factor interfered at all with the music. one of sylvia's most vivid childhood recollections was the dramatic contrast between old reinhardt with, and without, his violin. partly from age, and partly from a too convivial life, the old, heavily veined hands trembled so that he could scarcely unbutton his overcoat, or handle his cup of hot coffee. his head shook too, and his kind, rheumy eyes, in their endeavor to focus themselves, seemed to flicker back and forth in their sockets. the child used to watch him, fascinated, as he fumbled endlessly at the fastenings of his violin-case, and put back the top with uncertain fingers. she was waiting for the thrilling moment when he should tuck the instrument away under his pendulous double chin and draw his bow across the strings in the long sonorous singing chord, which ran up and down sylvia's back like forked lightning. this was while all the others were tuning and scraping and tugging at their pegs, a pleasant bustle of discord which became so much a part of sylvia's brain that she could never in after years hear the strumming and sawing of an orchestra preparing to play, without seeing the big living-room of her father's house, with its low whitewashed ceiling, its bare, dully shining floor, its walls lined with books, its shabby, comfortable furniture, the whole quickened by the promethean glow from the blaze in the grate and glorified by the chastened passion of the singing strings. the two anglo-saxon, professors were but able amateurs of their instruments. bauermeister, huge, red, and impassive, was by virtue of his blood, a lifelong training, and a musical ancestry, considerably more than an amateur; and old reinhardt was the master of them all. his was a history which would have been tragic if it had happened to any but reinhardt, who cared for nothing but an easy life, beer, and the divine tones which he alone could draw from his violin. he had offered, fifty years ago in vienna, the most brilliant promise of a most brilliant career, a promise which had come to naught because of his monstrous lack of ambition, and his endless yielding to circumstance, which had finally, by a series of inconceivable migrations, landed him in the german colony of la chance, impecunious and obscure and invincibly convinced that he had everything worth having in life. "of vat use?" he would say, even now, when asked to play in public--"de moosic ist all--and dat is eben so goodt here mit friends." or, "dere goes a thousand peoples to a goncert--maybe fife from dat thousand lofes de moosic--let dose fife gome to me--and i play dem all day for noding!" or again, more iconoclastically still,--when told of golden harvests to be reaped, "and for vat den? i can't play on more dan von fioleen at a time--is it? i got a good one now. and if i drink more beer dan now, i might make myself seeck!" this with a prodigiously sly wink of one heavy eyelid. he gave enough music lessons to pay his small expenses, although after one or two stormy passages in which he treated with outrageous and unjustifiable violence the dawdling pupils coming from well-to-do families, he made it a rule to take no pupils whose parents employed a servant, and confined himself to children of the poorer classes, among whom he kept up a small orchestra which played together twice a week and never gave any concerts. and almost since the arrival of the marshalls in la chance and his unceremonious entrance into the house as, walking across the fields on a sunday afternoon, he had heard professor marshall playing the doric toccata on the newly installed piano, he had spent his every sunday evening in their big living-room. he had seen the children appear and grow older, and adored them with teutonic sentimentality, especially sylvia, whom he called his "moonbeam brincess," his "little ellfen fairy," and whom, when she was still tiny, he used to take up on his greasy old knees and, resting his violin on her head, play his wildest fantasies, that she might feel how it "talked to her bones." in early childhood sylvia was so used to him that, like the others of her circle, she accepted, indeed hardly noticed, his somewhat startling eccentricities, his dirty linen, his face and hands to match, his shapeless garments hanging loosely over the flabby corpulence of his uncomely old body, his beery breath. to her, old reinhardt was but the queer external symbol of a never-failing enchantment. through the pleasant harmonious give-and-take of the other instruments, the voice of his violin vibrated with the throbbing passion of a living thing. his dirty old hand might shake and quaver, but once the neck of the fiddle rested between thumb and forefinger, the seraph who made his odd abiding-place in old reinhardt's soul sang out in swelling tones and spoke of heavenly things, and of the paradise where we might live, if we were but willing. even when they were quite little children, sylvia and judith, and later, lawrence, were allowed to sit up on sunday evenings to listen to the music. judith nearly always slept, steadily; and not infrequently after a long day of outdoor fun, stupefied with fresh air and exercise, lawrence, and sylvia too, could not keep their eyes open, and dozed and woke and dozed again, coiled like so many little kittens among the cushions of the big divan. in all the intensely enjoyed personal pleasures of her later youth, and these were many for sylvia, she was never to know a more utter sweetness than thus to fall asleep, the music a far-off murmur in her ears, and to wake again to the restrained, clarified ecstasy of the four concerted voices. and yet it was in connection with this very quartet that she had her first shocked vision of how her home-life appeared to other people. she once chanced, when she was about eight years old, to go with her father on a saturday to his office at the university, where he had forgotten some papers necessary for his seminar. there, sitting on the front steps of the main building, waiting for her father, she had encountered the wife of the professor of european history with her beautiful young-lady sister from new york and her two daughters, exquisite little girls in white serge, whose tailored, immaculate perfection made sylvia's heart heavy with a sense of the plebeian inelegance of her own saturday-morning play-clothes. mrs. hubert, obeying an impulse of curiosity, stopped to speak to the little marshall girl, about whose queer upbringing there were so many stories current, and was struck with the decorative possibilities of the pretty child, apparent to her practised eye. as she made the kindly intended, vague remarks customarily served out to unknown children, she was thinking: "how _can_ any woman with a vestige of a woman's instinct dress that lovely child in ready-made, commonplace, dark-colored clothes? she would repay any amount of care and "thought." so you take music-lessons too, besides your school?" she asked mechanically. she explained to her sister, a stranger in la chance: "music is one of the things i _starve_ for, out here! we never hear it unless we go clear to chicago--and such prices! here, there is simply _no_ musical feeling!" she glanced again at sylvia, who was now answering her questions, fluttered with pleasure at having the beautiful lady speak to her. the beautiful lady had but an inattentive ear for sylvia's statement that, yes, lately father had begun to give her lessons on the piano. with the smoothly working imagination coming from a lifetime of devotion to the subject, mrs. hubert was stripping off sylvia's trite little blue coat and uninteresting dark hat, and was arraying her in scarlet serge with a green velvet collar--"with those eyes and that coloring she could carry off striking 'color combinations--and a big white felt hat with a soft pompon of silk on one side--no, a long, stiff, scarlet quill would suit her style better. then, with white stockings and shoes and gloves--or perhaps pearl-gray would be better. yes, with low-cut suede shoes, fastening with two big smoked-pearl buttons." she looked down with pitying eyes at sylvia's sturdy, heavy-soled shoes which could not conceal the slender, shapely feet within them--"but, what on earth was the child saying?--" "--every sunday evening--it's beautiful, and now i'm getting so big i can help some. i can turn over the pages for them in hard places, and when old mr. reinhardt has had too much to drink and his hands tremble, he lets me unfasten his violin-case and tighten up his bow and--" mrs. hubert cried out, "your parents don't let you have anything to do with that old, drunken reinhardt!" sylvia was smitten into silence by the other's horrified tone and hung her head miserably, only murmuring, after a pause, in damning extenuation, "he's never so _very_ drunk!" "well, upon my word!" exclaimed mrs. hubert, in a widely spaced, emphatic phrase of condemnation. to her sister she added, "it's really not exaggeration then, what one hears about their home life." one of her daughters, a child about sylvia's age, turned a candid, blank little face up to hers, "mother, what is a drunken reinhardt?" she asked in a thin little pipe. mrs. hubert frowned, shook her head, and said in a tone of dark mystery: "never mind, darling, don't think about it. it's something that nice little girls shouldn't know anything about. come, margery; come, eleanor." she took their hands and began to draw them away without another look at sylvia, who remained behind, drooping, ostracised, pierced momentarily with her first blighting misgiving about the order of things she had always known. chapter iii brother and sister a fuller initiation into the kaleidoscopic divergencies of adult standards was given sylvia during the visits of her aunt victoria. these visits were angelic in their extreme rarity, and for sylvia were always a mixture of the beatific and the distressing. only to look at aunt victoria was a bright revelation of elegance and grace. and yet the talk around table and hearth on the two or three occasions when the beautiful young widow honored their roof with a sojourn was hard on sylvia's sensitive nerves. it was not merely that a good deal of what was said was unintelligible. the marshall children were quite accustomed to incessant conversations between their elders of which they could gather but the vaguest glimmering. they played about, busy in their own absorbing occupations, lending an absent but not wholly unattentive ear to the gabble of their elders, full of odd and ridiculous-sounding words like single-tax, and contrapuntal development, and root-propagation, and benthamism, and byzantine, and nitrogenous fertilizers, and alexandrine, and chiaroscuro, and surviving archaisms, and diminishing utility--for to keep up such a flood-tide of talk as streamed through the marshall house required contributions from many diverging rivers. sylvia was entirely used to this phenomenon and, although it occasionally annoyed her that good attention was wasted on projects so much less vital than those of the children, she bore it no grudge. but on the rare occasions when aunt victoria was with them, there was a different and ominous note to the talk which made sylvia acutely uneasy, although she was quite unable to follow what was said. this uncomfortable note did not at all come from mere difference of opinion, for that too was a familiar element in sylvia's world. indeed, it seemed to her that everybody who came to the marshall house disagreed with everybody else about everything. the young men, students or younger professors, engaged in perpetual discussions, carried on in acrimonious tones which nevertheless seemed not in the least to impair the good feeling between them. when there was nobody else there for father to disagree with, he disagreed with mother, occasionally, to his great delight, rousing her from her customary self-contained economy of words to a heat as voluble as his own. often as the two moved briskly about, preparing a meal together, they shouted out from the dining-room to the kitchen a discussion on some unintelligible topic such as the "anachronism of the competitive system," so loudly voiced and so energetically pursued that when they came to sit down to table, they would be quite red-cheeked and stirred-up, and ate their dinners with as vigorous an appetite as though they had been pursuing each other on foot instead of verbally. the older habitués of the house were no more peaceable and were equally given to what seemed to childish listeners endless disputes about matters of no importance. professor la rue's white mustache and pointed beard quivered with the intensity of his scorn for the modern school of poetry, and madame la rue, who might be supposed to be insulated by the vast bulk of her rosy flesh from the currents of passionate conviction flashing through the marshall house, had fixed ideas on the franco-prussian war, on the relative values of american and french bed-making, and the correct method of bringing up girls (she was childless), which needed only to be remotely stirred to burst into showers of fiery sparks. and old professor kennedy was nothing less than abusive when started on an altercation about one of the topics vital to him, such as the ignoble idiocy of the leisure-class ideal, or the generally contemptible nature of modern society. no, it was not mere difference of opinion which so charged the air during aunt victoria's rare visits with menacing electricity. as a matter of fact, if she did differ in opinion from her brother and his wife, the children would never have been able to guess it from the invariably restrained tones of her fluent and agreeable speech, so different from the outspoken virulence with which people in that house were accustomed to defend their ideas. but, indefinable though it was to sylvia's undeveloped powers of analysis, she felt that the advent of her father's beautiful and gracious sister was like a drop of transparent but bitter medicine in a glass of clear water. there was no outward sign of change, but everything was tinctured by it. especially was her father changed from his usual brilliantly effervescent self. in answer to the most harmless remark of aunt victoria, he might reply with a sudden grim sneering note in his voice which made sylvia look up at him half-afraid. if aunt victoria noticed this sardonic accent, she never paid it the tribute of a break in the smooth surface of her own consistent good-will, rebuking her brother's prickly hostility only by the most indulgent tolerance of his queer ways, a tolerance which never had on professor marshall's sensibilities the soothing effect which might have seemed its natural result. the visit which aunt victoria paid them when sylvia was ten years old was more peaceable than the one before it. perhaps the interval of five years between the two had mellowed the relationship; or more probably the friction was diminished because aunt victoria arranged matters so that she was less constantly in the house than usual. on that occasion, in addition to the maid who always accompanied her, she brought her little stepson and his tutor, and with characteristic thoughtfulness refused to impose this considerable train of attendants on a household so primitively organized as that of the marshalls. they all spent the fortnight of their stay at the main hotel of the town, a large new edifice, the conspicuous costliness of which was one of the most recent sources of civic pride in la chance. here in a suite of four much-decorated rooms, which seemed unutterably elegant to sylvia, the travelers slept, and ate most of their meals, making their trips out to the marshall house in a small, neat, open carriage, which, although engaged at a livery-stable by mrs. marshall-smith for the period of her stay, was not to be distinguished from a privately owned equipage. it can be imagined what an event in the pre-eminently stationary life of the marshall children was this fortnight. to judith and lawrence, eight and four respectively, aunt victoria's charms and amenities were non-existent. she was for judith as negligible as all other grown-ups, save the few who had good sense enough to play games and go in swimming. judith's interest centered in the new boy, whom the marshalls now saw for the first time, and who was in every way a specimen novel in their limited experience of children. during their first encounter, the well-groomed, white-linen-clad boy with his preternaturally clean face, his light-brown hair brushed till it shone like lacquer, his polished nails and his adult appendage of a tutor, aroused a contempt in judith's mind which was only equaled by her astonishment. on that occasion he sat upright in a chair between his stepmother and his tutor, looking intently out of very bright blue eyes at the two gipsy-brown little girls in their single-garment linen play-clothes, swinging their tanned bare legs and feet from the railing of the porch. they returned this inspection in silence--on sylvia's part with the keen and welcoming interest she always felt in new people who were well-dressed and physically attractive, but as for judith with a frankly hostile curiosity, as at some strange and quite unattractive new animal. the next morning, a still, oppressive day of brazen heat, it was suggested that the children take their guest off to visit some of their own favorite haunts to "get acquainted." this process began somewhat violently by the instant halt of arnold as soon as they were out of sight of the house. "i'm going to take off these damn socks and shoes," he announced, sitting down in the edge of a flower-bed. "oh, don't! you'll get your clean suit all dirty!" cried sylvia, springing forward to lift him out of the well-tilled black loam. arnold thrust her hand away and made a visible effort to increase his specific gravity. "i hope to the lord i _do_ get it dirty!" he said bitterly. "isn't it your best?" asked sylvia, aghast. "have you another?" "i haven't anything but!" said the boy savagely. "there's a whole trunk full of them!" he was fumbling with a rough clumsiness at the lacing of his shoes, but made no progress in loosening them, and now began kicking at the grass. "i don't know how to get them off!" he cried, his voice breaking nervously. judith was down on her knees, inspecting with a competent curiosity the fastenings, which were of a new variety. "it's _easy_!" she said. "you just lift this little catch up and turn it back, and that lets you get at the knot." as she spoke, she acted, her rough brown little fingers tugging at the silken laces. "how'd you ever _get_ it fastened," she inquired, "if you don't know how to unfasten it?" "oh, pauline puts my shoes on for me," explained arnold. "she dresses and undresses me." judith stopped and looked up at him. "who's pauline?" she asked, disapproving astonishment in her accent. "madrina's maid." judith pursued him further with her little black look of scorn. "who's madrina?" "why--you know--your aunt victoria--my stepmother--she married my father when i was a little baby--she doesn't want me to call her 'mother' so i call her madrina.' that's italian for--" judith had no interest in this phenomenon and no opinion about it. she recalled the conversation to the point at issue with her usual ruthless directness. "and you wouldn't know how to undress yourself if somebody didn't help you!" she went on loosening the laces in a contemptuous silence, during which the boy glowered resentfully at the back of her shining black hair. sylvia essayed a soothing remark about what pretty shoes he had, but with small success. already the excursion was beginning to take on the color of its ending,--an encounter between the personalities of judith and arnold, with sylvia and lawrence left out. when the shoes finally came off, they revealed white silk half-hose, which, discarded in their turn, showed a pair of startlingly pale feet, on which the new boy now essayed wincingly to walk. "ouch! ouch! ouch!" he cried, holding up first one and then the other from contact with the hot sharp-edged pebbles of the path, "how do you _do it_?" "oh, it always hurts when you begin in the spring," said judith carelessly. "you have to get used to it. how old are you?" "ten, last may." "buddy here began going barefoot last summer and he's only four," she stated briefly, proceeding towards the barn and chicken-house. after that remark the new boy walked forward with no more articulate complaints, though his face was drawn and he bit his lips. he was shown the chicken-yard--full of gawky, half-grown chickens shedding their down and growing their feathers--and forgot his feet in the fascination of scattering grain to them and watching their fluttering scrambles. he was shown the rabbit-house and allowed to take one of the limp, unresponsive little bunches of fur in his arms, and feed a lettuce-leaf into its twitching pink mouth. he was shown the house-in-the-maple-tree, a rough floor fixed between two large branches, with a canvas roof over it, ensconced in which retreat his eyes shone with happy excitement. he was evidently about to make some comment on it, but glanced at judith's dark handsome little face, unsmiling and suspicious, and remained silent. he tried the same policy when being shown the children's own garden, but judith tracked him out of this attempt at self-protection with some direct and searching questions, discovering in him such ignorance of the broadest division-lines of the vegetable kingdom that she gave herself up to open scorn, vainly frowned down by the more naturally civilized sylvia, who was by no means enjoying herself. the new boy was not in the least what he had looked. she longed to return to the contemplation of aunt victoria's perfections. lawrence was, as usual, deep in an unreal world of his own, where he carried forth some enterprise which had nothing to do with any one about him. he was frowning and waving his arms, and making stabbing gestures with his fingers, and paid no attention to the conversation between judith and the new boy. "what _can_ you do? what _do_ you know?" asked the former at last. "i can ride horseback," said arnold defiantly. judith put him to the test at once, leading the way to the stall which was the abode of the little pinto broncho, left them, she explained, as a trust by one of father's students from the far west, who was now graduated and a civil engineer in chicago, where it cost too much to keep a horse. arnold emerged from this encounter with the pony with but little more credit than he had earned in the garden, showing an ineptness about equine ways which led judith through an unsparing cross-examination to the information that the boy's experience of handling a horse consisted in being ready in a riding-costume at a certain hour every afternoon, and mounting a well-broken little pony, all saddled and bridled, which was "brought round" to the porte-cochère. "what's a porte-cochère?" she asked, with her inimitable air of despising it, whatever it might turn out to be. arnold stared with an attempt to copy her own frank scorn for another's ignorance. "huh! don't you even know that much? it's the big porch without any floor to it, where carriages drive up so you can get in and out without getting wet if it rains. every house that's good for anything has one." so far from being impressed or put down, judith took her stand as usual on the offensive. "'fore i'd be afraid of a little rain!" she said severely, an answer which caused arnold to seem disconcerted, and again to look at her hard with the startled expression of arrested attention which from the first her remarks and strictures seemed to cause in him. they took the pinto out. judith rode him bareback at a gallop down to the swimming pool and dived from his back into the yellow water shimmering hotly in the sun. this feat stung arnold into a final fury. without an instant's pause he sprang in after her. as he came to the top, swimming strongly with a lusty, regular stroke, and rapidly overhauled the puffing judith, his face shone brilliantly with relief. he was another child. the petulant boy of a few moments before had vanished. "beat you to the springboard!" he sputtered joyously, swimming low and spitting water as he slid easily through it at twice judith's speed. she set her teeth and drove her tough little body with a fierce concentration of all her forces, but arnold was sitting on the springboard, dangling his red and swollen feet when she arrived. she clambered out and sat down beside him, silent for an instant. then she said with a detached air, "you can swim better than any boy i ever saw." arnold's open, blond face flushed scarlet at this statement. he looked at the dripping little brown rat beside him, and returned impulsively, "i'd rather play with you than any girl i ever saw." they were immediately reduced to an awkward silence by these two unpremeditated superlatives. judith found nothing to say beyond a "huh" in an uncertain accent, and they turned with relief to alarums and excursions from the forgotten and abandoned sylvia and lawrence. sylvia was forcibly restraining her little brother from following judith into the water. "you _mustn't_, buddy! you _know_ we aren't allowed to go in till an hour after eating and you only had your breakfast a little while ago!" she led him away bellowing. arnold, surprised, asked judith, "'cept for that, are you allowed to go in whenever you want?" "sure! we're not to stay in more than ten minutes at a time, and then get out and run around for half an hour in the sun. there's a clock under a little roof-thing, nailed up to a tree over there, so's we can tell." "and don't you get what-for, if you go in with all your clothes on this way?" "i haven't any clothes _on_ but my rompers," said judith. "they're just the same as a bathing suit." she snatched back her prerogative of asking questions. "where _did_ you learn to swim so?" "at the seashore! i get taken there a month every summer. it's the most fun of any of the places i get taken. i've had lessons there from the professor of swimming ever since i was six. madrina doesn't know what to do with me but have me take lessons. i like the swimming ones the best. i hate dancing--and going to museums." "what else can you do?" asked judith with a noticeable abatement of her previous disesteem. arnold hesitated, his own self-confidence as evidently dashed. "well--i can fence a little--and talk french; we are in paris winters, you know. we don't stay in lydford for the winter. nobody does." "_everybody_ goes away?" queried judith. "what a funny town!" "oh, except the people who _live_ there--the vermonters." judith was more and more at a loss. "don't _you_ live there?" "no, we don't _live_ anywhere. we just stay places for a while. nobody that we know lives anywhere." he interrupted a further question from the astonished judith to ask, "how'd you happen to have such a dandy swimming-pool out of such a little brook?" judith, switched off upon a topic of recent and absorbing interest, was diverted from investigation into the odd ways of people who lived nowhere. "isn't it great!" she said ardently. "it's new this summer--that's why i don't swim so very well yet. why, it was this way. the creek ran through a corner of our land, and a lot of father's students that are engineers or something, wanted to do something for father when they graduated--lots of students do, you know--and everybody said the creek didn't have water enough and they bet each other it did, and after commencement we had a kind of camp for a week--tents and things all round here--and mother cooked for them--camp fires--oh, lots of fun!--and they let us children tag around as much as we pleased--and they and father dug, and fixed concrete--say, did you ever get let to stir up concrete? it's great!" seeing in the boy's face a blankness as great as her own during his chance revelations of life on another planet, she exclaimed, "here, come on, down to the other end, and i'll _show_ you how they made the dam and all--they began over there with--" the two pattered along the edge hand-in-hand, talking incessantly on a common topic at last, interrupting each other, squatting down, peering into the water, pointing, discussing, arguing, squeezing the deliciously soft mud up and down between their toes, their heads close together--they might for the moment have been brother and sister who had grown up together. they were interrupted by voices, and turning flushed and candid faces of animation towards the path, beheld aunt victoria, wonderful and queen-like in a white dress, a parasol, like a great rose, over her stately blond head, attended by sylvia adoring; mrs. marshall quiet and observant; mr. rollins, the tutor, thin, agitated, and unhappily responsible; and professor marshall smiling delightedly at the children. "why, arnold _smith_!" cried his tutor, too much overcome by the situation to express himself more forcibly than by a repetition of the boy's name. "why, _arnold_! come here!" the cloud descended upon the boy's face. "i _will_ not!" he said insolently. "but we were just _looking_ for you to start back to the hotel," argued mr. rollins. "i don't care if you were!" said the boy in a sullen accent. sylvia and judith looked on in amazement at this scene of insubordination, as new to them as all the rest of the boy's actions. he was standing still now, submitting in a gloomy silence to the various comments on his appearance, which was incredibly different from that with which he had started on his travels. the starch remaining in a few places in his suit, now partly dried in the hot sun, caused the linen to stand out grotesquely in peaks and mud-streaked humps, his hair, still wet, hung in wisps about his very dirty face, his bare, red feet and legs protruded from shapeless knickerbockers. his stepmother looked at him with her usual good-natured amused gaze. "it is customary, before going in swimming, isn't it, arnold, to take your watch out of your pocket and put your cuff-links in a safe-place?" she suggested casually. "good heavens! his watch!" cried mr. rollins, clutching at his own sandy hair. professor marshall clapped the boy encouragingly on the shoulder. "well, sir, you look more like a human being," he said heartily, addressing himself, with defiance in his tone, to his sister. she replied with a smile, "that rather depends, doesn't it, elliott, upon one's idea of what constitutes a human being?" something in her sweet voice roused judith to an ugly wrath. she came forward and took her place protectingly beside her new playmate, scowling at her aunt. "we were having a _lovely_ time!" she said challengingly. mrs. marshall-smith looked down at the grotesque little figure and touched the brown cheek indulgently with her forefinger. "that too rather depends upon one's definition of a lovely time," she replied, turning away, leaving with the indifference of long practice the unfortunate mr. rollins to the task of converting arnold into a product possible to transport through the streets of a civilized town. before they went away that day, arnold managed to seek judith out alone, and with shamefaced clumsiness to slip his knife, quite new and three-bladed, into her hand. she looked at it uncomprehendingly. "for you--to keep," he said, flushing again, and looking hard into her dark eyes, which in return lightened suddenly from their usual rather somber seriousness into a smile, a real smile. judith's smiles were far from frequent, but the recipient of one did not forget it. chapter iv every one's opinion of every one else in this way, almost from the first, several distinct lines of cleavage were established in the family party during the next fortnight. arnold imperiously demanded a complete vacation from "lessons," and when, it was indolently granted, he spent it incessantly with judith, the two being always out of doors and usually joyously concocting what in any but the easy-going, rustic plainness of the marshall mode of life would have been called mischief. mrs. marshall, aided by the others in turn, toiled vigorously between the long rows of vegetables and a little open shack near by, where, on a superannuated but still serviceable cook-stove, she "put up," for winter use, an endless supply of the golden abundance which, ceres-like, she poured out every year from the horn of plenty of her garden. sylvia, in a state of hypnotized enchantment, dogged her aunt victoria's graceful footsteps and still more graceful, leisurely halts; lawrence bustled about on his own mysterious business in a solitary and apparently exciting world of his own which was anywhere but in la chance; and professor marshall, in the intervals of committee work at the university, now about to open, alternated between helping his wife, playing a great deal of very noisy and very brilliant music on the piano, and conversing in an unpleasant voice with his sister. mr. rollins, for whom, naturally, arnold's revolt meant unwonted freedom, was for the most part invisible, "seeing the sights of la chance, i suppose," conjectured aunt victoria indifferently, in her deliciously modulated voice, when asked what had become of the sandy-haired tutor. and because, in the intense retirement and rustication of this period, mrs. marshall-smith needed little attention paid to her toilets, pauline also was apparently enjoying an unusual vacation. a short time after making the conjecture about her stepson's tutor, aunt victoria had added the suggestion, level-browed, and serene as always, "perhaps he and pauline are seeing the sights together." sylvia, curled on a little stool at her aunt's feet, turned an artless, inquiring face up to her. "what _are_ the 'sights' of la chance, auntie?" she asked. her father, who was sitting at the piano, his long fingers raised as though about to play, whirled about and cut in quickly with an unintelligible answer, "your aunt victoria refers to non-existent phenomena, my dear, in order to bring home to us the uncouth provinciality in which we live." aunt victoria, leaning back, exquisitely passive, in one of the big, shabby arm-chairs, raised a protesting hand. "my dear elliott, you don't do your chosen abiding-place justice. there is the new court-house. nobody can deny that that is a sight. i spent a long time the other day contemplating it. that and the masonic building are a _pair_ of sights. i conceive rollins, who professes to be interested in architecture, as constantly vibrating between the two." to which handsome tribute to la chance's high-lights, professor marshall returned with bitterness, "good lord, vic, why do you come, then?" she answered pleasantly, "i might ask in my turn why you stay." she went on, "i might also remind you that you and your children are the only human ties i have." she slipped a soft arm about sylvia as she spoke, and turned the vivid, flower-like little face to be kissed. when aunt victoria kissed her, sylvia always felt that she had, like diana in the story-book, stooped radiant from a shining cloud. there was a pause in the conversation. professor marshall faced the piano again and precipitated himself headlong into the diabolic accelerandos of "the hall of the mountain-king." his sister listened with extreme and admiring appreciation of his talent. "upon my word, elliott," she said heartily, "under the circumstances it's incredible, but it's true--your touch positively improves." he stopped short, and addressed the air above the piano with passionate conviction. "i stay because, thanks to my wife, i've savored here fourteen years of more complete reconciliation with life--i've been vouchsafed more usefulness--i've discovered more substantial reasons for existing than i ever dreamed possible in the old life--than any one in that world can conceive!" aunt victoria looked down at her beautiful hands clasped in her lap. "yes, quite so," she breathed. "any one who knows you well must agree that whatever you are, or do, or find, nowadays, is certainly 'thanks to your wife.'" her brother flashed a furious look at her, and was about to speak, but catching sight of sylvia's troubled little face turned to him anxiously, gave only an impatient shake to his ruddy head--now graying slightly. a little later he said: "oh, we don't speak the same language any more, victoria. i couldn't make you understand--you don't know--how should you? you can't conceive how, when one is really _living_, nothing of all that matters. what does architecture matter, for instance?" "some of it matters very little indeed," concurred his sister blandly. this stirred him to an ungracious laugh. "as for keeping up only human ties, isn't a fortnight once every five years rather slim rations?" "ah, there are difficulties--the masonic building--" murmured aunt victoria, apparently at random. but then, it seemed to sylvia that they were always speaking at random. for all she could see, neither of them ever answered what the other had said. the best times were when she and aunt victoria were all alone together--or with only the silent, swift-fingered, pauline in attendance during the wonderful processes of dressing or undressing her mistress. these occasions seemed to please aunt victoria best also. she showed herself then so winning and gracious and altogether magical to the little girl that sylvia forgot the uncomfortableness which always happened when her aunt and her father were together. as they came to be on more intimate terms, sylvia was told a great many details about aunt victoria's present and past life, in the form of stories, especially about that early part of it which had been spent with her brother. mrs. marshall-smith took pains to talk to sylvia about her father as he had been when he was a brilliant dashing youth in paris at school, or as the acknowledged social leader of his class in the famous eastern college. "you see, sylvia," she explained, "having no father or mother or any near relatives, we saw more of each other than a good many brothers and sisters do. we had nobody else--except old cousin ellen, who kept house for us in the summers in lydford and traveled around with us," lydford was another topic on which, although it was already very familiar to her from her mother's reminiscences of her childhood in vermont, aunt victoria shed much light for sylvia. aunt victoria's lydford was so different from mother's, it seemed scarcely possible they could be the same place. mother's talk was all about the mountains, the sunny upland pastures, rocky and steep, such a contrast to the rich, level stretches of country about la chance; about the excursions through these slopes of the mountains every afternoon, accompanied by a marvelously intelligent collie dog, who helped find the cows; about the orchard full of old trees more climbable than any others which have grown since the world began; about the attic full of drying popcorn and old hair-trunks and dusty files of the new york _tribune_; about the pantry with its cookie-jar, and the "back room" with its churn and cheese-press. nothing of all this existed in the lydford of which aunt victoria spoke, although some of her recollections were also of childhood hours. once sylvia asked her, "but if you were a little girl there, and mother was too,--then you and father and she must have played together sometimes?" aunt victoria had replied with decision, "no, i never saw your mother, and neither did your father--until a few months before they were married." "well, wasn't that _queer_?" exclaimed sylvia--"she _always_ lived in lydford except when she went away to college." aunt victoria seemed to hesitate for words, something unusual with her, and finally brought out, "your mother lived on a farm, and we lived in our summer house in the village." she added after a moment's deliberation: "her uncle, who kept the farm, furnished us with our butter. sometimes your mother used to deliver it at the kitchen door." she looked hard at sylvia as she spoke. "well, i should have thought you'd have seen her _there_!" said sylvia in surprise. nothing came to the marshalls' kitchen door which was not in the children's field of consciousness. "it was, in fact, there that your father met her," stated aunt victoria briefly. "oh yes, i remember," said sylvia, quoting fluently from an often heard tale. "i've heard them tell about it lots of times. she was earning money to pay for her last year in college, and dropped a history book out of her basket as she started to get back in the wagon, and father picked it up and said, 'why, good lord! who in lydford reads gibbon?' and mother said it was hers, and they talked a while, and then he got in and rode off with her." "yes," said aunt victoria, "that was how it happened.... pauline, get out the massage cream and do my face, will you?" she did not talk any more for a time, but when she began, it was again of lydford that she spoke, running along in a murmured stream of reminiscences breathed faintly between motionless lips that pauline's reverent ministrations might not be disturbed. through the veil of these half-understood recollections, sylvia saw highly inaccurate pictures of great magnificent rooms filled with heavy old mahogany furniture, of riotously colored rose-gardens, terraced and box-edged, inhabited by beautiful ladies always, like aunt victoria, "dressed-up," who took tea under brightly striped, pagoda-shaped tents, waited upon by slant-eyed japanese (it seemed aunt victoria had nothing but japanese servants). the whole picture shimmered in the confused imagination of the listening little girl, till it blended indistinguishably with the enchantment of her fairy-stories. it all seemed a background natural enough for aunt victoria, but sylvia could not fit her father into it. "ah, he's changed greatly--he's transformed--he is not the same creature," aunt victoria told her gravely, speaking according to her seductive habit with sylvia, as though to an equal. "the year when we lost our money and he married, altered all the world for us." she linked the two events together, and was rewarded by seeing the reference slide over sylvia's head. "did you lose _your_ money, too?" asked sylvia, astounded. it had never occurred to her that aunt victoria might have been affected by that event in her father's life, with which she was quite familiar through his careless references to what he seemed to regard as an interesting but negligible incident. "all but the slightest portion of it, my dear--when i was twenty years old. your father was twenty-five." sylvia looked about her at the cut-glass and silver utensils on the lace-covered dressing-table, at aunt victoria's pale lilac crêpe-de-chine négligée, at the neat, pretty young maid deft-handedly rubbing the perfumed cream into the other woman's well-preserved face, impassive as an idol's. "why--why, i thought--" she began and stopped, a native delicacy making her hesitate as judith never did. aunt victoria understood. "mr. smith had money," she explained briefly. "i married when i was twenty-one." "oh," said sylvia. it seemed an easy way out of difficulties. she had never before chanced to hear aunt victoria mention her long-dead husband. chapter v something about husbands she did not by any means always sit in the hotel and watch pauline care for different portions of aunt victoria's body. mrs. marshall-smith took, on principle, a drive every day, and sylvia was her favorite companion. at first they went generally over the asphalt and in front of the costly and incredibly differing "mansions" of the "residential portion" of town, but later their drives took them principally along the winding roads and under the thrifty young trees of the state university campus. they often made an excuse of fetching professor marshall home from a committee meeting, and as the faculty committees at that time of year were, for the most part, feverishly occupied with the classification of the annual flood-tide of freshmen, he was nearly always late, and they were obliged to wait long half-hours in front of the main building. sylvia's cup of satisfaction ran over as, dressed in her simple best, which her mother without comment allowed her to put on every day now, she sat in the well-appointed carriage beside her beautiful aunt, at whom every one looked so hard and so admiringly. the university work had not begun, but unresigned and harassed professors and assistants, recalled from their vacations for various executive tasks, were present in sufficient numbers to animate the front steps of the main building with constantly gathering and dissolving little groups. these called out greetings to each other, and exchanged dolorous mutual condolences on their hard fate; all showing, with a helpless masculine naïveté, their consciousness of the lovely, observant figure in the carriage below them. of a different sort were the professors' wives, who occasionally drifted past on the path. aunt victoria might have been a blue-uniformed messenger-boy for all that was betrayed by their skilfully casual glance at her and then away, and the subsequent directness of their forward gaze across the campus. mrs. marshall-smith had for both these manifestations of consciousness of her presence the same imperturbable smile of amusement. "they are delightful, these colleagues of your father's!" she told sylvia. sylvia had hoped fervently that the stylish mrs. hubert might see her in this brief apotheosis, and one day her prayer was answered. straight down the steps of the main building they came, mrs. hubert glistening in shiny blue silk, extremely unaware of aunt victoria, the two little girls looking to sylvia like fairy princesses, with pink-and-white, lace-trimmed dresses, and big pink hats with rose wreaths. even the silk laces in their low, white kid shoes were of pink to match the ribbons, which gleamed at waist and throat and elbow. sylvia watched them in an utter admiration, and was beyond measure shocked when aunt victoria said, after they had stepped daintily past, "heavens! what a horridly over-dressed family! those poor children look too absurd, tricked out like that. the one nearest me had a sweet, appealing little face, too." "that is eleanor," said sylvia, with a keen, painful recollection of the scene a year ago. she added doubtfully, "didn't you think their dresses pretty, aunt victoria?" "i thought they looked like pin-cushions on a kitchen-maid's dressing-table," returned aunt victoria more forcibly than she usually expressed herself. "you look vastly better with the straight lines of your plain white dresses. you have a great deal of style, sylvia. judith is handsomer than you, but she will never have any style." this verdict, upon both the huberts and herself, delivered with a serious accent of mature deliberation, impressed sylvia. it was one of the speeches she was to ponder. although professor marshall showed himself noticeably negligent in the matter of introducing his colleagues to his sister, it was only two or three days before aunt victoria's half-hours of waiting before the main building had other companionship than sylvia's. this was due to the decisive action of young professor saunders, just back from the british museum, where, at professor marshall's suggestion, he had been digging up facts about the economic history of the twelfth century in england. without waiting for an invitation he walked straight up to the carriage with the ostensible purpose of greeting sylvia, who was a great favorite of his, and who in her turn had a romantic admiration for the tall young assistant. of all the faculty people who frequented the marshall house, he and old professor kennedy were the only people whom sylvia considered "stylish," and professor kennedy, in spite of his very high connection with the aristocracy of la chance, was so cross and depressed that really his "style" did not count. she was now greatly pleased by the younger professor's public and cordial recognition of her, and, with her precocious instinct for social ease, managed to introduce him to her aunt, even adding quaintly a phrase which she had heard her mother use in speaking of him, "my father thinks professor saunders has a brilliant future before him." this very complimentary reference had not the effect she hoped for, since both the young man and aunt victoria laughed, exchanging glances of understanding, and said to each other, "isn't she delicious?" but at least it effectually broke any ice of constraint, so that the new-comer felt at once upon the most familiarly friendly terms with the sister of his chief. thereafter he came frequently to lean an arm on the side of the carriage and talk with the "ladies-in-waiting," as he called the pretty woman and child. once or twice sylvia was transferred to the front seat beside peter, the negro driver, on the ground that she could watch the horses better, and they took professor saunders for a drive through the flat, fertile country, now beginning to gleam ruddy with autumnal tints of bronze and scarlet and gold. although she greatly enjoyed the social brilliance of these occasions, on which aunt victoria showed herself unexpectedly sprightly and altogether enchanting, sylvia felt a little guilty that they did not return to pick up professor marshall, and she was relieved, when they met at supper, that he made no reference to their defection. he did not, in fact, mention his assistant's name at all, and yet he did not seem surprised when professor saunders, coming to the sunday evening rehearsal of the quartet, needed no introduction to his sister, but drew a chair up with the evident intention of devoting all his conversation to her. for a time this overt intention was frustrated by old reinhardt, smitten with an admiration as unconcealed for the beautiful stranger. in the interval before the arrival of the later members of the quartet, he fluttered around her like an ungainly old moth, racking his scant english for complimentary speeches. these were received by aunt victoria with her best calm smile, and by professor saunders with open impatience. his equanimity was not restored by the fact that there chanced to be rather more general talk than usual that evening, leaving him but small opportunity for his tête-à-tête. it began by the arrival of professor kennedy, a little late, delayed at a reunion of the kennedy family. he was always reduced to bilious gloom by any close contact with that distinguished, wealthy, and much looked-up-to group of citizens of la chance, and this evening he walked into the front door obviously even more depressed than usual. the weather had turned cool, and his imposingly tall old person was wrapped in a cape-overcoat. sylvia had no fondness for professor kennedy, but she greatly admired his looks and his clothes, and his handsome, high-nosed old face. she watched him wrestle himself out of his coat as though it were a grappling enemy, and was not surprised at the irritability which sat visibly upon his arching white eyebrows. he entered the room trailing his 'cello-bag beside him and plucking peevishly at its drawstrings, and although aunt victoria quite roused herself at the sight of him, he received his introduction to her with reprehensible indifference. he sank into a chair and looked sadly at the fire, taking the point of his white beard in his long, tapering fingers. professor marshall turned from the piano, where he sat, striking a for the conscientious bauermeister to tune, and said laughingly, "hey there, knight of the dolorous countenance, what vulture is doing business at the old stand on your liver?" professor kennedy crossed one long, elegantly slim leg over the other, "i've been dining with the kennedy family," he said, with a neat and significant conciseness. "anything specially the matter with the predatory rich?" queried marshall, reaching for his viola-case. professor kennedy shook his head. "alas! there's never anything the matter with them. _comme le diable, ils se portent toujours bien_." at the purity of accent with which this embittered remark was made, mrs. marshall-smith opened her eyes, and paid more attention as the old professor went on. "the last of my unmarried nieces has shown herself a true kennedy by providing herself with a dolichocephalic blond of a husband, like all the others. the dinner was given in honor of the engagement." sylvia was accustomed to finding professor kennedy's remarks quite unintelligible, and this one seemed no odder to her than the rest, so that she was astonished that aunt victoria was not ashamed to confess as blank an ignorance as the little girl's. the beautiful woman leaned toward the morose old man with the suave self-confidence of one who has never failed to charm, and drew his attention to her by a laugh of amused perplexity. "may i ask," she inquired, "_what_ kind of a husband is that? it is a new variety to me." professor kennedy looked at her appraisingly. "it's the kind most women aspire to," he answered enigmatically. he imparted to this obscure remark the air of passing a sentence of condemnation. sylvia's mother stirred uneasily in her chair and looked at her husband. he had begun to take his viola from the case, but now returned it and stood looking quizzically from his sister to his guest. "professor kennedy talks a special language, vic," he said lightly. "some day he'll make a book of it and be famous. he divides us all into two kinds: the ones that get what they want by taking it away from other people--those are the dolichocephalic blonds--though i believe it doesn't refer to the color of their hair. the other kind are the white folks, the unpredatory ones who have scruples, and get pushed to the wall for their pains." mrs. marshall-smith turned to the young man beside her. "it makes one wonder, doesn't it," she conjectured pleasantly, "to which type one belongs oneself?" in this welcome shifting from the abstract to the understandably personal, old reinhardt saw his opportunity. "ach, womens, beautifool and goot womens!" he cried in his thick, kindly voice. "dey are abofe being types. to every good man, dey can be only wie eine blume, so hold and schön--" professor kennedy's acid voice broke in--"so you're still in the romantische schule period, are you, reinhardt?" he went on to mrs. marshall-smith: "but there _is_ something in that sort of talk. women, especially those who consider themselves beautiful and good, escape being _either_ kind of type, by the legerdemain with which they get what they want, and yet don't soil their fingers with predatory acts." mrs. marshall-smith was, perhaps, a shade tardy in asking the question which he had evidently cast his speech to extract from her, but after an instant's pause she brought it out bravely. "how in the world do you mean?" she asked, smiling, and received, with a quick flicker of her eyelids, the old man's response of, "they buy a dolichocephalic blond to do their dirty work for them and pay for him with their persons." "_oh!_" cried mrs. marshall, checking herself in a sudden deprecatory gesture of apology towards her sister-in-law. she looked at her husband and gave him a silent, urgent message to break the awkward pause, a message which he disregarded, continuing coolly to inspect his fingernails with an abstracted air, contradicted by the half-smile on his lips. sylvia, listening to the talk, could make nothing out of it, but miserably felt her little heart grow leaden as she looked from one face to another. judith and lawrence, tired of waiting for the music to begin, had dropped asleep among the pillows of the divan. mr. bauermeister yawned, looked at the clock, and plucked at the strings of his violin. he hated all talk as a waste of time. old reinhardt's simple face looked as puzzled and uneasy as sylvia's own. young mr. saunders seemed to have no idea that there was anything particularly unsettling in the situation, but, disliking the caustic vehemence of his old colleague's speech, inter-posed to turn it from the lady by his side. "and you're the man who's opposed on principle to sweeping generalizations!" he said in cheerful rebuke. "ah, i've just come from a gathering of the clan kennedy," repeated the older man. "i defy anybody to produce a more successfully predatory family than mine. the fortunes of the present generation of kennedys don't come from any white-livered subterfuge, like the rise in the value of real estate, as my own ill-owned money does. no, sir; the good, old, well-recognized, red-blooded method of going out and taking it away from people not so smart as they are, is good enough for them, if you please. and my woman relatives--" he swept them away with a gesture. "when i--" mrs. marshall cut him short resolutely. "are you going to have any music tonight, or aren't you?" she said. he looked at her with a sudden, unexpected softening of his somber eyes. "do you know, barbara marshall, that there are times when you keep one unhappy old misanthrope from despairing of his kind?" she had at this unlooked-for speech only the most honest astonishment. "i don't know what you're talking about," she said bluntly. judith stirred in her sleep and woke up blinking. when she saw that professor kennedy had come in, she did what sylvia would never have dared do; she ran to him and climbed up on his knee, laying her shining, dark head against his shoulder. the old man's arms closed around her. "well, spitfire," he said, "_comment ça roule_, eh?" judith did not trouble herself to answer. with a gesture of tenderness, as unexpected as his speech to her mother, her old friend laid his cheek against hers. "you're another, judy, _you'll_ never marry a dolichocephalic blond and make him pull the chestnuts out of the fire for you, will you?" he said confidently. mrs. marshall rose with the exasperated air of one whose patience is gone. she made a step as though to shield her husband's sister from the cantankerous old man. "if i hear another word of argument in this house tonight--" she threatened. "mr. reinhardt, what are these people _here for_?" the musician awoke, with a sigh, from his dazzled contemplation of his host's sister, and looked about him. "ach, yes! ach, yes!" he admitted. with a glance of adoration at the visitor, he added impressively what to his mind evidently signified some profoundly significant tribute, "dis night we shall blay only schubert!" sylvia heaved a sigh of relief as the four gathered in front of the music-racks at the other end of the room, tuning and scraping. young mr. saunders, evidently elated that his opportunity had come, leaned toward aunt victoria and began talking in low tones. once or twice they laughed a little, looking towards professor kennedy. then old reinhardt, gravely pontifical, rapped with his bow on his rack, lifted his violin to his chin, and--an obliterating sponge was passed over sylvia's memory. all the queer, uncomfortable talk, the unpleasant voices, the angry or malicious or uneasy eyes, the unkindly smiling lips, all were washed away out of her mind. the smooth, swelling current of the music was like oil on a wound. as she listened and felt herself growing drowsy, it seemed to her that she was being floated away, safely away from the low-ceilinged room where personalities clashed, out to cool, star-lit spaces. all that night in her dreams she heard only old reinhardt's angel voice proclaiming, amid the rich murmur of assent from the other strings: [illustration] chapter vi the sights of la chance one day at the end of a fortnight, aunt victoria and arnold were late in their daily arrival at the marshall house, and when the neat surrey at last drove up, they both showed signs of discomposure. discomposure was no unusual condition for arnold, who not infrequently made his appearance red-faced and sullen, evidently fresh from angry revolt against his tutor, but on that morning he was anything but red-faced, and looked a little scared. his stepmother's fine complexion, on the contrary, had more pink than usual in its pearly tones, and her carriage had less than usual of sinuous grace. sylvia and judith ran down the porch steps to meet them, but stopped, startled by their aspect. aunt victoria descended, very straight, her head high-held, and without giving sylvia the kiss with which she usually marked her preference for her older niece, walked at once into the house. although the impressionable sylvia was so struck by these phenomena, that, even after her aunt's disappearance, she remained daunted and silent, judith needed only the removal of the overpowering presence to restore her coolness. she pounced on arnold with questions. "what _you_ been doing that's so awful bad? i bet _you_ caught it all right!" "'tisn't me," said arnold in a subdued voice. "it's pauline and old rollins that caught it. they're the ones that ha' been bad." judith was at a loss, never having conceived that grown-ups might do naughty things. arnold went on, "if you'd ha' heard madrina talking to pauline--say! do you know what i did? i crawled under the bed--honest i did. it didn't last but a minute, but it scared the liver out o' me." this vigorous expression was a favorite of his. judith was somewhat impressed by his face and manner, but still inclined to mock at a confession of fear. "under the _bed_!" she sneered. arnold evidently felt the horror of the recently enacted scene so vividly that there was no room for shame in his mind. "you bet i did! and so would you too, if you'd ha' been there. _gee_!" in spite of herself judith looked somewhat startled by the vibration of sincerity in his voice, and sylvia, with her quick sympathy of divination, had turned almost as pale as the little boy, who, all his braggart turbulence gone, stood looking at them with a sick expression in his eyes. "was it in your room?" asked judith. "i thought pauline's room was on the top floor. what was she doing down there?" "no, it was in old rollins' room--next to mine. i don't know what pauline was doing there." "what did pauline do when aunt victoria scolded her?" asked sylvia. she had come to be fond of the pretty young maid with her fat, quick hands and her bright, warm-hearted smile for her mistress' little niece. one day, when mrs. marshall-smith had, for a moment, chanced to leave them alone, pauline had given her a sudden embrace, and had told her: "at 'ome zere are four leetle brozers and sisters. america is a place mos' solitary!" "what did pauline do?" asked sylvia again as arnold did not answer. the boy looked down. "pauline just cried and cried," he said in a low tone. "i _liked_ pauline! she was awful good to me. i--i heard her crying afterwards as she went away. seemed to me i could hear her crying all the way out here." "did she go away?" asked judith, trying to make something coherent out of the story. arnold nodded. "you bet she did. madrina turned her right out--and old rollins too." "was _he_ there? what was the matter anyhow?" judith persisted. arnold twisted uncomfortably, loath to continue bringing up the scene. "i d'n know what was the matter. yes, old rollins was there, all right. he's gone away too, the doggoned old thing--for good. that's _something_!" he added, "aw, quit talkin' about it, can't you! let's play!" "it's my turn to help mother with the tomatoes," said judith. "she's doing the last of the canning this morning. maybe she'd let you help." arnold brightened. "maybe she would!" he said, adding eagerly, "maybe she'd tell us another of the stories about her grandmother." judith snatched at his hand and began racing down the path to the garden. "maybe she would!" she cried. they both called as they ran, "mother, _oh_, mother!" and as they ran, they leaped and bounded into the bright autumn air like a couple of puppies. sylvia's mental resiliency was not of such sturdily elastic stuff. she stood still, thinking of pauline crying, and crying--and started aside when her aunt came out again on the porch. "i don't find any one in the house, sylvia dear," said mrs. marshall-smith quietly. sylvia looked up into the clear, blue eyes, so like her father's, and felt the usual magic spell lay hold on her. the horrid impression made by arnold's story dimmed and faded. arnold was always getting things twisted. she came up closer to her aunt's side and took the soft, smooth fingers between her two little hard, muscular hands. in her relief, she had forgotten to answer. mrs. marshall-smith said again, "where are your parents, dear?" "oh," said sylvia. "oh yes--why, father's at the university at a committee meeting and mother's out by the garden putting up tomatoes. judy and arnold are helping her." mrs. marshall-smith hesitated, looked about her restlessly, and finally raised her parasol, of a gold-colored silk, a lighter tone, but the same shade as her rich plain broadcloth costume of tan. "shall we take a little walk, my dear?" she suggested. "i don't feel like sitting still just now--nor"--she looked down into sylvia's eyes--"nor yet like canning tomatoes," that walk, the last one taken with aunt victoria, became one of sylvia's memories, although she never had a vivid recollection of what they saw during their slow ramble. it was only aunt victoria whom the little girl remembered--aunt victoria moving like a goddess over their rough paths and under the changing glory of the autumn leaves. she herself was a brighter glory, with her shining blond hair crowned by a halo of feathery, gold-colored plumes, the soft, fine, supple broadcloth of her garments gleaming in the sunshine with a sheen like that of a well-kept animal's coat. there breathed from all her person a faint odor of grace and violets and unhurried leisure. sylvia clung close to her side, taking in through all her pores this lovely emanation, not noticing whether they were talking or not, not heeding the direction of their steps. she was quite astonished to find herself on the university campus, in front of the main building. aunt victoria had never walked so far before. "oh, did you want to see father?" she asked, coming a little to herself. mrs. marshall-smith said, as if in answer, "just sit down here and wait for me a minute, will you, sylvia?" moving thereupon up the steps and disappearing through the wide front door. sylvia relapsed into her day-dreams and, motionless in a pool of sunlight, waited, quite unconscious of the passage of time. this long reverie was at last broken by the return of mrs. marshall-smith. she was not alone, but the radiant young man who walked beside her was not her brother, and nothing could have differed more from the brilliantly hard gaze which professor marshall habitually bent on his sister, than the soft intentness with which young mr. saunders regarded the ripely beautiful woman. the dazzled expression of his eyes was one of the remembered factors of the day for sylvia. the two walked down the shaded steps, sylvia watching them admiringly, the scene forever printed on her memory, and emerged into the pool of sunshine where she sat, swinging her legs from the bench. they stood there for some minutes, talking together in low tones. sylvia, absorbed in watching the play of light on aunt victoria's smooth cheek, heard but a few words of what passed between them. she had a vague impression that professor saunders continually began sentences starting firmly with "but" and ending somehow on quite another note. she felt dimly that aunt victoria was less calmly passive than usual in a conversation, that it was not only the enchanting rising and falling inflections of her voice which talked, but her eyes, her arms, her whole self. once she laid her hand for an instant on professor saunders' arm. more than that sylvia could not remember, even when she was asked later to repeat as much as she could of what she had heard. she was resolving when she was grown-up to have a ruffle of creamy lace falling away from her neck and wrists as aunt victoria did. she had not only forgotten arnold's story, she had forgotten that such a boy existed. she was living in a world all made up of radiance and bloom, lace and sunshine and velvet, and bright hair and gleaming cloth and smooth voices and the smell of violets. after a time she was aware that professor saunders shook hands and turned back up the steps. aunt victoria began to move with her slow grace along the road towards home, and sylvia to follow, soaking herself in an impression of supreme suavity. when, after the walk through the beech-woods, they reached the edge of the marshall field, they saw a stiff plume of blue smoke stand up over the shack by the garden and, as they approached, heard a murmur of voices. mrs. marshall-smith stopped, furled her parasol, and surveyed the scene within. her sister-in-law, enveloped in a large blue apron, by no means fresh, sat beside a roughly built table, peeling tomatoes, her brown stained fingers moving with the rapidity of a prestidigitator's. judith stood beside her, also attacking the pile of crimson fruit, endeavoring in vain to emulate her mother's speed. over the hot, rusty stove hung arnold, red-faced and bright-eyed, armed with a long, wooden spatula which he continually dug into the steaming contents of an enormous white-lined kettle. as, at the arrival of the new-comers, mrs. marshall's voice stopped, he looked around and frowned impatiently at his stepmother. "she's just got to the excitin' part," he said severely, and to the raconteur eagerly, "'n'_en_ what?" mrs. marshall looked up at her husband's sister, smiled, and went on,--sylvia recognized the story as one of her own old favorites. "well, it was very early dawn when she had to go over to the neighbor's to borrow some medicine for her father, who kept getting sicker all the time. as she hurried along across the meadow towards the stile, she kept wondering, in spite of herself, if there was any truth in what nat had said about having seen bear tracks near the house the day before. when she got to the stile she ran up the steps--and on the top one she stood still, for there--" she made a dramatic pause and reached for another tray of tomatoes. arnold stopped stirring the pot and stood motionless, his eyes fixed on the narrator, the spatula dripping tomato-juice all along his white trousers. "there on the other side, looking up at her, was a bear--a big black bear." arnold's mouth dropped open and his eyes widened. "my grandmother was dreadfully frightened. she was only seventeen, and she hadn't any kind of a weapon, not so much as a little stick with her. her first idea was to turn and run as fast as she could, back home. but she remembered how sick her father was, and how much he needed the medicine; and then besides, she used to say, all of a sudden it made her angry, all over, to have that great stupid animal get in her way. she always said that nothing 'got her mad up' like feeling afraid. so what do you suppose she did?" arnold could only shake his head silently in an ecstasy of impatience for the story to continue. judith and sylvia smiled at each other with the insufferable complacence of auditors who know the end by heart. "she just pointed her finger at the bear, and she said in a loud, harsh voice: 'shame! shame! shame on you! for sha-a-ame!' she'd taught district school, you know, and had had lots of practice saying that to children who had been bad. the bear looked up at her hard for a minute, then dropped his head and began to walk slowly away. grandmother always said, 'the great lummox lumbered off into the bushes like a gawk of a boy who's been caught in mischief,' she waited just a minute and then ran like lightning along the path through the woods to the neighbors and got the medicine." the story was evidently over, the last tomato was peeled. mrs. marshall rose, wiping her stained and dripping hands on her apron, and went to the stove. arnold started as if coming out of a dream and looked about him with wondering eyes. "well, what-d'you-think-o'-_that?_" he commented, all in one breath. "say, mother," he went on, looking up at her with trusting eyes, searching the quiet face, "what do you suppose _made_ the bear go away? you wouldn't think a little thing like that would scare a _bear_!" mrs. marshall began dipping the hot, stewed tomatoes into the glass jars ready in a big pan of boiling water on the back of the stove. the steam rose up, like a cloud, into her face, which began to turn red and to glisten with perspiration. "oh, i don't suppose it really frightened the bear," she said moderately, refraining from the dramatic note of completeness which her husband, in spite of himself, gave to everything he touched, and adding instead the pungent, homely savor of reality, which none relished more than sylvia and her father, incapable themselves of achieving it. "'most likely the bear would have gone away of his own accord anyhow. they don't attack people unless they're stirred up." arnold bit deeply into the solidity of this unexaggerated presentation, and was silent for a moment, saying then: "well, anyhow, she didn't _know_ he'd go away! she was a sport, all right!" "oh yes, indeed," said mrs. marshall, dipping and steaming, and wiping away the perspiration, which ran down in drops to the end of her large, shapely nose. "yes, my grandmother was a sport, all right." the acrid smell of hot, cooking tomatoes filled the shed and spread to the edge where sylvia and her aunt stood, still a little aloof. although it bore no resemblance to the odor of violets, it could not be called a disgusting smell: it was the sort of smell which is quite agreeable when one is very hungry. but sylvia was not hungry at all. she stepped back involuntarily. mrs. marshall-smith, on the contrary, advanced a step or so, until she stood close to her sister-in-law. "barbara, i'd like to see you a few minutes without the children," she remarked in the neutral tone she always had for her brother's wife. "a rather unpleasant occurrence--i'm in something of a quandary." mrs. marshall nodded. "all right," she agreed. "scatter out of here, you children! go and let out the hens, and give them some water!" arnold needed no second bidding, reminded by his stepmother's words of his experiences of the morning. he and judith scampered away in a suddenly improvised race to see who would reach the chicken-house first. sylvia went more slowly, looking back once or twice at the picture made by the two women, so dramatically contrasted--her mother, active, very upright, wrapped in a crumpled and stained apron, her dark hair bound closely about her round head, her moist, red face and steady eyes turned attentively upon the radiant creature beside her, cool and detached, leaning willow-like on the slender wand of the gold-colored parasol. professor marshall chanced to be late that day in coming home for luncheon, and aunt victoria and arnold had returned to the hotel without seeing him. his wife remarked that victoria had asked her to tell him something, but, acting on her inviolable principle that nothing must interfere with the cheerful peace of mealtime, said nothing more to him until after they had finished the big plate of purple grapes from her garden, with which the meal ended. then judith vanished out to the shop, where she was constructing a rabbit-house for the latest family. sylvia took lawrence, yawning and rubbing his eyes, but fighting desperately against his sleepiness, upstairs for his nap. when this task fell to judith's lot it was despatched with business-like promptness, but lawrence had early discovered a temperamental difference between his two sisters, and sylvia was seldom allowed to leave the small bed until she had paid tribute to her ever-present desire to please, in the shape of a story or a song. on that day buddy was more exacting than usual. sylvia told the story of cinderella and sang, "a frog he would a-wooing go," twice through, before the little boy's eyes began to droop. even then, the clutch of his warm, moist fingers about her hand did not relax. when she tried to slip her fingers out of his, his eyelids fluttered open and he tightened his grasp with a wilful frown. so she sat still on the edge of his bed, waiting till he should be really asleep. from the dining-room below her rose the sound of voices, or rather of one voice--her father's. she wondered why it sounded so angry, and then, mixed with some unintelligible phrases--"turned out on the street, in trouble--in a foreign land--good god!" she caught pauline's name. oh yes, that must be the trouble. mother was telling father about pauline--whatever it was she had done--and he was as mad about it as aunt victoria had been. if aunt victoria's voice had sounded like that, she didn't wonder that arnold had hidden under the bed. if she could have moved, she, too, would have run away, although the idea that she ought to do so did not occur to her. there had been no secrets in that house. the talk had always been for all to hear who would. but when she tried again to slip her hand away from buddy's the little boy pulled at it hard, and half opening his eyes, said sleepily, "sylvie stay with buddy--sylvie stay--" sylvia yielded weakly, said: "yes--sh! sh! sister'll stay. go to sleep, buddy." from below came the angry voice, quite loud now, so that she caught every queer-sounding word--"righteous indignation indeed! what else did _she_ do, i'd like to know, when she wanted money. the only difference was that she was cold-blooded enough to extract a legal status from the old reprobate she accosted." sylvia heard her mother's voice saying coldly, "you ought to be ashamed to use such a word!" and her father retort, "it's the _only_ word that expresses it! you know as well as i do that she cared no more for ephraim smith than for the first man she might have solicited on the street--nor so much! god! it makes me sick to look at her and think of the price she paid for her present damn olympian serenity." sylvia heard her mother begin to clear off the table. there was a rattle of dishes through which her voice rose impatiently. "oh, elliott, why be so melodramatic always, and spoil so much good language! she did only what every girl brought up as she was, would have done. and, anyhow, are you so very sure that in your heart you're not so awfully hard on her because you're envious of that very prosperity?" he admitted, with acrimony, the justice of this thrust. "very likely. very likely!--everything base and mean in me, that you keep down, springs to life in me at her touch. i dare say i do envy her--i'm quite capable of that--am i not her brother, with the same--" mrs. marshall said hastily: "hush! hush! here's judith. for heaven's sake don't let the child hear you!" for the first time the idea penetrated sylvia's head that she ought not to have listened. buddy was now soundly asleep: she detached her hand from his, and went soberly along the hall into her own room. she did not want to see her father just then. a long time after, mother called up to say that aunt victoria had come for her afternoon drive, and to leave arnold. sylvia opened the door a crack and asked, "where's father?" "oh, gone back to the university this long time," answered her mother in her usual tone. sylvia came down the stairs slowly and took her seat in the carriage beside aunt victoria with none of her usual demonstrative show of pleasure. "don't you like my dress?" asked aunt victoria, as they drove away. "you don't even notice it, and i put it on 'specially to please you--you're the one discriminating critic in this town!" as sylvia made no answer to this sally, she went on: "it's hard to get into alone, too. i had to ask the hotel chambermaid to hook it up on the shoulders." thus reminded of pauline, sylvia could have but inattentive eyes for the creation of amber silk and lace, and brown fur, which seductively clad the handsome body beside her. mrs. marshall-smith gave her favorite a penetrating look. "what's the matter with you, sylvia?" she asked in the peremptory note which her sweet voice of many modulations could startlingly assume on occasion. sylvia had none of judith's instant pugnacious antagonism to any peremptory note. she answered in one imploring rush of a question, "aunt victoria, why should _father_ be so very mad at pauline?" mrs. marshall-smith looked a little startled at this direct reference to the veiled storm-center of the day, but not at all displeased. "oh, your mother told him? was he so very angry?" she asked with a slight smile. "oh, dreadfully!" returned sylvia. "i didn't _mean_ to listen, but i couldn't help it. buddy wouldn't go to sleep and father's voice was so loud--and he got madder and madder at her." she went on with another question, "auntie, who was ephraim smith?" aunt victoria turned upon her in astonishment, and did not, for a moment, answer; then: "why, that was the name of my husband, sylvia. what has that to do with anything?" "why didn't pauline like him?" asked sylvia. mrs. marshall-smith replied with a vivacity of surprise which carried her out of her usual delicate leisure in speech. "_pauline?_ why, she never saw him in her life! _what_ are you talking about, child?" "but, father said--i thought--he seemed to mean--" sylvia halted, not able to remember in her bewilderment what it had been that father had said. in a blur of doubt and clouded perceptions she lost all definite impression of what she had heard. evidently, as so often happened, she had grown-ups' affairs all twisted up in her mind. aunt victoria was touched with kindly amusement at the little girl's face of perplexity, and told her, dismissing the subject: "never mind, dear, you evidently misunderstood something. but i wonder what your father could have said to give you such a funny idea." sylvia gave it up, shaking her head. they turned into the main street of la chance, and aunt victoria directed the coachman to drive them to "the" drug store of town, and offered sylvia her choice of any soda water confection she might select. this completed the "about-face" of the mobile little mind. after several moments of blissful anguish of indecision, sylvia decided on a peach ice-cream soda, and thereafter was nothing but sense of taste as she ecstatically drew through a straw the syrupy, foamy draught of nectar. she took small sips at a time and held them in the back of her mouth till every minute bubble of gas had rendered up its delicious prickle to her tongue. her consciousness was filled to its uttermost limits with a voluptuous sense of present physical delight. and yet it was precisely at this moment that from her subconscious mind, retracing with unaided travail a half-forgotten clue, there sprang into her memory a complete phrase of what her father had said. she gave one more suck to the straw and laid it aside for a moment to say in quite a comfortable accent to her aunt: "oh yes, now i remember. he said she didn't care for him any more than for the first man she might have solicited in the street." for an instant the words came back as clearly as though they had just been uttered, and she repeated them fluently, returning thereupon at once to the charms of the tall, foam-filled frosted glass. evidently aunt victoria did not follow this sudden change of subject, for she asked blankly, "_who_? who didn't care for who?" "why, i supposed, pauline for ephraim smith. it was that that made father so mad," explained sylvia, sucking dreamily, her eyes on the little maelstrom created in the foaming liquid by the straw, forgetting everything else. the luxurious leisure in which she consumed her potation made it last a long time, and it was not until her suction made only a sterile rattling in the straw that she looked up at her aunt to thank her. mrs. marshall-smith's face was averted and she did not turn it back as she said, "just run along into the shop and leave your glass, sylvia--here is the money." after sylvia took her seat again in the carriage, the coachman turned the horse's head back up the main street. "aren't you going to the campus?" asked sylvia in surprise. "no, we are going to the hotel," said aunt victoria. she spoke quietly, and seemed to look as usual, but sylvia's inner barometer fell fast with a conviction of a change in the emotional atmosphere. she sat as still as possible, and only once glanced up timidly at her aunt's face. there was no answering glance. aunt victoria gazed straight in front of her. her face looked as it did when it was being massaged--all smooth and empty. there was, however, one change. for the first time that day, she looked a little pale. as the carriage stopped in front of the onyx-lined, palm-decorated, plate-glass-mirrored "entrance hall" of the expensive hotel, aunt victoria descended, motioning to sylvia not to follow her. "i haven't time to drive any more this afternoon," she said. "peter will take you home. and have him bring arnold back at once." she turned away and, as sylvia sat watching her, entered the squirrel-cage revolving door of glass, which a little boy in livery spun about for her. but after she was inside the entrance hall, she signified to him that she had forgotten something, and came immediately out again. what she had forgotten surprised sylvia as much as it touched her. aunt victoria came rapidly to the side of the carriage and put out her arms. "come here, dear," she said in a voice sylvia had never heard her use. it trembled a little, and broke. with her quick responsiveness, sylvia sprang into the outstretched arms, overcome by the other's emotion. she hid her face against the soft, perfumed laces and silk, and heard from beneath them the painful throb of a quickly beating heart. mrs. marshall-smith held her niece for a long moment and then turned the quivering little face up to her own grave eyes, in which sylvia, for all her inexperience, read a real suffering. aunt victoria looked as though somebody were hurting her--hurting her awfully--sylvia pressed her cheek hard against her aunt's, and mrs. marshall-smith felt, soft and warm and ardent on her lips, the indescribably fresh kiss of a child's mouth. "oh, little sylvia!" she cried, in that new, strange, uncertain voice which trembled and broke, "oh, little sylvia!" she seemed to be about to say something more, said in fact in a half-whisper, "i hope--i hope--" but then shook her head, kissed sylvia gently, put her back in the carriage, and again disappeared through the revolving door. this time she did not turn back. she did not even look back. after a moment's wait, peter gathered up the reins and sylvia, vaguely uneasy, and much moved, drove home in a solitary state, which she forgot to enjoy. the next morning there was no arrival, even tardy, of the visitors from the hotel. instead came a letter, breaking the startling news that aunt victoria had been called unexpectedly to the east, and had left on the midnight train, taking arnold with her, of course. judith burst into angry expressions of wrath over the incompleteness of the cave which she and arnold had been excavating together. the next day was the beginning of school, she reminded her auditors, and she'd have no time to get it done! never! she characterized aunt victoria as a mean old thing, an epithet for which she was not reproved, her mother sitting quite absent and absorbed in the letter. she read it over twice, with a very puzzled air, which gave an odd look to her usually crystal-clear countenance. she asked her husband one question as he went out of the door. "you didn't see victoria yesterday--or say anything to her?" to which he answered, with apparently uncalled-for heat, "i did _not_! i thought it rather more to the purpose to try to look up pauline." mrs. marshall sprang up and approached him with an anxious face. he shook his head: "too late. disappeared. no trace." she sat down again, looking sad and stern. professor marshall put on his hat with violence, and went away. when he came home to luncheon there was a fresh sensation, and again a disagreeable one. he brought the astounding news that, at the very beginning of the semester's work, he had been deserted by his most valuable assistant, and abandoned, apparently forever, by his most-loved disciple. saunders had left word, a mere laconic note, that he had accepted the position left vacant by the dismissal of arnold's tutor, and had entered at once upon the duties of his new position. professor marshall detailed this information in a hard, level voice, and without further comment handed his wife saunders' note. she read it rapidly, this time with no perplexity, and laid it down, saying to her husband, briefly, "will you kindly remember that the children are here?" judith looked at sylvia in astonishment, this being the first time that that well-worn phrase, so familiar to most children, had ever been heard in the marshall house. why shouldn't father remember they were there? couldn't he _see_ them? judith almost found the idea funny enough to laugh at, although she had not at all in general sylvia's helpless response to the ridiculous. sylvia did not laugh now. she looked anxiously at her father's face, and was relieved when he only answered her mother's exhortation by saying in a low tone: "oh, i have nothing to say. it's beyond words!" luncheon went on as usual, with much chatter among the children. some time later--in the midst of a long story from lawrence, mrs. marshall herself brought up the subject again. buddy was beginning to struggle with the narrative form of self-expression, and to trip his tongue desperately over the tenses. he had just said, "and the rabbit _was_ naughty, didn't he was?" when his mother exclaimed, addressing her husband's grim face, "good heavens, don't take it so hard, elliott." he raised an eyebrow, but did not look up from the pear he was eating. "to be responsible, as i feel i am, for the pitching into a _cul-de-sac_ of the most promising young--" his wife broke in, "_responsible_! how in the world are _you_ responsible!" she added quickly, as if at random, to prevent the reply which her husband was evidently about to cast at her. "besides, how do _you_ know?--one never knows how things will turn out--she may--she may marry him, and he may have a life which will give him more leisure for investigation than if--" professor marshall wiped his lips violently on his napkin and stood up. "nothing would induce her to marry him--or any one else. she's extracted from marriage all she wants of it. no, she'll just keep him trailing along, in an ambiguous position, sickened and tantalized and fevered, till all the temper is drawn out of him--and then hell be dropped," he turned away with an impatient fling of his head. his wife stood up now and looked at him anxiously. "go play us something on the piano," she urged. this was not a common exhortation from her. she cared very little for music, and with her usual honesty she showed, as a rule, a very passive attitude towards it. professor marshall glanced at her with a flash of anger. "sometimes you count too much on my childishness, barbara," he said resentfully, and went out of the door without further words. decidedly the discomposing effect of aunt victoria's visit lasted even after she had gone away. but the next day was the beginning of the school term, the busy, regular routine was taken up, sylvia was promoted to the a grade, and at home father let her begin to learn the pilgrim's chorus, from tannhauser. life for the eager little girl moved quickly forward at its usual brisk pace, through several years to come. chapter vii "we hold these truths to be self-evident ..." the public school to which the marshall children went as soon as they were old enough was like any one of ten thousand public schools--a large, square, many-windowed, extravagantly ugly building, once red brick, but long ago darkened almost to black by soft-coal smoke. about it, shaded by three or four big cottonwood-trees, was an inclosed space of perhaps two acres of ground, beaten perfectly smooth by hundreds of trampling little feet, a hard, bare earthen floor, so entirely subdued to its fate that even in the long summer vacation no spear of grass could penetrate its crust to remind it that it was made of common stuff with fields and meadows. school began at nine o'clock in the morning and, as a rule, three-fourths of the children had passed through the front gate twenty or thirty minutes earlier. nobody knew why it should be considered such a hideous crime to be "tardy," but the fact was that not the most reckless and insubordinate of the older boys cared to risk it. any one of the four hundred children in any public school in the city preferred infinitely to be absent a day than to have the ghastly experience of walking through deserted streets (that is, with no children on them), across the empty playground frighteningly unlike itself, into the long, desolate halls which, walk as cat-like as one might, resounded to the guilty footsteps with accusing echoes. and then the narrow cloakroom, haunted with limp, hanging coats and caps and hats, and finally the entry into the schoolroom, seated rank on rank with priggishly complacent schoolmates, looking up from their books with unfriendly eyes of blame at the figure of the late-comer. ah over that section of la chance, during the hour between half-past seven and half-past eight in the morning, the families of school children were undergoing a most rigorous discipline in regularity and promptness. no child was too small or too timid to refrain from embittering his mother's life with clamorous upbraidings if breakfast were late, or his school-outfit of clothes were not ready to the last button, so that he could join the procession of schoolward-bound children, already streaming past his door at a quarter past eight. the most easy-going and self-indulgent mother learned to have at least one meal a day on time; and the children themselves during those eight years of their lives had imbedded in the tissue of their brains and the marrow of their bones that unrebelling habit of bending their backs daily to a regular burden of work not selected by themselves--which, according to one's point of view, is either the bane or the salvation of our modern industrial society. the region where the school stood was inhabited, for the most part, by american families or german and irish ones so long established as to be virtually american; a condition which was then not infrequent in moderate-sized towns of the middle west and which is still by no means unknown there. the class-rolls were full of taylors and aliens and robinsons and jacksons and websters and rawsons and putnams, with a scattering of morrisseys and crimminses and o'hearns, and some schultzes and brubackers and helmeyers. there was not a jew in the school, because there were almost none in that quarter of town, and, for quite another reason, not a single negro child. there were plenty of them in the immediate neighborhood, swarming around the collection of huts and shanties near the railroad tracks given over to negroes, and known as flytown. but they had their own school, which looked externally quite like all the others in town, and their playground, beaten bare like that of the washington street school, was filled with laughing, shouting children, ranging from shoe-black through coffee-color to those occasional tragic ones with white skin and blue eyes, but with the telltale kink in the fair hair and the bluish half-moon at the base of the finger-nails. the four hundred children in the washington street school were, therefore, a mass more homogeneous than alarmists would have us believe it possible to find in this country. they were, for all practical purposes, all american, and they were all roughly of one class. their families were neither rich nor poor (at least so far as the children's standards went). their fathers were grocers, small clerks, merchants, two or three were truck-farmers, plumbers, carpenters, accountants, employees of various big businesses in town. it was into this undistinguished and plebeian mediocrity that the marshall children were introduced when they began going to school. the interior of the school-building resembled the outside in being precisely like that of ten thousand other graded schools in this country. the halls were long and dark and dusty, and because the building had been put up under contract at a period when public contract-work was not so scrupulously honest as it notably is in our present cleanly muck-raked era, the steps of the badly built staircase creaked and groaned and sagged and gave forth clouds of dust under the weight of the myriads of little feet which climbed up and clown those steep ascents every day. everything was of wood. the interior looked like the realized dream of a professional incendiary. the classrooms were high and well-lighted, with many large windows, never either very clean or very dirty, which let in a flood of our uncompromisingly brilliant american daylight upon the rows of little seats and desks screwed, like those of an ocean liner, immovably to the floor, as though at any moment the building was likely to embark upon a cruise in stormy waters. outwardly the rows of clean-faced, comfortably dressed, well-shod american children, sitting in chairs, bore no resemblance to shaven-headed, barefooted little arabian students, squatting on the floor, gabbling loud uncomprehended texts from the koran; but the sight of sylvia's companions bending over their school-books with glazed, vacant eyes, rocking back and forth as a rhythmical aid to memorizing, their lips moving silently as they repeated over and over, gabblingly, the phrases of the printed page, might have inclined a hypothetical visitor from mars to share the bewildered amusement of the american visitors to moslem schools. sylvia rocked and twisted a favorite button, gabbled silently, and recited fluently with the rest, being what was known as an apt and satisfactory pupil. in company with the other children she thus learned to say, in answer to questions, that seven times seven is forty-nine; that the climate of brazil is hot and moist; that the capital of arkansas is little rock; and that "through" is spelled with three misleading and superfluous letters. what she really learned was, as with her mates, another matter--for, of course, those devouringly active little minds did not spend six hours a day in school without learning something incessantly. the few rags and tatters of book-information they acquired were but the merest fringes on the great garment of learning acquired by these public-school children, which was to wrap them about all their lives. what they learned during those eight years of sitting still and not whispering had nothing to do with the books in their desks or the lore in their teachers' brains. the great impression stamped upon the wax of their minds, which became iron in after years, was democracy--a crude, distorted, wavering image of democracy, like every image an ideal in this imperfect world, but in its essence a reflection of the ideal of their country. no european could have conceived how literally it was true that the birth or wealth or social position of a child made no difference in the estimation of his mates. there were no exceptions to the custom of considering the individual on his own merits. these merits were often queerly enough imagined, a faculty for standing on his head redounding as much, or more, to a boy's credit as the utmost brilliance in recitation, or generosity of temperament, but at least he was valued for something he himself could do, and not for any fortuitous incidents of birth and fortune. furthermore there lay back of these four hundred children, who shaped their world to this rough-and-ready imitation of democracy, their families, not so intimately known to each other, of course, as the children themselves, but still by no means unknown in their general characteristics; four hundred american families who were, on the whole, industrious, law-abiding, who loved their children, who were quite tasteless in matters of art, and quite sound though narrow in matters of morals, utterly mediocre in intelligence and information, with no breadth of outlook in any direction; but who somehow lived their lives and faced and conquered all the incredible vicissitudes of that great adventure, with an unconscious, cheerful fortitude which many an acuter mind might have envied them. it is possible that the personal knowledge of these four hundred enduring family lives was, perhaps, the most important mental ballast taken on by the children of the community during their eight years' cruise at school. certainly it was the most important for the sensitive, complicated, impressionable little sylvia marshall, with her latent distaste for whatever lacked distinction and external grace, and her passion for sophistication and elegance, which was to spring into such fierce life with the beginning of her adolescence. she might renounce, as utterly as she pleased, the associates of her early youth, but the knowledge of their existence, the acquaintance with their deep humanity, the knowledge that they found life sweet and worth living, all this was to be a part of the tissue of her brain forever, and was to add one to the conflicting elements which battled within her for the mastery during all the clouded, stormy radiance of her youth. the families which supplied the washington street school being quite stationary in their self-owned houses, few new pupils entered during the school-year. there was, consequently, quite a sensation on the day in the middle of march when the two fingál girls entered, camilla in the "fifth a" grade, where sylvia was, and cécile in the third grade, in the next seat to judith's. the girls themselves were so different from other children in school that their arrival would have excited interest even at the beginning of the school-year. coming, as they did, at a time when everybody knew by heart every detail of every one else's appearance from hair-ribbon to shoes, these two beautiful exotics, in their rich, plain, mourning dresses were vastly stared at. sylvia's impressionable eyes were especially struck by the air of race and breeding of the new-comer in her class. everything about the other child, from her heavy black hair, patrician nose, and large dark eyes to her exquisitely formed hands, white and well-cared-for, seemed to sylvia perfection itself. during recess she advanced to the new-comer, saying, with a bright smile: "aren't you thirsty? don't you want me to show you where the pump is?" she put out her hand as she spoke and took the slim white fingers in her own rough little hand, leading her new schoolmate along in silence, looking at her with an open interest. she had confidently expected amicable responsiveness in the other little girl, because her experience had been that her own frank friendliness nearly always was reflected back to her from others; but she had not expected, or indeed ever seen, such an ardent look of gratitude as burned in the other's eyes. she stopped, startled, uncomprehending, as though her companion had said something unintelligible, and felt the slim fingers in her hand close about her own in a tight clasp. "you are so very kind to show me this pump," breathed camilla shyly. the faint flavor of a foreign accent which, to sylvia's ear, hung about these words, was the final touch of fascination for her. that instant she decided in her impetuous, enthusiastic heart that camilla was the most beautiful, sweetest, best-dressed, loveliest creature she had ever seen, or would ever see in her life; and she bent her back joyfully in the service of her ideal. she would not allow camilla to pump for herself, but flew to the handle with such energy that the white water gushed out in a flood, overflowing camilla's cup, spattering over on her fingers, and sparkling on the sheer white of her hemstitched cuffs. this made them both laugh, the delicious silly laugh of childhood. already they seemed like friends. "how do you pronounce your name?" sylvia asked familiarly. "cam-eela fingál," said the other, looking up from her cup, her upper lip red and moist. she accented the surname on the last syllable. "what a perfectly lovely name!" cried sylvia. "mine is sylvia marshall." "that's a pretty name too," said camilla, smiling. she spoke less timidly now, but her fawn-like eyes still kept their curious expression, half apprehension, half hope. "how old are you?" asked sylvia. "eleven, last november." "why, my birthday is in november, and i was eleven too!" cried sylvia. "i thought you must be older--you're so tall." camilla looked down and said nothing. sylvia went on: "i'm crazy about the way you do your hair, in those twists over your ears. when i was studying my spelling lesson, i was trying to figure out how you do it." "oh, i don't do it. mattice does it for us--for cécile and me--cécile's my sister. she's in the third grade." "why, i have a sister in the third grade too!" exclaimed sylvia, much struck by this second propitious coincidence. "her name is judith and she's a darling. wouldn't it be nice if she and cécile should be good friends _too_!" she put her arm about her new comrade's waist, convinced that they were now intimates of long standing. they ran together to take their places at the sound of the bell; all during the rest of the morning session she smiled radiantly at the new-comer whenever their eyes met. she planned to walk part way home with her at noon, but she was detained for a moment by the teacher, and when she reached the front gate, where judith was waiting for her, camilla was nowhere in sight. judith explained with some disfavor that a surrey had been waiting for the fingál girls and they had been driven away. sylvia fell into a rhapsody over her new acquaintance and found to her surprise (it was always a surprise to sylvia that judith's tastes and judgments so frequently differed from hers) that judith by no means shared her enthusiasm. she admitted, but as if it were a matter of no importance, that both camilla and cécile were pretty enough, but she declared roundly that cécile was a little sneak who had set out from the first to be "teacher's pet." this title, in the sturdy democracy of the public schools, means about what "sycophantic lickspittle" means in the vocabulary of adults, and carries with it a crushing weight of odium which can hardly ever be lived down. "_judith_, what makes you think so?" cried sylvia, horrified at the epithet. "the way she looks at teacher--she never takes her eyes off her, and just jumps to do whatever teacher says. and then she looks at everybody so kind o' scared--'s'if she thought she was goin' to be hit over the head every minute and was so thankful to everybody for not doing it. makes me feel just _like_ doin' it!" declared judith, the anglo-saxon. sylvia recognized a scornful version of the appealing expression which she had found so touching in camilla. "why, i think it's sweet of them to look so! when they're so awfully pretty, and have such good clothes--and a carriage--and everything! they might be as stuck-up as anything! i think it's just _nice_ for them to be so sweet!" persisted sylvia. "i don't call it bein' sweet," said judith, "to watch teacher every minute and smile all over your face if she looks at you and hold on to her hand when she's talkin' to you! it's silly!" they argued all the way home, and the lunch hour was filled with appeals to their parents to take sides. professor and mrs. marshall, always ready, although occasionally somewhat absent, listeners to school news, professed themselves really interested in these new scholars and quite perplexed by the phenomenon of two beautiful dark-eyed children, called camilla and cécile fingál. judith refused to twist her tongue to pronounce the last syllable accented, and her version of the name made it sound celtic. "perhaps their father is irish and the mother italian or spanish," suggested professor marshall. sylvia was delighted with this hypothesis, and cried out enthusiastically, "oh yes--camilla _looks_ italian--like an italian princess!" judith assumed an incredulous and derisive expression and remained silent, an achievement of self-control which sylvia was never able to emulate. the fingál girls continued to occupy a large space in sylvia's thoughts and hours, and before long they held a unique position in the opinion of the school, which was divided about evenly between the extremes represented by sylvia and judith. the various accomplishments of the new-comers were ground both for uneasy admiration and suspicion. they could sing like birds, and, what seemed like witchcraft to the unmusical little americans about them, they could sing in harmony as easily as they could carry an air. and they recited with fire, ease, and evident enjoyment, instead of with the show of groaning, unwilling submission to authority which it was etiquette in the washington street school to show before beginning to "speak a piece." they were good at their books too, and altogether, with their quick docility, picturesqueness, and eagerness to please, were the delight of their teachers. in the fifth grade, sylvia's example of intimate, admiring friendship definitely threw popular favor on the side of camilla, who made every effort to disarm the hostility aroused by her too-numerous gifts of nature. she was ready to be friends with the poorest and dullest of the girls, never asked the important rôles in any games, hid rather than put forward the high marks she received in her studies, and was lavish with her invitations to her schoolmates to visit her at home. the outside of this house, which mr. fingál had rented a month or so before when they first moved to la chance, was like any one of many in the region; but the interior differed notably from those to which the other children were accustomed. for one thing there was no "lady of the house," mrs. fingál having died a short time before. camilla and cécile could do exactly as they pleased, and they gave the freedom of the house and its contents lavishly to their little friends. in the kitchen was an enormous old negro woman, always good-natured, always smelling of whiskey. she kept on hand a supply of the most meltingly delicious cakes and cookies, and her liberal motto, "heah, chile, put yo' han' in the cookie-jah and draw out what you lights on!" was always flourished in the faces of the schoolmates of the two daughters of the house. in the rest of the house, filled with dark, heavy, dimly shining furniture, reigned mattice, another old negro woman, but, unlike the jolly, fat cook, yellow and shriveled and silent. she it was who arrayed camille and cécile with such unerring taste, and her skilful old hands brushed and dressed their long black hair in artful twists and coils. here, against their own background, the two girls seemed more at their ease and showed more spontaneity than at school. they were fond of "dressing up" and of organizing impromptu dramatizations of the stories of familiar books, and showed a native ability for acting which explained their success in recitations. once when the fun was very rollicking, camilla brought out from a closet a banjo and, thrumming on its strings with skilful fingers, played a tingling accompaniment to one of her songs. the other little girls were delighted and clamored for more, but she put it away quickly with almost a frown on her sweet face, and for once in her life did not yield to their demands. "well, i think more of her for that!" remarked judith, when this incident was repeated to her by sylvia, who cried out, "why, judy, how _hateful_ you are about poor camilla!" nothing was learned about the past history of the fingáls beyond the fact, dropped once by the cook, that they had lived in louisiana before coming to la chance, but there were rumors, based on nothing at all, and everywhere credited, that their mother had been a spanish-american heiress, disinherited by her family for marrying a protestant. such a romantic and picturesque element had never before entered the lives of the washington street school-children. once a bold and insensitive little girl, itching to know more of this story-book history, had broken the silence about mrs. fingál and had asked camilla bluntly, "say, who _was_ your mother, anyway?" the question had been received by camilla with whitening lips and a desperate silence--ended by a sudden loud burst of sobs, which tore sylvia's heart. "you mean, horrid thing!" she cried to the inquisitor. "her mother isn't dead a year yet! camilla can't bear to talk about her!" once in a great while mr. fingál was visible,--a bald, middle-aged man with a white, sad face, and eyes that never smiled, although his lips often did when he saw the clusters of admiring children hanging about his daughters. judith held aloof from these gatherings at the fingál house, her prejudice against the girls never weakening, although cécile as well as camilla had won over almost all the other girls of her grade. judith showed the self-contained indifference which it was her habit to feel about matters which did not deeply stir her, and made no further attempts to analyze or even to voice her animosity beyond saying once, when asked to go with them on a drive, that she didn't like their "meechin' ways,"--a vigorous new england phrase which she had picked up from her mother. * * * * * about a month after the fingál girls entered school, the project of a picnic took form among the girls of the fifth a grade. one of them had an uncle who lived three or four miles from town on a farm which was passed by the inter-urban trolley line, and he had sent word that the children could, if they liked, picnic in his maple woods, which overhung the brown waters of the piquota river. there was to be no recess that day in five a, and the grade was to be dismissed half an hour earlier than usual, so that the girls could go out on the trolley in time to get the supper ready. the farmer was to bring them back by moonlight in his hay-wagon. the prospect seemed ideal. five a hummed with excitement and importance as the various provisions were allotted to the different girls and the plans talked over. sylvia was to bring bananas enough for the crowd; one of the german-american girls, whose father kept a grocery-store, promised pickles and olives; three or four together were to make the sandwiches, and camilla fingál was to bring along a big bag of the famous rich and be-raisined cookies that lived in the "cookie-jah." sylvia, who always enjoyed prodigiously both in anticipation and in reality any social event, could scarcely contain herself as the time drew near with every prospect of fair weather. the morning of the day was clear and fine, a perfect example of early spring, with silvery pearls showing on the tips of the red-twig osiers, and pussy-willows gleaming gray along the margins of swampy places. sylvia and judith felt themselves one with this upward surge of new life. they ran to school together, laughing aloud for no reason, racing and skipping like a couple of spring lambs, their minds and hearts as crystal-clear of any shadow as the pale-blue, smiling sky above them. the rising sap beat in their young bodies as well as in the beech-trees through which they scampered, whirling their school-books at the end of their straps, and shouting aloud to hear the squirrel's petulant, chattering answer. when they came within sight and hearing of the schoolhouse, their practised ears detected (although with no hint of foreboding) that something unusual had happened. the children were not running about and screaming, but standing with their heads close together, talking, and talking, and talking. as judith and sylvia came near, several ran to meet them, hurling out at them like a hard-flung stone: "say--what d'ye think? those fingál girls are niggers!" to the end of her life, sylvia would never forget the rending shock of disillusion brought her by these blunt words. she did not dream of disbelieving them, or of underestimating their significance. a thousand confirmatory details leaped into her mind: the rich, sweet voices--the dramatic ability--the banjo--the deprecatory air of timidity--the self-conscious unwillingness to take the leading position to which their talents and beauty gave them a right. yes, of course it was true! in the space of a heartbeat, all her romantic italian imaginings vanished. she continued to walk forward mechanically, in an utter confusion of mind. she heard judith asking in an astonished voice, "why, what makes you think so?" and she listened with a tortured attention to the statement vouchsafed in an excited chorus by a great many shrill little voices that the fingáls' old cook had taken a little too much whiskey for once and had fallen to babbling at the grocery-store before a highly entertained audience of neighbors, about the endless peregrinations of the fingál family in search of a locality where the blood of the children would not be suspected--"an' theah motheh, fo' all heh good looks, second cousin to mattice!" she had tittered foolishly, gathering up her basket and rolling tipsily out of the store. "_well_--" said judith, "did you ever!" she was evidently as much amazed as her sister, but sylvia felt with a sinking of the heart that what seemed to her the real significance of the news had escaped judith. the five a girls came trooping up to sylvia.--"of course we can't have camilla at the picnic."--"my uncle wouldn't want a _nigger_ there."--"we'll have to tell her she can't come." sylvia heard from the other groups of children about them snatches of similar talk.--"anybody might ha' known it--singin' the way they do--just like niggers' voices."--"they'll have to go to the _nigger_ school now."--"huh! puttin' on airs with their carriage and their black dresses--nothin' but niggers!" the air seemed full of that word. sylvia sickened and quailed. not so judith! it had taken her a moment to understand the way in which the news was being received. when she did, she turned very pale, and broke out into a storm of anger. she stuttered and halted as she always did when overmastered by feeling, but her words were molten. she ignored the tacit separation between children of different grades and, though but a third-grader, threw herself passionately among the girls who were talking of the picnic, clawing at their arms, forcing her way to the center, a raging, white-faced, hot-eyed little thunderbolt. "you're the meanest low-down things i ever heard of!" she told the astonished older girls, fairly spitting at them in her fury. "you--you go and s-sponge off the fingáls for c-c-cakes and rides and s-s-soda water--and you think they're too l-l-lovely for w-words--and you t-t-try to do your hair just the way c-c-camilla does. they aren't any different today f-f-from what they were yesterday--are they? you make me sick--you m-m-make m-m-me--" the big bell rang out its single deep brazen note for the formation of lines, and the habit of unquestioning, instant obedience to its voice sent the children all scurrying to their places, from which they marched forward to their respective classrooms in their usual convict silence. just as the line ahead was disappearing into the open door, the well-kept, shining surrey drove up in haste and camilla and cécile, dazzling in fresh white dresses and white hair ribbons, ran to their places. evidently they had heard nothing. camilla turned and smiled brightly at her friend as she stepped along in front of her. sylvia experienced another giddy reaction of feeling. up to that moment, she had felt nothing but shocked and intensely self-centered horror at the disagreeableness of what had happened, and a wild desire to run away to some quiet spot where she would not have to think about it, where it could not make her unhappy, where her heart would stop beating so furiously. what had she ever done to have such a horrid thing happen in her world! she had been as much repelled by judith's foaming violence as by any other element of the situation. if she could only get away! every sensitive nerve in her, tuned to a graceful and comely order of life, was rasped to anguish by the ugliness of it all. up to the moment camilla came running to her place--this had been the dominant impulse in the extreme confusion of sylvia's mind. but at the sight of camilla she felt bursting up through this confusion of mind, and fiercely attacking her instinct of self-preservation, a new force, unsuspected, terribly alive--sympathy with camilla--camilla, with her dog-like, timid, loving eyes--camilla, who had done nothing to deserve unhappiness except to be born--camilla, always uneasy with tragic consciousness of the sword over her head, and now smiling brightly with tragic unconsciousness that it was about to fall. sylvia's heart swelled almost unendurably. she was feeling, for the first time in her life consciously, the two natures under her skin, and this, their first open struggle for the mastery of her, was like a knife in her side. she sat during the morning session, her eyes on the clock, fearing miserably the moment of dismissal at noon, when she must take some action--she who only longed to run away from discord and dwell in peace. her mind swung, pendulum-like, from one extreme of feeling to another. every time that camilla smiled at her across the heads of the other children, sullenly oblivious of their former favorite, sylvia turned sick with shame and pity. but when her eyes rested on the hard, hostile faces which made up her world, the world she had to live in, the world which had been so full of sweet and innocent happiness for her, the world which would now be ranged with her or against her according to her decision at noon, she was overcome by a panic at the very idea of throwing her single self against this many-headed tyrant. with an unspeakable terror she longed to feel the safe walls of conformity about her. there was a battle with drawn swords in the heart of the little girl trying blindly to see where the _n_ came in "pneumonia." the clock crept on, past eleven, towards twelve. sylvia had come to no decision. she could come to no decision! she felt herself consciously to be unable to cope with the crisis. she was too small, too weak, too shrinking, to make herself iron, and resist an overwhelming force. it was five minutes of twelve. the order was given to put away books and pencils in the desks. sylvia's hands trembled so that she could hardly close the lid. "turn!" said the teacher, in her tired, mechanical voice. the children turned their stubbed-toed shoes out into the aisle, their eyes menacingly on camilla. "rise!" like a covey of partridge, they all stood up, stretching, twisting their bodies, stiff and torpid after the long hours of immobility. "pass!" clattering feet all over the building began moving along the aisles and out towards the cloakrooms. every one seized his own wraps with a practised snatch, and passed on, still in line, over the dusty wooden floors of the hall, down the ill-built, resounding stairs, out to the playground--out to sylvia's ordeal. as she came out blinkingly into the strong spring sunlight, she still had reached no decision. her impulse was to run, as fast as she could, out to the gate and down the street--home! but another impulse held her back. the lines were breaking up. camilla was turning about with a smile to speak to her. malevolent eyes were fixed on them from all sides. sylvia felt her indecision mount in a cloud about her, like blinding, scalding steam. and then, there before her, stood judith, her proud dark little face set in an angry scowl, her arm about cécile fingál's neck. sylvia never could think what she would have done if judith had not been there; but then, judith was one of the formative elements of her life--as much as was the food she ate or the thoughts she had. what she did was to turn as quickly and unhesitatingly as though she had always meant to do it, put her arm through camilla's and draw her rapidly towards the gate where the surrey waited. judith and cécile followed. the crowds of astonished, and for the moment silenced, children fell back before them. once she had taken her action, sylvia saw that it was the only one possible. but she was upheld by none of the traditional pride in a righteous action, nor by a raging single-mindedness like judith's, who stalked along, her little fists clenched, frowning blackly to right and left on the other children, evidently far more angry with them than sympathetic for cécile. sylvia did not feel angry with any one. she was simply more acutely miserable than she had ever dreamed possible. the distance to the surrey seemed endless to her. her sudden rush had taken camilla so completely by surprise that not until they were at the gate did she catch her breath to ask laughingly: "what in the world's the _matter_ with you, sylvia? you act so queer!" sylvia did not answer, every nerve bent on getting camilla into safety, but a little red-headed boy from the second grade, who could scarcely talk plainly, burst out chantingly, pointing his dirty forefinger at camilla: "nigger, nigger, never die, black face and shiny eye, curly hair and curly toes-- _that's_ the way the nigger goes!" there was a loud laugh from the assembled children. camilla wavered as though she had been struck. her lovely face turned ashy-gray, and she looked at sylvia with the eyes of one dying. from the deepest of her nature, sylvia responded to that look. she forgot the crowd,--boldly, unafraid, beside herself with pity, she flung her arms about her friend's neck, hiding the white face on her shoulder. judith ran up, blazing with rage, and pulled at camilla's arm. "don't give in! don't give in!" she screamed. "don't cry! don't let 'em see you care! sass 'em back, why don't you? hit that little boy over the head! sass them back, why don't you?" but camilla only shook her head vehemently and shrank away into the carriage, little cécile stumbling after, the silent tears streaming down her face. the two clasped each other, and the surrey drove quickly away, leaving the marshall girls standing on the curb. judith turned around and faced the crowds of enemies back of them. "nasty old things!" she cried, sticking out her tongue at them. she was answered by a yell, at which she made another face and walked away, pulling sylvia with her. for a few steps they were followed by some small boys who yelled in chorus: "judith's mad and i'm glad, and i know what'll please her: a bottle of wine to make her shine, and two little niggers to squeeze her!" they were beginning this immemorially old chant over again when judith turned and ran back towards them with a white, terrible face of wrath. at the sight they scattered like scared chickens. judith was so angry that she was shivering all over her small body, and she kept repeating at intervals, in a suffocated voice: "nasty old things! just wait till i tell my father and mother!" as they passed under the beech-trees, it seemed to sylvia a physical impossibility that only that morning they had raced and scampered along, whirling their school-books and laughing. they ran into the house, calling for their parents in excited voices, and pouring out incoherent exclamations. sylvia cried a little at the comforting sight of her mother's face and was taken up on mrs. marshall's lap and closely held. judith never cried; she had not cried even when she ran the sewing-machine needle through her thumb; but when infuriated she could not talk, her stammering growing so pronounced that she could not get out a word, and it was sylvia who told the facts. she was astonished to find them so few and so quickly stated, having been under the impression that something of intense and painful excitement had been happening every moment of the morning. but the experience of her parents supplied the tragic background of strange, passionate prejudice which sylvia could not phrase, and which gave its sinister meaning to her briefly told story: "--and so judith and i walked with them out to the gate, and then that little jimmy cohalan yelled out, 'nigger--nigger'--_you_ know--" judith broke in, her nostrils distended, "and they never sassed back, or hit anybody or anything--just crumpled up and cried!" sylvia was aghast with bewilderment. "why, i thought you were on their side!" "well, i _am_!" asserted judith, beginning to stammer again. "but i don't have to _like_ 'em any better, do i--because i get mad when a l-l-lot of mean, n-nasty girls that have b-b-b-been s-s-spongin' off--" she stopped, balked by her infirmity, and appealed to her parents with a silent look of fury. "what _shall_ we do, mother?" asked sylvia despairingly, looking up into her mother's face from the comfortable shelter of her long, strong arms. mrs. marshall looked down at her without speaking. it occurred to sylvia disquietingly that her mother's expression was a little like judith's. but when mrs. marshall spoke it was only to say in her usual voice: "well, the first thing to do is to have something to eat. whatever else you do, don't let a bad condition of your body interfere with what's going on in your mind. lunch is getting cold--and don't talk about trouble while you're eating. after you're through, father'll tell you what to do." professor marshall made a gesture of dismay. "good lord, barbara, don't put it off on me!" his wife looked at him with smoldering eyes. "i certainly have nothing to say that would be fit for children to hear!" she said in an energetic tone, beginning to serve the baked beans, which were the main dish for the day. after the meal, always rather hasty because of the children's short noon-hour, sylvia and judith went to sit on their father's knees, while he put an arm about each and, looking from one serious expectant face to the other, began his explanation. he cleared his throat, and hesitated before beginning, and had none of his usual fluency as he went on. what he finally said was: "well, children, you've stumbled into about the hardest problem there is in this country, and the honest truth is that we don't any of us know what's right to do about it. the sort of thing that's just happened in the washington street school is likely to happen 'most anywhere, and it's no harder on these poor little playmates of yours than on all colored people. but it's awfully hard on them all. the best we can do is to hope that after a great many people have lived and died, all trying to do their best, maybe folks will have learned how to manage better. of course, if grown men and women don't know how to help matters, you little girls can't expect to fix things either. all you can do is to go on being nice to camilla and--" judith broke in here hotly, "you don't mean we oughtn't to _do_ something about the girls being so mean to them--not letting camilla go to the picnic and--" "what _could_ you do?" asked her father quietly, "that would make things any better for camilla? if you were forty times as strong as you are, you couldn't make the other girls _want_ camilla at the picnic. it would only spoil the picnic and wouldn't help camilla a bit." professor marshall meditated a moment, and went on, "of course i'm proud of my little daughters for being kind to friends who are unhappy through no fault of theirs" (sylvia winced at this, and thought of confessing that she was very near running away and leaving camilla to her fate), "and i hope you'll go on being as nice to your unfortunate friends as ever--" judith said: "they aren't friends of mine! i don't like them!" as not infrequently happened, something about judith's attitude had been irritating her father, and he now said with some severity, "then it's a case where sylvia's loving heart can do more good than your anger, though you evidently think it very fine of you to feel that!" judith looked down in a stubborn silence, and sylvia drooped miserably in the consciousness of receiving undeserved praise. she opened her mouth to explain her vacillations of the morning, but her moral fiber was not equal to the effort. she felt very unhappy to have judith blamed and herself praised when things ought to have been reversed, but she could not bring herself to renounce her father's good opinion. professor marshall gave them both a kiss and set them down. "it's twenty minutes to one. you'd better run along, dears," he said. after the children had gone out, his wife, who had preserved an unbroken silence, remarked dryly, "so that's the stone we give them when they ask for bread." professor marshall made no attempt to defend himself. "my dim generalities are pretty poor provender for honest children's minds, i admit," he said humbly, "but what else have we to give them that isn't directly contradicted by our lives? there's no use telling children something that they never see put into practice." "it's not impossible, i suppose, to change our lives," suggested his wife uncompromisingly. professor marshall drew a great breath of disheartenment. "as long as i can live without thinking of that element in american life--it's all right. but when anything brings it home--like this today--i feel that the mean compromise we all make must be a disintegrating moral force in the national character. i feel like gathering up all of you, and going away--away from the intolerable question--to europe--and earning the family living by giving english lessons!" mrs. marshall cried out, "it makes _me_ feel like going out right here in la chance with a bomb in one hand and a rifle in the other!" from which difference of impression it may perhaps be seen that the two disputants were respectively the father and mother of sylvia and judith. mrs. marshall rose and began clearing away the luncheon dishes. as she disappeared into the kitchen, she paused a moment behind the door, a grim, invisible voice, remarking, "and what we shall do is, of course, simply nothing at all!" chapter viii sabotage sylvia and judith walked to school in a profound silence. sylvia was shrinking with every nerve from the ordeal of facing again those four hundred hostile faces; from the new and painful relations with her playmates which lay before her. she was now committed irrevocably to the cause of the fingáls, and she felt a terrified doubt of having enough moral strength to stick to that position. for the moment the problem was settled by their arriving at the schoolhouse almost too late. the lines were just marching into the building, and both girls barely slipped into their places in time. sylvia noticed with relief that camilla was absent. all the five a girls had paper bags or pasteboard boxes, and in the air of the five a cloakroom was a strong smell of vinegar. gretchen schmidt's pickles had begun to soak through the bag, and she borrowed the cover of a box to set them in. these sounds and smells recalled the picnic to sylvia's mind, the picnic to which she had been looking forward with such inexpressible pleasure. for an instant she was aghast to think that she had forgotten her bananas, tied up all ready at home on the sideboard. but the next instant she thought sadly that she probably would not be welcome at the picnic. she went to her seat and sat forlorn through the changing lessons of the afternoon. the teacher ground out the half-hour lessons wearily, her eyes on the clock, as unaware of the crisis in her class as though she were in another planet. at four o'clock sylvia filed out with the other children to the cloakroom, but there was not the usual quick, practised grab, each for his own belongings. the girls remained behind, exclaiming and lamenting. such a clamor arose that the teacher came hurrying in, anxious for the reputation for good behavior of her class. good behavior in the washington street school, as in a penitentiary, was gauged by the degree of silence and immobility achieved by the inmates. the girls ran to miss miller, crying out, "somebody's stolen our lunches,--we left them here--all our boxes and things--and they're all gone--!" sylvia hung back in the door to the schoolroom, apart from the others, half relieved by the unexpected event which diverted attention from her. one of the boys who had gone ahead in the line now came back, a large cucumber stuck in the corner of his mouth like a fat, green cigar. he announced with evident satisfaction in the girls' misfortune that the steps were strewn with pickles. the bag must have burst entirely as they were being carried downstairs. gretchen schmidt began to weep,--"all them good pickles--!" one of the girls flew at the boy who brought the bad news. "i just bet you did it yourself, jimmy weaver, you an' frank kennedy. you boys were mad anyhow because we didn't ask you to come to the picnic." jimmy's face assumed the most unmistakably genuine expression of astonishment and aggrieved innocence. "aw, you're off yer base! i wouldn't ha' gone to your darned old picnic--an' wasn't i in the room every minute this afternoon?" "no, you weren't--you weren't!" more of the girls had come to the attack, and now danced about the boy, hurling accusations at him. "you got excused to get a drink of water! and so did pete roberts! you did it then! you did it then! you did--" "hush, children! not so loud!" said miss miller. "_you'll have the principal down here_!" at this terrible threat the children, in spite of their heat, lowered their voices. jimmy was beginning an angry, half-alarmed protest--"aw, 'twas a tramp must ha' got in an' saw--" when he was pushed out of the way by a small, vigorous hand. judith marshall walked in, her face very pale. she was breathing hard, and through her parted lips, as though she had been running fast, her small white teeth showed like those of an enraged squirrel. "i threw your picnic things in the river," she said. the older children recoiled from this announcement, and from the small, tense figure. even the teacher kept her distance, as though judith were some dangerous little animal, "what in the world did you do that for?" she asked in a tone of stupefaction. "because they are n-n-nasty, mean things," said judith, "and if they weren't going to let c-c-camilla go to the picnic, i wasn't going to let them _have_ any picnic!" the teacher turned around to sylvia, now almost as white as her sister, and said helplessly, "sylvia, do you know what she's talking about?" sylvia went forward and took judith's hand. she was horrified beyond words by what judith had done, but judith was her little sister. "yes, ma'am," she said, to miss miller's question, speaking, for all her agitation, quickly and fluently as was her habit, though not very coherently. "yes, ma'am, i know. everybody was saying this morning that the fingáls' mother was a negro, and so the girls weren't going to invite camilla to the picnic, and it made judith mad." "why, _she_ didn't know camilla very well, did she?" asked the teacher, astonished. "no, ma'am," said sylvia, still speaking quickly, although the tears of fright were beginning to stand in her eyes. "it just made her mad because the girls weren't going to invite her because she didn't think it was anyhow her fault." "_whose_ fault!" cried the teacher, completely lost. "camilla's," quavered sylvia, the tears beginning to fall. there was a pause. "_well_--i _never_!" exclaimed the teacher, whose parents had come from new england. she was entirely at a loss to know how to treat this unprecedented situation, and like other potentates with a long habit of arbitrary authority, she covered her perplexity with a smart show of decision. "you children go right straight home, along out of the building this minute," she commanded. "you know you're not allowed to loiter around after school-hours. sylvia and judith, stay here. _i'm going to take you up to the principal's office_." the girls and jimmy weaver ran clattering down the stairs, in an agreeably breathless state of excitement. in their opinion the awfulness of the situation had been adequately recognized by the teacher and signaled by the equally awful expedient of a visit to the principal's office, the last resort in the case of the rarely occurring insubordinate boy. because miss miller had not the least idea what to say in an event so far out of the usual routine, she talked a great deal during the trip through the empty halls and staircases up to the principal's office on the top floor; chiefly to the effect that as many years as she had taught, never had she encountered such a bad little girl as judith. judith received this in stony silence, but sylvia's tears fell fast. all the years of her docile school existence had trained her in the habit of horror at insubordination above every other crime. she felt as disgraced as though judith had been caught stealing,--perhaps more so. miss miller knocked at the door; the principal, stooping and hollow-chested, opened it and stood confronting with tired, kind eyes the trio before him--the severe woman, with her pathetic, prematurely old face and starved flat body, the pretty little girl hanging down her head and weeping, the smaller child who gave him one black defiant look and then gazed past him out of the window. "well, miss miller--?" he asked. "i've brought you a case that i don't know what to do with," she began. "this is judith marshall, in the third grade, and she has just done one of the naughtiest things i ever heard of--" when she had finished her recital, "how do you know this child did it?" asked mr. bristol, always his first question in cases between teachers and pupils. "she was so brazen as to come right back and tell us so," said miss miller, her tone growing more and more condemnatory. judith's face, capable of such rare and positive beauty, had now shut down into a hard, repellent little mask of hate. mr. bristol looked at her for a moment in silence, and then at sylvia, sobbing, her arm crooked over her face, hiding everything but her shining curls. "and what has this little girl to do with anything?" he asked. "this is sylvia marshall, judith's sister, and of course she feels dreadfully about judith's doing such a dreadful thing," explained miss miller inelegantly. mr. bristol walked back to his desk and sat down. "well, i think i needn't keep you any longer, miss miller," he said. "if you will just leave the little girls here for a while perhaps i can decide what to do about it." thus mildly but unmistakably dismissed, the teacher took her departure, pushing sylvia and judith inside the door and shutting it audibly after her. she was so tired as she walked down the stairs that she ached, and she thought to herself, "as if things weren't hard enough without their going and being naughty--!" inside the room there was a moment's silence, filled almost palpably by sylvia's quivering alarm, and by judith's bitter mental resistance. mr. bristol drew out a big book from the shelf over his desk and held it out to sylvia. "i guess you all got pretty excited about this, didn't you?" he said, smiling wisely at the child. "you and your sister sit down and look at the pictures in this for a while, till you get cooled off, and then i'll hear all about it." sylvia took the book obediently, and drew judith to a chair, opening the pages, brushing away her tears, and trying to go through the form of looking at the illustrations, which were of the birds native to the region. in spite of her emotion, the large, brightly colored pictures did force their way through her eye to her brain, instinct in every fiber with the modern habit of taking in impressions from the printed page; and for years afterwards she could have told the names of the birds they saw during that long, still half-hour, broken by no sound but the tap-tap-tap of mr. bristol's typewriter. he did not once look towards them. this was partly a matter of policy, and partly because he was trying desperately to get a paper written for the next convention of public school principals, which he was to address on the "study of arithmetic in the seventh grade." he had very fixed and burning ideas about the teaching of arithmetic in the seventh grade, which he longed with a true believer's fervor to see adopted by all the schools in the country. he often said that if they would only do so, the study of arithmetic would be revolutionized in a decade. judith sat beside her sister, not pretending to look at the book, although the rigidity of her face insensibly softened somewhat in the contagious quiet of the room. when they had turned over the last page and shut the book, mr. bristol faced them again, leaning back in his swivel-chair, and said: "now, children--all quiet? one of you begin at the beginning and tell me how it happened." judith's lips shut together in a hard line, so sylvia began, surprised to find her nerves steadied and calmed by the silent half-hour of inaction back of her. she told how they were met that morning by the news, how the children shouted after camilla as she got into the carriage, how the five a girls had decided to exclude her from the picnic, how angry judith had been, and then--then--she knew no more to tell beyond the bare fact of judith's passionate misdeed. mr. bristol began to cross-examine judith in short, quiet sentences. "what made you think of throwing the things into the river?" "i was afraid they'd get them back somehow if i didn't," said judith, as if stating a self-evident argument. "where did you go to throw them in? to the monroe street bridge?" "no, i didn't have time to go so far. i just went down through randolph street to the bank and there was a boat there tied to a tree, and i got in and pushed it out as far as the rope would go and dropped the things in from the other end." sylvia caught her breath in terror at this recital. the piquota river ran swift and turbid and deep between high banks at that point. "weren't you afraid to venture out in a boat all by yourself?" asked the man, looking at judith's diminutive person. "yes, i was," said judith unexpectedly. mr. bristol said "oh--" and stood in thought for a moment. some one knocked on the door, and he turned to open it. at the sight of the tall figure standing there in his pepper-and-salt suit, sylvia's heart gave a great bound of incredulous rapture. the appearance of a merciful mediator on the day of judgment could not have given her keener or more poignant relief. she and judith both ran headlong to their father, catching his hands in theirs, clinging to his arms and pressing their little bodies against his. the comfort sylvia felt in his mere physical presence was inexpressible. it is one of the pure golden emotions of childhood, which no adult can ever recover, save perhaps a mystic in a moment of ecstatic contemplation of the power and loving-kindness of his god. professor marshall put out his hand to the principal, introducing himself, and explained that he and his wife had been a little uneasy when the children had not returned from school. mr. bristol shook the other's hand, saying that he knew of him through mutual acquaintances and assuring him that he could not have come at a more opportune moment. "your little daughter has given me a hard nut to crack. i need advice." both men sat down, sylvia and judith still close to their father's side, and mr. bristol told what had happened in a concise, colorless narration, ending with judith's exploit with the boat. "now what would _you_ do in _my_ place?" he said, like one proposing an insoluble riddle. sylvia, seeing the discussion going on in such a quiet, conversational tone, ventured in a small voice the suggestion that judith had done well to confess, since that had saved others from suspicion. "the girls were sure that jimmy weaver had done it." "was that why you came back and told?" asked professor marshall. "no," said judith bluntly, "i never thought of that. i wanted to be sure they knew why it happened." the two men exchanged glances. professor marshall said: "didn't you understand me when i told you at noon that even if you could make the girls let camilla go to the picnic, she wouldn't have a good time? you couldn't make them like to have her?" "yes, i understood all right," said judith, looking straight at her father, "but if she couldn't have a good time--and no fault of hers--i wasn't going to let _them_ have a good time either. i wasn't trying to make them want her. i was trying to get even with them!" professor marshall looked stern. "that is just what i feared, judith, and that hateful spirit is the bad thing about the whole business." he turned to the principal: "how many girls were going to the picnic?" the other, with a wide gesture, disavowed any knowledge of the matter. "good heavens! how should i know?" sylvia counted rapidly. "fourteen," she said. "well, mr. bristol, how would this do for a punishment? judith has worked in various ways, digging up dandelions from the lawn, weeding flower-beds, running errands--you know--all the things children do--and she has a little more than five dollars in her iron savings-bank, that she has been saving for more than a year to buy a collie puppy. would you be satisfied if she took that money, divided it into fourteen parts, and took it herself in person to each of the girls?" during this proposal judith's face had taken on an expression of utter dismay. she looked more childlike, more like her years than at any moment during the interview. "oh, _father_!" she implored him, with a deep note of entreaty. he did not look at her, but over her head at the principal, who was rising from his chair with every indication of relief on his face." nothing could be better," he said. "that will be just right--every one will be satisfied. and i'll just say for the sake of discipline that little judith shan't come back to school till she has done her penance. of course she can get it all done before supper-time tonight. all our families live in the vicinity of the school." he was shaking professor marshall's hand again and edging him towards the door, his mind once more on his paper, hoping that he might really finish it before night--if only there were no more interruptions! his achievement in divining the mental processes of two children hysterical with excitement, his magnetic taming of those fluttering little hearts, his inspired avoidance of a fatal false step at a critical point in the moral life of two human beings in the making--all this seemed as nothing to him--an incident of the day's routine already forgotten. he conceived that his real usefulness to society lay in the reform of arithmetic-teaching in the seventh grade, and he turned back to his arguments with the ardor of the great landscape painter who aspires to be a champion at billiards. professor marshall walked home in silence with his two daughters, explained the matter to his wife, and said that he and sylvia would go with judith on her uncomfortable errand. mrs. marshall listened in silence and went herself to get the little bank stuffed full of painfully earned pennies and nickels. then she bade them into the kitchen and gave judith and sylvia each a cookie and a glass of milk. she made no comment whatever on the story, or on her husband's sentence for the culprit, but just as the three, were going out of the door, she ran after them, caught judith in her arms, and gave her a passionate kiss. * * * * * the next day was saturday, and it was suggested that judith and sylvia carry on their campaign by going to see the fingáls and spending the morning playing with them as though nothing had happened. as they approached the house, somewhat perturbed by the prospect, they saw with surprise that the windows were bare of the heavy yellow lace curtains which had hung in the parlor, darkening that handsomely furnished room to a rich twilight. they went up on the porch, and judith rang the bell resolutely, while sylvia hung a little back of her. from this position she could see into the parlor, and exclaimed, "why, judy, this isn't the right house--nobody lives here!" the big room was quite empty, the floors bare of the large soft rugs, and as the children pressed their faces to the pane, they could see through an open door into a bedroom also dismantled and deserted. they ran around the house to the back door and knocked on it. there was no answer. judith turned the knob, the door opened, and they stood in what had been unmistakably the fingáls' kitchen. evidence of wild haste and confusion was everywhere about them--the floor was littered with excelsior, the shelves half cleared and half occupied still with cooking supplies, a packing-box partly filled with kitchenware which at the last moment the fugitives had evidently decided to abandon. the little girls stood in this silent desolation, looking about them with startled eyes. a lean mother-cat came and rubbed her thin, pendent flanks against their legs, purring and whining. three kittens skirmished joyfully in the excelsior, waylaying one another in ambush and springing out with bits of the yellow fibers clinging to their woolly soft fur. "they've _gone_!" breathed sylvia. "they've gone away for good!" judith nodded, even her bold and unimaginative spirit somewhat daunted by the ghostly silence of the house. sylvia tiptoed to the swinging-door and pushed it open. yes, there was the pantry, like the kitchen, in chaotic disorder, tissue paper and excelsior thick on the floor, and entangled with it the indescribable jumble of worthless, disconnected objects always tumbled together by a domestic crisis like a fire or a removal--old gloves, whisk-brooms, hat-forms, lamps, magazines, tarnished desk-fittings. the sight was so eloquent of panic haste that sylvia let the door swing shut, and ran back into the kitchen. judith was pointing silently to a big paper bag on the shelf. it had been tossed there with some violence evidently, for the paper had burst and the contents had cascaded out on the shelf and on the floor--the rich, be-raisined cookies which camilla was to have taken to the picnic. sylvia felt the tears stinging her eyelids, and pulled judith out of the tragic house. they stood for a moment in the yard, beside a bed of flowering crocuses, brilliant in the sun. the forsaken house looked down severely at them from its blank windows. judith was almost instantly relieved of mental tension by the outdoor air, and stooped down unconcernedly to tie her shoe. she broke the lacing and had to sit down, take it out of the shoe, tie it, and put it back again. the operation took some time, during which sylvia stood still, her mind whirling. for the first time in her steadily forward-going life there was a sharp, irrevocable break. something which had been yesterday was now no more. she would never see camilla again, she who recalled camilla's look of anguish as though they still stood side by side. her heart filled with unspeakable thankfulness that she had put her arms around camilla's neck at that supreme last moment. that had not been judith's doing. that had come from her own heart. unconsciously she had laid the first stone in the wall of self-respect which might in the future fortify her against her weaknesses. she stood looking up blindly at the house, shivering again at the recollection of its echoing, empty silence. the moment was one she never forgot. standing there in that commonplace backyard, staring up at a house like any one of forty near her, she felt her heart grow larger. in that moment, tragedy, mystery, awe, and pity laid their shadowy fingers on her shining head. chapter ix the end of childhood that afternoon a couple of children who came to play in the marshall orchard brought news that public opinion, after the fashion of that unstable weathercock, was veering rapidly, and blowing from a wholly unexpected quarter. "my papa says," reported gretchen schmidt, who never could keep anything to herself, even though it might be by no means to her advantage to proclaim it--"my papa says that he thinks the way american people treats colored peoples is just fierce; and he says if he'd ha' known about our not letting camilla go to the picnic, he'd ha' taken the trouble to me '_mit der flachen hand schlagen._' that means he'd have spanked me good and plenty." maria perkins, from the limb where she hung by her knees, responded, "yup, my uncle eben says he likes judy's spunk." "i guess he wouldn't have, if it'd ha' been his pickles!" gretchen made a last stand against the notorious injustice of fickle adult prejudices. but the tide had begun to turn. on monday morning sylvia and judith found themselves far from ostracized, rather the center of much respectful finger-pointing on the part of children from the other grades who had never paid the least attention to them before. and finally when the principal, passing majestically from room to room in his daily tour of inspection, paused in his awful progress and spoke to judith by name, asking her quite familiarly and condescendingly what cities you would pass through if you went from chicago to new orleans, the current set once and for all in the other direction. no mention was ever made of the disappearance of the fingáls, and the marshall children found their old places waiting for them. it was not long before judith had all but forgotten the episode; but sylvia, older and infinitely more impressionable, found it burned irrevocably into her memory. for many and many a week, she did not fall asleep without seeing camilla's ashy face of wretchedness. and it was years before she could walk past the house where the fingáls had lived, without feeling sick. her life was, however, brimming with active interests which occupied her, mind and body. there was rarely a day when a troop of children did not swarm over the marshall house and barn, playing and playing and playing with that indomitable zest in life which is the birthright of humanity before the fevers and chills of adolescence begin. sylvia and judith, moreover, were required to assume more and more of the responsibility of the housework, while their mother extracted from the marshall five acres an ever increasing largesse of succulent food. sylvia's séances with old reinhardt and the piano were becoming serious affairs: for it was now tentatively decided that she was to earn her living by teaching music. there were many expeditions on foot with their mother, for mrs. marshall had become, little by little, chief nurse and adviser to all the families of the neighborhood; and on her errands of service one of her daughters was needed to carry supplies and act as assistant. and finally, as the children grew older, and the family tradition of bookishness took hold of them, there were shelves and shelves to be devoured, a strange mixture--thackeray, maeterlinck, fielding, hakluyt, ibsen, dickens, ruskin, shaw, austen, molière, defoe, cervantes, shakespeare,--the children dipped, or tasted or swallowed whole, according to their temperaments and the books they happened on. when sylvia was thirteen, almost fourteen years old, she "graduated" from the eighth grade of the public schools and was ready to enter the high school. but after a good many family councils, in most of which, after the unreticent marshall manner, she herself was allowed to be present, it was decided not to send her to the huge new central high school, which had cost la chance such a big slice of its taxes, but to prepare her at home for her course at the state university. she had been growing very fast, was a little thin and white, and had been outgrowing her strength. this at least was the reason given out to inquirers. in reality her father's prejudice against high school life for adolescents was the determining cause. in the course of his university work he was obliged to visit a good many high schools, and had acquired a violent prejudice against the stirring social life characteristic of those institutions. sylvia's feelings about this step aside from the beaten track were, like many of sylvia's feelings, decidedly mixed. she was drawn towards the high school by the suction of the customary. a large number of her classmates expected as a matter of course to pass on in the usual way; but, with an uneasy qualm, half pride and half apprehension, sylvia was beginning to feel her difference from ordinary children. she was not altogether sorry to say good-bye to her playmates, with whom she no longer had much in common. she would miss the fun of class-life, of course; but there was a certain distinction involved in being educated "differently." she might be queer, but since she was apparently fated to be queer, she might as well not be "common" as well. finally, because she was still, at fourteen, very much of a child, the scale was tipped by her thinking what fun it would be to go down-town on errands in school hours. charles lamb, lost in painful wonder at his own leisure after thirty-six years of incessant office-hours, could savor no more acutely than an american school-child the exquisite flavor of freedom at an hour formerly dedicated to imprisonment. as a matter of fact, during the next three years sylvia's time was more constantly occupied than when there was a fixed time-limit to her studies. her teachers were always about her, and lightly as the new yoke pressed, she wore it practically without intermission. her immersion in the ideals, the standards, the concepts of her parents was complete, engulfing. somebody was nearly always teaching her something. she studied history and latin with her father; mathematics with her mother. she learned to swim, to play tennis, to ride in the summer-time, and to skate on the frozen swimming-pool in winter, all without stirring from home. old reinhardt was supposed to come twice a week to give her a piano-lesson, but actually he dropped in almost every day to smoke meditatively and keep a watchful ear on her practising. although during those years she was almost literally rooted to the marshall soil, watered by marshall convictions, and fed by marshall information, the usual miracle of irresistibly individual growth went silently and unconsciously forward in her. she was growing up to be herself, and not her mother or her father, little as any one in her world suspected the presence of this unceasingly recurrent phenomenon of growth. she was alive to all the impressions reflected so insistently upon her, but she transmuted them into products which would immensely have surprised her parents, they being under the usual parental delusion that they knew every corner of her heart. her budding aversions, convictions, ambitions were not in the least the aversions, convictions, and ambitions so loudly voiced about her; and a good deal of her energy was taken up in a more or less conscious reaction from the family catchwords, with especial emphasis laid on an objection to the family habit of taking their convictions with great seriousness. her father would have been aghast if he could have felt the slightest reflection from the heat of her detestation of his favorite, emersonian motto, which, now that he had reached five and forty, he was apt to repeat with the iteration natural to his age, rousing in sylvia the rebellious exasperation felt by _her_ age for over-emphatic moralizings. on the occasion of one of the annual gatherings at the marshall house of the seniors in her father's classes, she remarked fiercely to judith, "if father gets off that old emerson, 'what will you have, quoth god. take it and pay for it,' again tonight in his speech, i'm going to get right up and scream." judith stared. the girls were in the kitchen, large aprons over their best dresses, setting out rows of plates for the chicken salad which was to come after the music. "i don't see anything to scream about in that!" said judith with a wondering contempt for sylvia's notions. "i'm so _sick_ of it!" cried sylvia, tearing the lettuce-leaves apart with venom. "father never gets through any sort of a speech that he doesn't work it in--and i hate it, anyhow! it makes me feel as though somebody had banged a big door in my face and shut me up in prison." "well, for goodness' sakes!" cried judith, who, at this period of their lives, had remained rather more than her three years behind sylvia's intelligence. "how do you get all that out of _that_!" "you haven't sense enough to know what it means, that's all!" retorted sylvia. "it means something perfectly hateful, the way father uses it. it means you've got to pay for every single thing you do or get in this world! it's somebody tagging you round with an account-book, seeing how big a bill you're running up. it's the perfectly horrid way father and mother make us do, of _always_ washing up the dishes we dirty, and _always_ picking up the things we drop. seems as though i'd die happy, if i could just step out of my nightgown in the morning and _leave_ it there, and know that it would get hung up without my doing it." "well, if that's all you want, to die happy," said judith, the literal-minded, "i will do that much for you!" "oh gracious, no! that wouldn't do any good! you know i couldn't take any satisfaction letting _you_ do that!" objected sylvia, peevishly, fuming and fumbling helplessly before the baffling quality of her desires. "i don't want just somebody to pick it up for me. i want it picked up by somebody that i don't care about, that i don't see, that i'd just as soon have do the tiresome things as not. i want somebody to do it, and me to feel all right about _having_ them do it!" "well, for goodness' sakes!" judith was reduced again to mere wonder. professor and mrs. marshall stepped into the kitchen for a moment to see that everything was progressing smoothly. the professor had his viola in his hand and was plucking softly at the strings, a pleasant, tranquil anticipation of harmony on his face. he looked affectionately at his daughters and thought what dear good children they were. judith appealed to her parents: "sylvia's as crazy as a loon. she says she wants somebody to do her work for her, and yet she wants to feel all right about shirking it!" mrs. marshall did not follow, and did not care. "what?" she said indifferently, tasting the chicken-salad in the big yellow bowl, and, with an expression of serious consideration, adding a little more salt to it. but sylvia's father understood, "what you want to remember, daughter," he said, addressing himself to his oldest child with a fond certainty of her quick apprehension, "is that fine saying of emerson, 'what will you have, quoth--'" a raw-boned assistant appeared in the doorway. "everybody here, i guess, perfesser," he said. when the girls were alone again, sylvia stole a look at judith and broke into noiseless giggles. she laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks and she had to stop work and go to the kitchen sink to wash her face and take a drink of water. "you never do what you say you're going to," said judith, as gravely alien to this mood as to the other. "i thought you said you'd scream." "i _am_ screaming," said sylvia, wiping her eyes again. they were very familiar with the work of preparing the simple "refreshments" for university gatherings. their mother always provided exactly the same viands, and long practice had made them letter-perfect in the moves to be made. when they had finished portioning off the lettuce-leaves and salad on the plates, they swiftly set each one on a fresh crêpe-paper napkin. sylvia professed an undying hatred for paper napkins. "i don't see why," said judith. "they're so much less bother than the other kind when you're only going to use them once, this way." "that's it," asserted sylvia; "that's the very stingy, economical thing about them i hate, their _not_ being a bother! i'd like to use big, fine-damask ones, all shiny, that somebody had ironed twenty minutes, every one, like those we had at eleanor hubert's birthday party. and then i'd scrunch them up and throw them in the laundry if there was the least speck on them." "i wouldn't like the job of doing them up," said judith. "neither would i. i'd hate it! and i wouldn't," continued sylvia, roaming at will in her enchanted garden; "i'd hire somebody to take all the bother of buying them and hemming them and doing them up and putting them on the table. all i'd do, would be to shake them out and lay them across my lap," she went through a dainty-fingered pantomime, "and never think a thing about how they got there. that's all _i_ want to do with napkins. but i do love 'em big and glossy. i could _kiss_ them!" judith was almost alarmed at the wildness of sylvia's imaginings. "why, you talk as though you didn't have good sense tonight, sylvie. it's the party. you always get so excited over parties." judith considered it a "come-down" to get excited over anything. "great scotland! i guess i don't get excited over one of these _student_ parties!" sylvia repudiated the idea. "all father's 'favorite students' are such rough-necks. and it makes me tired to have all our freaks come out of their holes when we have company--miss lindström and mr. hecht and cousin parnelia and all." "the president comes," advanced judith. sylvia was sweeping in her iconoclasm. "what if he does--old fish-mouth! _he's_ nobody--he's a rough-neck himself. he used to be a baptist minister. he's only president because he can talk the hayseeds in the legislature into giving the university big appropriations. and anyhow, he only comes here because he _has_ to--part of his job. he doesn't like the freaks any better than i do. the last time he was here, i heard cousin parnelia trying to persuade him to have planchette write him a message from abraham lincoln. isn't she the limit, anyhow!" the girls put off their aprons and slipped into the big, low-ceilinged living-room, singing like a great sea-shell with thrilling violin-tones. old reinhardt was playing the kreutzer, with professor marshall at the piano. judith went quietly to sit near professor kennedy, and sylvia sat down near a window, leaning her head against the pane as she listened, her eyes fixed on the blackness outside. her face cleared and brightened, like a cloudy liquor settling to limpidity in a crystal vase. her lips parted a little, her eyes were fixed on a point incalculably distant. her mind emptied itself of everything but her joy in the glorious cadences.... if she had been asked what she and judith had been talking of, she could not have told; but when, after the second movement was finished, old reinhardt put down his violin and began to loosen his bow (he never played the presto finale), it all came back to the girl as she looked around her at her father's guests. she hated the way the young men's adam's apples showed through their too-widely opened collars, and she loathed the way the thin brown hair of one of the co-eds was strained back from her temples. she received the president's condescending, oleaginous hand-shake with a qualm at his loud oratorical voice and plebeian accent, and she headed cousin parnelia off from a second mediumistic attack, hating her badly adjusted false-front of hair as intensely as ever loyola hated a heretic. and this, although uncontrollably driven by her desire to please, to please even a roomful of such mediocrities, she bore to the outward eyes the most gracious aspect of friendly, smiling courtesy. professor marshall looked at her several times, as she moved with her slim young grace among his students and friends, and thought how fortunate he was in his children. after the chicken-salad and coffee had been successfully served and eaten, one of the seniors stepped forward with an awkward crudeness and presented professor marshall with a silver-mounted blotting-pad. the house was littered with such testimonials to the influence of the professor on the young minds under his care, testimonials which his children took as absolutely for granted as they did everything else in the home life. on this occasion sylvia was so afflicted because the young rustic appointed to make the presentation speech, forgot most of what he had planned to say, that she felt nothing but the liveliest impatience with the whole proceeding. but her father's quick heart was touched, and more than half of his usual little speech of farewell to his seniors was an expression of thanks to them. before he had finished the last part, which consisted of eloquent exhortations to the higher life, none the less sincerely heartfelt for being remarkably like similar speeches he had made during the last twenty years, he had quoted his favorite saying from emerson. judith looked apprehensively at sylvia; but she was not laughing. she evidently was not hearing a word her father said, being lost in the contemplation of the perfect evening costume of the newest assistant in professor marshall's department. he was a young man from massachusetts, fresh from harvard, who had come west to begin his teaching that year. his was certainly the most modern dress-suit in the university faculty; and he wore it with a supercilious disregard for its perfections which greatly impressed sylvia. after these usual formalities were thus safely past, some one suggested a game of charades to end the evening. amid great laughter and joking from the few professors present and delighted response from the students who found it immensely entertaining to be on such familiar terms with their instructors, two leaders began to "choose sides." the young assistant from harvard said in a low tone to his friend, not noticing professor marshall's young daughter near them: "they won't really go on and _do_ this fool, undignified, backwoods stunt, will they? they don't expect us to join _in_!" "oh yes, they will," answered his friend, catching up his tone of sophisticated scorn. he too was from harvard, from an earlier class. "you'll be lucky if they don't have a spelling-down match, later on." "good lord!" groaned the first young man. "oh, you mustn't think all of the university society is like _this_!" protested the second. "and anyhow, we can slope now, without being noticed," sylvia understood the accent and tone of this passage more than the exact words, but it summed up and brought home to her in a cruelly clarified form her own groping impressions. the moment was a terribly painful one for her. her heart swelled, the tears came to her eyes, she clenched her fists. her fine, lovely, and sensitive face darkened to a tragic intensity of resolve. she might have been the young hannibal, vowing to avenge carthage. what she was saying to herself passionately was, "when _i_ get into the university, i will _not_ be a jay!" it was under these conditions that sylvia passed from childhood, and emerged into the pains and delights and responsibilities of self-consciousness. book ii _a false start to athens_ chapter x sylvia's first glimpse of modern civilization although there was not the slightest actual connection between the two, the trip to chicago was always in sylvia's mind like the beginning of her university course. it is true that the journey, practically the first in sylvia's life, was undertaken shortly before her matriculation as a freshman, but this fortuitous chronological connection could not account for sylvia's sense of a deeper unity between the two experiences. the days in chicago, few as they were, were as charged with significance for her as the successive acts in a drama, and that significance was of the substance and marrow of the following and longer passage in her life. the fact that her father and her mother disagreed about the advisability of the trip was one of the salient points in the beginning. when aunt victoria, breaking a long silence with one of her infrequent letters, wrote to say that she was to be in chicago "on business" during the last week of september, and would be very glad to have her sister-in-law bring her two nieces to see her there, professor marshall said, with his usual snort: "business nothing! she never has any business. she won't come to see them _here_, that's all. the idea's preposterous." but mrs. marshall, breaking a long silence of her own, said vigorously: "she is your sister, and you and your family are the only blood-kin she has in the world. i've a notion--i have had for some time--that she was somehow terribly hurt on that last visit here. it would be ungenerous not to go half-way to meet her now." sylvia, anxiously hanging on her father's response, was surprised when he made no protest beyond, "well, do as you please. i can keep lawrence all right. she only speaks of seeing you and the girls." it did not occur to sylvia, astonished at this sudden capitulation, that there might be a discrepancy between her father's habit of vehement speech and his real feeling in this instance. it was enough for her, however, that they were going to take a long journey on the train overnight, that they were going to see a great city, that they were going to see aunt victoria, about whom her imagination had always hovered with a constancy enhanced by the odd silence concerning her which was the rule in the marshall house. she was immensely stirred by the prospect. she made herself, in the brief interval between the decision and the beginning of the journey, a new shirt-waist of handkerchief linen. it took the last cent of her allowance to buy the material, and she was obliged, by a secret arrangement with her father, to discount the future, in order to have some spending-money in the city. mrs. marshall was quite disappointed by the dullness of sylvia's perceptions during that momentous first trip, which she had looked forward to as an occasion for widening the girls' horizon to new interests. oddly enough it was judith, usually so much less quick than sylvia, who asked the intelligent questions and listened attentively to her mother's explanations about the working of the air-brakes, and the switching systems in railroad yards, and the harvesting of the crops in the flat, rich country gliding past the windows. it was quite evident that not a word of this highly instructive talk reached sylvia, sitting motionless, absorbing every detail of her fellow-passengers' aspect, in a sort of trance of receptivity. she scarcely glanced out of the windows, except when the train stopped at the station in a large town, when she transferred her steady gaze to the people coming and going from the train. "just look, sylvia, at those blast-furnaces!" cried her mother as they passed through the outskirts of an industrial town. "they have to keep them going, you know, night and day." "oh, do they? what for?" asked judith, craning her neck to watch the splendid leap of the flames into the darkness. "because they can't allow the ore to become--" mrs. marshall wondered why, during her conscientious explanation of blast-furnaces, sylvia kept her eyes dully fixed on her hands on her lap. sylvia was, as a matter of fact, trying imaginary bracelets on her slim, smooth, white wrists. the woman opposite her wore bracelets. "isn't it fine," remarked the civic-minded mrs. marshall, "to see all these little prairie towns so splendidly lighted?" "i hadn't noticed them," said sylvia, her gaze turned on the elegant nonchalance of a handsome, elderly woman ahead of her. her mother looked at her askance, and thought that children are unaccountable. there were four of the chicago days, and such important events marked them that each one had for all time a physiognomy of its own. years afterwards when their travels had far outrun that first journey, sylvia and judith could have told exactly what occurred on any given day of that sojourn, as "on the third day we were in chicago." the event of the first day was, of course, the meeting with aunt victoria. they went to see her in a wonderful hotel, entering through a classic court, with a silver-plashing fountain in the middle, and slim ionic pillars standing up white and glorious out of masses of palms. this dreamlike spot of beauty was occupied by an incessantly restless throng of lean, sallow-faced men in sack-coats, with hats on the backs of their heads and cigars in the corners of their mouths. the air was full of tobacco smoke and the click of heels on the marble pavement. at one side was a great onyx-and-marble desk, looking like a soda-water fountain without the silver faucets, and it was the thin-cheeked, elegant young-old man behind this structure who gave instructions whereby mrs. marshall and her two daughters found their way to aunt victoria's immense and luxurious room. she was very glad to see them, shaking hands with her sister-in-law in the respectful manner which that lady always seemed to inspire in her, and embracing her two tall young nieces with a fervor which melted sylvia's heart back to her old childish adoration. "what _beautiful_ children you have, barbara!" cried mrs. marshall-smith, holding judith off at arm's length and looking from her to sylvia; "although i suppose i ought not to tell them that!" she looked at sylvia with an affectionate laugh. "will you be spoiled if i tell you you are very pretty?" she asked. "i can't think of anything but how pretty _you_ are!" said sylvia, voicing honestly what was in her mind. this answer caused her aunt to cry out: "oh! oh! and tact too! she's meant for social success!" she left this note to vibrate in sylvia's ears and turned again to her sister-in-law with hospitable remarks about the removing of wraps. as this was being done, she took advantage of the little bustle to remark from the other side of the room, "i rather hoped elliott would come with you." she spoke lightly, but there was the tremor of feeling in her sweet voice which sylvia found she remembered as though it had been but yesterday she had heard it last. "you didn't ask him," said mrs. marshall, with her usual directness. mrs. marshall-smith arched her eyebrows, dropped her eyelids, and shook her head. "no, i didn't ask him," she admitted, and then with a little wry twist of her lips, "but i rather hoped he might feel like coming." she looked down at her hands. mrs. marshall surprised her daughters very much by going across the room and kissing her husband's sister. mrs. marshall-smith took the other's strong, hard hand between her soft fingers. "that's generous in you, barbara," she said, looking intently into the pitying dark eyes, "i'm human, you know," "yes, i know you're human," said mrs. marshall, looking down at her gravely. "so are we all of us. so's elliott. don't forget that." with which obscure reference, entirely unintelligible to the two girls, the matter was forever dropped. the two ladies thereupon embarked upon the difficult business of laying out to the best advantage the few days before them so that every hour might be utilized for the twofold purpose of seeing each other and having the girls see the sights. judith went to the window during this conversation, and looked down into the crowded street, the first city street she had ever seen. sylvia sat quietly and imprinted upon her memory every item in the appearance of the two women before her, not the first time she had compared them. mrs. marshall was dressed in a dark-blue, well-preserved, ready-made suit, dating from the year before. it was in perfect condition and quite near enough the style of the moment to pass unnoticed. sylvia saw nothing to be ashamed of in her mother's unaccented and neutral costume, but there was no denying that she looked exactly like any one else. what was most apparent to the discerning eye was that her garb had been organized in every detail so as to consume as little thought and effort as possible. whereas aunt victoria--sylvia's earnest and thoughtful efforts at home-dressmaking had fitted her, if for nothing else, for a full appreciation of mrs. marshall-smith's costume. she had struggled with cloth enough to bow her head in respect and awe before the masterly tailoring of the rich, smooth broadcloth dress. she knew from her own experience that the perfection of those welted seams could not be accomplished by even the most intense temporary concentration of amateur forces. no such trifling fire of twigs lighted the way to that pinnacle. the workman who had achieved that skill had cut down the whole tree of his life and thrown it into the flame. like a self-taught fiddler at the concert of a master, sylvia's failures had taught her the meaning of success. although her inexperience kept her from making at all a close estimate of the literal cost of the toilet, her shrewdness made her divine the truth, which was that mrs. marshall-smith, in spite of the plainness of her attire, could have clad herself in cloth-of-gold at a scarcely greater expenditure of the efforts and lives of others. sylvia felt that her aunt was the most entirely enviable person in the world, and would gladly have changed places with her in a moment. that was, on the whole, the note of the chicago trip, all the dazzling lights and reflections of which focused, for sylvia, upon aunt victoria's radiant person. at times, the resultant beam was almost too much for the young eyes; as, for example, on the next day when the two made a momentous shopping expedition to the largest and finest department store in the city. "i've a curiosity to see," aunt victoria had declared carelessly, "what sort of things are sold in a big western shop, and besides i've some purchases to make for the lydford house. things needs freshening up there. i've thought of wicker and chintz for the living-room. it would be a change from what i've had. perhaps it would amuse the children to go along?" at this, judith, who had a boy's detestation of shopping, looked so miserable that aunt victoria had laughed out, her frank, amused laugh, and said, "well, sylvia and i alone, then!" "judith and i'll go to lincoln park to take a walk by the lake," said mrs. marshall. "our inland young folks have never seen so much water all at once." sylvia had been, of course, in the two substantial and well-run department stores of la chance, when she went with her mother to make their carefully considered purchases. they always went directly to the department in question, where mrs. marshall's concise formula ran usually along such lines as, "i would like to look at misses' coats, size , blue or brown serge, moderate style, price somewhere between ten and fifteen dollars." and then they looked at misses' coats, size , blue or brown serge, of the specified price; and picked out one. sylvia's mother was under the impression that she allowed her daughters to select their own clothes because, after all these defining and limiting preliminaries, she always, with a very genuine indifference, abandoned them to their own choice between the four or five garments offered. even when sylvia, as she grew older, went by herself to make a small purchase or two, she was so deeply under the influence of her mother's example that she felt it unbecoming to loiter, or to examine anything she knew she could not buy. besides, nearly all the salespeople, who, for the most part, had been at their posts for many years, knew her from childhood, and if she stopped to look at a show-case of new collars, or jabots, they always came pleasantly to pass the time of day, and ask how her little brother was, and how she liked studying at home. she was ashamed to show in their presence anything but a casual, dignified interest in the goods they handled. after these feeble and diluted tipplings, her day with aunt victoria was like a huge draught of raw spirits. that much-experienced shopper led her a leisurely course up one dazzling aisle and down another, pausing ruthlessly to look and to handle and to comment, even if she had not the least intention of buying. with an inimitable ease of manner she examined whatever took her fancy, and the languid, fashionably dressed salesladies, all in aristocratic black, showed to these whims a smiling deference, which sylvia knew could come from nothing but the exquisite tailoring of aunt victoria's blue broadcloth. this perception did not in the least lower her opinion of the value of the deference. it heightened her opinion of the value of tailoring. they stood by glass tables piled high with filmy and costly underwear, such underwear as sylvia had never dreamed could exist, and aunt victoria looked casually at the cobweb tissues which the saleswoman held up, herself hankering in a hungry adoration of the luxury she would never touch in any other way. without apology or explanation, other than aunt victoria's gracious nod of dismissal, they moved on to the enchanted cave where, under the stare of innumerable electric lights, evening wraps were exhibited. the young woman who served them held the expensive, fragile chiffon of the garments up in front of her black uniform, her eyes wistful and unsatisfied. her instant of glory was over when aunt victoria bought one of these, exclaiming humorously about the quaintness of going from paris to chicago to shop. it was of silver tissue over white brocade, with a collar of fur, and the price was a hundred and thirty-seven dollars. sylvia's allowance for all her personal expenses for a whole year was a hundred and twenty. to reach the furniture, they passed by, with an ignoring contempt, huge counters heaped with hundreds and hundreds of shirt-waists, any one of which was better than the one sylvia had made with so much care and interest before leaving home. among the furniture they made a long stay. aunt victoria was unexpectedly pleased by the design of the wicker pieces, and bought and bought and bought; till sylvia turned her head away in bewilderment. she looked down a long perspective of glittering show-cases filled with the minor luxuries of the toilet, the ruffs, the collars, the slipper-rosettes, the embroidered belts, the hair ornaments, the chiffon scarves, all objects diverse, innumerable, perishable as mist in tree-branches, all costly in exact ratio to their fragility. back of her were the children's dresses, fairy-like, simple with an extravagantly costly simplicity. it occurred to sylvia as little as to many others of the crowd of half-hypnotized women, wandering about with burning eyes and watering mouths through the shrewdly designed shop, that the great closets back of these adroitly displayed fineries might be full of wearable, firm-textured little dresses, such as she herself had always worn. it required an effort of the will to remember that, and wills weak, or not yet formed, wavered and bent before the lust of the eye, so cunningly inflamed. any sense of values, of proportion, in sylvia was dumfounded by the lavishness, the enormous quantities, the immense varieties of the goods displayed. she ached with covetousness.... when they joined the others at the hotel her mother, after commenting that she looked rather flushed and tired, happened to ask, "oh, by the way, sylvia, did you happen to come across anything in serge suits that would be suitable for school-wear?" sylvia quivered, cried out explosively, "_no!_" and turned away, feeling a hot pulse beating through her body. but aunt victoria happened to divert attention at that moment. she had been reading, with a very serious and somewhat annoyed expression, a long telegram just handed her, and now in answer to mrs. marshall's expression of concern, said hastily, "oh, it's arnold again.... it's always arnold!" she moved to a desk and wrote a brief telegram which she handed to the waiting man-servant. sylvia noticed it was addressed to mr. a.h. saunders, a name which set dimly ringing in her head recollections now muffled and obscured. aunt victoria went on to mrs. marshall: "arnold hates this school so. he always hates his schools." "oh, he is at school now?" asked mrs. marshall. "you haven't a tutor for him?" "oh yes, mr. saunders is still with him--in the summers and during holidays." mrs. marshall-smith explained further: "to keep him up in his _studies_. he doesn't learn anything in his school, you know. they never do. it's only for the atmosphere--the sports; you know, they play cricket where he is now--and the desirable class of boys he meets.... _all_ the boys have tutors in vacation times to coach them for the college-entrance examinations." the face of the college professor's wife continued immovably grave during this brief summary of an educational system. she inquired, "how old is arnold now?" learned that he was seventeen, remembered that, oh yes, he was a year older than sylvia, and allowed the subject to drop into one of the abysmal silences for which she alone had the courage. her husband's sister was as little proof against it as her husband. as it continued, mrs. marshall-smith went through the manoeuvers which in a less perfectly bred person would have been fidgeting.... no one paid any attention to sylvia, who sat confronting herself in a long mirror and despising every garment she wore. chapter xi arnold's future is casually decided the next day was to have been given up to really improving pursuits. the morning in the art institute came off as planned. the girls were marshaled through the sculpture and paintings and various art objects with about the result which might have been expected. as blankly inexperienced of painting and sculpture as any bushmen, they received this sudden enormous dose of those arts with an instant, self-preservatory incapacity to swallow even a small amount of them. it is true that the very first exhibits they saw, the lions outside the building, the first paintings they encountered, made an appreciable impression on them; but after this they followed their elders through the interminable crowded halls of the museum, their legs aching with the effort to keep their balance on the polished floors, their eyes increasingly glazed and dull. for a time a few eccentric faces or dresses among the other sightseers penetrated through this merciful insensibility, but by noon the capacity for even so much observation as this had left them. they set one foot before the other, they directed their eyes upon the multitudinous objects exhibited, they nodded their heads to comments made by the others, but if asked suddenly what they had just seen in the room last visited, neither of them could have made the faintest guess. at half-past twelve, their aunt and mother, highly self-congratulatory over the educational morning, voted that enough was as good as a feast, and led their stunned and stupefied charges away to aunt victoria's hotel for lunch. it was while they were consuming this exceedingly appetizing meal that sylvia saw, threading his way towards them between the other tables, a tall, weedy, expensively dressed young man, with a pale freckled face and light-brown hair. when he saw her eyes on him he waved his hand, a largely knuckled hand, and grinned. then she saw that it was not a young man, but a tall boy, and that the boy was arnold. the quality of the grin reminded her that she had always liked arnold. his arrival, though obviously unexpected to the last degree, caused less of a commotion than might have seemed natural. it was as if this were for aunt victoria only an unexpected incident in a general development, quite resignedly anticipated. after he had shaken hands with everybody, and had sat down and ordered his own luncheon very capably, his stepmother remarked in a tolerant tone, "you didn't get my telegram, then?" he shook his head: "i started an hour or so after i wired you. we'd gone down to the town with one of the masters for a game with concord. there was a train just pulling out as we went by the station, and i ran and jumped on." "how'd you know where it was going?" challenged judith. "i didn't," he explained lightly. he looked at her with the teasing, provocative look of masculine seventeen for feminine thirteen. "same old spitfire, i see, miss judy," he said, his command of unhackneyed phrases by no means commensurate with his desire to be facetious. judith frowned and went on eating her éclair in silence. it was the first éclair she had ever eaten, and she was more concerned with it than with the new arrival. nobody made any comment on arnold's method of beginning journeys until mrs. marshall asked, "what did you do it for?" she put the question with an evident seriousness of inquiry, not at all with the rhetorical reproach usually conveyed in the formula she used. arnold looked up from the huge, costly, bloody beefsteak he was eating and, after an instant's survey of the grave, kind, face opposite him, answered with a seriousness like her own, "because i wanted to get away." he added after a moment, laughing and looking again at the younger girl, "i wanted to come out and pull judy's hair again!" he spoke with his mouth full, and this made him entirely a boy and not at all the young man his well-cut clothes made him appear. without speaking, judith pulled her long, smooth braid around over her shoulder where she could protect the end of it. her mouth was also full, bulgingly, of the last of her éclair. they might have been brother and sister in a common nursery. "my! aren't you pretty, sylvia!" was arnold's next remark. "you're a regular peach; do you know it?" he turned to the others: "say, let's go to a show this afternoon," he proposed. "tling-tling's in town. i saw it in the papers as i came in. the original company's singing. did you ever hear them?" he asked sylvia. "they beat the other road companies all hollow." sylvia shook her head. she had never heard the name before, the broadway brand of comic opera being outside her experience to a degree which would have been inconceivable to arnold. there was some discussion over the matter, but in the end, apparently because there was nothing else to do with arnold, they all did go to the "show," arnold engineering the expedition with a trained expertness in the matter of ticket-sellers, cabs, and ushers which was in odd contrast to his gawky physical immaturity. at all the stages of the process where it was possible, he smoked cigarettes, producing them in rapid succession out of a case studded with little pearls. his stepmother looked on at this, her beautiful manner of wise tolerance tightening up a little, and after dinner, as they sat in a glittering corridor of the hotel to talk, she addressed him suddenly in a quite different tone. "i don't want you to do that so much, arnold," she said. his hand was fumbling for his case again. "you're too young to smoke at all," she said definitely. he went on with his automatic movements, opening the case, taking out a cigarette and tapping it on the cover. "oh, all the fellows do," he said rebelliously, and struck a match. mrs. marshall-smith aroused herself to a sudden, low-toned, iron masterfulness of voice and manner which, for all its quietness, had the quality of a pistol shot in the family group. she said only, "put away that cigarette"; but by one effort of her will she massed against the rebellion of his disorganized adolescence her mature, well-ripened capacity to get her own way. she held him with her eyes as an animal-trainer is supposed to cow his snarling, yellow-fanged captives, and in a moment arnold, with a pettish gesture, blew out the match and shut the cigarette case with a snap. mrs. marshall-smith forbore to over-emphasize her victory by a feather-weight of gloating, and turned to her sister-in-law with a whimsical remark about the preposterousness of one of the costumes passing. arnold sulked in silence until judith, emerging from her usual self-contained reticence, made her first advance to him. "let's us all go there by the railing where we can look down into the central court," she suggested, and having a nodded permission from their elders, the three children walked away. they looked down into the great marble court, far below them, now fairy-like with carefully arranged electric lights, gleaming through the palms. the busily trampling cohorts in sack-coats and derby hats were, from here, subdued by distance to an aesthetic inoffensiveness of mere ant-like comings and goings. "not so bad," said arnold, with a kindly willingness to be pleased, looking about him discriminatingly at one detail after another of the interior, the heavy velvet and gold bullion of the curtains, the polished marble of the paneling, the silk brocade of the upholstery, the heavy gilding of the chairs.... everything in sight exhaled an intense consciousness of high cost, which was heavy on the air like a musky odor, suggesting to a sensitive nose, as does the odor of musk, another smell, obscured but rancidly perceptible--the unwashed smell, floating up from the paupers' cellars which support aladdin's palaces of luxury. but the three adolescents, hanging over the well-designed solid mahogany railing, had not noses sensitive to this peculiar, very common blending of odors. judith, in fact, was entirely unconscious even of the more obvious of the two. she was as insensitive to all about her as to the too-abundant pictures of the morning. she might have been leaning over a picket fence. "i wouldn't give in to her!" she said to arnold, staring squarely at him. arnold looked nettled. "oh, i don't! i don't pay any attention to what she says, except when she's around where i am, and that's not so often you could notice it much! _saunders_ isn't that kind! saunders is a gay old bird, i tell you! we have some times together when we get going!" it dawned on sylvia that he was speaking of the man who, five years before, had been their young professor saunders. she found that she remembered vividly his keen, handsome face, softened by music to quiet peace. she wondered what arnold meant by saying he was a gay old bird. arnold went on, shaking his head sagely: "but it's my belief that saunders is beginning to take to dope ... bad business! bad business! he's in love with madrina, you know, and has to drown his sorrows some way." even judith, for all her sioux desire to avoid seeming surprised or impressed, could not restrain a rather startled look at this lordly knowledge of the world. sylvia, although she had scarcely taken in the significance of arnold's words, dropped her eyes and blushed. arnold surveyed them with the indulgent look of a rakish but good-hearted man of the world patting two pretty children on the head. judith upset his pose by bringing the talk abruptly back to where she had begun it. "but you _did_ give in to her! you pretend you didn't because you are ashamed. she just looked you down. i wouldn't let _any_body look me down; i wouldn't give in to anybody!" under this attack, the man of the world collapsed into an awkward overgrown boy, ill at ease, with red lids to his eyes and premature yellow stains on two fingers of his left hand. he shifted his feet and said defensively: "aw, she's a woman. a fellow can't knock her down. i wouldn't let a man do it." he retreated still further, through another phase, and became a little boy, heated and recriminatory: "i'd like to know who _you_ are to talk! you give in to _your_ mother all the time!" "i don't give in to my mother; i _mind_ her," said judith, drawing a distinction which arnold could not follow but which he was not acute enough to attack other than by a jeering, "oh, what a crawl! what's the diff?" "and i mind her whether she's there or not! _i_ do!" continued judith, pressing what she seemed, inexplicably to arnold, to consider her advantage. sylvia was vexed with them for talking so loudly and getting so red-faced and being so generally out of key with the booming note of luxury resounding about them. "hush! hush!" she said; "don't be so silly. we ought to be going back." arnold took her rebuke without protest. either something in this passage-at-arms had perversely brought a sudden impulse to his mind, or he had all along a purpose in his fantastic trip west. as they reached the two ladies, he burst out, "say, madrina, why couldn't i go on to la chance and go to school there, and live with the marshalls?" four amazed faces were turned on him. his stepmother evidently thought him stricken with sudden insanity and strove distractedly to select, from the heaped pile of her reasons for so thinking, some few which might be cited without too great offense to her brother's mode of life: "why, what a strange idea, arnold! what ever made you think of such a thing? _you_ wouldn't like it!" she was going on, as in decency bound, to add that it would be also rather a large order for the marshalls to adopt a notably "difficult" boy, when judith broke in with a blunt divination of what was in her aunt's mind. "you'd have to wash dishes if you came to our house," she said, "and help peel potatoes, and weed the celery bed." "i'd like it!" declared arnold. "we'd have lots of fun." "i _bet_ we would!" said judith, with an unexpected assent. mrs. marshall-smith laughed gently. "you don't know what you're talking about, you silly boy. you never did an hour's work in your life!" arnold sat down by mrs. marshall. "i wouldn't be in the way, _would_ i?" he said, with a clumsy pleading. he hesitated obviously over the "mother" which had risen to his lips, the name he had had for her during the momentous visit of five years before, and finally, blushing, could not bring it out. "i'd like it like anything! _i_ wouldn't be ... i'd be _different_! sylvie and judy seem like little sisters to me." the red on his face deepened. "it's--it's good for a fellow to have sisters, and a home," he said in a low tone not audible to his stepmother's ears. mrs. marshall put out a large, strong hand and took his slack, big-knuckled fingers into a tight clasp. mrs. marshall-smith evidently thought a light tone best now, as always, to take. "i tell you, barbara"--she suggested laughingly, "we'll exchange. you give me sylvia, and take arnold." mrs. marshall ignored this as pure facetiousness, and said seriously: "why really, victoria, it might not be a bad thing for arnold to come to us. i know elliott would be glad to have him, and so would i." for an instant arnold's life hung in the balance. mrs. marshall-smith, gleaming gold and ivory in her evening-dress of amber satin, sat silent, startled by the suddenness with which the whole astonishing question had come up. there was in her face more than one hint that the proposition opened a welcome door of escape to her.... and then arnold himself, with the tragic haste of youth, sent one end of the scales down, weighted so heavily that the sight of his stepmother's eyes and mouth told him it could never rise again. in the little, pregnant pause, he cried out joyfully, "oh, mother! mother!" and flung his arms around mrs. marshall's neck. it was the only time he had shown the slightest emotion over anything. it burst from him with surprising effect. mrs. marshall-smith was, as she had said, only human, and at this she rose, her delicate face quiet and impassive, and shook out the shimmering folds of her beautiful dress. she said casually, picking up her fan and evidently preparing for some sort of adjournment: "oh, arnold, don't be so absurd. of course you can't foist yourself off on a family that's no relation to you, that way. and in any case, it wouldn't do for you to graduate from a co-educational state university. not a person you know would have heard of it. you know you're due at harvard next fall." with adroit fingers, she plucked the string sure to vibrate in arnold's nature. "do go and order a table for us in the rose-room, there's a good boy. and be sure to have the waiter give you one where we can see the dancing." the matter was settled. chapter xii one man's meat ... that night after the marshalls had gone back to their somewhat shabby boarding-house, "things" happened to the two people they had left in the great hotel. sylvia and judith never knew the details, but it was apparent that something portentous had occurred, from the number of telegrams aunt victoria had managed to receive and send between the hour when they left her in the evening, and eleven o'clock the next morning, when they found her, hatted and veiled, with an array of strapped baggage around her. "it's arnold again!" she told them, with a resigned gesture. she laid down the time-table she had been consulting and drew mrs. marshall to the window for a low-voiced explanation. when she came back, "i'm so sorry, dears, to cut short even by a single day this charming time together," she told the girls. "but the news i've been getting from arnold's school--there's nothing for me to do but to stop everything and take him back there to see what can be done to patch things up." she spoke with the patient air of one inured to the sacrifices involved in the upbringing of children. "we leave on the eleven-forty--oh, i _am_ so sorry! but it would have been only one day more. i meant to get you both a dress--i've 'phoned to have them sent to you." the rest was only the dreary, bustling futility of the last moments before train-time--kisses, remarks about writing more often; a promise from aunt victoria to send sylvia from time to time a box of old dresses and fineries as material for her niece's dressmaking skill;--from arnold, appearing at the last minute, a good deal of rather flat, well-meant chaffing, proffered with the most entire unconcern as to the expressed purpose of their journey; and then the descent through long, mirrored, softly carpeted corridors to the classic beauty of the grecian temple where the busy men, with tired eyes, came and went hurriedly, treading heavily on their heels. outside was the cab, arnold extremely efficient in browbeating the driver as to the stowing away of bags, more kisses, in the general cloud of which arnold pecked shyly at sylvia's ear and judith's chin; then the retreating vehicle with arnold standing up, a tall, ungainly figure, waving a much-jointed hand. after it was out of sight the three watchers looked at each other in a stale moment of anticlimax. "arnold's horrid, isn't he?" said judith thoughtfully. "why, i _like_ him!" opposed sylvia. "oh, i _like_ him, all right," said judith. then both girls looked at their mother. what next ...? they were not to have gone back to la chance until the next night. would this change of plans alter their schedule? mrs. marshall saw no reason why it should. she proposed a sightseeing expedition to a hospital. miss lindström, the elderly swedish woman who worked among the destitute negroes of la chance, had a sister who was head-nurse in the biggest and newest hospital in chicago, and she had written very cordially that if her sister's friends cared to inspect such an institution, she was at their service. neither of the girls having the slightest idea of what a hospital was like, nor of any other of the sights in the city which they might see instead, no objection was made to this plan. they made inquiries of a near-by policeman and found that they could reach it by the elevated. their encounter with this metropolitan facility for transportation turned out to be among the most memorable bits of sightseeing of their trip. neither of the girls had ever imagined anything so lurid as the saturday noon jam, the dense, packed throngs waiting on the platforms and bursting out through the opened doors like beans from a split bag, their places instantly taken by an even greater crowd, perspiring, fighting grimly for foot-room and expecting and receiving no other kind. judith was fired contagiously with the spirit about her, set her teeth, thrust out her elbows, shoved, pushed, grunted, fought, all with a fresh zest in the performance which gave her an immense advantage over the fatigued city-dwellers, who assaulted their fellow-citizens with only a preoccupied desire for an approach to a breathing space, and, that attained, subsided into lurching, strap-hanging quiescence. judith secured with ease, on all the public vehicles they utilized that day, a place on the outside edge of a platform, where she had fresh air in abundance and could hang over the grating to watch with extreme interest the intimate bits of tenement-house life which flashed jerkily by. but sylvia, a shuddering chip on the torrent, always found herself in the exact middle of the most crowded spot, feeling her body horrifyingly pressed upon by various invisible ones behind her and several only too visible ones in front, breathing down the back of somebody's neck, often a dirty and sweaty one, with somebody breathing hotly down the back of her own. once as a very fat and perspiring german-american began to fight the crowd in the endeavor to turn around and leave the car, his slowly revolving bulbous bulk pushed her so smotheringly into the broad back of a negro ahead of her that she felt faint. as they left the car, she said vehemently: "oh, mother, this makes me sick! why couldn't we have taken a cab? aunt victoria always does!" her mother laughed. "you little country girl! a cab for as far as this would cost almost as much as the ticket back to la chance." "i don't see why we came, then!" cried sylvia. "it's simply awful! and this is a _horrid_ part of town!" she suddenly observed that they were walking through a very poor, thickly inhabited street, such as she had never seen before. as she looked about her, her mother stopped laughing and watched her face with a painful attention. sylvia looked at the tall, dingy houses, the frowzy little shops, the swarms of dirty-nosed children, shrill-voiced, with matted hair, running and whooping in the street, at the slatternly women yelling unobeyed orders to them out of half-glimpsed, cheerless interiors, smelling of cabbage and dishwater. it was sylvia's first sight of the life of city poor, and upon her face of disgust and revulsion her mother bent a stern and anxious eye. "see here, sylvia!" she said abruptly, "do you know what _i_ was thinking about back there in the crowd on the elevated? i was thinking that lots of girls, no older than _my_ girl, have to stand that twice a day, going to earn their livings." sylvia chafed under the obviously admonitory tone of this. "i don't see that that makes it any easier for us if they _do!_" she said in a recalcitrant voice. she stepped wide to avoid a pile of filth on the sidewalk, and clutched at her skirt. she had a sudden vision of the white-tiled, velvet-carpeted florist's shop in a corner of aunt victoria's hotel where, behind spotless panes of shining plate-glass, the great clusters of cut-flowers dreamed away an enchanted life--roses, violets, lilies of the valley, orchids.... "here we are at the hospital," said mrs. marshall, a perplexed line of worry between her brows. but at once she was swept out of herself, forgot her seriously taken responsibility of being the mother of a girl like sylvia. she was only barbara marshall, thrilled by a noble spectacle. she looked up at the great, clean, many-windowed façade above them, towering, even above the huge bulk of the gas-tanks across the street, and her dark eyes kindled. "a hospital is one of the most wonderful places in the world!" she cried, in a voice of emotion. "all this--to help people get well!" they passed into a wide, bare hall, where a busy young woman at a desk nodded on hearing their names, and spoke into a telephone. there was an odd smell in the air, not exactly disagreeable, yet rather uncomfortably pungent. "oh, iodoform," remarked the young woman at the desk, hearing them comment on it. "do you get it? we don't notice it _here_ at all." then came miss lindström's sister, powerfully built, gaunt, gray, with a professional, impersonal cheerfulness. the expedition began. "i'll take you to the children's ward first," said miss lindström; "that always interests visitors so much...." rows on rows of little white beds and white, bloodless faces with an awful patience on them, and little white hands lying in unchildlike quiet on the white spreads; rows on rows of hollow eyes turned in listless interest on the visitors; nurses in white, stepping briskly about, bending over the beds, lifting a little emaciated form, deftly unrolling a bandage; heat; a stifling smell of iodoform; a sharp sudden cry of pain from a distant corner; somewhere a dully beating pulse of low, suppressed sobs.... they were out of the children's ward now, walking along a clean bare corridor. sylvia swallowed hard. her eyes felt burning. judith held her mother's hand tightly. miss lindström was explaining to mrs. marshall a new system of ventilation. "this is one of the women's wards," said their leader, opening another swinging door, from which rushed forth a fresh blast of iodoform. more rows of white beds, each with its mound of suffering, each with its haggard face of pain. more nurses, bearing basins of curious shape, bandages, hot-water bottles, rubber tubes. there was more restlessness here than in the children's ward, less helpless prostration before the juggernaut of disease ... fretfulness, moans, tossing heads, wretched eyes which stared at the visitors in a hostile indifference. "oh, they are just putting the dressing on such an _interesting_ case!" said miss lindström's voice coming to sylvia from a great distance. she spoke with the glow of professional enthusiasm, with that certainty, peculiar to sincere doctors and nurses, that a complicated wound is a fascinating object. in spite of herself sylvia had one glimpse of horribly lacerated red tissues.... she gripped her hands together after this and looked fixedly at a button on her glove, until miss lindström's voice announced: "it's the embury stitch that makes that possible: we've just worked out the application of it to skin-graft cases. two years ago she'd have lost her leg. isn't it simply splendid!" she said cordially as they moved forward: "sister selma said to treat you as though you were the queen of sweden, and i am! you're seeing things that visitors are _never_ allowed to see." they walked on and on interminably, past innumerable sick souls, each whirling alone in a self-centered storm of suffering; and then, somehow, they were in a laboratory, where an immensely stout and immensely jovial doctor in white linen got down from a high stool to shake hands with them and profess an immense willingness to entertain them. "... but i haven't got anything much today," he said, with a disparaging wave of his hand towards his test-tubes. "not a single death-warrant. oh yes, i have too, one brought in yesterday." he brought them a test-tube, stoppered with cotton, and bade them note a tiny bluish patch on the clear gelatine at the bottom. "that means he's a dead one, as much as if he faced the electric chair," he explained. to the nurse he added, "a fellow in the men's ward, pavilion g. very interesting culture ... first of that kind i've had since i've been here." as he spoke he was looking at sylvia with an open admiration, bold, intrusive, flippant. they were passing along another corridor, hot, silent, their footsteps falling dully on a long runner of corrugated rubber, with red borders which drew together in the distance like the rails streaming away from a train. behind a closed door there suddenly rose, and as quickly died away, a scream of pain. with an effort sylvia resisted the impulse to clap her hands over her ears. "here we are, at the minor operating-room," said miss lindström, pausing. "it's against the rules, but if you want to look from across the room--just to say you've been there--" she held the door open a little, a suffocating odor of anaesthetics blew out in their faces, like a breath from a dragon's cave. mrs. marshall and judith stepped forward. but sylvia clutched at her mother's arm and whispered: "mother! mother! i don't think i'll go on. i feel--i feel--i'll go back down to the entrance hall to wait." mrs. marshall nodded a preoccupied assent, and sylvia fled away down the endless corridor, looking neither to the right nor the left, down repeated flights of scrubbed and sterilized marble stairs, into the entrance hall, and, like a bolt from a bow, out of it on the other side, out into the street, into the sunshine, the heat, the clatter, the blessed, blessed smell of cabbage and dish-water.... after a time she went to sit down on the top step of the hospital entrance to wait. she contemplated with exquisite enjoyment the vigorous, profane, hair-pulling quarrel between two dirty little savages across the street. she could have kissed her hand to the loud-voiced woman who came scuffling to the window to scold them, clutching a dirty kimono together over a hogarth-like expanse of bosom. they were well, these people, blood ran in their veins, their skin was whole, they breathed air, not iodoform! her mother had pulled the string too tight, and sylvia's ears were full of the ugly twang of its snapping. when, at last, judith and mrs. marshall came out, hand-in-hand, sylvia sprang up to say: "what an _awful_ place! i hope i'll never have to set foot in one again!" but quick as was her impulse to speech, her perceptions were quicker, and before the pale exaltation of the other two, she fell silent, irritated, rebellious, thoroughly alien. they walked along in silence. then judith said, stammering a little with emotion, "m-m-mother, i want to b-b-b-be a trained n-n-nurse when i grow up." chapter xiii an instrument in tune as they drew near to their boarding-house late that afternoon, very hot, very crumpled, very solemn, and very much out of tune with one another, they were astonished to see a little eager-faced boy dash out of the house and run wildly to meet them, shouting as he came. "why, lawrence _marshall_!" cried his mother, picking him up in strong arms; "how ever in the world did you get here!" "father brungded me," cried the child, clasping her tightly around the neck. "we got so lonesome for mother we couldn't wait." and then sylvia had stamped on her mind a picture which was to come back later--her father's face and eyes as he ran down the steps to meet his wife. for he looked at his daughters only afterwards, as they were all walking along together, much excited, everybody talking at once, and hanging on everybody's arm."... yes, buddy's right! we found we missed you so, we decided life wasn't worth it. you don't know, barbara, what it's like without you--you don't _know_!" her father's voice sounded to sylvia so loud, so gay, so vital, so inexpressibly welcome.... she leaped up at his face like a young dog, for another kiss. "oh, i'm _awfully_ glad you came!" she cried, wondering a little herself at the immensity of her relief. she thought that she must get him by himself quickly and tell him her side of that hospital story, before her mother and judith began on any virtuous raptures over it. but there was no consecutive talk about anything after they all were joyfully gathered in their ugly, commonplace boarding-house bedroom. they loosened collars and belts, washed their perspiring and dusty faces, and brushed hair, to the tune of a magpie chatter. sylvia did not realize that she and her father were the main sources of this volubility, she did not realize how she had missed his exuberance, she only knew that she felt a weight lifted from her heart. she had been telling him with great enjoyment of the comic opera they had seen, as she finished putting the hairpins into her freshly smoothed hair, and turned, a pin still in her mouth, in time to be almost abashed by the expression in his eyes as he suddenly drew his wife to him. "jove! barbara!" he cried, half laughing, but with a quiver in his voice, "it's hell to be happily married! a separation is--well, never mind about it. i came along anyhow! and now i'm here i'll go to see vic of course." "no, you won't," said judith promptly. "she's gone back. to get arnold out of a scrape." mrs. marshall explained further, and incidentally touched upon her sister-in-law's views of the relation between expensive boys' schools and private tutors. her dryly humorous version of this set her husband off in a great mirthful roar, to which sylvia, after a moment of blankness, suddenly joined a burst of her own clear laughter. at the time she had seen nothing funny in aunt victoria's statement, but she was now immensely tickled to remember aunt victoria's olympian certainty of herself and her mother's grave mask of serious consideration of the idea. long after her father had stopped laughing, she still went on, breaking out into delighted giggles. her new understanding of the satire back of her mother's quiet eyes, lent to aunt victoria's golden calm the quaint touch of caricature which made it self-deceived complacency. at the recollection she sent up rocket after rocket of schoolgirl laughter. her mother, absorbed in conscientious anxiety about sylvia's development, and deeply disappointed by the result of the visit to the hospital, ignored this laughter, nor did sylvia at all guess that she was laughing away half the spell which aunt victoria had cast about her. when they went down to their supper of watery creamed potatoes, and stewed apricots in thick saucers, she was in such good humor that she ate this unappetizing fare with no protest. "now, folks," said professor marshall, after supper, "we have to go home tomorrow early, so we ought to have one more fling tonight. while i was waiting for you to come back this afternoon, i looked up what chicago has to offer in the way of flings, and this is what i found. here, barbara," he took a tiny envelope out of his upper waistcoat pocket, "are two tickets for the symphony orchestra. by the greatest of luck they're giving a special concert for some charity or other, a beautiful program; a sort of musical requiem. sylvia mustn't miss it; you take her. and here," he spun round to face judith and lawrence, producing another slim, tiny envelope from the other upper waistcoat pocket, "since symphony concerts are rather solid meat for milk teeth, and since they last till way after bedtime, i have provided another sort of entertainment; to wit: three seats for moving pictures of the only real and authentic cheyenne bill's congress of the world's frontiersmen. all in favor of going there with me, say 'aye.'" "aye!" screamed judith and lawrence. everybody laughed in pleased excitement and everybody seemed satisfied except mrs. marshall, who insisted that she should go to the moving pictures while the professor took sylvia to the concert. then followed the most amiable, generous wrangle as to which of the parents should enjoy the adult form of amusement. but while the professor grew more and more half-hearted in his protestations that he really didn't care where he went, mrs. marshall grew more and more positive that he must not be allowed to miss the music, finally silencing his last weak proffer of self-abnegation by saying peremptorily: "no, no, elliott; go on in to your debauch of emotion. i'll take the children. don't miss your chance. you know it means ten times as much to you as to me. you haven't heard a good orchestra in years." sylvia had never been in such a huge hall as the one where they presently sat, high, giddily high in the eyrie of a top gallery. they looked down into yawning space. the vast size of the auditorium so dwarfed the people now taking their innumerable seats, that even after the immense audience was assembled the great semicircular enclosure seemed empty and blank. it received those thousands of souls into its maw, and made no sign; awaiting some visitation worthy of its bulk. the orchestra, an army of ants, straggled out on the stage. sylvia was astonished at their numbers--sixteen first violins, she saw by the program! she commented to her father on the difficulty of keeping them all in tune. he smiled at her absently, bade her, with an air of suppressed excitement, wait until she had heard them, and fell to biting his nails nervously. she re-read the program and all the advertisements, hypnotized, like every one else in the audience, by the sight of printed matter. she noticed that the first number of this memorial concert was the funeral march from the götterdämmerung, which she knew very well from having heard a good many times a rather thin version of it for four strings and a piano. the conductor, a solitary ant, made his toilsome way across the great front of the stage, evoking a burst of applause, which resounded hollowly in the inhuman spaces of the building. he mounted a step, waved his antennae, there was a great indrawn breath of silence, and then sylvia, waiting with agreeable curiosity to hear how a big orchestra would really sound, gasped and held her breath. the cup of that vast building suddenly brimmed with a magical flood of pure tone, coming from everywhere, from nowhere, from her own heart as well as from outside her body. the immense hall rang to the glorious quality of this sound as a violin-back vibrates to the drawn bow. it rained down on her, it surged up to her, she could not believe that she really heard it. she looked quickly at her father. his arms were folded tightly across his chest. he was looking frowningly at the back of the chair in front of him. it was evident that sylvia did not exist for him. she was detached from her wonder at his pale sternness by the assault on her nerves made by the first of those barbaric outcries of woe, that sudden, brief clamor of grief, the shouts of despair, the beating upon shields. her heart stood still--there rose, singing like an archangel, the mystic call of the volsung, then the yearning melody of love; such glory, such longing for beauty, for life--and then brusquely, again and again, the screaming, sobbing recollection of the fact of death.... when it was over, sylvia's breath was still coming pantingly. "oh, father! how--how wonderful--how--" she murmured. he looked at her, as though he were angry with her, and yet scarcely seeming to know her, and spoke in a hard, bitter tone: "and it is _years_ since i have heard one!" he seemed to cry out upon her for the conditions of his life. she had no key for these words, could not imagine a meaning for them, and, chilled and repelled, wondered if she had heard him rightly. the funeral march from the eroica began, and her father's face softened. the swelling volume of tone rose like a flood-tide. the great hall, the thousands of human hearts, all beat solemnly in the grave and hopeless pulsations of the measured chords. the air was thick with sorrow, with quiet despair. no outcries here, no screams--the modern soul advancing somberly with a pale composure to the grave of its love, aware that during all the centuries since the dead siegfried was lifted high on the shoulders of his warriors not a word of explanation, of consolation has been found; that the modern, barren self-control means only what the barbarian yells out in his open abandonment to sorrow--and yet such beauty, such beauty in that singing thread of melody--"_durch leiden, freude!_" not even the shadow of death had ever fallen across sylvia's life, or that of her father, to explain the premonitory emotion which now drew them together like two frightened children. sylvia felt the inexorable music beating in her own veins, and when she took her father's hand it seemed to her that its strong pulses throbbed to the same rhythm; beauty, and despair ... hope ... life ... death. at the end, "oh, father--oh, father!" she said under her breath, imploringly, struggling to free herself from the muffling, enveloping sense of imminent disaster. he pressed her hand hard and smiled at her. it was his own old smile, the father-look which had been her heart's home all her life--but it was infinitely sweeter to her now than ever before. she had never felt closer to him. there was a pause during which they did not speak, and then there burst upon them the splendid tumult of "death and transfiguration," which, like a great wind, swept sylvia out of herself. she could not follow the music--she had never heard of it before. she was beaten down, overwhelmed, freed, as though the transfiguration were her own, from the pitiful barriers of consciousness.... "was the concert good?" asked mrs. marshall, yawning, and reaching out of bed to kiss sylvia sleepily. she laughed a little at their faces. "oh, music _is_ a madness! to spend a cheerful evening listening to death-music, and then come back looking like moses before the burning bush!" "say, you ought to have seen the stunt they did with their lassos," cried judith, waking in the bed on the other side of the room, and sitting up with her black hair tousled about her face. "i'm going to try it with the pinto when we get home." "i _bet_ you'll do it, too," came from lawrence the loyal, always sure of judith's strength, judith's skill. sylvia looked at her father over their heads and smiled faintly. it was a good smile, from a full heart. "aunt victoria sent our dresses," said judith, dropping back on the pillow. "that big box over there. mine has pink ribbons, and yours are blue." mrs. marshall looked at the big box with disfavor, and then at sylvia, now sunk in a chair, her hands clasped behind her head, her eyes dreamy and half closed. across the room the long pasteboard box displayed a frothy mass of white lace and pale shining ribbons. sylvia looked at it absently and made no move to examine it. she closed her eyes again and beat an inaudible rhythm with her raised fingers. all through her was ringing the upward-surging tide of sound at the end of "death and transfiguration." "oh, go to bed, sylvia; don't sit there maundering over the concert," said her mother, with a good-natured asperity. but there was relief in her voice. chapter xiv higher education to any one who is familiar with state university life, the color of sylvia's freshman year will be vividly conveyed by the simple statement that she was not invited to join a fraternity. to any one who does not know state university life, no description can convey anything approaching an adequate notion of the terribly determinative significance of that fact. the statement that she was invited to join no sorority is not literally true, for in the second semester when it was apparent that none of the three leading fraternities intended to take her in, there came a late "bid" from one of the third-rate sororities, of recent date, composed of girls like sylvia who had not been included in the membership of the older, socially distinguished organizations. cut to the quick by her exclusion from the others, sylvia refused this tardy invitation with remorseless ingratitude. if she were not to form one of the "swell" set of college, at least she would not proclaim herself one of the "jays," the "grinds," the queer girls, who wore their hair straight back from their foreheads, who invariably carried off phi beta kappa, whose skirts hung badly, whose shoe-heels turned over as they walked, who stood first in their classes, whose belts behind made a practice of revealing large white safety-pins; and whose hats, even disassociated from their dowdy wearers, and hanging in the cloakroom, were of an almost british eccentricity. nothing of this sort could be alleged against sylvia's appearance, which she felt, as she arrayed herself every morning, to be all that the most swagger frat could ask of a member. aunt victoria's boxes of clothing, her own nimble fingers and passionate attention to the subject, combined to turn her out a copy, not to be distinguished from the original, of the daughter of a man with an income five times that of her father. as she consulted her mirror, it occurred to her also, as but an honest recognition of a conspicuous fact, that her suitable and harmonious toilets adorned a person as pleasing to the eye as any of her classmates. during the last year of her life at home she had shot up very fast, and she was now a tall, slender presence, preserved from even the usual touching and delightful awkwardness of seventeen by the trained dexterity and strength with which she handled her body, as muscular, for all its rounded slimness, as a boy's. her hair was beautiful, a bright chestnut brown with a good deal of red, its brilliant gloss broken into innumerable high-lights by the ripple of its waviness; and she had one other positive beauty, the clearly penciled line of her long, dark eyebrows, which ran up a trifle at the outer ends with a little quirk, giving an indescribable air of alertness and vivacity to her expression. otherwise she was not at that age, nor did she ever become, so explicitly handsome as her sister judith, who had at every period of her life a head as beautiful as that on a greek coin. but when the two were together, although the perfectly adjusted proportions of judith's proud, dark face brought out the irregularities of sylvia's, disclosed the tilt of her small nose, made more apparent the disproportionate width between her eyes, and showed her chin to be of no mold in particular, yet a modern eye rested with far more pleasure on the older sister's face. a bright, quivering mobility like sunshine on water, gave it a charm which was not dependent on the more obvious prettinesses of a fine-grained, white skin, extremely clear brown eyes, and a mouth quick to laugh and quiver, with pure, sharply cut outline and deeply sunk corners. even in repose, sylvia's face made judith's seem unresponsive, and when it lighted up in talk and laughter, it seemed to give out a visible light. in contrast judith's beautiful countenance seemed carved out of some very hard and indestructible stone. and yet, in spite of this undeniably satisfactory physical outfit, and pre-eminent ability in athletics, sylvia was not invited to join any of the best fraternities. it is not surprising that there was mingled with her bitterness on the subject a justifiable amount of bewilderment. what _did_ they want? they recruited, from her very side in classes, girls without half her looks or cleverness. what _was_ the matter with her? she would not for her life have given a sign to her family of her mental sufferings as, during that first autumn, day after day went by with no sign of welcome from the social leaders of her new world; but a mark was left on her character by her affronted recognition of her total lack of success in this, her first appearance outside the sheltering walls of her home; her first trial by the real standards of the actual world of real people. the fact, which would have been balm to sylvia's vanity, had she ever had the least knowledge of it, was that upon her appearance in the freshman class she had been the occasion of violent discussion and almost of dissension in the councils of the two "best" fraternities. her beauty, her charm, and the rumors of her excellence in tennis had made a flutter in the first fraternity meetings after the opening of the autumn term. the younger members of both sigma beta and alpha kappa counseled early and enthusiastic "rushing" of the new prize, but the juniors and seniors, wise in their day and generation, brought out a number of damning facts which would need to be taken into consideration if sylvia wore their pin. there were, in both fraternities, daughters of other faculty families, who were naturally called upon to furnish inside information. they had been brought up from childhood on the tradition of the marshalls' hopeless queerness, and their collective statement of the marshalls' position ran somewhat as follows: "the only professors who have anything to do with them are some of the jay young profs from the west, with no families; the funny old la rues--you know what a hopeless dowd madame la rue is--and professor kennedy, and though he comes from a swell family he's an awful freak himself. they live on a farm, like farmers, at the ends of the earth from anybody that anybody knows. they are never asked to be patrons of any swell college functions. none of the faculty ladies with any social position ever call on mrs. marshall--and no wonder. she doesn't keep any help, and when the doorbell rings she's as apt to come running in from the chicken house with rubber boots on, and a basket of eggs--and the _queerest_ clothes! like a costume out of a book; and they never have anybody to wait on the table, just jump up and down themselves--you can imagine what kind of a frat tea or banquet sylvia would give in such a home--and of course if we took her in, we couldn't very well _tell_ her her family's so impossible we wouldn't want their connection with the frat known--and the students who go there are a perfect collection of all the jays and grinds and freaks in college. it's enough to mark you one to be seen there--you meet all the crazy guys you see in classes and never anywhere else--and of course that wouldn't stop when sylvia's frat sisters began going there. and their house wouldn't do at _all_ to entertain in--it's queer--no rugs--dingy old furniture--nothing but books everywhere, even in their substitute for a parlor--and you're likely to meet not only college freaks, but worse ones from goodness knows where. there's a beer-drinking old monster who goes there every sunday to play the fiddle that you wouldn't have speak to you on the street for anything in the world. and the way they entertain! my, in such a countrified way! some of the company go out into the kitchen to help mrs. marshall serve up the refreshments--and everything homemade--and they play charades, and nobody knows what else--bean-bag, or spelling-down maybe--" this appalling picture, which in justice to the young delineators must be conceded to be not in the least overdrawn, was quite enough to give pause to those impetuous and immature young sophomores who had lacked the philosophical breadth of vision to see that sylvia was not an isolated phenomenon, but (since her family live in la chance) an inseparable part of her background. after all, the sororities made no claim to be anything but social organizations. their standing in the college world depended upon their social background, and of course this could only be made up of a composite mingling of those of their individual members. fraternities did not wish to number more than sixteen or eighteen undergraduates. that meant only four or five to be chosen from each freshman class, and that number of "nice" girls was not hard to find, girls who were not only well dressed, and lively and agreeable in themselves, but who came from large, well-kept, well-furnished houses on the right streets of la chance; with presentable, card-playing, call-paying, reception-giving mothers, who hired caterers for their entertainments; and respectably absentee fathers with sizable pocketbooks and a habit of cash liberality. the social standing of the co-eds in state universities was already precarious enough, without running the risk of acquiring dubious social connections. if sylvia had been a boy, it is almost certain that the deficiencies of her family would have been overlooked in consideration of her potentialities in the athletic world. success in athletics was to the men's fraternities what social standing was to the girls'. it must be remarked parenthetically that neither class of these organizations had the slightest prejudice against high scholastic standing. on the contrary it was regarded very kindly by fraternity members, as a desirable though not indispensable addition to social standing and physical prowess. but sylvia was not a boy, and her fine, promising game of tennis, her excellence in the swimming-pool, and her success on the gymnasium floor and on the flying rings, served no purpose but to bring to her the admiration of the duffers among the girls, whom she despised, and the unspoken envy of the fraternity girls, whose overtures at superficial friendliness she constantly rebuffed with stern, wounded pride. the sharpest stab to her pride came from the inevitable publicity of her ordeal. for, though her family knew nothing of what that first year out in the world meant to her, she had not the consolation of hoping that her condition was not perfectly apparent to every one else in the college world. at the first of the year, all gatherings of undergraduates not in fraternities hummed and buzzed with speculations about who would or would not be "taken" by the leading fraternities. for every girl who was at all possible, each day was a long suspense, beginning in hope and ending in listlessness; and for sylvia in an added shrinking from the eyes of her mates, which were, she knew, fixed on her with a relentless curiosity which was torture to one of her temperament. she had been considered almost sure to be early invited to join alpha kappa, the frat to which most of the faculty daughters belonged, and all during the autumn she was aware that when she took off her jacket in the cloakroom, a hundred glances swept her to see if she wore at last the coveted emblem of the "pledged" girl; and when an alpha kappa girl chanced to come near her with a casual remark, she seemed to hear a significant hush among the other girls, followed by an equally significant buzz of whispered comment when the fraternity member moved away again. this atmosphere would have made no impression on a nature either more sturdily philosophic, or more unimaginative than sylvia's (judith, for instance, was not in the least affected by the experience), but it came to be a morbid obsession of this strong, healthy, active-minded young creature. it tinged with bitterness and blackness what should have been the crystal-clear cup holding her youth and intelligence and health. she fancied that every one despised her. she imagined that people who were in reality quite unaware of her existence were looking at her and whispering together a wondering discussion as to why she was not "in the swim" as such a girl ought to be--all girls worth their salt were. above all she was stung into a sort of speechless rage by her impotence to do anything to regain the decent minimum of personal dignity which she felt was stripped from her by this constant play of bald speculation about whether she would or would not be considered "good enough" to be invited into a sorority. if only something definite would happen! if there were only an occasion on which she might in some way proudly proclaim her utter indifference to fraternities and their actions! if only the miserable business were not so endlessly drawn out! she threw herself with a passionate absorption into her studies, her music, and her gymnasium work, cut off both from the "elect" and from the multitude, a proudly self-acknowledged maverick. she never lacked admiring followers among less brilliant girls who would have been adorers if she had not held them off at arm's length, but her vanity, far from being omnivorous, required more delicate food. she wished to be able to cry aloud to her world that she thought nothing and cared nothing about fraternities, and by incessant inner absorption in this conception she did to a considerable extent impose it upon the collective mind of her contemporaries. she, the yearningly friendly, sympathetic, sensitive, praise-craving sylvia, came to be known, half respected and half disliked, as proud and clever, and "high-brow," and offish, and conceited, and so "queer" that she cared nothing for the ordinary pleasures of ordinary girls. this reputation for a high-browed indifference to commonplace mortals was naturally not a recommendation to the masculine undergraduates of the university. these young men, under the influence of reports of what was done at cornell and other more eastern co-educational institutions, were already strongly inclined to ignore the co-eds as much as possible. the tradition was growing rapidly that the proper thing was to invite the "town-girls" to the college proms and dances, and to sit beside them in the grandstand during football games. as yet, however, this tendency had not gone so far but that those co-eds who were members of a socially recognized fraternity were automatically saved from the neglect which enveloped all other but exceptionally flirtatious and undiscriminating girls. each girls' fraternity, like the masculine organizations, gave one big hop in the course of the season and several smaller dances, as well as lawn-parties and teas and stage-coach parties to the football games. the young men naturally wished to be invited to these functions, the increasing elaborateness of which kept pace with the increasing sophistication of life in la chance and the increasing cost of which made the parents of the girls groan. consequently each masculine fraternity took care that it did not incur the enmity of the organized and socially powerful sororities. but sylvia was not protected by this aegis. she was not invited during her freshman year to the dances given by either the sororities or the fraternities; and the large scattering crowd of masculine undergraduates were frightened away from the handsome girl by her supposed haughty intellectual tastes. here again her isolation was partly the result of her own wish. the raw-boned, badly dressed farmers' lads, with red hands and rough hair, she quite as snobbishly ignored as she was ignored in her turn by the well-set-up, fashionably dressed young swells of the university, with their white hands, with their thin, gaudy socks tautly pulled over their ankle-bones, and their shining hair glistening like lacquer on their skulls (that being the desideratum in youthful masculine society of the place and time). sylvia snubbed the masculine jays of college partly because it was a breath of life to her battered vanity to be able to snub some one, and partly because they seemed to her, in comparison with the smart set, seen from afar, quite and utterly undesirable. she would rather have no masculine attentions at all than such poor provender for her feminine desire to conquer. thus she trod the leafy walks of the beautiful campus alone, ignoring and ignored, keenly alive under her shell of indifference to the brilliant young men and their chosen few feminine companions. chapter xv mrs. draper blows the coals the most brilliant of these couples were jermain fiske, jr., and eleanor hubert. the first was the son of the well-known and distinguished colonel jermain fiske, one of the trustees of the university, ex-senator from the state. he belonged to the old, free-handed, speech-making type of american statesmen, and, with his florid good looks, his great stature, his loud, resonant, challenging voice, and his picturesque reputation for highly successful double-dealing, he was one of the most talked-of men in the state, despite his advanced years. his enemies, who were not few, said that the shrewdest action of his surpassingly shrewd life had been his voluntary retirement from the senate and from political activities at the first low murmur heralding the muck-raking cyclone which was to devastate public life as men of his type understood it. but every inhabitant of the state, including his enemies, took an odd pride in his fiercely debonair defiance to old age, in his grandiloquent, too fluent public addresses, and in the manner in which, despite his dubious private reputation, he held open to him, by sheer will-power, sanctimonious doors which were closed to other less robust bad examples to youth. this typical specimen of an american class now passing away, had sent his son to the state university instead of to an expensive eastern college because of his carefully avowed attitude of bluff acceptance of a place among the plain people of the region. the presence of jermain, jr., in the classrooms of the state university had been capital for many a swelling phrase on his father's part--"what's good enough for the farmers' boys of my state is good enough for my boy," etc., etc. as far as the young man in question was concerned, he certainly showed no signs whatever of feeling himself sacrificed for his father's advantage, and apparently considered that a leisurely sojourn for seven years (he took both the b.a. and the three-year law course) in a city the size of la chance was by no means a hardship for a young man in the best of health, provided with ample funds, and never questioned as to the disposition of his time. he had had at first a reputation for dissipation which, together with his prowess on the football field, had made him as much talked of on the campus as his father in the state; but during his later years, those spent in the law school, he had, as the college phrase ran, "taken it out in being swagger," had discarded his former shady associates, had two rooms in the finest frat house on the campus, and was the only student of the university to drive two horses tandem to a high, red-wheeled dog-cart. his fine physique and reputation for quick assertion of his rights saved him from the occasional taunt of dandyism which would have been flung at any other student indulging in so unusual a freak of fashion. during sylvia's freshman year there usually sat beside him, on the lofty seat of this equipage, a sweet-faced, gentle-browed young lady, the lovely flower blooming out of the little girl who had so innocently asked her mother some ten years ago what was a drunken reinhardt. the oldest daughter of the professor of european history was almost precisely sylvia's age, but now, when sylvia was laboring over her books in the very beginning of her college life, eleanor hubert was a finished product, a graduate of an exclusive, expensive girls' boarding-school in new york, and a that-year's débutante in la chance society. her name was constantly in the items of the society columns, she wore the most profusely varied costumes, and she drove about the campus swaying like a lily beside the wealthiest undergraduate. sylvia's mind was naturally too alert and vigorous, and now too thoroughly awakened to intellectual interests, not to seize with interest on the subjects she studied that year; but enjoy as much as she tried to do, and did, this tonic mental discipline, there were many moments when the sight of eleanor hubert made her wonder if after all higher mathematics and history were of any real value. during this wretched year of stifled unhappiness, she not only studied with extreme concentration, but, with a healthy instinct, spent a great deal of time in the gymnasium. it was a delight to her to be able to swim in the winter-time, she organized the first water-polo team among the co-eds, and she began to learn fencing from the commandant of the university battalion. he had been a crack with the foils at west point, and never ceased trying to arouse an interest in what seemed to him the only rational form of exercise; but fencing at that time had no intercollegiate vogue, and of all the young men and women at the state university, sylvia alone took up his standing offer of free instruction to any one who cared to give the time to learn; and even sylvia took up fencing primarily because it promised to give her one more occupation, left her less time for loneliness. as it turned out, however, these lessons proved far more to her than a temporary anodyne: they brought her a positive pleasure. she delighted the dumpy little captain with her aptness, and he took the greatest pains in his instruction. before the end of her freshman year she twice succeeded in getting through his guard and landing a thrust on his well-rounded figure; and though to keep down her conceit he told her that he must be losing, along with his slenderness, some of his youthful agility, he confessed to his wife that teaching miss marshall was the best fun he had had in years. the girl was as quick as a cat, and had a natural-born fencer's wrist. during the summer vacation she kept up her practice with her father, who remembered enough of his early training in paris to be more than a match for her, and in the autumn of her sophomore year, at the annual gymnasium exhibition, she gave with the commandant a public bout with the foils in which she notably distinguished herself. the astonished and long-continued applause for this new feature of the exhibition was a draught of nectar to her embittered young heart, but she acknowledged it with not the smallest sign of pleasure, showing an impassive face as she stood by the portly captain, slim and tall and young and haughty, joining him in a sweeping, ceremonious salute with her foil to the enthusiastic audience, and turning on her heel with a brusqueness as military as his own, to march firmly with high-held head beside him back to the ranks of blue-bloomered girls who stood watching her. the younger girls in alpha kappa and sigma beta were seizing this opportunity to renew an old quarrel with their elders in the fraternities and were acrimoniously hoping that the older ones were quite satisfied with their loss of a brilliant member. these accusations met with no ready answer from the somewhat crestfallen elders, whose only defense was the entire unexpectedness of the way in which sylvia was distinguishing herself. who ever heard before of a girl doing anything remarkable in athletics? and anyhow, now in her sophomore year it was too late to do anything. a girl so notoriously proud would certainly not consider a tardy invitation, and it would not do to run the risk of being refused. it is not too much to say that to have overheard a conversation like this would have changed the course of sylvia's development, but of such colloquies she could know nothing, attributing to the fraternities, with all an outsider's resentful overestimation of their importance, an arrogant solidarity of opinion and firmness of purpose which they were very far from possessing. professor and mrs. marshall and lawrence and judith, up in the front row of chairs set for the audience about the running track, followed this exploit of sylvia's with naïvely open pride and sympathy, applauding even more heartily than did their neighbors. lawrence, as usual, began to compose a poem, the first line of which ran, "splendid, she wields her gleaming sword--" the most immediate result of this first public success of sylvia's was the call paid to mrs. marshall on the day following by mrs. draper, the wife of the professor of greek. although there had never been any formal social intercourse between the two ladies, they had for a good many years met each other casually on the campus, and mrs. draper, with the extremely graceful manner of assurance which was her especial accomplishment, made it seem quite natural that she should call to congratulate sylvia's mother on the girl's skill and beauty as shown in her prowess on the evening before. mrs. marshall prided herself on her undeceived view of life, but she was as ready to hear praise of her spirited and talented daughter as any other mother, and quite melted to mrs. draper, although her observations from afar of the other woman's career in la chance had never before inclined her to tolerance. so that when mrs. draper rose to go and asked casually if sylvia couldn't run in at five that afternoon to have a cup of tea at her house with a very few of her favorites among the young people, mrs. marshall, rather inflexible by nature and quite unused to the subtleties of social intercourse, found herself unable to retreat quickly enough from her reflected tone of cordiality to refuse the invitation for her daughter. when sylvia came back to lunch she was vastly fluttered and pleased by the invitation, and as she ate, her mind leaped from one possible sartorial combination to another. whatever she wore must be exactly right to be worthy of such a hostess: for mrs. draper was a conspicuous figure in faculty society. she had acquired, through years of extremely intelligent manoeuvering, a reputation for choice exclusiveness which was accepted even in the most venerable of the old families of la chance, those whose founders had built their log huts there as long as fifty years before. in faculty circles she occupied a unique position, envied and feared and admired and distrusted and copiously gossiped about by the faculty ladies, who accepted with eagerness any invitations to entertainments in her small, aesthetic, and perfectly appointed house. she was envied even by women with much more than her income:--for of course professor draper had an independent income; it was hardly possible to be anybody unless one belonged to that minority of the faculty families with resources beyond the salary granted by the state. faculty ladies were, however, not favored with a great number of invitations to mrs. draper's select and amusing teas and dinners, as that lady had a great fancy for surrounding herself with youth, meaning, for the most part, naturally enough, masculine youth. with an unerring and practised eye she picked out from each class the few young men who were to her purpose, and proclaiming with the most express lack of reticence the forty-three years which she by no means looked, she took these chosen few under a wing frankly maternal, giving them, in the course of an intimate acquaintance with her and the dim and twilight ways of her house and life, an enlightening experience of a civilization which she herself said, with a humorous appreciation of her own value, quite made over the young, unlicked cubs. this statement of her influence on most of the young men drawn into her circle was perhaps not much exaggerated. from time to time she also admitted into this charmed circle a young girl or two, though almost never one of the university girls, of whom she made the jolliest possible fun. her favorites were the daughters of good la chance families who at seventeen had "finished" at miss home's select school for young ladies, and who came out in society not later than eighteen. she seemed able, as long as she cared to do it, to exercise as irresistible a fascination over these youthful members of her own sex as over the older masculine undergraduates of the university. they copied their friend's hats and neckwear and shoes and her mannerisms of speech, were miserable if she neglected them for a day, furiously jealous of each other, and raised to the seventh heaven by attention from her. just at present the only girl admitted frequently to mrs. draper's intimacy was eleanor hubert. on the day following the gymnasium exhibition, when sylvia, promptly at five, entered the picturesque vine-covered draper house, she found it occupied by none of the usual habitués of the place. the white-capped, black-garbed maid who opened the door to the girl held aside for her a pair of heavy brown-velvet portières which veiled the entrance to the drawing-room. the utter silence of this servitor seemed portentous and inhuman to the young guest, unused to the polite convention that servants cast no shadow and do not exist save when serving their superiors. she found herself in a room as unlike any she had ever seen as though she had stepped into a new planet. the light here was as yellow as gold, and came from a great many candles which, in sconces and candelabra, stood about the room, their oblong yellow flame as steady in the breathless quiet of the air as though they burned in a vault underground. there was not a book in the room, except one in a yellow cover lying beside a box of candy on the mantelpiece, but every ledge, table, projection, or shelf was covered with small, queerly fashioned, dully gleaming objects of ivory, or silver, or brass, or carved wood, or porcelain. the mistress of the room now came in. she was in a loose garment of smoke-brown chiffon, held in place occasionally about her luxuriously rounded figure by a heavy cord of brown silk. she advanced to sylvia with both hands outstretched, and took the girl's slim, rather hard young fingers in the softest of melting palms. "aren't you a _dear_, to be so exactly on time!" she exclaimed. sylvia was a little surprised. she had thought it axiomatic that people kept their appointments promptly. "oh, i'm always on time," she answered simply. mrs. draper laughed and pulled her down on the sofa. "you clear-eyed young diana, you won't allow me even an instant's illusion that you were eager to come to see _me_!" "oh yes, i _was_!" said sylvia hastily, fearing that she might have said something rude. mrs. draper laughed again and gave the hand she still held a squeeze. "you're adorable, that's what _you_ are!" she exploded this pointblank charge in sylvia's face with nonchalant ease, and went on with another. "jerry fiske is quite right about you. i suppose you know that you're here today so that jerry can meet you." as there was obviously not the faintest possibility of sylvia's having heard this save through her present informant, she could only look what she felt, very much at a loss, and rather blank, with a heightened color. mrs. draper eyed her with an intentness at variance with the lightness of her tone, as she continued: "i do think jerry'd have burned up in one flare, like a torch, if he couldn't have seen you at once! after you'd fenced and disappeared again into that stupid crowd of graceless girls, he kept track of you every minute with his opera-glasses, and kept saying: 'she's a goddess! good lord! how she carries herself!' it was rather hard on poor eleanor right there beside him, but i don't blame him. eleanor's a sweet thing, but she'd be sugar and water compared to champagne if she stood up by you." for a good many months sylvia had been craving praise with a starved appetite, and although she found this downpour of it rather drenching, she could not sufficiently collect herself to make the conventional decent pretense that it was unwelcome. she flushed deeply and looked at her hostess with dazzled eyes. mrs. draper affected to see in her silence a blankness as to the subject of the talk, and interrupted the flow of personalities to cry out, with a pretense of horror, "you don't mean to say you don't know who jerry fiske _is_!" sylvia, as unused as her mother to conversational traps, fell into this one with an eager promptness. "oh yes, indeed; i know him by sight very well," she said and stopped, flushing again at a significant laugh from mrs. draper. "i mean," she went on with dignity, "that mr. fiske has always been so prominent in college--football and all, you know--and his father being one of our state senators so long--i suppose everybody on the campus knows him by sight." mrs. draper patted the girl's shoulder propitiatingly. "yes, yes, of course," she assented. she added, "he's ever so good-looking, don't you think--like a great viking with his yellow hair and bright blue eyes?" "i never noticed his eyes," said sylvia stiffly, suspicious of ridicule in the air. "well, you'll have a chance to this afternoon," answered her hostess, "for he's the only other person who's to be admitted to the house. i had a great time excusing myself to eleanor--she was coming to take me out driving--but of course it wouldn't do--for her own sake--the poor darling--to have her here today!" sylvia thought she could not have rightly understood the significance of this speech, and looked uncomfortable. mrs. draper said: "oh, you needn't mind cutting eleanor out--she's only a dear baby who can't feel anything very deeply. it's mamma hubert who's so mad about catching jerry. since she's heard he's to have the fiske estate at mercerton as soon as he graduates from law school, she's like a wild creature! if eleanor weren't the most unconscious little bait that ever hung on a hook jerry'd have turned away in disgust long ago. he may not be so very acute, but mamma hubert and her manoeuvers are not millstones for seeing through!" the doorbell rang, one long and one short tap. "that's jerry's ring," said mrs. draper composedly, as though she had been speaking of her husband. in an instant the heavy portières were flung back by a vigorous arm, and a very tall, broad-shouldered, clean-shaven young man, in a well-tailored brown suit, stepped in. he accosted his hostess with easy assurance, but went through his introduction to sylvia in a rather awkward silence. "now we'll have tea," said mrs. draper at once, pressing a button. in a moment a maid brought in a tray shining with silver and porcelain, set it down on the table in front of mrs. draper, and then wheeled in a little circular table with shelves, a glorified edition in gleaming mahogany of the homely, white-painted wheeled-tray of sylvia's home. on the shelves was a large assortment of delicate, small cakes and paper-thin sandwiches. while she poured out the amber-colored tea into the translucent cups, mrs. draper kept up with the new-comer a lively monologue of personalities, in which sylvia, for very ignorance of the people involved, could take no part. she sat silent, watching with concentration the two people before her, the singularly handsome man, certainly the handsomest man she had ever seen, and the far from handsome but singularly alluring woman who faced him, making such a display of her two good points, her rich figure and her fine dark eyes, that for an instant the rest of her person seemed non-existent. "how do you like your tea, dear?" the mistress of the house brought her stranded guest back into the current of talk with this well-worn hook. "oh, it doesn't make any difference," said sylvia, who, as it happened, did not like the taste of tea. "you really ought to have it nectar; with whipped ambrosia on top." mrs. draper troweled this statement on with a dashing smear, saving sylvia from being forced to answer, by adding lightly to the man, "is ambrosia anything that will whip, do you suppose?" "never heard of it before," he answered, breaking his silence with a carefree absence of shame at his confession of ignorance. "sounds like one of those labels on a soda-water fountain that nobody ever samples." mrs. draper made a humorously exaggerated gesture of despair and turned to sylvia. "well, it's just as well, my dear, that you should know at the very beginning what a perfect monster of illiteracy he is! you needn't expect anything from him but his stupid good-looks, and money and fascination. otherwise he's a cave-man for ignorance. you must take him in hand!" she turned back to the man. "sylvia, you know, is as clever as she is beautiful. she had the highest rank but three in her class last year." sylvia was overcome with astonishment by this knowledge of a fact which had seemed to make no impression on the world of the year before. "why, how could you know that!" she cried. mrs. draper laughed. "just hear her!" she appealed to the young man. her method of promoting the acquaintance of the two young people seemed to consist in talking to each of the other. "just hear her! she converses as she fences--one bright flash, and you're skewered against the wall--no parryings possible!" she faced sylvia again: "why, my dear, in answer to your rapier-like question, i must simply confess that this morning, being much struck with jerry's being struck with you, i went over to the registrar's office and looked you up. i know that you passed supremely well in mathematics and french (what a quaint combination!), very well indeed in history and chemistry, and moderately in botany. what's the matter with botany? i have always found professor cross a very obliging little man." "he doesn't make me see any sense to botany," explained sylvia, taking the question seriously. "i don't seem to get hold of any real reason for studying it at all. what difference does it make if a bush is a hawthorn or not?--and anyhow, i know it's a hawthorn without studying botany." the young man spoke for himself now, with a keen relish for sylvia's words. he faced her for the first time. "now you're _shouting_, miss marshall!" he said. "that's the most sensible thing i ever heard said. that's just what i always felt about the whole b.a. course, anyhow! what's the diff? who cares whether charlemagne lived in six hundred or sixteen hundred? it all happened before we were born. what's it all _to_ us?" sylvia looked squarely at him, a little startled at his directly addressing her, not hearing a word of what he said in the vividness of her first-hand impression of his personality, his brilliant blue eyes, his full, very red lips, his boldly handsome face and carriage, his air of confidence. in spite of his verbal agreement with her opinion, his look crossed hers dashingly, like a challenge, a novelty in the amicable harmony which had been the tradition of her life. she felt that tradition to be not without its monotony, and her young blood warmed. she gazed back at him silently, wonderingly, frankly. with her radiantly sensuous youth in the first splendor of its opening, with this frank, direct look, she had a moment of brilliance to make the eyes of age shade themselves as against a dazzling brightness. the eyes of the man opposite her were not those of age. they rested on her, roused, kindling to heat. his head went up like a stag's. she felt a momentary hot throb of excitement, as though her body were one great fiddle-string, twanging under a vigorously plucking thumb. it was thrilling, it was startling, it was not altogether pleasant. the corners of her sensitive mouth twitched uncertainly. mrs. draper, observing from under her down-drooped lids this silent passage between the two, murmured amusedly to herself, "ah, now you're shouting, my children!" chapter xvi playing with matches there was much that was acrid about the sweetness of triumph which the next months brought sylvia. the sudden change in her life had not come until there was an accumulation of bitterness in her heart the venting of which was the strongest emotion of that period of strong emotions. as she drove about the campus, perched on the high seat of the red-wheeled dog-cart, her lovely face looked down with none of eleanor hubert's gentleness into the envying eyes of the other girls. a high color burned in her cheeks, and her bright eyes were not soft. she looked continually excited. at home she was hard to live with, quick to take offense at the least breath of the adverse criticism which she felt, unspoken and forbearing but thick in the air about her. she neglected her music, she neglected her studies; she spent long hours of feverish toil over aunt victoria's chiffons and silks. there was need for many toilets now, for the incessantly recurring social events to which she went with young fiske, chaperoned by mrs. draper, who had for her old rival and enemy, mrs. hubert, the most mocking of friendly smiles, as she entered a ballroom, the acknowledged sponsor of the brilliant young sensation of the college season. at these dances sylvia had the grim satisfaction, not infrequently the experience of intelligent young ladies, of being surrounded by crowds of admiring young men, for whom she had no admiration, the barren sterility of whose conversation filled her with astonishment, even in her fever of exultation. she knew the delights of frequently "splitting" her dances so that there might be enough to go around. she was plunged headlong into the torrent of excitement which is the life of a social favorite at a large state university, that breathless whirl of one engagement after another for every evening and for most of the days, which is one of the oddest developments of the academic life as planned and provided for by the pioneer fathers of those great western commonwealths; and she savored every moment of it, for during every moment she drank deep at the bitter fountain of personal vindication. she went to all the affairs which had ignored her the year before, to all the dances given by the "swell men's fraternities," to the sophomore hop, to the "football dance," at the end of the season, to the big reception given to the freshman class by the seniors. and in addition to these evening affairs, she appeared beside jerry fiske at every football game, at the first glee club concert, at the outdoor play given by the literary societies, and very frequently at the weekly receptions to the students tendered by the ladies of the faculty. these affairs were always spoken of by the faculty as an attempt to create a homogeneous social atmosphere on the campus; but this attempt had ended, as such efforts usually do, in adding to the bewildering plethora of social life of those students who already had too much, and in being an added sting to the solitude and ostracism of those who had none. naturally enough, the ladies of the faculty who took most interest in these afternoon functions were the ones who cared most for society life, and there was only too obvious a contrast between their manner of kindly, vague, condescending interest shown to one of the "rough-neck" students, and the easy familiarity shown to one of those socially "possible." the "rough-necks" seldom sought out more than once the prettily decorated tables spread every friday afternoon in the faculty room, off the reading-room of the library. sylvia especially had, on the only occasion when she had ventured into this charming scene, suffered too intensely from the difference of treatment accorded her and that given eleanor hubert to feel anything but angry resentment. after that experience, she had passed along the halls with the other outsiders, books in hand, her head held proudly high, and never turned even to glance in at the gleaming tables, the lighted candles, and the little groups of easily self-confident fraternity men and girls laughing and talking over their teacups, and revenging vicariously the rest of the ignored student-body by the calm young insolence with which they in their turn ignored their presumptive hostesses, the faculty ladies. mrs. draper changed all this for sylvia with a wave of her wand. she took the greatest pains to introduce her protégée into this phase of the social life of the university. on these occasions, as beautiful and as over-dressed as any girl in the room, with jermain fiske in obvious attendance; with the exclusive mrs. draper setting in a rich frame of commentary any remark she happened to make (sylvia was acquiring a reputation for great wit); with eleanor hubert, eclipsed, sitting in a corner, quite deserted save for a funny countrified freak assistant in chemistry; with all the "swellest frat men" in college rushing to get her tea and sandwiches; with mrs. hubert plunged obviously into acute unhappiness, sylvia knew as ugly moments of mean satisfaction as often fall to the lot even of very pretty young women. at home she knew no moments of satisfaction of any variety, although there was no disapprobation expressed by any one, except in one or two characteristically recondite comments by professor kennedy, who was taking a rather uneasy triumph in the proof of an old theory of his as to sylvia's character. one afternoon, at a football game, he came up to her on the grandstand, shook hands with jermain fiske, whom he had flunked innumerable times in algebra, and remarked in his most acid voice that he wished to congratulate the young man on being the perfect specimen of the dolichocephalic blond whose arrival in sylvia's life he had predicted years before. sylvia, belligerently aware of the attitude of her home world, and ready to resent criticism, took the liveliest offense at this obscure comment, which she perfectly understood. she flushed indignantly and glared in silence with the eyes of an angry young goddess. young fiske, who found the remark, or any other made by a college prof, quite as unintelligible as it was unimportant, laughed with careless impudence in the old man's face; and mrs. draper, for all her keenness, could make nothing of it. it sounded, however, so quite like a dictum which she herself would have liked to make, that she cross-questioned sylvia afterwards as to its meaning; but sylvia lied fluently, asserting that it was just some of professor kennedy's mathematical gibberish which had no meaning. in the growing acquaintance of sylvia and jermain, mrs. draper acted assiduously as chaperon, a refinement of sophisticated society which was, as a rule, but vaguely observed in the chaotic flux of state university social life, and she so managed affairs that they were seldom together alone. for obvious reasons sylvia preferred to see the young man elsewhere than in her own home, where indeed he made almost no appearance, beyond standing at the door of an evening, very handsome and distinguished in his evening dress, waiting for sylvia to put on her wraps and go out with him to the carriage where mrs. draper sat expectant, furred and velvet-wrapped. this discreet manager made no objection to sylvia's driving about the campus in the daytime alone with jermain, but to his proposal to drive the girl out to the country-club for dinner one evening she added blandly the imperious proviso that she be of the party; and she discouraged with firmness any projects for solitary walks together through the woods near the campus, although this was a recognized form of co-educational amusement at that institution of learning. for all her air of free-and-easy equality with the young man, she had at times a certain blighting glance which, turned on him suddenly, always brought him to an agreement with her opinion, an agreement which might obviously ring but verbal on his tongue, but which was nevertheless the acknowledged basis of action. as for sylvia, she acquiesced, with an eagerness which she did not try to understand, in any arrangement which precluded tête-à-têtes with jerry. she did not, as a matter of fact, try to understand anything of what was happening to her. she was by no means sure that she liked it, but was stiffened into a stubborn resistance to any doubts by the unvoiced objection to it all at home. with an instinct against disproportion, perverse perhaps in this case, but with a germ of soundness in it, she felt confusedly and resentfully that since her home circle was so patently narrow and exaggerated in its standard of personality, she would just have to even things up by being a little less fastidious than was her instinct; and on the one or two occasions when a sudden sight of jerry sent through her a strange, unpleasant stir of all her flesh, she crushed the feeling out of sight under her determination to assert her own judgment and standards against those which had (she now felt) so tyrannically influenced her childhood. but for the most part she did little thinking, shaking as loudly as possible the reverberating rattle of physical excitement. thus everything progressed smoothly under mrs. draper's management. the young couple met each other usually in the rather close air of her candle-lighted living-room, drinking a great deal of tea, consuming large numbers of delicate, strangely compounded sandwiches, and listening to an endless flow of somewhat startlingly frank personalities from the magnetic mistress of the house. sylvia and jermain did not talk much on these occasions. they listened with edification to the racy remarks of their hostess, voicing that theoretical "broadness" of opinion as to the conduct of life which, quite as much as the perfume which she always used, was a specialty of her provocative personality; they spoke now and then, to be sure, as she drew them into conversation, but their real intercourse was almost altogether silent. they eyed each other across the table, breathing quickly, and flushing or paling if their hands chanced to touch in the services of the tea-table. once the young man came in earlier than usual and found sylvia alone for a moment in the silent, glowing, perfumed room. he took her hand, apparently for the ordinary handclasp of greeting, but with a surge of his blood retained it, pressing it so fiercely that his ring cut into her finger, causing a tiny drop of bright red to show on the youthful smoothness of her skin. at this living ruby they both stared fixedly for an instant; then mrs. draper came hastily into the room, saying chidingly, "come, come, children!" and looking with displeasure at the man's darkly flushed face. sylvia was paler than usual for the rest of the afternoon, and could not swallow a mouthful of the appetizing food, which as a rule she devoured with the frank satisfaction of a hungry child. she sat, rather white, not talking much, avoiding jerry's eyes for no reason that she could analyze, and, in the pauses of the conversation, could hear the blood singing loudly in her ears. yet, although she felt the oddest relief, as after one more escape, at the end of each of these afternoons with her new acquaintances, afternoons in which the three seemed perpetually gliding down a steep incline and as perpetually being arrested on the brink of some unexplained plunge, she found that their atmosphere had spoiled entirely her relish for the atmosphere of her home. the home supper-table seemed to her singularly flat and distasteful with its commonplace fare--hot chocolate and creamed potatoes and apple sauce, and its brisk, impersonal talk of socialism, and politics, and small home events, and music. as it happened, the quartet had the lack of intuition to play a great deal of haydn that autumn, and to sylvia the cheerful, obvious tap-tap-tap of the hearty old master seemed to typify the bald, unsubtle obtuseness of the home attitude towards life. she herself took to playing the less difficult of the chopin nocturnes with a languorous over-accentuation of their softness which she was careful to keep from the ears of old reinhardt. but one evening he came in, unheard, listened to her performance of the b-flat minor nocturne with a frown, and pulled her away from the piano before she had finished. "not true music, not true love, not true anydings!" he said, speaking however with an unexpected gentleness, and patting her on the shoulder with a dirty old hand. "listen!" he clapped his fiddle under his chin and played the air of the andante from the kreutzer sonata with so singing and heavenly a tone that sylvia, as helpless an instrument in his skilful hands as the violin itself, felt the nervous tears stinging her eyelids. this did not prevent her making a long détour the next day to avoid meeting the uncomely old musician on the street and being obliged to recognize him publicly. she lived in perpetual dread of being thus forced, when in the company of mrs. draper or jermain, to acknowledge her connection with him, or with cousin parnelia, or with any of the eccentrics who frequented her parents' home, and whom it was physically impossible to imagine drinking tea at mrs. draper's table. it was beside this same table that she met, one day in early december, jermain fiske's distinguished father. he explained that he was in la chance for a day on his way from washington to mercerton, where the fiske family was collecting for its annual christmas house-party, and had dropped in on mrs. draper quite unexpectedly. he was, he added, delighted that it happened to be a day when he could meet the lovely miss marshall of whom (with a heavy accent of jocose significance) he had heard so much. sylvia was a little confused by the pointed attentions of this gallant old warrior, oddly in contrast with the manner of other elderly men she knew; but she thought him very handsome, with his sweeping white mustache, his bright blue eyes, so like his son's, and she was much impressed with his frock-coat, fitting snugly around his well-knit, erect figure, and with the silk hat which she noticed on the table in the hall as she went in. frock-coats and silk hats were objects seldom encountered in la chance, except in illustrations to magazine-stories, or in photographs of life in new york or washington. but of course, she reflected, colonel fiske lived most of his life in washington, about the cosmopolitan delights of which he talked most eloquently to the two ladies. as was inevitable, sylvia also met eleanor hubert more or less at mrs. draper's. sylvia had been rendered acutely self-conscious in that direction by mrs. draper's very open comments on her rôle in the life of the other girl, and at first had been so smitten by embarrassment as positively to be awkward, a rare event in her life: but she was soon set at ease by the other girl's gentle friendliness, so simple and sincere that even sylvia's suspicious vanity could not feel it to be condescension. eleanor's sweet eyes shone so kindly on her successful rival, and she showed so frank and unenvious an admiration of sylvia's wit and learning, displayed perhaps a trifle ostentatiously by that young lady in the ensuing conversation with mrs. draper, that sylvia had a fresh, healing impulse of shame for her own recently acquired attitude of triumphing hostility towards the world. at the same time she felt a surprised contempt for the other girl's ignorance and almost illiteracy. whatever else eleanor had learned in the exclusive and expensive girls' school in new york, she had not learned to hold her own in a conversation on the most ordinary topics; and as for mrs. draper's highly spiced comments on life and folk, her young friend made not the slightest attempt to cope with them or even to understand them. the alluring mistress of the house might talk of sex-antagonism and the hatefulness of the puritanical elements of american life as much as she pleased. it all passed over the head of the lovely, fair girl, sipping her tea and raising her candid eyes to meet with a trustful smile, perhaps a little blank, the glance of whomever chanced to be looking at her. it was significant that she had the same smile for each of the three very dissimilar persons who sat about the tea-table. of all the circle into which sylvia's changed life had plunged her, eleanor, the type of the conventional society bud, was, oddly enough, the only one she cared to talk about in her own extremely unconventional home. but even on this topic she felt herself bruised and jarred by the severity, the unpicturesque austerity of the home standards. as she was trying to give her mother some idea of eleanor's character, she quoted one day a remark of mrs. draper's, to the effect that "eleanor no more knows the meaning of her beauty than a rose the meaning of its perfume." mrs. marshall kept a forbidding silence for a moment and then said: "i don't take much stock in that sort of unconsciousness. eleanor isn't a rose, she isn't even a child. she's a woman. the sooner girls learn that distinction, the better off they'll be, and the fewer chances they'll run of being horribly misunderstood." sylvia felt very angry with her mother for this unsympathetic treatment of a pretty phrase, and thought with resentment that it was not _her_ fault if she were becoming more and more alienated from her family. this was a feeling adroitly fostered by mrs. draper, who, in her endless talks with sylvia and jermain about themselves, had hit upon an expression and a turn of phrase which was to have more influence on sylvia's development than its brevity seemed to warrant. she had, one day, called sylvia a little athenian, growing up, by the oddest of mistakes, in sparta. sylvia, who was in the pater-reading stage of development, caught at her friend's phrase as at the longed-for key to her situation. it explained everything. it made everything appear in the light she wished for. above all it enabled her to clarify her attitude towards her home. now she understood. one did not scorn sparta. one respected it, it was a noble influence in life; but for an athenian, for whom amenity and beauty and suavity were as essential as food, sparta was death. as was natural to her age and temperament, she sucked a vast amount of pleasure out of this pitying analysis of her subtle, complicated needs and the bare crudity of her surroundings. she now read pater more assiduously than ever, always carrying a volume about with her text-books, and feeding on this delicate fare in such unlikely and dissimilar places as on the trolley-cars, in the kitchen, in the intervals of preparing a meal, or in mrs. draper's living-room, waiting for the problematical entrance of that erratic luminary. there was none of mrs. draper's habits of life which made more of an impression on sylvia's imagination than her custom of disregarding engagements and appointments, of coming and going, appearing and disappearing quite as she pleased. to the daughter of a scrupulously exact family, which regarded tardiness as a fault, and breaking an appointment as a crime, this high-handed flexibility in dealing with time and bonds and promises had an exciting quality of freedom. on a good many occasions these periods of waiting chanced to be shared by eleanor hubert, for whom, after the first two or three encounters, sylvia came to have a rather condescending sympathy, singularly in contrast to the uneasy envy with which she had regarded her only a few months before. however, as regards dress, eleanor was still a phenomenon of the greatest interest, and sylvia never saw her without getting an idea or two, although it was plain to any one who knew eleanor that this mastery of the technique of modern american costume was no achievement of her own, that she was merely the lovely and plastic material molded, perhaps to slightly over-complicated effects, by her mother's hands. from that absent but pervasive personality sylvia took one suggestion after another. for instance, a very brief association with eleanor caused her to relegate to the scrapheap of the "common" the ready-made white ruching for neck and sleeves which she had always before taken for granted. eleanor's slim neck and smooth wrists were always set off by a few folds of the finest white chiffon, laid with dexterous carelessness, and always so exquisitely fresh that they were obviously renewed by a skilful hand after only a few hours' wearing. the first time she saw eleanor, sylvia noticed this detail with appreciation, and immediately struggled to reproduce it in her own costume. like other feats of the lesser arts this perfect trifle turned out to depend upon the use of the lightest and most adroit touch. none of the chiffon which came in aunt victoria's boxes would do. it must be fresh from the shop-counter, ruinous as this was to sylvia's very modest allowance for dress. even then she spoiled many a yard of the filmy, unmanageable stuff before she could catch the spirit of those apparently careless folds, so loosely disposed and yet never displaced. it was a phenomenon over which a philosopher might well have pondered, this spectacle of sylvia's keen brain and well-developed will-power equally concerned with the problems of chemistry and philosophy and history, and with the problem of chiffon folds. she herself was aware of no incongruity, indeed of no difference, between the two sorts of efforts. many other matters of eleanor's attire proved as fruitful of suggestion as this, although aunt victoria's well-remembered dictum about the "kitchen-maid's pin-cushion" was a guiding finger-board which warned sylvia against the multiplication of detail, even desirable detail. mrs. hubert had evidently studied deeply the sources of distinction in modern dress, and had grasped with philosophic thoroughness the underlying principle of the art, which is to show effects obviously costly, but the cost of which is due less to mere brute cash than to prodigally expended effort. eleanor never wore a costume which did not show the copious exercise by some alert-minded human being, presumably with an immortal soul, of the priceless qualities of invention, creative thought, trained attention, and prodigious industry. mrs. hubert's unchallengeable slogan was that dress should be an expression of individuality, and by dint of utilizing all the details of the attire of herself and of her two daughters, down to the last ruffle and buttonhole, she found this medium quite sufficient to express the whole of her own individuality, the conspicuous force of which was readily conceded by any observer of the lady's life. as for eleanor's own individuality, any one in search of that very unobtrusive quality would have found it more in the expression of her eyes and in the childlike lines of her lips than in her toilets. it is possible that mrs. hubert might have regarded it as an unkind visitation of providence that the results of her lifetime of effort in an important art should have been of such slight interest to her daughter, and should have served, during the autumn under consideration, chiefly as hints and suggestions for her daughter's successful rival. that she was eleanor's successful rival, sylvia had mrs. draper's more than outspoken word. that lady openly gloried in the impending defeat of mrs. hubert's machinations to secure the fiske money and position for eleanor; although she admitted that a man like jerry had his two opposing sides, and that he was quite capable of being attracted by two such contrasting types as sylvia and eleanor. she informed sylvia indeed that the present wife of colonel fiske--his third, by the way--had evidently been in her youth a girl of eleanor's temperament. it was more than apparent, however, that in the case of the son, sylvia's "type" was in the ascendent; but it must be set down to sylvia's credit that the circumstance of successful competition gave her no satisfaction. she often heartily wished eleanor out of it. she could never meet the candid sweetness of the other's eyes without a qualm of discomfort, and she suffered acutely under eleanor's gentle amiability. once or twice when mrs. draper was too outrageously late at an appointment for tea, the two girls gave her up, and leaving the house, walked side by side back across the campus, sylvia quite aware of the wondering surmise which followed their appearance together. on these occasions, eleanor talked with more freedom than in mrs. draper's presence, always in the quietest, simplest way, of small events and quite uninteresting minor matters in her life, or the life of the various household pets, of which she seemed extremely fond. sylvia could not understand why, when she bade her good-bye at the driveway leading into the hubert house, she should feel anything but a rather contemptuous amusement for the other's insignificance, but the odd fact was that her heart swelled with inexplicable warmth. once she yielded to this foolish impulse, and felt a quivering sense of pleasure at the sudden startled responsiveness with which eleanor returned a kiss, clinging to her as though she were an older, stronger sister. one dark late afternoon in early december, sylvia waited alone in the candle-lighted shrine, neither eleanor nor her hostess appearing. after five o'clock she started home alone along the heavily shaded paths of the campus, as dim as caves in the interval before the big, winking sputtering arc-lights were flashed on. she walked swiftly and lightly as was her well-trained habit, and before she knew it, was close upon a couple sauntering in very close proximity. with the surety of long practice sylvia instantly diagnosed them as a college couple indulging in what was known euphemistically as "campus work," and prepared to pass them with the slight effect of scorn for philanderings which she always managed to throw into her high-held head and squarely swinging shoulders. but as she came up closer, walking noiselessly in the dusk, she recognized an eccentric, flame-colored plume just visible in the dim light, hanging down from the girl's hat--and stopped short, filled with a rush of very complicated feelings. the only flame-colored plume in la chance was owned and worn by eleanor hubert, and if she were out sauntering amorously in the twilight, with whom could she be but jerry fiske,--and that meant--sylvia's pangs of conscience about supplanting eleanor were swept away by a flood of anger as at a defeat. she could not make out the girl's companion, beyond the fact that he was tall and wore a long, loose overcoat. jerry was tall and wore a long, loose overcoat. sylvia walked on, slowly now, thoroughly aroused, quite unaware of the inconsistency of her mental attitude. she felt a rising tide of heat. she had, she told herself, half a notion to step forward and announce her presence to the couple, whose pace as the hubert house was approached became slower and slower. but then, as they stood for a moment at the entrance of the hubert driveway, the arc-lights blazed up all over the campus at once and she saw two things: one was that eleanor was walking very close to her companion, with her arm through his, and her little gloved fingers covered by his hand, and next that he was not jerry fiske at all, but the queer, countrified "freak" assistant in chemistry with whom eleanor, since jerry's defection, had more or less masked her abandonment. at the same moment the two started guiltily apart, and sylvia halted, thinking they had discovered her. but it was mrs. hubert whom they had seen, advancing from the other direction, and making no pretense that she was not in search of an absent daughter. she bore down upon the couple, murmured a very brief greeting to the man, accompanied by a faint inclination of her well-hatted head, drew eleanor's unresisting hand inside her arm, and walked her briskly into the house. chapter xvii mrs. marshall sticks to her principles during the autumn and early winter it not only happened unfortunately that the quartet played altogether too much haydn, but that sylvia's father, contrary to his usual custom, was away from home a great deal. the state university had arrived at that stage of its career when, if its rapidly increasing needs and demands for state money were to be recognized by the legislature, it must knit itself more closely to the rest of the state system of education, have a more intimate affiliation with the widely scattered public high schools, and weld into some sort of homegeneity their extremely various standards of scholarship. this was a delicate undertaking, calling for much tact and an accurate knowledge of conditions in the state, especially in the rural districts. professor marshall's twenty years of popularity with the more serious element of the state university students (that popularity which meant so little to sylvia, and which she so ignored) had given him a large acquaintance among the class which it was necessary to reach. he knew the men who at the university had been the digs, and jays, and grinds, and who were now the prosperous farmers, the bankers, the school-trustees, the leading men in their communities; and his geniality, vivacity, and knack for informal public speaking made him eminently fitted to represent the university in the somewhat thankless task of coaxing and coercing backward communities to expend the necessary money and effort to bring their schools up to the state university standard. if all this had happened a few years sooner, he undoubtedly would have taken sylvia with him on many of these journeys into remote corners of the state, but sylvia had her class-work to attend to, and the professor shared to the fullest extent the academic prejudice against parents who broke in upon the course of their children's regular instruction by lawless and casual junketings. instead, it was judith who frequently accompanied him, judith who was now undergoing that home-preparation for the university through which sylvia had passed, and who, since her father was her principal instructor, could carry on her studies wherever he happened to be; as well as have the stimulating experience of coming in contact with a wide variety of people and conditions. it is possible that professor marshall's sociable nature not only shrank from the solitude which his wife would have endured with cheerfulness, but that he also wished to take advantage of this opportunity to come in closer touch with his second daughter, for whose self-contained and occasionally insensitive nature he had never felt the instinctive understanding he had for sylvia's moods. it is certain that the result was a better feeling between the two than had existed before. during the long hours of jolting over branch railroads back to remote settlements, or waiting at cheerless junctions for delayed trains, or gaily eating impossible meals at extraordinary country hotels, the ruddy, vigorous father, now growing both gray and stout, and the tall, slender, darkly handsome girl of fifteen, were cultivating more things than history and mathematics and english literature. the most genuine feeling of comradeship sprang up between the two dissimilar natures, a feeling so strong and so warm that sylvia, in addition to her other emotional complications, felt occasionally a faint pricking of jealousy at seeing her primacy with her father usurped. a further factor in her temporary feeling of alienation from him was the mere physical fact that she saw him much less frequently and that he had nothing like his usual intimate knowledge of her comings and goings. and finally, lawrence, now a too rapidly growing and delicate lad of eleven, had a series of bronchial colds which kept his mother much occupied with his care. as far as her family was concerned, sylvia was thus left more alone than ever before, and although she had been trained to too delicate and high a personal pride to attempt the least concealment of her doings, it was not without relief that she felt that her parents had but a very superficial knowledge of the extent and depth to which she was becoming involved in her new relations. she herself shut her eyes as much as possible to the rate at which she was progressing towards a destination rapidly becoming more and more imperiously visible; and consciously intoxicated herself with the excitements and fatigues of her curiously double life of intellectual effort in classes and her not very skilful handling of the shining and very sharp-edged tools of flirtation. but this ambiguous situation was suddenly clarified by the unexpected call upon mrs. marshall, one day about the middle of december, of no less a person than mrs. jermain fiske, sr., wife of the colonel, and jerry's stepmother. sylvia happened to be in her room when the shining car drove up the country road before the marshall house, stopped at the gate in the osage-orange hedge, and discharged the tall, stooping, handsomely dressed lady in rich furs, who came with a halting step up the long path to the front door. although sylvia had never seen mrs. fiske, mrs. draper's gift for satiric word-painting had made her familiar with some items of her appearance, and it was with a rapidly beating heart that she surmised the identity of the distinguished caller. but although her quick intelligence perceived the probable significance of the appearance, and although she felt a distinct shock at the seriousness of having jerry's stepmother call upon her, she was diverted from these capital considerations of such vital importance to her life by the trivial consideration which had, so frequently during the progress of this affair, absorbed her mind to the exclusion of everything else--the necessity for keeping up appearances. if the marshall tradition had made it easier for her to achieve this not very elevated goal, she might have perceived more clearly where her rapid feet were taking her. just now, for example, there was nothing in her consciousness but the embittered knowledge that there was no maid to open the door when mrs. fiske should ring. she was a keen-witted modern young woman of eighteen, with a well-trained mind stored with innumerable facts of science, but it must be admitted that at this moment she reverted with passionate completeness to quite another type. she would have given--she would have given a year of her life--one of her fingers--all her knowledge of history--anything! if the marshalls had possessed what she felt any decently prosperous grocer's family ought to possess--a well-appointed maid in the hall to open the door, take mrs. fiske's card, show her into the living-room, and go decently and in order to summon the mistress of the house. instead she saw with envenomed foresight what would happen. at the unusual sound of the bell, her mother, who was playing dominoes with lawrence in one of his convalescences, would open the door with her apron still on, and her spectacles probably pushed up, rustic fashion, on top of her head. and then their illustrious visitor, used as of course she was to ceremony in social matters, would not know whether this was the maid, or her hostess; and mrs. marshall would frankly show her surprise at seeing a richly dressed stranger on the doorstep, and would perhaps think she had made a mistake in the house; and mrs. fiske would not know whether to hand over the cards she held ready in her whitely gloved fingers--in the interval between the clanging shut of the gate and the tinkle of the doorbell sylvia endured a sick reaction against life, as an altogether hateful and horrid affair. as a matter of fact, nothing of all this took place. when the bell rang, her mother called out a tranquil request to her to go and open the door, and so it was sylvia herself who confronted the unexpected visitor,--sylvia a little flurried and breathless, but ushering the guest into the house with her usual graceful charm of manner. she had none of this as a moment later she went rather slowly upstairs to summon her mother. it occurred to her that mrs. marshall might very reasonably be at a loss as to the reason of this call. indeed, she herself felt a sinking alarm at the definiteness of the demonstration. what could mrs. fiske have to say to mrs. marshall that would not lead to some agitating crystallization of the dangerous solution which during the past months mrs. marshall's daughter had been so industriously stirring up? mrs. marshall showed the most open surprise at the announcement, "mrs. colonel fiske to see me? what in the world--" she began, but after a glance at sylvia's down-hung head and twisting fingers, she stopped short, looking very grave, and rose to go, with no more comments. they went down the stairs in silence, tall mother and tall daughter, both sobered, both frightened at what might be in the other's mind, and at what might be before them, and entered the low-ceilinged living-room together. a pale woman, apparently as apprehensive as they, rose in a haste that had almost some element of apology in it, and offered her hand to mrs. marshall. "i'm mrs. fiske," she said hurriedly, in a low voice, "jerry's stepmother, you know. i hope you won't mind my coming to see you. what a perfectly lovely home you have! i was wishing i could just stay and _stay_ in this room." she spoke rapidly with the slightly incoherent haste of shy people overcoming their weakness, and glanced alternately, with faded blue eyes, at sylvia and at her mother. in the end she remained standing, looking earnestly into mrs. marshall's face. that lady now made a step forward and again put out her hand with an impulsive gesture at which sylvia wondered. she herself had felt no attraction towards the thin, sickly woman who had so little grace or security of manner. it was constantly surprising sylvia to discover how often people high in social rank seemed to possess no qualifications for their position. she always felt that she could have filled their places with vastly more aplomb. "i'm very glad to see you," said mrs. marshall in a friendly tone. "do sit down again. sylvia, go and make us some tea, won't you? mrs. fiske must be cold after driving out here from town." when sylvia came back ten minutes later, she found the guest saying, "my youngest is only nine months old, and he is having _such_ a time with his teeth." "oh!" thought sylvia scornfully, pouring out the tea. "she's _that_ kind of a woman, is she?" with the astonishingly quick shifting of viewpoint of the young, she no longer felt the least anxiety that her home, or even that she herself should make a good impression on this evidently quite negligible person. her anguish about the ceremony of opening the door seemed years behind her. she examined with care all the minutiae of the handsome, unindividualized costume of black velvet worn by their visitor, but turned an absent ear to her talk, which brought out various facts relating to a numerous family of young children. "i have six living," said mrs. fiske, not meeting mrs. marshall's eyes as she spoke, and stirring her tea slowly, "i lost four at birth." sylvia was indeed slightly interested to learn through another turn of the conversation that the caller, who looked to her unsympathetic eyes any age at all, had been married at eighteen, and that that was only thirteen years ago. sylvia thought she certainly looked older than thirty-one, advanced though that age was. the call passed with no noteworthy incidents beyond a growing wonder in sylvia's mind that the brilliant and dashing old colonel, after his other matrimonial experiences, should have picked out so dull and colorless a wife. she was not even pretty, not at all pretty, in spite of her delicate, regular features and tall figure. her hair was dry and thin, her eyes lusterless, her complexion thick, with brown patches on it, and her conversation was of a domesticity unparalleled in sylvia's experience. she seemed oddly drawn to mrs. marshall, although that lady was now looking rather graver than was her wont, and talked to her of the overflowing fiske nursery with a loquacity which was evidently not her usual habit. indeed, she said naïvely, as she went away, that she had been much relieved to find mrs. marshall so approachable. "one always thinks of university families as so terribly learned, you know," she said, imputing to her hostess, with a child's tactlessness, an absence of learning like her own. "i really dreaded to come--i go out so little, you know--but jerry and the colonel thought i ought, you know--and now i've really enjoyed it--and if miss marshall will come, jerry and the colonel will be quite satisfied. and so, of course, will i." with which rather jerky valedictory she finally got herself out of the house. sylvia looked at her mother inquiringly. "if i go where?" she asked. something must have taken place while she was out of the room getting the tea. "she called to invite you formally to a christmas house-party at the fiskes' place in mercerton," said mrs. marshall, noting smilelessly sylvia's quick delight at the news. "oh, what have i got to wear!" cried the girl. mrs. marshall said merely, "we'll see, we'll see," and without discussing the matter further, went back to finish the interrupted game with lawrence. but the next evening, when professor marshall returned from his latest trip, the subject was taken up in a talk between sylvia and her parents which was more agitating to them all than any other incident in their common life, although it was conducted with a great effort for self-control on all sides. judith and lawrence had gone upstairs to do their lessons, and professor marshall at once broached the subject by saying with considerable hesitation, "sylvia--well--how about this house-party at the fiskes'?" sylvia was on the defense in a moment. "well, how about it?" she repeated. "i hope you don't feel like going." "but i do, very much!" returned sylvia, tingling at the first clear striking of the note of disapproval she had felt for so many weeks like an undertone in her life. as her father said nothing more, biting his nails and looking at her uncertainly, she added in the accent which fitted the words, "why shouldn't i?" he took a turn about the room and glanced at his wife, who was hemming a napkin very rapidly, her hands trembling a little. she looked up at him warningly, and he waited an instant before speaking. finally he brought out with the guarded tone of one forcing himself to moderation of speech, "well, the colonel is an abominable old black-guard in public life, and his private reputation is no better." sylvia flushed. "i don't see what that has to do with his son. it's not fair to judge a young man by his father--or by anything but what he is himself--you yourself are always saying that, if the trouble is that the father is poor or ignorant or something else tiresome." professor marshall said cautiously, "from what i hear, i gather that the son in this case is a good deal like his father." "no, he _isn't!_" cried sylvia quickly. "he may have been wild when he first came up to the university, but he's all right now!" she spoke as with authoritative and intimate knowledge of all the details of fiske, jr.'s, life. "and anyhow, i don't see what difference it makes, _what_ the colonel's reputation is. i'm just going up there with a lot of other young people to have a good time. eleanor hubert's invited, and three or four other society girls. i don't see why we need to be such a lot more particular than other people. we never are when it's a question of people being dirty, or horrid, other ways! how about cousin parnelia and mr. reinhardt? i guess the fiskes would laugh at the idea of people who have as many queer folks around as we do, thinking _they_ aren't good enough." professor marshall sat down across the table from his daughter and looked at her. his face was rather ruddier than usual and he swallowed hard. "why, sylvia, the point is this. it's evident, from what your mother tells me of mrs. fiske's visit, that going to this house party means more in your case than with the other girls. mrs. fiske came all the way to la chance to invite you, and from what she said about you and her stepson, it was evident that she and the colonel--" he stopped, opening his hands nervously. "i don't know how they think they know anything about it," returned sylvia with dignity, though she felt an inward qualm at this news. "jerry's been ever so nice to me and given me a splendid time, but that's all there is to it. lots of fellows do that for lots of girls, and nobody makes such a fuss about it." mrs. marshall laid down her work and went to the heart of the matter. "sylvia, you don't _like_ mr. fiske?" "yes, i do!" said sylvia defiantly, qualifying this statement an instant later by, "quite well, anyhow. why _shouldn't_ i?" her mother assumed this rhetorical question to be a genuine one and answered it accordingly. "why, he doesn't seem at all like the type of young man who would be liked by a girl with your tastes and training. i shouldn't think you'd find him interesting or--" sylvia broke out: "oh, you don't know how sick i get of being so everlastingly high-brow! what's the _use_ of it? people don't think any more of you! they think less! you don't have any better time--nor so good! and why should you and father always be so down on anybody that's rich, or dresses decently? _jerry's_ all right--if his clothes _do_ fit!" "do you really _know_ him at all?" asked her father pointedly. "of course i do--i know he's very handsome, and awfully good-natured, and he's given me the only good time i've had at the university. you just don't know how ghastly last year was to me! i'm awfully grateful to jerry, and that's all there is to it!" before this second disclaimer, her parents were silent again, sylvia looking down at her lap, picking at her fingers. her expression was that of a naughty child--that is, with a considerable admixture of unhappiness in her wilfulness. by this time professor marshall's expression was clearly one of downright anger, controlled by violent effort. mrs. marshall was the first one to speak. she went over to sylvia and laid her hand on her shoulder. "well, sylvia dear, i'm sorry about--" she stopped and began again. "you know, dear, that we always believed in letting our children, as far as possible, make their own decisions, and we won't go back on that now. but i want you to understand that that puts a bigger responsibility on you than on most girls to make the _right_ decisions. we trust you--your good sense and right feeling--to keep you from being carried away by unworthy motives into a false position. and, what's just as important, we trust to your being clear-headed enough to see what your motives really are." "i don't see," began sylvia, half crying, "why something horrid should come up just because i want a good time--other girls don't have to be all the time so solemn, and thinking about things!" "there'd be more happy women if they did," remarked mrs. marshall, adding: "i don't believe we'd better talk any more about this now. you know how we feel, and you must take that into consideration. you think it over." she spoke apparently with her usual calmness, but as she finished she put her arms about the girl's neck and kissed the flushed cheeks. caresses from mrs. marshall were unusual, and, even through her tense effort to resist, sylvia was touched. "you're just worrying about nothing at all, mother," she said, trying to speak lightly, but escaped from a possible rejoinder by hurriedly gathering up her text-books and following judith and lawrence upstairs. her father and mother confronted each other. "_well!_" said professor marshall hotly, "of all the weak, inconclusive, modern parents--is _this_ what we've come to?" mrs. marshall took up her sewing and said in the tone which always quelled her husband, "yes, this is what we've come to." his heat abated at once, though he went on combatively, "oh, i know what you mean, reasonable authority and not tyranny and all that--yes, i believe in it--of course--but this goes beyond--" he ended. "is there or is there not such a thing as parental authority?" mrs. marshall answered with apparent irrelevance, "you remember what cavour said?" "good heaven! no, i don't remember!" cried professor marshall, with an impatience which might have been sylvia's. "he said, 'any idiot can rule by martial law.'" "yes, of course, that theory is all right, but--" "if a theory is all right, it ought to be acted upon." professor marshall cried out in exasperation, "but see here, barbara--here is a concrete fact--our daughter--our precious sylvia--is making a horrible mistake--and because of a theory we mustn't reach out a hand to pull her back." "we _can't_ pull her back by force," said his wife. "she's eighteen years old, and she has the habit of independent thought. we can't go back on that now." "we don't seem to be pulling her back by force or in any other way! we seem to be just weakly sitting back and letting her do exactly as she pleases." "if during all these years we've had her under our influence we haven't given her standards that--" began the mother. "you heard how utterly she repudiated our influence and our standards and--" "oh, what she _says_--it's what she's made of that'll count--that's the _only_ thing that'll count when a crisis comes--" professor marshall interrupted hastily: "when a crisis! what do you call _this_ but a crisis--she's like a child about to put her hand into the fire." "i trust in the training she's had to give her firm enough nerves to pull it out again when she feels the heat," said her mother steadily. professor marshall sprang up, with clenched hands, tall, powerful, helpless. "it's outrageous, barbara, for all your talk! we're responsible! we ought to shut her up under lock and key--" "so _many_ girls have been deterred from a mistake by being shut up under lock and key!" commented mrs. marshall, with an ironical accent. "but, good heavens! think of her going to that old scoundrel's--how can i look people in the face, when they all know my opinion of him--how i've opposed his being a trustee and--" "_ah_,--!" remarked his wife significantly, "that's the trouble, is it?" professor marshall flushed, and for a moment made no rejoinder. then, shifting his ground, he said bitterly: "i think you're forgetting that i've had a disillusionizing experience in this sort of thing which you were spared. you forget that sylvia is closely related to my sister." "i don't forget that--but i don't forget either that sylvia has had a very different sort of early life from poor victoria's. she has breathed pure air always--i trust her to recognize its opposite." he made an impatient gesture of exasperation. "but she'll be _in_ it--it'll be too late--" "it's never too late." she spoke quickly, but her unwavering opposition began to have in it a note of tension. "she'll be caught--she'll have to go on because it'll be too hard to get out--" "the same vigor that makes her resist us now will give her strength then--she's not eleanor hubert." her husband burst out upon her in a frightened, angry rush of reproach: "barbara--how _can_ you! you make me turn cold! this isn't a matter of talk--of theories--we're confronted with--" she faced him down with unflinching, unhappy eyes. "oh, of course if we are to believe in liberty only so long as everything goes smoothly--" she tried to add something to this, but her voice broke and she was silent. her husband looked at her, startled at her pallor and her trembling lips, immensely moved by the rare discomposure of that countenance. she said in a whisper, her voice shaking, "our little sylvia--my first baby--" he flung himself down in the chair beside her and took her hand. "it's damnable!" he said. his wife answered slowly, with long pauses. "no--it's all right--it's part of the whole thing--of life. when you bring children into the world--when you live at all--you must accept the whole. it's not fair to rebel--to rebel at the pain--when--" "good god, it's not _our_ pain i'm shrinking from--!" he broke out. "no--oh no--that would be easy--" with an impulse of yearning, and protection, and need, he leaned to put his arms around her, his graying beard against her pale cheek. they sat silent for a long time. in the room above them, sylvia bent over a problem in trigonometry, and rapidly planned a new evening-dress. after a time she got up and opened her box of treasures from aunt victoria. the yellow chiffon would do--jerry had said he liked yellow--she could imagine how mrs. hubert would expend herself on eleanor's toilets for this great occasion--if she could only hit on a design which wouldn't look as though it came out of a woman's magazine--something really sophisticated--she could cover her old white slippers with that bit of gold-tissue off aunt victoria's hat--she shook out the chiffon and laid it over the bed, looking intently at its gleaming, shimmering folds and thinking, "how horrid of father and mother to go and try to spoil everything so!" she went back to the problem in trigonometry and covered a page with figures, at which she gazed unseeingly. she was by no means happy. she went as far as the door, meaning to go down and kiss her parents good-night, but turned back. they were not a family for surface demonstrations. if she could not yield her point--she began to undress rapidly, turned out the light, opened the windows, and sprang into bed. "if they only wouldn't take things so awfully _solemnly_!" she said to herself petulantly. chapter xviii sylvia skates merrily on thin ice the design for the yellow chiffon dropped almost literally at sylvia's feet the next day, on the frontispiece of a theatrical magazine left by another passenger in the streetcar in which she chanced to be riding. sylvia pounced on it with instant recognition of its value. it was "different" and yet not "queer," it was artistic and yet fashionable, and with its flowing lines it would not be hard to construct. it was the creation of a parisian boulevard actress, known widely for her costumes, for the extraordinary manner in which she dressed her hair, and for the rapidity of her succeeding emotional entanglements. her name meant nothing to sylvia. she tore out the page, folded it, and put it for safe-keeping between the pages of her text-book on logic. that afternoon she began work on it, running the long seams up on the machine with whirring rapidity, acutely aware of her mother's silent, uncommenting passage back and forth through the sewing-room. with an impulse of secrecy which she did not analyze, she did the trying-on in her own room, craning and turning about before her own small mirror. she knew that her mother would think the dress was cut too low, although, as she told herself, looking with complacency at the smooth, white, exquisitely fine-grained skin thus disclosed, it wasn't nearly as low cut as the dresses eleanor hubert wore to any little dance. she had long felt it to be countrified in the extreme to wear the mild compromises towards evening-dress which she and most of the state university girls adopted, as compared with the frankly disclosing gowns of the "town girls" whose clothes came from chicago and new york. she knew from several outspoken comments that jerry admired eleanor's shoulders, and as she looked at her own, she was not sorry that he was to compare them to those of the other girl. after this brief disposal of the question, she gave it no more thought, working with desperate speed to complete all her preparations. she had but a week for these, a week filled with incessant hurry, since she was naturally unwilling to ask help of her mother. judith was off again with her father. this absence greatly facilitated the moment of sylvia's departure, which she had dreaded. but, as it happened, there was only her mother to whom to say the rather difficult good-bye, her mother who could be counted on never to make a scene. about the middle of the morning of the twenty-third of december, she came down the stairs, her hand-bag in her hand, well-hatted, well-gloved, freshly veiled, having achieved her usual purpose of looking to the casual eye like the daughter of a wealthy man. she had put all of her autumn allowance for dress into a set of furs, those being something which no ingenuity could evolve at home. the rest of her outfit, even to the odd little scarlet velvet hat, with its successful and modish touch of the ugly, was the achievement of her own hands. under its absurd and fashionable brim, her fresh face shone out, excessively pretty and very young. mrs. marshall kissed her good-bye gently, not smiling at sylvia's attempt to lighten the moment's seriousness by saying playfully, "now, mother, don't you be such an old worrier!" but she said nothing "uncomfortable," for which sylvia was very grateful. she had no sooner embarked upon the big interurban trolley-car which was to take her to mercerton than her attention was wholly diverted from uneasy reflections by the unexpected appearance of two of the house-party guests. eleanor hubert, every detail of her complicated costume exquisitely finished as a meissonier painting, sat looking out of the window rather soberly, and so intently that she saw neither sylvia's entrance, nor, close upon her heels, that of a florid-faced, rather heavily built young man with a large, closely shaven jaw, who exclaimed joyfully at seeing miss marshall, and appropriated with ready assurance the other half of her seat. "now, this is surely dandy! you're going to the house-party too, of course!" he cried, unbuttoning and throwing back his bright tan overcoat. "here's where i cut jerry out all right, all right! wait a minute! _how_ much time have we?" he appealed to the conductor as though a matter of life and death depended on the answer. "four minutes?--here goes--" he sprang to his feet, dashed out of the car and disappeared, leaving his coat beside sylvia. it was evidently quite new, of the finest material, with various cunningly stitched seams and straps disposed upon its surface in a very knowing way. sylvia noted out of the corner of her eye that the address of the maker, woven into the neckband, was on fifth avenue, new york. the four minutes passed--and the conductor approached sylvia. "your friend's coming back, ain't he?" he asked, with the tolerant, good-natured respect natural for the vagaries of expensively dressed young men who wore overcoats made on fifth avenue. sylvia, who had met the young man but once before, when jerry had introduced him as an old friend, was a little startled at having a casual acquaintance so publicly affixed to her; but after an instant's hesitation, in which she was reflecting that she positively did not even remember her "friend's" name, she answered, "oh yes, yes, i suppose so--here he is now." the young man bounded up on the back platform panting, holding his hat on with one hand, a large box of candy in the other. sylvia glanced at the name on the cover. "you didn't go all the way to _button's!_" she cried. he nodded, breathless, evidently proud of his feat, and when he caught his breath enough to speak, explained, "yepp,--it's the only place in this bum town where you can get alligretti's, and they're the only kind that're fit to eat" he tore open the box as he spoke, demolishing with ruthless and practised hands the various layers of fine paper and gold cord which wrapped it about, and presented the rich layer of black chocolates to sylvia. "get a move on and take one," he urged cordially; "i pretend i buy 'em for the girls, but i'm crazy about 'em myself," he bit into one with an air of prodigious gusto, took off his hat, wiped his forehead, and looked at sylvia with a relish as frank as his enjoyment of the bonbon. "that's a corking hat you got on," he commented. "most girls would look like the old harry with that dangling thing in their eyes, but _you_ can carry it off all right." sylvia's face assumed a provocative expression. "did you ever make that remark to any other girl, i wonder?" she said reflectively. he laughed aloud, eyeing her with appreciation, and clapping another large black chocolate into his mouth. "you're the prompt article, aren't you?" he said. he hitched himself over and leaned towards her. "something tells me i'm goin' to have a good time at this house-party, what?" sylvia stiffened. she did not like his sitting so close to her, she detected now on his breath a faint odor of alcohol, and she was afraid that eleanor hubert would think her lacking in dignity. she regretted having succumbed to the temptation to answer him in his own tone; but, under her bravado, she was really somewhat apprehensive about this expedition, and she welcomed a diversion. besides, the voluble young man showed not the slightest sign of noting her attempt to rebuff him, and she found quite unavailing all her efforts to change the current of the talk, the loud, free-and-easy, personally admiring note of which had the effect on her nerves of a draught of raw spirits. she did not enjoy the taste while it was being administered, but the effect was certainly stimulating, not to say exciting, and absorbed her attention so entirely that uncomfortable self-questionings were impossible. she was also relieved to note that, although the young man flung himself about in the public conveyance with the same unceremonious self-assurance that he would have shown in a lady's drawing-room, eleanor hubert, at the other end of the car, was apparently unaware of his presence. perhaps she too had some grounds for uncomfortable thought, for throughout the hour's journey she continued to stare unseeingly out of the window, or to look down fixedly and rather sadly at her gloved hands. even through the confusion of her own ideas and plans, and the need for constant verbal self-defense against the encroaching familiarity of her companion, the notion flitted across sylvia's mind that probably eleanor was thinking of the young assistant in chemistry. how queer and topsy-turvy everything was, she reflected, as she bandied lively words with the lively young man at her side, continuing to eat his candies, although their rich, cloying taste had already palled on her palate--here was mrs. hubert throwing eleanor at jerry's head, when what eleanor wanted was that queer, rough-neck freak of an assistant prof; and here were jerry's parents making such overtures to sylvia, when what _she_ wanted--she didn't know what she did want. yes, she did, she wanted a good time, which was somehow paradoxically hard to attain. something always kept spoiling it,--half the time something intangible inside her own mind. she gave the candy-box a petulant push. "oh, take it away!" she said impatiently; "i've eaten so many now, it makes me sick to look at them!" the donor showed no resentment at this ingratitude, holding the box on his knees, continuing to help himself to its contents with unabated zest, and to keep the conversation up to concert pitch: "--the only girl i ever saw who'd stop eating alligretti's while there was one left--another proof that there's only one of you--i said right off, that any co-ed that jerry fiske would take to must be a unique specimen--" he did not further specify the period to which he referred by his "right off," but the phrase gave sylvia a tingling, uncomfortable sense of having been for some time the subject of speculation in circles of which she knew nothing. they were near mercerton now, and as she gathered her wraps together she found that she was bracing herself as for an ordeal of some sort. the big car stopped, a little way out of town, in front of a long driveway bordered with maple-trees; she and the young man descended from one end-platform and eleanor hubert from the other, into the midst of loud and facetious greetings from the young people who had come down to meet them. jerry was there, very stalwart, his white sweater stretched over his broad chest. all the party carried skates, which flashed like silver in the keen winter sun. they explained with many exclamations that they had been out on the ice, which was, so the three new-comers were assured many times, "perfectly grand, perfectly dandy, simply elegant!" a big, many-seated sled came jingling down the driveway now, driven by no less a personage than colonel fiske himself, wrapped in a fur-lined coat, his big mustache white against the red of his strongly marked old face. with many screams and shouts the young people got themselves into this vehicle, the colonel calling out in a masterful roar above the din, "miss marshall's to come up here with me!" he held in his pawing, excited horses with one hand and helped sylvia with the other. in the seat behind them sat jerry and eleanor hubert and the young man of the trolley trip. sylvia strained her ears to catch jerry's introduction of him to eleanor, so that she might know his name. it was too absurd not even to know his name! but the high-pitched giggles and deeper shouts of mirth from the rest of the party drowned out the words. as a matter of fact, although he played for an instant a rather important rôle in sylvia's drama, she was destined never to know his name. the colonel looked back over the sleighload, shouted out "all aboard!" loosened the reins, and snapped his whip over the horses' heads. they leaped forward with so violent a spring that the front runners of the long sled were for an instant lifted into the air. immediately all the joyful shrieking and screaming which had gone on before, became as essential silence compared to the delighted uproar which now rose from the sleigh. the jerk had thrown most of the young people over backward into each other's arms and laps, where, in a writhing, promiscuous mass, they roared and squealed out their joy in the joke, and made ineffectual and not very determined efforts to extricate themselves. sylvia had seen the jerk coming and saved herself by a clutch forward at the dashboard. glancing back, she saw that jerry and eleanor hubert still sat upright; although the gay young man beside them had let himself go backward into the waving arms and legs, and, in a frenzy of high spirits, was shouting and kicking and squirming with the others. it was a joke after his own heart. colonel fiske, so far from slackening his pace to help his young guests out of their predicament, laughed loudly and cracked his whip over the horses' ears. they went up the long, curving driveway like a whirlwind, and drew up under the porte-cochère of a very large brick-and-stone house with another abrupt jerk which upset those in the sleigh who had succeeded in regaining their seats. pandemonium broke out again, in the midst of which sylvia saw that mrs. fiske had come to the doorway and stood in it with a timid smile. the colonel did not look at her, jerry nodded carelessly to her as he passed in, and of all the disheveled, flushed, and laughing young people who crowded past her into the house, only sylvia and eleanor recognized her existence. the others went past her without a glance, exclaimed at the lateness of the hour, cried out that they must go and "fix up" for lunch, and ran upstairs, filling the house with their voices. sylvia heard one girl cry to another, "_oh_, i've had such a good time! i've hollered till i'm hoarse!" after luncheon, a meal at which more costly food was served than sylvia had ever before seen, jerry suggested between puffs of the cigarette he was lighting that they have a game of billiards. most of the young people trooped off after him into the billiard-room, but sylvia, after a moment's hesitation, lingered near the big wood-fire in the hall, unwilling to admit that she had never seen a billiard table. she made a pretext of staying to talk to mrs. fiske, who sat stooping her tall figure forward in a chair too small for her. sylvia looked at this ungraceful attitude with strong disapproval. what she thought was that such inattention to looks was perfectly inexcusable. what she said was, in a very gracious voice: "what a beautiful home you have, mrs. fiske! how wonderfully happy you must be in it." the other woman started a little at being addressed, and looked around vaguely at the conventional luxury of the room, with its highly polished floors, its huge rich rugs, its antlers on the wall, and its deeply upholstered leather chairs. when sylvia signified her intention of continuing the talk by taking a seat beside the fire, mrs. fiske roused herself to the responsibility of entertaining the young guest. after some futile attempts at conversation in the abstract, she discharged this responsibility through the familiar expedient of the family photograph album. with this between them, the two women were able to go through the required form of avoiding silences. sylvia was fearfully bored by the succession of unknown faces, and utterly unable to distinguish, in her hostess' somewhat disconnected talk, between the different sets of the colonel's children. "this one is stanley, jermain's brother, who died when he was a baby," the dull voice droned on; "and this is mattie in her wedding dress." "oh, i didn't know jerry had a married sister," murmured sylvia indifferently, glad of any comment to make. "she's only his half-sister, a great deal older." "but _you_ haven't a daughter old enough to be married?" queried sylvia, astonished. "oh--no--no. mattie is the daughter of the colonel's first wife." "oh," said sylvia awkwardly, remembering now that mrs. draper had spoken of the colonel's several marriages. she added to explain her question, "i'd forgotten that jerry's mother was the colonel's second wife and not his first." "she was his third," breathed mrs. fiske, looking down at the pages of the album. sylvia repressed a "good gracious!" of startled repugnance to the topic, and said, to turn the conversation, "oh, who is that beautiful little girl with the fur cap?" "that is my picture," said mrs. fiske, "when i was eighteen. i was married soon after. i've changed very much since my marriage." decidedly it was not sylvia's lucky day for finding topics of talk. she was wondering how the billiard game was progressing, and was sorry she had not risked going with the others. she was recalled by mrs. fiske's saying with a soft earnestness, "i want you to know, miss marshall, how i _appreciate_ your kindness to me!" sylvia looked at her in astonishment, half fearing that she was being made fun of. the other went on: "it was _very_ nice of you--your staying here to talk with me instead of going off with the young people--the others don't often--" she played nervously with a gleaming pendant on a platinum chain which hung over her flat chest, and went on: "i--you have _always_ seemed to me the very nicest of jerry's friends--and i shall never forget your mother's kindness. i hope--i hope so much i shall see more of her. the colonel thinks so too--we've liked so much having him like you." the incoherence of this did not prevent sylvia's having a chillingly accurate grasp on its meaning. "it is the colonel's hope," she went on painfully, "to have jerry marry as soon as he graduates from the law school. the colonel thinks that nothing is so good for a young man as an early marriage--though of course jerry isn't so very, very young any more. he--the--colonel is a great believer in marriage--" her voice died away into murmurs. her long, thin throat contracted in a visible swallow. at this point only sylvia's perception of the other's anguished embarrassment prevented her from literally running away. as it was, they sat silent, fingering over the pages of the album and gazing unseeingly at the various set countenances which looked out at them with the unnatural glare of the photographed. sylvia was canvassing desperately one possibility of escape after another when the door opened, and the lively young man of the trolley-car stepped in. he tiptoed to the fireplace with exaggerated caution, looking theatrically over his shoulder for a pursuer. sylvia positively welcomed his appearance and turned to him with a cordiality quite unlike the cool dignity with which she had planned to treat him. he sat down on the rug before the fire, very close to her feet, and looked up at her, grinning. "here's where i get another one on jerry--what?" he said, ignoring mrs. fiske. "old jerry thinks he's playing such a wonderful game in there he can't tear himself away--but there'll be something doing, i guess, when he does come and finds where i am!" he had partaken freely of the excellent white wine served at luncheon (the first sylvia had ever seen), and though entirely master of his speech, was evidently even more uplifted than was his usual hilarious wont. sylvia looked down at him, and across at the weak-faced woman opposite her, and had a moment of wishing heartily she had never come. she stood up impatiently, a movement which the young man took to mean a threat of withdrawal. "aw, _don't_ go!" he pleaded, sprawling across the rug towards her. as she turned away, he snatched laughingly at her skirts, crying out, "tag! you're caught! you're it!" at this moment jerry fiske appeared in the doorway. he looked darkly at his friend's cheerful face and said shortly: "here, stub--quit it! get up out of that!" he added to sylvia, holding out his hand: "come on, go skating with me. the ice is great." "are the others going?" asked sylvia. "oh yes, i suppose so," said jerry, a trifle impatiently. the young man on the floor scrambled up. "here's one that's going, whoever else don't," he announced. "get yourself a girl, then," commanded jerry, "and tell the rest to come along. there's to be eats at four o'clock." * * * * * the ice was even as fine as it had been so redundantly represented to sylvia. out of doors, leaning her supple, exquisitely poised body to the wind as she veered like a bird on her flying skates, sylvia's spirits rebounded with an instant reaction into enjoyment. she adored skating, and she had in it, as in all active exercise, the half-wild pleasure of one whose childhood is but a short time behind her. furthermore, her costume prepared for this event (mrs. draper had told her of the little lake on the fiske estate) was one of her successes. it had been a pale cream broadcloth of the finest texture, one of aunt victoria's reception gowns, which had evidently been spoiled by having coffee spilled down the front breadth. sylvia had had the bold notion of dyeing it scarlet and making it over with bands of black plush (the best bits from an outworn coat of her mother's). on her gleaming red-brown hair she had perched a little red cap with a small black wing on either side (one of lawrence's pet chickens furnished this), and she carried the muff which belonged with her best set of furs. thus equipped, she looked like some impish, slender young brunhilde, with her two upspringing wings. the young men gazed at her with the most unconcealed delight. as she skated very well, better than any of the other girls, she felt, sweeping about the pond in long, swift curves, that she was repaid for her ignorance of billiards. jerry and the young man he called stub were openly in competition for her attention, highly jocose on stub's part and not at all so on jerry's, whose brow did not clear at the constant crackling of the other's witticisms. on the shore burned a big fire, tended by a man-servant in livery, who was occupied in setting out on a long table a variety of sandwiches and cups of steaming bouillon. sylvia had never encountered before a real man-servant in livery. she looked at him with the curiosity she might have shown at seeing a mediaeval knight in full armor. jerry brought her a cup of the bouillon, which was deliciously hot and strong. experienced as she was in the prudent provisioning of the marshall kitchen she was staggered to think how many chickens had gone into filling with that clear liquor the big silver tureen which steamed over the glittering alcohol lamp. the table was set, for that casual outdoor picnic lunch, as she could hardly have imagined a royal board. "what beautiful things your people have!" she exclaimed to jerry, looking at a pile of small silver forks with delicately carved ivory handles. "the rugs in the house are superb." jerry waved them aside as phenomena of no importance. "all of 'em tributes from dad's loving constituents," he said, repeating what was evidently an old joke in the family. "you'd better believe dad doesn't vote to get the tariff raised on anything unless he sees to it that the manufacturers know who they have to thank. it works something fine! talk about the presents a doctor gets from his grateful patients! nothing to it!" this picturesque statement of practical politics meant so little to sylvia's mind that she dismissed it unheard, admiring, in spite of her effort to take things for granted, the fabulous fineness of the little fringed napkin set under the bouillon cup. jerry followed the direction of her eyes. "yep--tariff on linen," he commented pregnantly. the young man called stub now sped up to them, skating very fast, and swept sylvia off. "_here's_ where we show 'em how to do it!" he cried cheerfully, skating backward with crazy rapidity, and pulling sylvia after him. there was a clang of swift steel on ice, and jerry bore down upon them, the muscles of his jaw showing prominently. without a word he thrust his friend aside, caught at sylvia's hands, and bore her in a swooping flight to the other end of the pond, now deserted by the other skaters. as they sped along he bent over sylvia fiercely and said in a low, angry tone, "you don't like that bounder, do you? you _don't_!" sylvia was astonished at the heat of his suspicion. she had known that jerry was not notably acute, but it had seemed to her that her dislike for his friend must be more than apparent to any one. they had reached the edge of the ice now, and sylvia's hands were still in jerry's, although they were not skating, but stood facing each other. a bush of osier, frozen into the ice, lifted its red twigs near them. sylvia looked down at it, hesitating how to express her utter denial of any liking for the hilarious young man. jerry misunderstood her pause and cried out: "good god! sylvia! don't say you _do._" sylvia's heart gave a frightened leap. "oh no--no--not a bit!" she said hastily, looking longingly across the pond at the group around the fire. jerry caught his breath with a gasp and gripped her hands hard. "it makes me crazy to see you look at another fellow," he said. he forced her eyes to meet his. "sylvia--you know--you know what i mean." yes, sylvia knew what he meant. her very white face showed that. the young man went on, pressing, masterful, confident, towering over her: "it's idiotic to speak of it now, out here--with all these people around--but it just _got_ me to see you with that--i wasn't sure how i felt about you till i saw how i felt when you seemed so friendly with him, when you got off the car together. then i knew. it made me crazy--i _wanted_ you!" sylvia had not been able once to look away from him since he began to speak. her mouth was a little open in her white face, her eyes fixed with a painful intensity on his. he moistened his lips with his tongue. "sylvia--_it's all right_--isn't it?" with no change of expression in her strained face, sylvia nodded. as suddenly and apparently as automatically she took a backward step. the young man made a great stride towards her--there was a sound of quick strokes on the ice and--"boo!" shouted the hilarious young man, bursting between them at railroad speed. he executed a marvelous pirouette and returned instantly, calling out, "less spooning in the corners if you please--or if it's got to be, let me in!" he was followed closely by a string of young men and girls, playing snap-the-whip. they "snapped" just as they reached jerry. the end girl flew off and bumped, screaming with joy, into jerry's arms. he looked furiously over her head towards sylvia, but she had been enveloped in a ring and was being conveyed away to the accompaniment of the usual squeals and shouts. the colonel had come down to take them all back, she was informed, and was waiting for them with the sleigh. chapter xix as a bird out of a snare sylvia dressed for dinner literally like one in a dream. outwardly she was so calm that she thought she was so inwardly. it was nothing like so exciting as people said, to get engaged, she thought as she brushed out her hair and put it up in a big, gleaming knot. here she had been engaged for a whole hour and a half, and was getting calmer every minute, instead of the reverse. she astonished herself by the lucidity of her brain, although it only worked by snatches--there being lacunae when she could not have told what she was doing. and yet, as she had approached the house, sitting again beside the colonel, she had looked with a new thrill of interest at its imposing battlemented façade. the great hall had seemed familiar to her already as she stepped across it on her way to the stairs, her feet had pressed the rugs with assurance, she had been able to be quite nonchalant about refusing the services of the maid who offered to help her dress. it was true that from time to time she suddenly flushed or paled; it was true that her mind seemed incapable of the slightest consecutive thought; it was true that she seemed to be in a dream, peopled by crazily inconsequent images--she had again and again a vision, startlingly vivid, of the red-twigged osier beside which she had stood; it was true that she had a slight feeling of vertigo when she tried to think ahead of the next moment--but still she was going ahead with her unpacking and dressing so steadily that she marveled. she decided again from the depth of her experience that getting engaged was nothing like so upsetting an event as people made out. she thrust the last pin into her hair and tipped her head preeningly before the big triplicate mirror--the first time she had ever encountered this luxury outside of a ready-made clothes shop. the yellow chiffon came out from the trunk in perfect condition, looking like a big, silk-petaled flower as she slipped it on over her bare shoulders, and emerged above, triumphant and yet half afraid to look at herself in the mirror lest she should see that her home-made toilet had not "the right look." one glance satisfied even her jealous eagerness. it had exactly the right look--that is, it looked precisely like the picture from which she had copied it. she gazed with naïve satisfaction at the faithfulness with which her reflected appearance resembled that of the parisian demi-mondaine whose photograph she had seen, and settled on her slim, delicately modeled shoulders the straps of shirred and beaded chiffon which apparently performed the office of keeping her dress from sliding to the floor. in reality, under its fluid, gauzy draperies, it was constructed on a firm, well-fitting, well-fastened foundation of opaque cloth which quite adequately clothed the young body, but its appearance was of a transparent cloud, only kept from floating entirely away by those gleaming straps on the shoulders, an effect carefully calculated in the original model, and inimitably caught by sylvia's innocent fingers. she turned herself about, artlessly surprised to see that her neck and shoulders looked quite like those of the women in the fashion-plates and the magazine illustrations. she looked at the clock. it was early yet. she reflected that she never _could_ take the time other girls did in dressing. she wondered what they did. what could one do, after one's bath was taken, one's hair done, and one's gown donned--oh, of course, powder! she applied it liberally, and then wiped away every grain, that being what she had seen older girls do in the gymnasium dressing-room. then with a last survey of her face, unaltered by the ceremonial with the powder-puff, she stepped to the door. but there, with her hand on the knob, she was halted by an inexplicable hesitation about opening the door and showing herself. she looked down at her bare shoulders and bosom, and faintly blushed. it was really very, very low, far lower than any dress she had ever worn! and the fact that eleanor hubert, that all the "swell" girls wore theirs low, did not for the moment suffice her--it was somehow different--their showing their shoulders and her showing her own. she could not turn the knob and stood, irresolute, frowning vaguely, though not very deeply disquieted. finally she compromised by taking up a pretty spangled scarf aunt victoria had sent her, wrapping it about her like a shawl, in which quaint garb she went out in more confidence, and walked down the hall to the stairway. half-way down she met colonel fiske just coming up to dress. seeing one of his young guests arrayed for the evening he made her his compliments, the first words rather absent and perfunctory. but when he was aware which guest she was, he warmed into a pressing and personal note, as his practised eyes took in the beauty, tonight startlingly enhanced by excitement, of the girl's dark, shining eyes, flushed cheeks, and white neck and arms. he ended by lifting her hand, in his florid way, and pressing it to his white mustache for a very fervent kiss. sylvia blushed prettily, meeting his hot old eyes with a dewy unconsciousness, and smiling frankly up into the deeply lined carnal face with the simple-hearted pleasure she would have felt at the kind word of any elderly man. the colonel seemed quite old to her--much older than her father--like professor kennedy. "jerry's in the library, waiting," his father announced with a sly laugh. "i wondered at the young rascal's being dressed so far ahead of time." he turned reluctantly and went on up the stairs, leaving sylvia to go forward to her first meeting alone with the man she had promised to marry. as she descended the long flight of stairs, her scarf, loosened by her movement, slipped unobserved in her excitement and hung lightly about her shoulders. the door to the library was shut. she opened it with a rapidly beating heart and stood on the threshold, shyly hesitating to advance further, looking with agitation at the stalwart, handsome, well-groomed figure which stood in an attitude of impatient expectation by the window. except for the light which came in from the electric bulb on the porch outside, the big room was in twilight. in the brilliantly lighted door-opening, she stood revealed as by a searchlight. at the sound of the opening door, and his name spoken in a quavering voice, the young man turned, paused an instant as if blinded by the vision, and sprang forward. the door behind sylvia swung shut, and her eyes, widening in the dusk, saw only the headlong, overwhelming rush upon her of her lover. she was enfolded strongly in muscular arms, she was pressed closer and yet closer to a powerful body, whose heat burned through the thin broadcloth, she was breathless, stunned, choked. as the man bent forward over her, clasping her to him, her flexible spine bent and her head drooped backward, her face with its flush all gone, gleaming white in the dusk. at this he rained kisses on it, on her eyes, hair, cheeks, mouth, the burning softness of his full lips seeming to leave a smear on her skin where they pressed it. still holding her with one arm, pressed to him as though the two young bodies were gripped together by a vice, he loosened the other arm and thrust it at the back of her dress, through the flimsy gauze of her scarf, down next her body. his stiff cuff caught on the edge of her dress, and his sleeve slid up--it was his bare arm against her naked flesh. he gave a savage, smothered, gasping exclamation, pressed his fingers deeply into her side, still kissing her passionately, her neck, her shoulders, burying his hot face in her bosom. it was the girl's body which acted, since at the first instant of the whirlwind which had broken over her, her mind had been shocked into a swooning paralysis. only her strong, sound body, hardened by work, fortified by outdoor exercise, was ready in its every fiber for this moment. her body bent suddenly like a spring of fine steel, its strength momentarily more than a match for his, and thrust the man from her with staggering violence. her reaction from him was as physical a sensation as though she had bitten into a tempting fruit and found it not sweet--not even bitter--but nasty. she sickened at the sight of him. as he caught his balance, laughing a little but not at all good-naturedly, and started back towards her with a dangerous dark face of excited anger and desire, his headlong rush was checked an instant by the fierce eyes which flamed at him from her crimson face. even her neck and shoulders were now scarlet. she held him off for the space of a breath, giving one deep exclamation, "_oh_!" short, sharply exhaled, almost like a blow in his face. but his blood was up as well as hers, and after his momentary pause, he rushed forward again, his handsome, blond face black with passion. sylvia stooped, gathered up her skirts, turned, burst open the door, and fled out of the room, running in her high-heeled satin slippers as she did on the track in the gymnasium, with long, deer-like bounds. in a flash she had crossed the wide hall--which was as it happened empty, although she would not have slackened her pace for all the assembled company--and was darting arrow-like up the stairs, her torn scarf flying behind her like a banner. her flight had been so unexpected and so swift that young fiske did not attempt to follow her; but she reached her room, flung the door shut, and locked it with as much precipitancy as though he were on her heels, instead of standing quite still, open-mouthed, where she had left him. the sharp crack of her slamming door, loud in the quiet house, broke the spell which held him. his mouth shut, and his clenched hands loosened from their fierce tension. he took an aimless step and drew a long breath. a moment later, quite automatically, he fumbled for his cigarette-case, and finding it, took out a cigarette and lighted it with fingers that were not steady. the familiar action and the first puff of smoke affected him like emerging from a turmoil of darkness into the quiet and order of a well-lighted room. "well, may i be damned!" he said to himself with the beginning of a return of his usual assurance--"the damn little spitfire!" he walked about the room, puffing vigorously, feeling with relief his blood resume its usual rate of circulation. his head seemed to clear of a thick vapor. the startling recollection of the anger in his fiancée's eyes was fading rapidly from his mind. now he only saw her, blushing, recoiling, fleeing--he laughed out a little, this time not angrily, but with relish. "ain't she the firebrand!" he said aloud. he found his desire for her a hundredfold enhanced and stood still, his eyes very lustrous, feeling again in imagination the warm softness of her bosom under his lips. "gee!" he exclaimed, turning restlessly in his pacing walk. he was aware that some one in the room moved. "jermain," said his stepmother's faint voice. he looked at her smiling. "hello, momma," he said good-naturedly, "when did _you_ gum-shoe in?" "oh, just now," she told him, giving him an assurance which he doubted, and which he would not have valued had he known it to be true. he was perfectly indifferent as to the chance that this negligible person might have been a spectator to the scene between the son of the house and a guest. if she said anything about it, he meant to give the all-sufficing explanation that he and miss marshall had just become engaged. this would of course, it seemed self-evident to him, make it all right. but mrs. fiske did not make any remark calling forth that information. she only said, in her usual listless manner, "your sleeve is shoved up." he glanced down in surprise, realizing how excited he must be not to have noticed that before, and remained for a moment silent, looking at the splendidly muscular white arm, and the large well-manicured hand. he was feeling in every nerve the reminiscence of the yielding firmness of sylvia's flesh, bare against his own. the color came up flamingly into his face again. he moistened his lips with his tongue. "jesus _christ_!" he exclaimed, contemptuously careless of his listener, "i'm wild in love with that girl!" he pulled his sleeve down with a quick, vigorous gesture, deftly shot the cuff out beyond the black broadcloth, and, the picture of handsome, well-groomed youth in easy circumstances, turned again to his father's wife. "what you in here _for_, anyhow?" he asked still with his light absence of concern about anything she did or did not do. she hesitated, looking about the room. "i thought miss marshall would be here. she promised to come down early to write the names on the place-cards. i thought i heard her voice." "you did," he told her. "she came down early all right--but she went back again." he laughed, tossed his cigarette-end in the fireplace, and vouchsafing no more explanation, strolled into the billiard-room, and began to knock the balls about, whistling a recent dance tune with great precision and vivacity. he was anticipating with quickened blood the next meeting with sylvia. as he thrust at the gleaming balls, his mouth smiled and his eyes burned. mrs. fiske went upstairs and knocked at sylvia's door. there was a rush of quick footsteps and the girl asked from the other side in a muffled voice, "who is it?" mrs. fiske gave her name, and added, in answer to another question, that she was alone. the door opened enough for her to enter, and closed quickly after her. she looked about the disordered room, saw the open trunk, the filmy cascade of yellow chiffon half on and half off the bed, the torn and crumpled spangled scarf, and sylvia herself, her hastily donned kimono clutched about her with tense hands. the mistress of the house made no comment on this scene, looking at sylvia with dull, faded eyes in which there was no life, not even the flicker of an inquiry. but sylvia began in a nervous voice to attempt an explanation: "oh, mrs. fiske--i--you'll have to excuse me--i must go home at once--i--i was just packing. i thought--if i hurried i could make the eight-o'clock trolley back to la chance, and you could send my trunk after me." her every faculty was so concentrated on the single idea of flight--flight back to the safety of home, that she did not think of the necessity of making an excuse, giving a reason for her action. it seemed that it must be self-evident to the universe that she could not stay another hour in that house. mrs. fiske nodded. "yes, i'll send your trunk after you," she said. she drew a long breath, almost audible, and looked down at the fire on the hearth. sylvia came up close to her, looking into her lusterless eyes with deep entreaty. "and, mrs. fiske, _would_ you mind not telling any one i'm going, until i'm gone--_nobody_ at all! it's because--i--you could say i didn't feel well enough to come down to dinner. i--if you--and say i don't want any dinner up here either!" "won't you be afraid to go down through the grounds to the trolley alone, at night?" asked mrs. fiske, without looking at her. "everybody will be at dinner, won't they?" asked sylvia. mrs. fiske nodded, her eyes on the floor. upon which, "oh no, i won't be afraid!" cried sylvia. her hostess turned to the door. "well, i won't tell them if you don't want me to," she said. she went out, without another word, closing the door behind her. sylvia locked it, and went on with her wild packing. when she came to the yellow chiffon she rolled it up tightly and jammed it into a corner of her trunk; but the instant afterward she snatched it out and thrust it fiercely into the fire. the light fabric caught at once, the flames leaped up, filling the room with a roaring heat and flare, which almost as quickly died down to blackened silence. sylvia faced that instant of red glare with a grimly set jaw and a deeply flushed face. it did not look at all like her own face. at a quarter of eight the room was cleared, the trunk strapped and locked, and sylvia stood dressed for the street, gloved, veiled, and furred. under her veil her face showed still very flushed. she took up her small handbag and her umbrella and opened the door with caution. a faint clatter of dishes and a hum of laughing talk came up to her ears. dinner was evidently in full swing. she stepped out and went noiselessly down the stairs. on the bottom step, close to the dining-room door, her umbrella-tip caught in the balustrade and fell with a loud clatter on the bare polished floor of the hall. sylvia shrank into herself and waited an instant with suspended breath for the pause in the chatter and laughter which it seemed must follow. the moment was forever connected in her mind with the smell of delicate food, and fading flowers, and human beings well-washed and perfumed, which floated out to her from the dining-room. she looked about her at the luxuriously furnished great hall, and hated every inch of it. if the noise was heard, it evidently passed for something dropped by a servant, for colonel fiske, who was telling a humorous story, went on, his recital punctuated by bass and treble anticipatory laughter from his auditors: "--and when he called her upon the 'phone the next day to ask her about it, she said _she_ didn't know he'd been there at all!" a roar of appreciation greeted this recondite climax, under cover of which sylvia opened the front door and shut it behind her. the pure coldness of the winter night struck sharply and gratefully on her senses after the warmth and indoor odors of the house. she sprang forward along the porch and down the steps, distending her nostrils and filling her lungs again and again. these long deep breaths seemed to her like the renewal of life. as her foot grated on the gravel of the driveway she heard a stealthy sound back of her, at which her heart leaped up and stood still. the front door of the house had opened very quietly and shut again. she looked over her shoulder fearfully, preparing to race down the road, but seeing only mrs. fiske's tall, stooping figure, stopped and turned expectantly. the older woman came down the steps towards the fugitive, apparently unaware of the biting winter wind on her bared shoulders. quite at a loss, and suspiciously on her guard, sylvia waited for her, searching the blurred pale face with impatient inquiry. "i--i thought i'd walk with you a little ways," said the other, looking down at her guest. "oh no! _don't_!" pleaded sylvia in despair lest some one notice her hostess' absence. "you'll take a dreadful cold! with no wraps on--_do_ go back! i'm not a bit afraid!" the other looked at her with a smoldering flush rising through the ashes of her gray face. "it wasn't that--i didn't suppose you'd be afraid--i--i just thought i'd like to go a ways with you," she repeated, bringing out the words confusedly and with obvious difficulty. "_i_ won't make you late," she added, as if guessing the girl's thoughts. she put a thin hand on sylvia's arm and drew her rapidly along the driveway. for a moment they walked in silence. then, "how soon will you reach home?" she asked. "oh, about a quarter to ten--the interurban gets into la chance at nine-fifteen, and it's about half an hour across town on the washington street trolley." "in less than two hours!" cried mrs. fiske wildly. "in less than two hours!" seeing no cause for wonder in her statement, and not welcoming at all this unsought escort, sylvia made no answer. there was another silence, and then, looking in the starlight at her companion, the girl saw with consternation that the quiet tears were running down her cheeks. she stopped short, "oh ... _oh_!" she cried. she caught up the other's hand in a bewildered surprise. she had not the faintest idea what could cause her hostess' emotion. she was horribly afraid she would lose the trolley. her face painted vividly her agitation and her impatience. mrs. fiske drew back her hand and wiped her eyes with her palm. "well, i must be going back," she said. she looked dimly at the girl's face, and suddenly threw her arms about sylvia's neck, clinging to her. she murmured incoherent words, the only ones which sylvia could make out being, "i can't--i can't--i _can't!_" what it was she could not do, remained an impenetrable mystery to sylvia, for at that moment she turned away quickly, and went back up the driveway, her face in her hands. sylvia hesitated, penetrated, in spite of her absorption in her own affairs, by a vague pity, but hearing in the distance the clang of the trolley-car's bell, she herself turned and ran desperately down the driveway. she reached the public road just in time to stop the heavy car, and to swing herself lightly on, to all appearances merely a rather unusually well-set-up, fashionably dressed young lady, presenting to the heterogeneous indifference of the other passengers in the car even a more ostentatiously abstracted air than is the accepted attitude for young ladies traveling alone. one or two of her fellow voyagers wondered at the deep flush on her face, but forgot it the next moment. it was a stain which was not entirely to fade from sylvia's face and body for many days to come. chapter xx "blow, wind; swell, billow; and swim, bark!" she reached home, as she had thought, before ten o'clock, her unexpected arrival occasioning the usual flurry of exclamation and question not to be suppressed even by the most self-contained family with a fixed desire to let its members alone, and a firm tradition of not interfering in their private affairs. judith had come home before her father and now looked up from her game of checkers with wondering eyes. sylvia explained that she was not sick, and that nothing had happened to break up or disturb the house-party. "i just _felt_ like coming home, that's all!" she said irritably, touched on the raw by the friendly loving eyes and voices about her. she was glad at least that her father was not at home. that was one less to look at her. "well, get along to bed with you!" said her mother, in answer to her impatient explanation. "and, you children--keep still! don't bother her!" sylvia crept upstairs into the whiteness of her own slant-ceilinged room, and without lighting a lamp sat down on the bed. her knees shook under her. she made no move to take off her furs or hat. she felt no emotion, only a leaden fatigue and lameness as though she had been beaten. her mother, coming in five minutes later with a lighted lamp and a cup of hot chocolate, made no comment at finding her still sitting, fully dressed in the dark. she set the lamp down, and with swift deftness slipped out hatpins, unhooked furs, unbuttoned and unlaced and loosened, until sylvia woke from her lethargy and quickly completed the process, slipping on her nightgown and getting into bed. not a word had been exchanged. mrs. marshall brought the cup of hot chocolate and sylvia drank it as though she were a little girl again. her mother kissed her good-night, drew the blankets a little more snugly over her, opened two windows wide, took away the lamp, and shut the door. sylvia, warmed and fed by the chocolate, lay stretched at full length in the bed, breathing in the fresh air which rushed across her face from the windows, feeling herself in a white beatitude of safety and peace. especially did she feel grateful to her mother. "isn't mother _great_!" she said to herself. everything that had passed seemed like a confusing dream to her, so dreadful, so terrifying that she was amazed to feel herself, in spite of it, overcome with drowsiness. now the rôles were reversed. it was her brain that was active, racing and shuddering from one frightening mental picture to another, while her body, young, sound, healthful, fell deeper and deeper into torpor, dragging the quivering mind down to healing depths of oblivion. the cold, pure air blew so strongly in her face that she closed her eyes. when she opened them again the sun was shining. she started up nervously, still under the influence of a vivid dream--strange.... then as she blinked and rubbed her eyes she saw her mother standing by the bed, with a pale, composed face. "it's nine o'clock, sylvia," she said, "and mr. fiske is downstairs, asking to see you. he tells me that you and he are engaged to be married." sylvia was instantly wide awake. "oh no! oh no!" she said passionately. "no, we're not! i won't be! i won't see him!" she looked about her wildly, and added, "i'll write him that--just wait a minute." she sprang out of bed, caught up a pad of paper, and wrote hastily: "it was all a mistake--i don't care for you at all--not a bit! i hope i shall never have to speak to you again." "there," she said, thrusting it into her mother's hands. she stood for a moment, shivering in her thin nightgown in the icy draught, and then jumped back into bed again. her mother came back in a few moments, closed the windows, and opened the register. there was not in her silence or in a line of her quiet presence the faintest hint of curiosity about sylvia's actions. she had always maintained in theory, and now at this crisis with characteristic firmness of purpose acted upon her theory, that absolutely unforced confidence was the only kind worth having, and that moreover, unless some help was necessary, it might be as well for the younger generation early to acquire the strengthening capacity to keep its own intimate experiences to the privacy of its own soul, and learn to digest them and feed upon them without the dubiously peptonizing aid of blundering adult counsel. sylvia watched her mother with wondering gratitude. she wasn't going to ask! she was going to let sylvia shut that ghastly recollection into the dark once for all. she wasn't going by a look or a gesture to force her helplessly responsive child to give, by words, weight and substance to a black, shapeless horror from which sylvia with a vivid impulse of sanity averted her eyes. she got out of bed and put her arms around her mother's neck. "say, mother, you are _great_!" she said in an unsteady voice. mrs. marshall patted her on the back. "you'd better go and take your bath, and have your breakfast," she said calmly. "judith and lawrence have gone skating." when sylvia, tingling with the tonic shock of cold water and rough toweling, and rosy in her old blue sailor-suit, came downstairs, she found her mother frying pancakes for her in the kitchen blue with smoke from the hot fat. she was touched, almost shocked by this strange lapse from the tradition of self-help of the house, and said with rough self-accusation: "my goodness! the idea of _your_ waiting on _me_!" she snatched away the handle of the frying-pan and turned the cakes deftly. then, on a sudden impulse, she spoke to her mother, standing by the sink. "i came back because i found i didn't like jerry fiske as much as i thought i did. i found i didn't like him at all," she said, her eyes on the frying-pan. at this announcement her mother's face showed pale, and for an instant tremulous through the smoke. she did not speak until sylvia lifted the cakes from the pan and piled them on a plate. at this signal of departure into the dining-room she commented, "well, i won't pretend that i'm not very glad." sylvia flushed a little and looked towards her silently. she had a partial, momentary vision of what the past two months must have been to her mother. the tears stood in her eyes. "say, mother dear," she said in a quavering voice that tried to be light, "why don't you eat some of these cakes to keep me company? it's 'most ten. you must have had breakfast three hours ago. it'd be fun! i can't begin to eat all these." "well, i don't care if i do," answered mrs. marshall. sylvia laughed at the turn of her phrase and went into the dining-room. mrs. marshall followed in a moment with a cup of hot chocolate and buttered toast. sylvia pulled her down and kissed her. "you'd prescribe hot chocolate for anything from getting religion to a broken leg!" she said, laughing. her voice shook and her laugh ended in a half-sob. "no--oh no!" returned her mother quaintly. "sometimes hot milk is better. here, where is my share of those cakes?" she helped herself, went around the table, and sat down. "cousin parnelia was here this morning," she went on. "poor old idiot, she was certain that planchette would tell who it was that stole our chickens. i told her to go ahead--but planchette wouldn't write. cousin parnelia laid it to the blighting atmosphere of skepticism of this house." sylvia laughed again. alone in the quiet house with her mother, refreshed by sleep, aroused by her bath, safe, sheltered, secure, she tried desperately not to think of the events of the day before. but in spite of herself they came back to her in jagged flashes--above all, the handsome blond face darkened by passion. she shivered repeatedly, her voice was quite beyond her control, and once or twice her hands trembled so that she laid down her knife and fork. she was silent and talkative by turns--a phenomenon of which mrs. marshall took no outward notice, although when the meal was finished she sent her daughter out into the piercing december air with the command to walk six miles before coming in. sylvia recoiled at the prospect of solitude. "oh, i'd rather go and skate with judy and larry!" she cried. "well, if you skate hard enough," her mother conceded. * * * * * the day after her return sylvia had a long letter from jermain fiske, a letter half apologetic, half aggrieved, passionately incredulous of the seriousness of the break between them, and wholly unreconciled to it. the upshot of his missive was that he was sorry if he had done anything to offend her, but might he be everlastingly confounded if he thought she had the slightest ground for complaint! everything had been going on so swimmingly--his father had taken the greatest notion to her--had said (the very evening she'd cut and run that queer way) that if he married that rippingly pretty marshall girl he could have the house and estate at mercerton and enough to run it on, and could practise as much or as little law as he pleased and go at once into politics--and now she had gone and acted so--what in the world was the matter with her--weren't they engaged to be married--couldn't an engaged man kiss his girl--had he ever been anything but too polite for words to her before she had promised to marry him--and what _about_ that promise anyhow? his father had picked out the prettiest little mare in the stables to give her when the engagement should be announced--the colonel was as much at a loss as he to make her out--if the trouble was that she didn't want to live in mercerton, he was sure the colonel would fix it up for them to go direct to washington, where with his father's connection she could imagine what an opening they'd have! and above all he was crazy about her--he really was! he'd never had any idea what it was to be in love before--he hadn't slept a wink the night she'd gone away--just tossed on his bed and thought of her and longed to have her in his arms again--sylvia suddenly tore the letter in two and cast it into the fire, breathing hard. in answer she wrote, "it makes me sick to think of you!" she could not endure the idea of "talking over" the experience with any one, and struggled to keep it out of her mind, but her resolution to keep silence was broken by mrs. draper, who was informed, presumably by jermain himself, of the circumstances, and encountering sylvia in the street waited for no invitation to confidence by the girl, but pounced upon her with laughing reproach and insidiously friendly ridicule. sylvia, helpless before the graceful assurance of her friend, heard that she was a silly little unawakened schoolgirl who was throwing away a brilliantly happy and successful life for the queerest and funniest of ignorant notions. "what did you suppose, you baby? you wouldn't have him marry you unless he was in love with you, would you? why do you suppose a man _wants_ to marry a woman? did you suppose that men in love carry their sweethearts around wrapped in cotton-wool? you're a woman now, you ought to welcome life--rich, full-blooded life--not take this chilly, suspicious attitude toward it! why, sylvia, i thought you were a big, splendid, vital, fearless modern girl--and here you are acting like a little, thin-blooded new england old maid. how can you blame jerry? he was engaged to you. what do you think marriage _is_? oh, sylvia, just think what your life would be in washington with your beauty and charm!" this dexterously aimed attack penetrated sylvia's armor at a dozen joints. she winced visibly, and hung her head, considering profoundly. she found that she had nothing to oppose to the other's arguments. mrs. draper walked beside her in a silence as dexterous as her exhortation, her hand affectionately thrust through sylvia's arm. finally, sylvia's ponderings continuing so long that they were approaching the marshall house, in sight of which she had no mind to appear, she gave sylvia's arm a little pat, and stood still. she said cheerfully, in a tone which seemed to minimize the whole affair into the smallest of passing incidents: "now, you queer darling, don't stand so in your own light! a word would bring jerry back to you now--but i won't say it will always. i don't suppose you've ever considered, in your young selfishness, how cruelly you have hurt his feelings! he was awfully sore when i saw him. and eleanor hubert is right on the spot with mamma hubert in the background to push." sylvia broke her silence to say in a low tone, blushing scarlet, "he was--_horrid_!" mrs. draper dropped her light tone and said earnestly: "dear little ignorant sylvia--you don't recognize life when you see it. that's the way men are--all men--and there's no use thinking it horrid unless you're going into a convent. it's not so bad either,--once you get the hang of managing it--it's a hold on them. it's a force, like any other force of nature that you can either rebel against, or turn to your account and make serviceable, if you'll only accept it and not try to quarrel with water for running downhill. as long as she herself isn't carried away by it, it's a weapon in the hand of a clever woman. only the stupid women get hurt by it--the silly ones who can't keep their heads. and after all, my dear, it _is_ a force of nature--and you're too intelligent not to know that there's no use fighting against that. it's just idiotic and puritanic to revolt from it--and doesn't do any good besides!" she looked keenly into sylvia's downcast, troubled face, and judged it a propitious moment for leaving her. "_good_-bye, darling," she said, with a final pat on the shoulder. sylvia walked slowly into the house, her heart like lead. her food had no savor to her. she did not know what she was eating, nor what her mother, the only one at home for lunch, was saying to her. as a matter of fact mrs. marshall said very little, even less than was her custom. her face had the look of terrible, patient endurance it had worn during the time when lawrence had had pneumonia, and his life had hung in the balance for two days; but she went quietly about her usual household tasks. after the meal was over, sylvia continued to sit alone at the table, staring palely down at the tablecloth, her mind full of mrs. draper's illuminating comments on life, which had gone through her entire system like a dexterously administered drug. and yet that ingenious lady would have been surprised to know how entirely her attack had failed in the one point which seemed to her important, the possibility of a reconciliation between sylvia and jermain. the girl was deeply under the impression made by the philosophy of the older woman; she did not for the moment dream of denying its truth; but she stood granite in a perfectly illogical denial of its implications in her own case. she did not consciously revolt against the suggestion that she renew her relations to jerry fiske, because with a united action of all her faculties she refused utterly to consider it for an instant. she would no more have been persuaded to see jerry again, by a consideration of the material advantages to be gained, than she could have been persuaded to throw herself down from the housetop. that much was settled, not by any coherent effort of her brain, but by a co-ordination of every instinct in her, by the action of her whole being, by what her life had made her. but that certainty brought her small comfort in the blackness of the hour. what hideous world was this in which she had walked unawares until now! mrs. draper's jaunty, bright acceptance of it affected her to moral nausea. all the well-chosen words of her sophisticated friend were imbedded in the tissue of her brain like grains of sand in an eyeball. she could not see for very pain. and yet her inward vision was lurid with the beginning of understanding of the meaning of those words, lighted up as they were by her experience of the day before, now swollen in her distraught mind to the proportions of a nightmare: "it's a weapon in the hand of a clever woman--it's not so bad once you get the hang of managing it--it's a hold on men--" sylvia turned whiter and whiter at the glimpse she had had of what was meant by mrs. draper's lightly evasive "it"; a comprehension of which all her "advanced" reading and study had left her mind as blankly ignorant as a little child's. now it was vain to try to shut her thoughts away from jermain. she lived over and over the scene with him, she endured with desperate passivity the recollection of his burning lips on her bosom, his fingers pressing into her side. why not, if every man was like that as soon as he dared? why not, if that was all that men wanted of women? why not, if that was the sole ghastly reality which underlay the pretty-smooth surface of life? and beyond this bleak prospect, which filled her with dreary horror, there rose glimpsed vistas which sent the shamed blood up to her face in a flood--if every man was like that, why, so were the men she had known and loved and trusted; old reinhardt, who seemed so simple, what had been his thoughts when he used years ago to take her on his knee--what were his thoughts now when he bent over her to correct her mistakes on the piano? the expression of colonel fiske's eyes, as he had complimented her, brought her to her feet with a shudder--but colonel fiske was an old, old man--as old as professor kennedy-- why, perhaps professor kennedy--perhaps--she flung out her arms--perhaps her father-- she ran to the piano as to a refuge, meaning to drown out these maddening speculations, which were by this time tinctured with insanity; but the first chords she struck jarred on her ear like a discordant scream. she turned away and stood looking at the floor with a darkening face, one hand at her temple. * * * * * her mother, darning stockings by the window, suddenly laid down her work and said: "sylvia, how would you like to walk with me over to the martins' to see if they have any eggs? our hens have absolutely gone back on us." sylvia did not welcome this idea at all, feeling as overwhelming an aversion to companionship as to solitude, but she could think of no excuse, and in an ungracious silence put on her wraps and joined her mother, ready on the porch, the basket in her mittened hand. mrs. marshall's pace was always swift, and on that crisp, cold, sunny day, with the wind sweeping free over the great open spaces of the plain about them, she walked even more rapidly than usual. not a word was spoken. sylvia, quite as tall as her mother now, and as vigorous, stepped beside her, not noticing their pace, nor the tingling of the swift blood in her feet and hands. her fresh young face was set in desolate bitterness. the martins' house was about six miles from the marshalls'. it was reached, the eggs procured, and the return begun. still not a word had been exchanged between the two women. mrs. marshall would have been easily capable, under the most ordinary circumstances, of this long self-contained silence, but it had worked upon sylvia like a sojourn in the dim recesses of a church. she felt moved, stirred, shaken. but it was not until the brief winter sun was beginning to set red across the open reaches of field and meadow that her poisoned heart overflowed. "oh, mother--!" she exclaimed in an unhappy tone, and said no more. she knew no words to phrase what was in her mind. "yes, dear," said her mother gently. she looked at her daughter anxiously, expectantly, with a passion of yearning in her eyes, but she said no more than those two words. there was a silence. sylvia was struggling for expression. they continued to walk swiftly through the cold, ruddy, sunset air, the hard-frozen road ringing beneath their rapid advance. sylvia clasped her hands together hard in her muff. she felt that something in her heart was dying, was suffocating for lack of air, and yet that it would die if she brought it to light. she could find no words at all to ask for help, agonizing in a shy reticence impossible for an adult to conceive. finally, beginning at random, very hurriedly, looking away, she brought out, faltering, "mother, _is_ it true that all men are--that when a girl marries she must expect to--aren't there _any_ men who--" she stopped, burying her burning face in her muff. her words, her tone, the quaver of desperate sincerity in her accent, brought her mother up short. she stopped abruptly and faced the girl. "sylvia, look at me!" she said in a commanding voice which rang loud in the frosty silences about them. sylvia started and looked into her mother's face. it was moved so darkly and so deeply from its usual serene composure that she would have recoiled in fear, had she not been seized upon and held motionless by the other's compelling eyes. "sylvia," said her mother, in a strong, clear voice, acutely contrasted to sylvia's muffled tones, "sylvia, it's a lie that men are nothing but sensual! there's nothing in marriage that a good girl honestly in love with a good man need fear." "but--but--" began sylvia, startled out of her shyness. her mother cut her short. "anything that's felt by decent men in love is felt just as truly, though maybe not always so strongly, by women in love. and if a woman doesn't feel that answer in her heart to what he feels--why, he's no mate for her. anything's better for her than going on. and, sylvia, you mustn't get the wrong idea. sensual feeling isn't bad in itself. it's in the world because we have bodies as well as minds--it's like the root of a plant. but it oughtn't to be a very big part of the plant. and it must be the root of the woman's feeling as well as the man's, or everything's all wrong." "but how can you _tell_!" burst out sylvia. "you can tell by the way you feel, if you don't lie to yourself, or let things like money or social position count. if an honest girl shrinks from a man instinctively, there's something not right--sensuality is too big a part of what the man feels for her--and look here, sylvia, that's not always the man's fault. women don't realize as they ought how base it is to try to attract men by their bodies," she made her position clear with relentless precision, "when they wear very low-necked dresses, for instance--" at this chance thrust, a wave of scarlet burst up suddenly over sylvia's face, but she could not withdraw her eyes from her mother's searching, honest gaze, which, even more than her words, spoke to the girl's soul. the strong, grave voice went on unhesitatingly. for once in her life mrs. marshall was speaking out. she was like one who welcomes the opportunity to make a confession of faith. "there's no healthy life possible without some sensual feeling between the husband and wife, but there's nothing in the world more awful than married life when it's the only common ground." sylvia gazed with wide eyes at the older woman's face, ardent, compelling, inspired, feeling too deeply, to realize it wholly, the vital and momentous character of the moment. she seemed to see nothing, to be aware of nothing but her mother's heroic eyes of truth; but the whole scene was printed on her mind for all her life--the hard, brown road they stood on, the grayed old rail-fence back of mrs. marshall, a field of brown stubble, a distant grove of beech-trees, and beyond and around them the immense sweeping circle of the horizon. the very breath of the pure, scentless winter air was to come back to her nostrils in after years. "sylvia," her mother went on, "it is one of the responsibilities of men and women to help each other to meet on a high plane and not on a low one. and on the whole--health's the rule of the world--on the whole, that's the way the larger number of husbands and wives, imperfect as they are, do live together. family life wouldn't be possible a day if they didn't." like a strong and beneficent magician, she built up again and illuminated sylvia's black and shattered world. "your father is just as pure a man as i am a woman, and i would be ashamed to look any child of mine in the face if he were not. you know no men who are not decent--except two--and those you did not meet in your parents' home." for the first time she moved from her commanding attitude of prophetic dignity. she came closer to sylvia, but although she looked at her with a sudden sweetness which affected sylvia like a caress, she but made one more impersonal statement: "sylvia dear, don't let anything make you believe that there are not as many decent men in the world as women, and they're just as decent. life isn't worth living unless you know that--and it's true." apparently she had said all she had to say, for she now kissed sylvia gently and began again to walk forward. the sun had completely set, and the piled-up clouds on the horizon flamed and blazed. sylvia stood still, looking at them fixedly. the great shining glory seemed reflected from her heart, and cast its light upon a regenerated world--a world which she seemed to see for the first time. strange, in that moment of intensely personal life, how her memory was suddenly flooded with impersonal impressions of childhood, little regarded at the time and long since forgotten, but now recurring to her with the authentic and uncontrovertible brilliance which only firsthand experiences in life can bring with them--all those families of her public-school mates, the plain, ugly homes in and out of which she had come and gone, with eyes apparently oblivious of all but childish interests, but really recording life-facts which now in her hour of need stretched under her feet like a solid pathway across an oozing marsh. all those men and women whom she had seen in a thousand unpremeditated acts, those tired-faced, kind-eyed, unlettered fathers and mothers were not breathing poisoned air, were not harboring in their simple lives a ghastly devouring wild-beast. she recalled with a great indrawn breath all the farmer-neighbors, parents working together for the children, the people she knew so well from long observation of their lives, whose mediocre, struggling existence had filled her with scornful pity, but whom now she recalled with a great gratitude for the explicitness of the revelations made by their untutored plainness. for all she could ever know, the drapers and the fiskes and the others of their world might be anything, under the discreet reticence of their sophistication; but they did not make up all the world. she knew, from having breathed it herself, the wind of health which blew about those other lives, bare and open to the view, as less artless lives were not. there was some other answer to the riddle, beside mrs. draper's. sylvia was only eighteen years old and had the childish immaturity of her age, but her life had been so ordered that she was not, even at eighteen, entirely in the helpless position of a child who must depend on the word of others. she had accumulated, unknown to herself, quite apart from polished pebbles of book-information, a small treasury of living seeds of real knowledge of life, taken in at first-hand, knowledge of which no one could deprive her. the realization of this was a steadying ballast which righted the wildly rolling keel under her feet. she held up her head bravely against the first onslaught of the storm. she set her hand to the rudder! perceiving that her mother had passed on ahead of her she sprang forward in a run. she ran like a schoolboy, like a deer, like a man from whose limbs heavy shackles have been struck off. she felt so suddenly lightened of a great heaviness that she could have clapped her hands over her head and bounded into the air. she was, after all, but eighteen years old, and three years before had been a child. she came up to her mother with a rush, radiating life. mrs. marshall looked at the glowing face and her own eyes, dry till then, filled with the tears so rare in her self-controlled life. she put out her hand, took sylvia's, and they sped along through the quick-gathering dusk, hand-in-hand like sisters. judith and lawrence had reached home before them, and the low brown house gleamed a cheerful welcome to them from shining windows. for the first time in her life, sylvia did not take for granted her home, with all that it meant. for an instant it looked strangely sweet to her. she had a passing glimpse, soon afterwards lost in other impressions, of how in after years she would look back on the roof which had sheltered and guarded her youth. she lay awake that night a long time, staring up into the cold blackness, her mind very active and restless in the intense stillness about her. she thought confusedly but intensely of many things--the months behind her, of jerry, of mrs. draper, of her yellow dress, of her mother--of herself. in the lucidity of those silent hours of wakefulness she experienced for a time the piercing, regenerating thrust of self-knowledge. for a moment the full-beating pulses of her youth slackened, and between their throbs there penetrated to her perplexed young heart the rarest of human emotions, a sincere humility. if she had not burned the yellow dress at mercerton, she would have arisen and burned it that night.... during the rest of the christmas vacation she avoided being alone. she and judith and lawrence skated a great deal, and sylvia learned at last to cut the grapevine pattern on the ice. she also mastered the first movement of the sonata pathétique, so that old reinhardt was almost satisfied. the day after the university opened for the winter term the huberts announced the engagement of their daughter eleanor to jermain fiske, jr., the brilliant son of that distinguished warrior and statesman, colonel jermain fiske. sylvia read this announcement in the society column of the la chance _morning herald_, with an enigmatic expression on her face, and betaking herself to the skating-pond, cut grapevines with greater assiduity than ever, and with a degree of taciturnity surprising in a person usually so talkative. that she had taken the first step away from the devouring egotism of childhood was proved by the fact that at least part of the time, this vigorous young creature, swooping about the icy pond like a swallow, was thinking pityingly of eleanor hubert's sweet face. chapter xxi some years during which nothing happens judith had said to the family, taking no especial pains that her sister should not hear her, "well, folks, now that sylvia's got through with that horrid fiske fellow, i do hope we'll all have some peace!" a remark which proved to be a prophecy. they all, including sylvia herself, knew the tranquillity of an extended period of peace. it began abruptly, like opening a door into a new room. sylvia had dreaded the beginning of the winter term and the inevitable sight of jerry, the enforced crossings of their paths. but jerry never returned to his classes at all. the common talk was to the effect that the colonel had "worked his pull" to have jerry admitted to the bar without further preliminaries. after some weeks of relief, it occurred to sylvia that perhaps jerry had dreaded meeting her as much as she had seeing him. for whatever reason, the campus saw young fiske no more, except on the day in may when he passed swiftly across it on his way to the hubert house where eleanor, very small and white-faced, waited for him under a crown of orange blossoms. sylvia did not go to the wedding, although an invitation had come, addressed economically and compendiously to "professor and mrs. marshall and family." it was a glorious spring day and in her greek history course they had just reached the battle of salamis, at the magnificent recital of which sylvia's sympathetic imagination leaped up rejoicing, as all sympathetic imaginations have for all these many centuries. she was thrilling to a remembered bit of "the persians" as she passed by the hubert house late that afternoon. she was chanting to herself, "the right wing, well marshaled, led on foremost in good order, and we heard a mighty shout--'sons of the greeks! on! free your country!'" she did not notice that she trod swiftly across a trail of soiled rice in the hubert driveway. she was like a person recovered from a fever who finds mere health a condition of joy. she went back to her music, to her neglected books, with a singing heart. and in accordance with the curious ways of providence, noted in the proverb relating the different fates of him who hath and him who hath not, there was at once added to her pleasure in the old elements of her life the very elements she had longed for unavailingly. seeing her friendly and shining of face, friendliness went out to her. she had made many new acquaintances during her brief glittering flight and had innumerable more points of contact with the university life than before. she was invited to a quite sufficient number of hops and proms, had quite the normal number of masculine "callers," and was naïvely astonished and disillusioned to find that those factors in life were by no means as entirely desirable and amusing as her anguished yearning had fancied them. she joined one of the literary societies and took a leading part in their annual outdoor play. at the beginning of her junior year, judith entered as a freshman and thereafter became a close companion. sylvia devoured certain of her studies, history, and english, and greek, with insatiable zest and cast aside certain others like political economy and physics, which bored her, mastering just enough of their elements to pass an examination and promptly forgetting them thereafter. she grew rapidly in intellectual agility and keenness, not at all in philosophical grasp, and emotionally remained as dormant as a potato in a cellar. she continually looked forward with a bright, vague interest to "growing up," to the mastery of life which adolescents so trustfully associate with the arrival of adult years. she spent three more years in college, taking a master's degree after her b.a., and during those three years, through the many-colored, shifting, kaleidoscopic, disorganized life of an immensely populous institution of learning, she fled with rapid feet, searching restlessly everywhere for that entity, as yet non-existent, her own soul. she had, in short, a thoroughly usual experience of modern american education, emerging at the end with a vast amount of information, with very little notion of what it was all about, with phi beta kappa and a great wonder what she was to do with herself. up to that moment almost every step of her life had been ordered and systematized, that she might the more quickly and surely arrive at the goal of her diploma. rushing forward with the accumulated impetus of years of training in swiftly speeding effort, she flashed by the goal ... and stopped short, finding herself in company with a majority of her feminine classmates in a blind alley. "_now_ what?" they asked each other with sinking hearts. judith looked over their heads with steady eyes which saw but one straight and narrow path in life, and passed on by them into the hospital where she began her nurse's training. sylvia began to teach music to a few children, to take on some of reinhardt's work as he grew older. she practised assiduously, advanced greatly in skill in music, read much, thought acutely, rebelliously and not deeply, helped lawrence with his studies ... and watched the clock. for there was no denying that the clock stood still. she was not going forward to any settled goal now, she was not going forward at all. she was as far from suspecting any ordered pattern in the facts of life as when she had been in college, surrounded by the conspiracy of silence about a pattern in facts which university professors so conscientiously keep up before their students. she was slowly revolving in an eddy. sometimes she looked at the deep, glowing content of her father and mother with a fierce resentment. "how _can_ they!" she cried to herself. at other times she tried to chide herself for not being as contented herself, "... but it's their life they're living," she said moodily, "and i haven't any to live. i can't live on their happiness any more than the beefsteaks somebody else has eaten can keep me from starving to death." the tradition of her life was that work and plenty of it would keep off all uneasiness, that it was a foolishness, not to say a downright crime, to feel uneasiness. so she practised many hours a day, and took a post-graduate course in early latin. but the clock stood still. one of the assistants in her father's department proposed to her. she refused him automatically, with a wondering astonishment at his trembling hands and white lips. decidedly the wheels of the clock would never begin to revolve. and then it struck an hour, loudly. aunt victoria wrote inviting sylvia to spend a few weeks with her during the summer at lydford. sylvia read this letter aloud to her mother on the vine-covered porch where she had sat so many years before, and repeated "star-light, star-bright" until she had remembered aunt victoria. mrs. marshall watched her daughter's face as she read, and through the tones of the clear eager voice she heard the clock striking. it sounded to her remarkably like a tolling bell, but she gave no sign beyond a slight paling. she told herself instantly that the slowly ticking clock had counted her out several years of grace beyond what a mother may expect. when sylvia finished and looked up, the dulled look of resignation swept from her face by the light of adventurous change, her mother achieved the final feat of nodding her head in prompt, cheerful assent. but when sylvia went away, light-hearted, fleeting forward to new scenes, there was in her mother's farewell kiss a solemnity which she could not hide. "oh, mother dear!" protested sylvia, preferring as always to skim over the depths which her mother so dauntlessly plumbed. "oh, mother darling! how can you be so--when it's only for a few weeks!" book iii _in capua at last_ chapter xxii a grateful carthaginian arnold smith put another lump of sugar on his saucer, poured out a very liberal allowance of rum into his tea, and reached for a sandwich, balancing the cup and saucer with a deftness out of keeping with his long, ungraceful loose-jointedness. he remarked in an indifferent tone to sylvia, back of the exquisitely appointed tea-tray: "i don't say anything because i haven't the least idea what you are talking about. who _was_ capua, anyhow?" sylvia broke into a peal of laughter which rang like a silver chime through the vine-shaded, airy spaces of the pergola. old mr. sommerville, nosing about in his usual five-o'clock quest, heard her and came across the stretch of sunny lawn to investigate. "oh, _here's_ tea!" he remarked on seeing arnold, lounging, white-flanneled, over his cup. he spoke earnestly, as was his custom when eating was in question, and sylvia served him earnestly and carefully, with an instant harmonious response to his mood, putting in exactly the right amount of rum and sugar to suit his taste, and turning the slim-legged "curate's assistant" so that his favorite sandwiches were nearest him. "you spoil the old gentlemen, sylvia," commented arnold, evidently caring very little whether she did or not. "she spoils everybody," returned mr. sommerville, tasting his tea complacently; "'_c'est son métier._' she has an uncanny instinct for suiting everybody's taste." sylvia smiled brightly at him, exactly the brilliant smile which suited her brilliant, frank face and clear, wide-open eyes. under her smile she was saying to herself, "if that's so, i wonder--not that i care at all--but i really wonder why you don't like me." sylvia was encountering for the first time this summer a society guided by tradition and formula, but she was not without excellent preparation for almost any contact with her fellow-beings, a preparation which in some ways served her better than that more conscious preparation of young ladies bred up from childhood to sit behind tea-tables and say the right things to tea-drinkers. association with the crude, outspoken youth at the state university had been an education in human nature, especially masculine nature, for her acute mind. her unvarnished association with the other sex in classroom and campus had taught her, by means of certain rough knocks which more sheltered boarding-school girls never get, an accuracy of estimate as to the actual feeling of men towards the women they profess to admire unreservedly which (had he been able to conceive of it) old mr. sommerville would have thought nothing less than cynical. but he did not conceive of it, and now sat, mellowed by the rightness of his tea, white-haired, smooth-shaven, pink-gilled, white-waistcoated, the picture of old age at its best, as he smiled gallantly at the extremely pretty girl behind the table. unlike sylvia he knew exactly why he did not like her and he wasted no time in thinking about it. "what were you laughing about, so delightfully, as i came in, eh?" he asked, after the irretrievable first moment of joy in gratified appetite had gone. sylvia had not the slightest backwardness about explaining. in fact she always took the greatest pains to be explicit with old mr. sommerville about the pit from which she had been digged. "why, this visit to aunt victoria is like stepping into another world for me. everything is so different from my home-life. i was just thinking, as i sat there behind all this glorious clutter," she waved a slim hand over the silver and porcelain of the tea-table, "what a change it was from setting the table one's self and washing up the dishes afterwards. that's what we always do at home. i hated it and i said to arnold, 'i've reached capua at last!' and he said," she stopped to laugh again, heartily, full-throated, the not-to-be-imitated laugh of genuine amusement, "he said, 'who is capua, anyhow?'" mr. sommerville laughed, but grudgingly, with an impatient shake of his white head and an uneasy look in his eyes. for several reasons he did not like to hear sylvia laugh at arnold. he distrusted a young lady with too keen a sense of humor, especially when it was directed towards the cultural deficiencies of a perfectly eligible young man. to an old inhabitant of the world, with mr. sommerville's views as to the ambitions of a moneyless young person, enjoying a single, brief fling in the world of young men with fortunes, it seemed certain that sylvia's lack of tactful reticence about arnold's ignorance could only be based on a feeling that arnold's fortune was not big enough. she was simply, he thought with dismay, reserving her tact and reticence for a not-impossible bigger. his apprehensions about the fate of a bigger of his acquaintance if its owner ever fell into the hands of this altogether too well-informed young person rose to a degree which almost induced him to cry out, "really, you rapacious young creature, arnold's is all any girl need ask, ample, well-invested, solid...." but instead he said, "humph! rather a derogatory remark about your surroundings, eh?" arnold did not understand, did not even hear, leaning back, long, relaxed, apathetic, in his great wicker-chair and rolling a cigarette with a detached air, as though his hands were not a part of him. but sylvia heard, and understood, even to the hostility in the old gentleman's well-bred voice. "being in capua usually referring to the fact that the carthaginians went to pieces that winter?" she asked. "oh yes, of course i know that. good gracious! i was brought up on the idea of the dangers of being in capua. perhaps that's why i always thought it would be such fun to get there." she spoke rebelliously. "they got everlastingly beaten by the romans," advanced mr. sommerville. "yes, but they had had one grand good time before! the romans couldn't take _that_ away from them! i think the carthaginians got the best of it!" provocative, light-hearted malice was in her sparkling face. she was thinking to herself with the reckless bravado of youth, "well, since he insists, i'll _give_ him some ground for distrusting my character!" arnold suddenly emitted a great puff of smoke and a great shout of "help! help! molly to the rescue!" and when a little white-clad creature flitting past the door turned and brought into that quiet spot of leafy shadow the dazzling quickness of her smile, her eyes, her golden hair, he said to her nonchalantly: "just in time to head them off. sylvia and your grandfather were being so high-brow i was beginning to feel faint," molly laughed flashingly. "did grandfather keep his end up? i bet he couldn't!" arnold professed an entire ignorance of the relative status. "oh, i fell off so far back i don't know who got in first. who _was_ this man capua, anyhow? i'm a graduate of harvard university and i never heard of him." "i'm a graduate of miss braddon's mountain school for girls," said molly, "and _i_ think it's a river." mr. sommerville groaned out, exaggerating a real qualm, "what my mother would have said to such ignorance, prefaced by 'i bet!' from the lips of a young lady!" "your mother," said molly, "would be my great-grandmother!" she disposed of him conclusively by this statement and went on: "and i'm not a young lady. nobody is nowadays." "what _are_ you, if a mere grandfather may venture to inquire?" asked mr. sommerville deferentially. "i'm a _femme watt-man"_ said molly, biting a large piece from a sandwich. arnold explained to the others: "that's parisian for a lady motor-driver; some name!" "well, you won't be that, or anything else alive, if you go on driving your car at the rate i saw it going past the house this morning," said her grandfather. he spoke with an assumption of grandfatherly severity, but his eyes rested on her with a grandfather's adoration. "oh, i'd die if i went under thirty-five," observed miss sommerville negligently. "why, mr. sommerville," arnold backed up his generation. "you can't call thirty-five per hour dangerous, not for a girl who can drive like molly." "oh, i'm as safe as if i were in a church," continued molly. "i keep my mind on it. if i ever climb a telegraph-pole you can be sure it'll be because i wanted to. i never take my eye off the road, never once." "how you must enjoy the landscape," commented her grandfather. "heavens! i don't drive a car to look at the landscape!" cried molly, highly amused at the idea, apparently quite new to her. "will you gratify the curiosity of the older generation once more, and tell me what you _do_ drive a car for?" inquired old mr. sommerville, looking fondly at the girl's lovely face, like a pink-flushed pearl. "why, i drive to see how fast i can go, of course," explained molly. "the fun of it is to watch the road eaten up." "it _is_ fascinating," sylvia gave the other girl an unexpected reinforcement. "i've driven with molly, and i've been actually hypnotized seeing the road vanish under the wheels." "oh, children, children! when you reach my age," groaned arnold, "and have eaten up as many thousand miles as i, you'll stay at home." "i've driven for three years now," asserted molly, "and every time i buy a new car i get the craze all over again. this one i have now is a peach of an eight. i never want to drive a six again,--never! i can bring it up from a creep to--to fast enough to scare grandfather into a fit, without changing gears at all--just on the throttle--" she broke off to ask, as at a sudden recollection, "what was it about capua, anyhow?" she went to sit beside sylvia, and put her arm around her shoulder in a caressing gesture, evidently familiar to her. "it wasn't about capua at all," explained sylvia indulgently, patting the lovely cheek, as though the other girl had been a child. "it was your grandfather finding out what a bad character i am, and how i wallow in luxury, now i have the chance." "luxury?" inquired molly, looking about her rather blankly. sylvia laughed, this time with a little veiled, pensive note of melancholy, lost on the others but which she herself found very touching. "there, you see you're so used to it, you don't even know what i'm talking about!" "never mind, molly," arnold reassured her. "neither do i! don't try to follow; let it float by, the way i do!" miss sommerville did not smile. she thrust out her red lips in a wistful pout, and looking down into the sugar-bowl intently, she remarked, her voice as pensive as sylvia's own: "i wish i _did_! i wish i understood! i wish i were as clever as sylvia!" as if in answer to this remark, another searcher after tea announced himself from the door--a tall, distinguished, ugly, graceful man, who took a very fine panama hat from a very fine head of brown hair, slightly graying, and said in a rich, cultivated voice: "am i too late for tea? i don't mind at all if it's strong." "oh!" said molly sommerville, flushing and drawing away from sylvia; "_lord_!" muttered arnold under his breath; and "not at all. i'll make some fresh. i haven't had mine yet," said sylvia, busying herself with the alcohol flame. "how're you, morrison?" said mr. sommerville with no enthusiasm, holding out a well-kept old hand for the other to shake. arnold stood up, reached under his chair, and pulled out a tennis racquet. "excuse me, morrison, won't you, if i run along?" he said. "it's not because you've come. i want a set of tennis before dinner if i can find somebody to play with me. here, molly, you've got your tennis shoes on already. come along." the little beauty shook her head violently. "no ... goodness no! it's too hot. and anyhow, i don't ever want to play again, since i've seen sylvia's game." she turned to the other girl, breathing quickly. "_you_ go, sylvia dear. _i'll_ make mr. morrison's tea for him." sylvia hesitated a barely perceptible instant, until she saw old mr. sommerville's eyes fixed speculatively on her. then she stood up with an instant, cheerful alacrity. "that's _awfully_ good of you, molly darling! _you_ won't mind, will you, mr. morrison!" she nodded brightly to the old gentleman, to the girl who had slipped into her place, to the other man, and was off. the man she had left looked after her, as she trod with her long, light step beside the young man, and murmured, "_et vera incessu patuit dea._" molly moved a plate on the table with some vehemence. "i suppose sylvia would understand that language." "she would, my dear molly, and what's more, she would scorn me for using such a hackneyed quotation." to mr. sommerville he added, laughing, "isn't it the quaintest combination--such radiant girlhood and her absurd book-learning!" mr. sommerville gave his assent to the quaintness by silence, as he rose and prepared to retreat. "_good_-bye, grandfather," said molly with enthusiasm. * * * * * as they walked along, arnold was saying to sylvia with a listless appreciation: "you certainly know the last word of the game, don't you, sylvia? i bet morrison hasn't had a jolt like that for years." "what are you _talking_ about?" asked sylvia, perhaps slightly overdoing her ignorance of his meaning. "why, it's a new thing for _him_, let me tell you, to have a girl jump up as soon as he comes in and delightedly leave him to another girl. and then to thank the other girl for being willing to take him off your hands,--that's more than knowing the rules,--that's art!" he laughed faintly at the recollection. "it's a new one for morrison to meet a girl who doesn't kowtow. he's a very great personage in his line, and he can't help knowing it. the very last word on lord-knows-what-all in the art business is what one felix morrison says about it. he's an eight-cylinder fascinator too, into the bargain. mostly he makes me sore, but when i think about him straight, i wonder how he manages to keep on being as decent as he is--he's really a good enough sort!--with all the high-powered petticoats in new york burning incense. it's enough to turn the head of a hydrant. that's the hold madrina has on him. she doesn't burn any incense. she wants all the incense there is being burned, for herself; and it keeps old felix down in his place--keeps him hanging around too. you stick to the same method if you want to make a go of it." "i thought he wrote. i thought he did aesthetic criticisms and essays," said sylvia, laughing aloud at arnold's quaint advice. "oh, he does. i guess he's chief medicine-man in his tribe all right. it's not only women who kowtow; when old man merriman wants to know for sure whether to pay a million for a cracked chinese vase, he always calls in felix morrison. chief adviser to the predatory rich, that's one of his jobs! so you see," he came back to his first point, "it must be some jolt for the sacred f.m. to have a young lady, _just a young lady_, refuse to bow at the shrine. you couldn't have done a smarter trick, by heck! i've been watching you all those weeks, just too tickled for words. and i've been watching morrison. it's been as good as a play! he can't stick it out much longer, unless i miss my guess, and i've known him ever since i was a kid. he's just waiting for a good chance to turn on the faucet and hand you a full cup of his irresistible fascination." he added carelessly, bouncing a ball up and down on the tense catgut of his racquet: "what all you girls see in that old wolf-hound, to lose your heads over! it gets me!" "why in the world 'wolf-hound'?" asked sylvia. "oh, just as to his looks. he has that sort of tired, dignified, deep-eyed look a big dog has. i bet his eyes would be phosphorescent at night too. they are that kind; don't you know, when you strike a match in the evening, how a dog's eyes glow? it's what makes 'em look so soft and deep in the daytime. but as to his innards--no, lord no! whatever else morrison is he's not a bit like any dog that ever lived--first cousin to a fish, i should say." sylvia laughed. "why not make it grizzly bear, to take in the rest of the animal kingdom?" "no," persisted arnold. "now i've thought of it, i _mean_ fish, a great big, wise old fellow, who lives in a deep pool and won't rise to any ordinary fly." he made a brain-jolting change of metaphor and went on: "the plain truth, and it's not so low-down as it seems, is that a big fat check-book is admission to the grandstand with felix. it _has_ to be that way! he hasn't got much of his own, and his tastes are some--" "molly must be sitting in the front row, then," commented sylvia indifferently, as though tired of the subject. they were now at the tennis-court. "run over to the summer-house and get my racquet, will you? it's on the bench." "yes, molly's got plenty of _money_," arnold admitted as he came back, his accent implying some other lack which he forgot to mention, absorbed as he at once became in coping with his adversary's strong, swift serve. the change in him, as he began seriously to play, was startling, miraculous. his slack loose-jointedness stiffened into quick, flexible accuracy, his lounging, flaccid air disappeared in a glow of concentrated vigorous effort. the bored good-nature in his eyes vanished, burned out by a stern, purposeful intensity. he was literally and visibly another person. sylvia played her best, which was excellent, far better than that of any other girl in the summer colony. she had been well trained by her father and her gymnasium instructor, and played with an economy of effort delightful to see; but she was soon driven by her opponent's tiger-like quickness into putting out at once her every resource. there, in the slowly fading light of the long mountain afternoon, the two young anglo-saxons poured out their souls in a game with the immemorial instinct of their race, fierce, grim, intent, every capacity of body and will-power brought into play, everything else in the world forgotten.... for some time they were on almost equal terms, and then sylvia became aware that her adversary was getting the upper hand of her. she had, however, no idea what the effort was costing him, until after a blazing fire of impossibly rapid volleys under which she went down to defeat, she stopped, called out, "game _and_ set!" and added in a generous tribute, "say, you can _play_!" then she saw that his face was almost purple, his eyes bloodshot, and his breath came in short, gasping pants. "good gracious, what's the matter!" she cried, running towards him in alarm. she was deeply flushed herself, but her eyes were as clear as clear water, and she ran with her usual fawn-like swiftness. arnold dropped on the bench, waving her a speechless reassurance. with his first breath he said, "gee! but you can hit it up, for a girl!" "what's the _matter_ with you?" sylvia asked again, sitting down beside him. "nothing! nothing!" he panted. "my wind! it's confoundedly short." he added a moment later, "it's tobacco--this is the sort of time the cigarettes get back at you, you know!" the twilight dropped slowly about them like a thin, clear veil. he thrust out his feet, shapely in their well-made white shoes, surveyed them with dissatisfaction, and added with moody indifference: "and cocktails too. they play the dickens with a fellow's wind." sylvia said nothing for a moment, looking at him by no means admiringly. her life in the state university had brought her into such incessant contact with young men that the mere fact of sitting beside one in the twilight left her unmoved to a degree which mr. sommerville's mother would have found impossible to imagine. when she spoke, it was with an impatient scorn of his weakness, which might have been felt by a fellow-athlete: "what in the world makes you do it, then?" "why not?" he said challengingly. "you've just said why not--it spoils your tennis. it must spoil your polo. was that what spoiled your baseball in college? you'd be twice the man if you wouldn't." "oh, what's the use?" he said, an immense weariness in his voice. "what's the use of anything, if you are going to use _that_ argument?" said sylvia, putting him down conclusively. he spoke with a sudden heartfelt simplicity, "damn 'f i _know_, sylvia." for the first time in all the afternoon, his voice lost its tonelessness, and rang out with the resonance of sincerity. she showed an unflattering surprise. "why, i didn't know you ever thought about such things." he looked at her askance, dimly amused. "high opinion you have of me!" she looked annoyed at herself and said with a genuine good-will in her voice, "why, arnold, you _know_ i've always liked you." "you like me, but you don't think much of me," he diagnosed her, "and you show your good sense." he looked up at the picturesque white house, spreading its well-proportioned bulk on the top of the terraced hillside before them. "i hope madrina is looking out of a window and sees us here, our heads together in the twilight. you've guessed, i suppose, that she had you come on here for my benefit. she thinks she's tried everything else,--now it's her idea to get me safely married. she'd have one surprise, wouldn't she, if she could hear what we're saying!" "well, it _would_ be a good thing for you," remarked sylvia, as entirely without self-consciousness as though they were discussing the tennis game. he was tickled by her coolness. "well, madrina sure made a mistake when she figured on _you_!" he commented ironically. and then, not having been subjected to the cool, hardy conditions which caused sylvia's present clear-headedness, he felt his blood stirred to feel her there, so close, so alive, so young, so beautiful in the twilight. he leaned towards her and spoke in a husky voice, "see here, sylvia, why _don't_ you try it!" "oh, nonsense!" said the girl, not raising her voice at all, not stirring. "you don't care a bit for me." "yes, i do! i've _always_ liked you!" he said, not perceiving till after the words were out of his mouth that he had repeated her own phrase. she laughed to hear it, and he drew back, his faint stirring of warmth dashed, extinguished. "the fact is, sylvia," he said, "you're too nice a girl to fall in love with." "what a horrid thing to say!" she exclaimed. "about _you_?" he defended himself. "i mean it as a compliment." "about falling in love," she said. "oh!" he said blankly, evidently not at all following her meaning. "what time is it?" she now inquired, and on hearing the hour, "oh, we'll be late to dress for dinner," she said in concern, rising and ascending the marble steps to the terrace next above them. he came after her, long, loose-jointed, ungraceful. he was laughing. "do you realize that i've proposed marriage to you and you've turned me down?" he said. "no such a thing!" she said, as lightly as he. "it's the nearest _i_ ever came to it!" he averred. she continued to flit up the terraces before him, her voice rippling with amusement dropping down on him through the dusk. "well, you'll have to come nearer than that, if you ever want to make a go of it!" she called over her shoulder. upon which note this very modern conversation ended. chapter xxiii more talk between young moderns when they met at dinner, they laughed outright at the sight of one another, a merry and shadowless laugh. for an instant they looked like light-hearted children. the change of arnold's long sallow face was indeed so noticeable that mrs. marshall-smith glanced sharply at him, and then looked again with great satisfaction. she leaned to sylvia and laid her charming white hand affectionately over the girl's slim, strong, tanned fingers. "it's just a joy to have you here, my dear. you're brightening us stupid, bored people like fresh west wind!" she went on addressing herself to the usual guest of the evening: "isn't it always the most beautiful sight, felix, how the mere presence of radiant youth can transform the whole atmosphere of life!" "i hadn't noticed that my radiant youth had transformed much," commented arnold dryly; "and sylvia's only a year younger than i." he was, as usual, disregarded by the course of the conversation. "yes, sunshine in a shady place ..." quoted morrison, in his fine mellow tenor, looking at sylvia. it was a wonderful voice, used with discretion, with a fine instinct for moderation which would have kept the haunting beauty of its intonations from seeming objectionable or florid to any but american ears. in spite of the invariable good taste with which it was used, american men, accustomed to the toneless speech of the race, and jealously suspicious of anything approaching art in everyday life, distrusted morrison at the first sound of his voice. men who were his friends (and they were many) were in the habit of rather apologizing for those rich and harmonious accents. the first time she had heard it, sylvia had thought of the g string of old reinhardt's violin. "i never in my life saw anything that looked less like a shady place," observed sylvia, indicating with an admiring gesture the table before them, gleaming and flashing its glass and silver and close-textured, glossy damask up into the light. "it's _morally_ that we're so shady!" said arnold, admiring his own wit so much that he could not refrain from adding, "not so bad, what?" the usual conversation at his stepmother's table was, as he would have said, so pestilentially high-brow that he seldom troubled himself to follow it enough to join in. arnold was in the habit of dubbing "high-brow" anything bearing on aesthetics; and mrs. marshall-smith's conversational range hardly extending at all outside of aesthetics of one kind or another, communication between these two house-mates of years' standing was for the most part reduced to a primitive simplicity for which a sign-language would have sufficed. arnold's phrase for the situation was, "i let madrina alone, and she don't bother me." but now, seeing that neither the façade of rouen, nor the influence of chardin on whistler, had been mentioned, his unusual loquacity continued. "well, if one west wind (i don't mean that as a slam on sylvia for coming from west of the mississippi) has done us so much good, why not have another?" he inquired. "why couldn't judith come on and make us a visit too? it would be fun to have a scrap with her again." he explained to morrison: "she's sylvia's younger sister, and we always quarreled so, as kids, that after we'd been together half an hour the referee had to shoulder in between and tell us, 'nix on biting in clinches.' she was great, all right, judith was! how _is_ she now?" he asked sylvia. "i've been meaning ever so many times to ask you about her, and something else has seemed to come up. i can't imagine judy grown up. she hasn't pinned up that great long braid, has she, that used to be so handy to pull?" sylvia took the last of her soup, put the spoon on the plate, and launched into a description of judith, one of her favorite topics. "oh, judith's just _fine_! you ought to see her! she's worth ten of me: she has such lots of character! and handsome! you never saw anything like judith's looks. yes, she's put her hair up! she's twenty years old now, what do you _suppose_ she does with her hair? she wears it in a great smooth braid all around her head. and she has _such_ hair, aunt victoria!" she turned from arnold to another woman, as from some one who would know nothing of the fine shades of the subject. "no short hairs at all, you know, like everybody else, that _will_ hang down and look untidy!" she pulled with an explanatory petulance at the soft curls which framed her own face in an aureole of light. "hers is all long and smooth, and the color like a fresh chestnut, just out of the burr; and her nose is like a greek statue--she _is_ a greek statue!" she had been carried by her affectionate enthusiasm out of her usual self-possession, her quick divination of how she was affecting everybody, and now, suddenly finding morrison's eyes on her with an expression she did not recognize, she was brought up short. what had she said to make him look at her so oddly? he answered her unspoken question at once, his voice making his every casual word of gold: "i am thinking that i am being present at a spectacle which cynics say is impossible, the spectacle of a woman delighting--and with the most obvious sincerity--in the beauty of another." "oh!" said sylvia, relieved to know that the odd look concealed no criticism, "i didn't know that anybody nowadays made such silly victorian generalizations about woman's cattiness,--anybody under old mr. sommerville's age, that is. and anyhow, judith's my _sister_." "cases of sisters, jealous of each other's good looks, have not been entirely unknown to history," said morrison, smiling and beginning to eat his fish with a delicate relish. "well, if judy's so all-fired good-looking, let's _have_ her come on, madrina," said arnold. "with her and sylvia together, we'd crush lydford into a pulp." he attacked his plate with a straggling fork, eating negligently, as he did everything else. "she has a standing invitation, of course," said mrs. marshall-smith. "indeed, i wrote the other day, asking her if she could come here instead of to la chance for her vacation. it's far nearer for her." "oh, judith couldn't waste time to go visiting," said sylvia. "i've told you she is worth ten of me. she's on the home-stretch of her trained-nurse's course now. she has only two weeks' vacation." "she's going to be a trained nurse?" asked arnold in surprise, washing down a large mouthful of fish with a large mouthful of wine. "what the dickens does she do that for?" "why, she's crazy about it,--ever since she was a little girl, fifteen years old and first saw the inside of a hospital. that's just judith,--so splendid and purposeful, and single-minded. i wish to goodness _i_ knew what i want to do with myself half so clearly as she always has." if she had, deep under her consciousness, a purpose to win more applause from morrison, by more disinterested admiration of judith's good points, she was quite rewarded by the quickness with which he championed her against her own depreciation. "i've always noticed," he said meditatively, slowly taking a sip from his wine-glass, "that nobody can be single-minded who isn't narrow-minded; and i think it likely that people who aren't so cocksure what they want to do with themselves, hesitate because they have a great deal more to do _with_. a nature rich in fine and complex possibilities takes more time to dispose of itself, but when it does, the world's beauty is the gainer." he pointed the reference frankly by a smile at sylvia, who flushed with pleasure and looked down at her plate. she was surprised at the delight which his leisurely, whimsically philosophical little speech gave her. she forgot to make any answer, absorbed as she was in poring over it and making out new meanings in it. how he had understood at less than a word the secret uncertainty of herself which so troubled her; and with what astonishing sureness he had known what to say to reassure her, to make her see clear! and then, her quick mind leaped to another significance.... all during these past weeks when she had been falling more and more under the fascination of his personality, when she had been piqued at his disregard of her, when she had thought he found her "young," and had bracketed her carelessly with arnold, he had been in reality watching her, he had found her interesting enough to observe her, to study her, to have a theory about her character; and having done all that, to admire her as she admired him. never in her life had she been the recipient of flattery so precisely to her taste. her glow of pleasure was so warm that she suddenly distrusted her own judgment, she looked up at him quickly to see if she had not mistaken his meaning, had not absurdly exaggerated the degree to which he ... she found his eyes on hers, deep-set, shadowy eyes which did not, as she looked up, either smile or look away. under cover of a rather wrangling discussion between arnold and his stepmother as to having some champagne served, the older man continued to look steadily into sylvia's eyes, with the effect of saying to her, gravely, kindly, intimately: "yes, i am here. you did not know how closely you have drawn me to you, but here i am." across the table, across the lights, the service, the idle talk of the other two, she felt him quietly, ever so gently but quite irresistibly, open an inner door of her nature ... and she welcomed him in. * * * * * after dinner, when mrs. marshall-smith lifted her eyebrows at sylvia and rose to go, arnold made no bones of his horror at the prospect of a tête-à-tête with the distinguished critic. "oh, i'm going in with you girls!" he said, jumping up with his usual sprawling uncertainty of action. he reserved for athletic sports all his capacity for physical accuracy. "morrison and i bore each other more than's legal!" "i may bore _you_, my dear arnold," said the other, rising, "but you never bored me in your life, and i've known you from childhood." to which entirely benevolent speech, arnold returned nothing but the uneasy shrug and resentful look of one baffled by a hostile demonstration too subtle for his powers of self-defense. he picked up the chair he had thrown over, and waited sulkily till the others were in the high-ceilinged living-room before he joined them. then when morrison, in answer to a request from his hostess and old friend, sat down to the piano and began to play a piece of modern, plaintive, very wandering and chromatic music, the younger man drew sylvia out on the wide, moon-lighted veranda. "morrison is the very devil for making you want to punch his head, and yet not giving you a decent excuse. i declare, sylvia, i don't know but that what i like best of all about you is the way you steer clear of him. he's opening up on you too. maybe you didn't happen to notice ... at the dinner-table? it wasn't much, but i spotted it for a beginning. i know old felix, a few." sylvia felt uneasy at the recurrence of this topic, and cast about for something to turn the conversation. "oh, arnold," she began, rather at random, "whatever became of professor saunders? i've thought about him several times since i've been here, but i've forgotten to ask you or tantine. he was my little-girl admiration, you know." arnold smoked for a moment before answering. then, "well, i wouldn't ask madrina about him, if i were you. he's not one of her successes. he wouldn't stay put." sylvia scented something uncomfortable, and regretted having introduced the subject. arnold added thoughtfully, looking hard at the ash of his cigarette, "i guess madrina was pretty bad medicine for saunders, all right." sylvia shivered a little and drew back, but she instantly put the matter out of her mind with a trained and definite action of her will. it was probably "horrid"; nothing could be done about it now; what else could they talk about that would be cheerful? this was a thought-sequence very familiar to sylvia, through which she passed with rapid ease. arnold made a fresh start by offering her his cigarette-box. "have one," he invited her, sociably. she shook her head. "oh, all the girls do," he urged her. sylvia laughed. "i may be a fresh breeze from beyond the mississippi, but i'm not so fresh as to think it's wicked for a girl to smoke. in fact i like to, myself, but i can't stand the dirty taste in my mouth the next morning. smoking's not worth it." "_well_ ..." commented arnold. apparently he found something very surprising in this speech. his surprise spread visibly from the particular to the general, like the rings widening from a thrown pebble, and he finally broke out: "you certainly do beat the band, sylvia. you get _me_! you're a sample off a piece of goods that i never saw before!" "what now?" asked sylvia, amused. "why, for instance,--that reason for your not smoking. that's not a girl's reason. that's a man's ... a man who's tried it!" "no, it isn't!" she said, the flicker of amusement still on her lips. "a man wouldn't have sense enough to know that smoking isn't worth waking up with your mouth full of rancid fur." "oh gosh!" cried arnold, tickled by the metaphor: "rancid fur!" "the point about me, why i seem so queer to you," explained sylvia, brightening, "is that i'm a state university girl. i'm used to you. i've seen hundreds of you! the fact that you wear trousers and have to shave and wear your hair cut short, and smell of tobacco, doesn't thrill me for a cent. i know that i could run circles around you if it came to a problem in calculus, not that i want to brag." arnold did not seem as much amused as she thought he would be. he smoked in a long, meditative silence, and when he spoke again it was with an unusual seriousness. "it's not what _you_ feel or don't feel about me ... it's what _i_ feel and don't feel about you, that gets me," he explained, not very lucidly. "i mean liking you so, without ... i never felt so about a girl. i like it.... i don't make it out...." he looked at her with sincerely puzzled eyes. she answered him as seriously. "i think," she said, speaking a little slowly, "i think the two go together, don't they?" "how do you mean?" he asked. "why--it's hard to say--" she hesitated, but evidently not at all in embarrassment, looking at him with serious eyes, limpid and unafraid. "i've been with boys and men a lot, of course, in my classes and in the laboratories and everywhere, and i've found out that in most cases if the men and the girls really, really in their own hearts don't want to hurt each other, don't want to get something out of the other, but just want to be friends--why, they _can_ be! psychologists and all the big-wigs say they can't be, i know--but, believe me!--i've tried it--and it's awfully nice, and it's a shame that everybody shouldn't know that lots of the time you _can_ do it--in spite of the folks who write the books! maybe it wasn't so when the books were written, maybe it's only going to be so, later, if we all are as square as we can be now. but as a plain matter of fact, in one girl's experience, it's so, _now_! of course," she modified by a sweeping qualification the audacity of her naïvely phrased, rashly innocent guess at a new possibility for humanity, "of course if the man's a _decent_ man." arnold had not taken his gaze for an instant from her gravely thoughtful eyes. he was quite pale. he looked astonishingly moved, startled, arrested. when she stopped, he said, almost at once, in a very queer voice as though it were forced out of him, "i'm not a decent man." and then, quite as though he could endure no longer her clear, steady gaze, he covered his eyes with his hand. an instant later he had sprung up and walked rapidly away out to the low marble parapet which topped the terrace. his gesture, his action had been so eloquent of surprised, intolerable pain, that sylvia ran after him, all one quick impulse to console. "yes, you are, arnold; yes, you are!" she said in a low, energetic tone, "you _are_!" he made a quavering attempt to be whimsical. "i'd like to know what _you_ know about it!" he said. "i know! i _know_!" she simply repeated. he faced her in an exasperated shame. "why, a girl like you can no more know what's done by a man like me ..." his lips twitched in a moral nausea. "oh ... what you've _done_ ..." said sylvia ... "it's what you are!" "what i _am_," repeated arnold bitterly. "if i were worth my salt i'd hang myself before morning!" the heartsick excitement of a man on the crest of some moral crisis looked out luridly from his eyes. sylvia rose desperately to meet that crisis. "look here, arnold. i'm going to tell you something i've never spoken of to anybody ... not even mother ... and i'm going to do it, so you'll _believe_ me when i say you're worth living. when i was eighteen years old i was a horrid, selfish, self-willed child. i suppose everybody's so at eighteen. i was just crazy for money and fine dresses and things like that, that we'd never had at home; and a man with a lot of money fell in love with me. it was my fault. i made him, though i didn't know then what i was doing, or at least i wouldn't let myself think what i was doing. and i got engaged to him. i got engaged at half-past four in the afternoon, and at seven o'clock that evening i was running away from him, and i've never seen him since." her voice went on steadily, but a quick hot wave of scarlet flamed up over her face. "he was not a decent man," she said briefly, and went on: "it frightened me almost to death before i got my bearings: i was just a little girl and i hadn't understood anything--and i don't _understand_ much now. but i did learn one thing from all that--i learned to know when a man isn't decent. i can't tell you how i know--it's all over him--it's all over me--it's his eyes, the way he stands, the expression of his mouth--i don't only see it--i feel it--i feel it the way a thermometer feels it when you put a match under the bulb ... i _know_!" she brought her extravagant, her preposterous, her ignorant, her incredibly convincing claims to an abrupt end. "and you 'feel' that i ..." began arnold, and could not go on. "i'd like you for my brother," she said gently. he tried to laugh at her, but the honest tears were in his eyes. "you don't know what you're talking about, you silly dear," he said unsteadily, "but i'm awfully glad you came to lydford." with her instinct for avoiding breaks, rough places, sylvia quickly glided into a transition from this speech back into less personal talk. "another queer thing about that experience i've never understood:--it cured me of being so crazy about clothes. you wouldn't think it would have anything to do with _that_, would you? and i don't see how it did. oh, i don't mean i don't dearly love pretty dresses now. i _do_. and i spend altogether too much time thinking about them--but it's not the same. somehow the poison is out. i used to be like a drunkard who can't get a drink, when i saw girls have things i didn't. i suppose," she speculated philosophically, "i suppose any great jolt that shakes you up a lot, shakes things into different proportions." "say, that fellow must have been just about the limit!" arnold's rather torpid imagination suddenly opened to the story he had heard. "no, no!" said sylvia. "as i look back on it, i make a lot more sense out of it" (she might have been, by her accent, fifty instead of twenty-three), "and i can see that he wasn't nearly as bad as i thought him. when i said he wasn't decent, i meant that he belonged in the stone age, and i'm twentieth-century. we didn't fit together. i suppose that's what we all mean when we say somebody isn't decent ... that he's stayed behind in the procession. i don't mean that man was a degenerate or anything like that ... if he could have found a stone age woman he'd have ... they'd have made a good stone age marriage of it. but he _didn't_, the girl he...." "do you know, sylvia," arnold broke in wonderingly, "i never before in all my life had anybody speak to me of anything that really mattered. and i never spoke this way myself. i've wanted to, lots of times; but i didn't know people ever did. and to think of its being a girl who does it for me, a girl who...." his astonishment was immense. "look here, arnold," said sylvia, with a good-natured peremptoriness. "let a girl be something besides a girl, can't you!" but her attempt to change the tone to a light one failed. apparently, now that arnold had broken his long silence, he could not stop himself. he turned towards her with a passionate gesture of bewilderment and cried: "do you remember, before dinner, you asked me as a joke what was the use of anything, and i said i didn't know? well, i _don't!_ i've been getting sicker and sicker over everything. what the devil _am_ i here for, anyhow!" as he spoke, a girl's figure stepped from the house to the veranda, from the veranda to the turf of the terrace, and walked towards them. she was tall, and strongly, beautifully built; around her small head was bound a smooth braid of dark hair. she walked with a long, free step and held her head high. as she came towards them, the moonlight full on her dark, proud, perfect face, she might have been the youthful diana. but it was no antique spirit which looked out of those frank, fearless eyes, and it was a very modern and colloquially american greeting which she now gave to the astonished young people. "well, sylvia, don't you know your own sister?" and "hello there, arnold." "why, judith _marshall_!" cried sylvia, falling upon her breathlessly. "however in the world did you get _here_!" arnold said nothing. he had fallen back a step and now looked at the new-comer with a fixed, dazzled gaze. chapter xxiv another brand of modern talk "where's judith?" said arnold for sole greeting, as he saw morrison at the piano and sylvia sitting near it, cool and clear in a lacy white dress. morrison lifted long fingers from the keys and said gravely, "she came through a moment ago, saying, '_where's_ arnold?' and went out through that door." his fingers dropped and chopin's voice once more rose plaintively. the sound of arnold's precipitate rush across the room and out of the door was followed by a tinkle of laughter from sylvia. morrison looked around at her over his shoulder, with a flashing smile of mutual understanding, but he finished the prelude before he spoke. then, without turning around, as he pulled out another sheet from the music heaped on the piano, he remarked: "if that french philosopher was right when he said no disease is as contagious as love-making, we may expect soon to find the very chairs and tables in this house clasped in each other's arms. old as i am, i feel it going to my head, like a bed of full-blooming valerian." sylvia made no answer. she felt herself flushing, and could not trust her voice to be casual. he continued for a moment to thumb over the music aimlessly, as though waiting for her to speak. the beautiful room, darkened against the midsummer heat, shimmered dimly in a transparent half-light, the vivid life of its bright chintz, its occasional brass, its clean, daring spots of crimson and purple flowers, subdued into a fabulous, half-seen richness. there was not a sound. the splendid heat of the early august afternoon flamed, and paused, and held its breath. into this silence, like a bird murmuring a drowsy note over a still pool, there floated the beginning of _am meer_. sylvia sat, passive to her finger-tips, a vase filled to the brim with melody. she stared with unseeing eyes at the back of the man at the piano. she was not thinking of him, she was not aware that she was conscious of him at all; but hours afterward wherever she looked, she saw for an instant again in miniature the slender, vigorous, swaying figure; the thick brown hair, streaked with white and curling slightly at the ends; the brooding head.... when the last note was still, the man stood up and moved away from the piano. he dropped into an arm-chair near sylvia, and leaning his fine, ugly head back against the brilliant chintz, he looked at her meditatively. his great bodily suavity gave his every action a curious significance and grace. sylvia, still under the spell of his singing, did not stir, returning his look out of wide, dreaming eyes. when he spoke, his voice blended with the silence almost as harmoniously as the music.... "do you know what i wish you would do, miss sylvia marshall? i wish you would tell me something about yourself. now that i'm no longer forbidden to look at you, or think about you...." "forbidden?" asked sylvia, very much astonished. "there!" he said, wilfully mistaking her meaning, and smiling faintly, "i am such an old gentleman that i'm perfectly negligible to a young lady. she doesn't even notice or not whether i look at her, and think about her." a few years before this sylvia would have burst out impetuously, "oh yes, i have! i've wondered awfully what made you so indifferent," but now she kept this reflection to herself and merely said, "what in the world did you fancy was 'forbidding' you?" "honor!" said morrison, with a note of mock solemnity. "_honor!_ victoria was so evidently snatching at you as a last hope for arnold. she gave me to understand that everybody else but arnold was to be strictly non-existent. but now that arnold has found a character beautifully and archaically simple to match his own primitive needs, i don't see why i shouldn't enjoy a little civilized talk with you. in any case, it was absurd to think of _you_ for arnold. it merely shows how driven poor victoria was!" sylvia tried to speak lightly, although she was penetrated with pleasure at this explanation of his holding aloof. "oh, _i_ like arnold very much. i always have. there's something ... something sort of _touching_ about arnold, don't you think? though i must say that i've heard enough about the difference between training quail dogs and partridge dogs to last me the rest of my life. but that's rather touching too, his not knowing what to do with himself but fiddle around with his guns and tennis-racquets. they're all he has to keep him from being bored to death, and they don't go nearly far enough. some day he will just drop dead from ennui, poor arnold! wouldn't he have enjoyed being a civil engineer, and laying out railroads in wild country! he'd have been a good one too! the same amount of energy he puts into his polo playing would make him fight his way through darkest thibet." she meditated over this hypothesis for a moment and then added with a nod of her head, "oh yes, i like arnold ever so much ... one kind of 'liking.'" "of course you like him," assented the older man, who had been watching her as she talked, and whose manner now, as he took up the word himself, resembled that of an exquisitely adroit angler, casting out the lightest, the most feathery, the most perfectly controlled of dry-flies. "you're too intelligent not to like everybody who's not base--and arnold's not base. and he 'likes' you. if you had cared to waste one of your red-brown tresses on him, you could have drawn him by a single hair. but then, everybody 'likes' you." "old mr. sommerville doesn't!" said sylvia, on an impulse. morrison looked at her admiringly, and put the tips of his fingers together with exquisite precision. "so you add second sight to your other accomplishments! how in the world could a girl of your age have the experience and intuition to feel that? old sommerville passes for a great admirer of yours. you won't, i hope, go so uncannily far in your omniscience as to pretend to know _why_ he doesn't like you?" "no, i won't," said sylvia, "because i haven't the very faintest idea. have you?" "i know exactly why. it's connected with one of the old gentleman's eccentricities. he's afraid of you on account of his precious nephew." "i didn't know he _had_ a nephew." sylvia was immensely astonished. "well, he has, and he bows down and worships him, as he does his granddaughter. you see how he adores molly. it's nice of the old fellow, the cult he has for his descendants, but occasionally inconvenient for innocent bystanders. he thinks everybody wants to make off with his young folks. you and i are fellow-suspects. haven't you felt him wish he could strike me dead, when molly makes tea for me, or turns over music as i play?" he laughed a little, a gentle, kind, indulgent laugh. "_molly!_" he said, as if his point were more than elucidated by the mere mention of her name. sylvia intimated with a laugh that her point was clearer yet in that she had no name to mention. "but i never saw his nephew. i never even heard of him until this minute." "no, and very probably never will see him. he's very seldom here. and if you did see him, you wouldn't like him--he's an eccentric of the worst brand," said morrison tranquilly. "but monomanias need no foundation in fact--" he broke off abruptly to say: "is this all another proof of your diabolical cleverness? i started in to hear something about yourself, and here i find myself talking about everything else in the world." "i'm not clever," said sylvia, hoping to be contradicted. "well, you're a great deal too nice to be _consciously_ so," admitted morrison. "see here," he went on, "it's evident that you're more than a match for me at this game. suppose we strike a bargain. you introduce yourself to me and i'll do the same by you. isn't it quite the most fantastic of all the bizarreries of human intercourse that an 'introduction' to a fellow-being consists in being informed of his name,--quite the most unimportant, fortuitous thing about him?" sylvia considered. "what do you want to know?" she asked finally. "well, i'd _like_ to know everything," said the man gaily. "my curiosity has been aroused to an almost unappeasable pitch. but of course i'll take any information you feel like doling out. in the first place, _how_, coming from such a ..." he checked himself and changed the form of his question: "i overheard you speaking to victoria's maid, and i've been lying awake nights ever since, wondering how it happened that you speak french with so pure an accent." "oh, that's simple! professor and madame la rue are old friends of the family and i've spent a lot of time with them. and then, of course, french is another mother-language for father. he and aunt victoria were brought up in paris, you know." morrison sighed. "isn't it strange how all the miracles evaporate into mere chemical reactions when you once investigate! all the white-clad, ghostly spirits turn out to be clothes on the line. i suppose there's some equally natural explanation about your way on the piano--the clear, limpid phrasing of that bach the other day, and then the color of the bizet afterwards. it's astonishing to hear anybody of your crude youth playing bach at all--and then to hear it played right--and afterwards to hear a modern given _his_ right note...." sylvia was perfectly aware that she was being flattered, and she was immensely enjoying it. she became more animated, and the peculiar sparkle of her face more spirited. "oh, that's old reinhardt, my music teacher. he would take all the skin off my knuckles if i played a bach gigue the least bit like that arlésienne minuet. he doesn't approve of bizet very much, anyhow. he's a tremendous classicist." "isn't it," inquired morrison, phrasing his question carefully, "isn't it, with no disrespect to la chance intended, isn't it rather unusually good fortune for a smallish western city to own a real musician?" "well, la chance bears up bravely under its good fortune," said sylvia dryly. "old mr. reinhardt isn't exactly a prime favorite there. he's a terribly beery old man, and he wipes his nose on his sleeve. our house was the only respectable one in town that he could go into. but then, our house isn't so very respectable. it has its advantages, not being so very respectable, though it 'most killed me as a young girl to feel us so. but i certainly have a choice gallery of queer folks in my acquaintance, and i have the queerest hodge-podge of scraps of things learned from them. i know a little swedish from miss lindström. she's a swedish old maid who does uplift work among the negroes--isn't that a weird combination? you just ought to hear what she makes of negro dialect! and i know all the socialist arguments from hearing a socialist editor get them off every sunday afternoon. and i even know how to manage planchette and write mediumistically--save the mark!--from cousin parnelia, a crazy old cousin of mother's who hangs round the house more or less." "i begin to gather," surmised morrison, "that you must have a remarkable father and mother. what are _they_ like?" "well," said sylvia thoughtfully, "mother's the bravest thing you ever saw. she's not afraid of _anything_! i don't mean cows, or the house-afire, or mice, or such foolishness. i mean life and death, and sickness and poverty and fear...." morrison nodded his head understandingly, a fine light of appreciation in his eyes, "not to be afraid of fear--that's splendid." sylvia went on to particularize. "when any of us are sick--it's my little brother lawrence who is mostly--judith and i are always well--father just goes all to pieces, he gets so frightened. but mother stiffens her back and _makes_ everything in the house go on just as usual, very quiet, very calm. she holds everything together _tight_. she says it's sneaking and cowardly if you're going to accept life at all, not to accept _all_ of it--the sour with the sweet--and not whimper." "very fine,--very fine! possibly a very small bit ... grim?" commented morrison, with a rising inflection. "oh, perhaps, a little!" agreed sylvia, as if it did not matter; "but i can't give you any idea of mother. she's--she's just _great_! and yet i couldn't live like her, without wanting to smash everything up. she's somebody that seneca would have liked." "and your father?" queried morrison. "oh, he's great too--dear father--but so different! he and mother between them have just about all the varieties of human nature that are worth while! father's red-headed (though it's mostly gray now), and quick, and blustering, and awfully clever, and just adored by his students, and talks every minute, and apparently does all the deciding, and yet ... he couldn't draw the breath of life without mother; and when it comes right down to _doing_ anything, what he always does is what he knows will come up to her standard." morrison raised delightedly amused hands to heaven. "the recording angel domiciled in the house!" he cried. "it had never occurred to me before how appallingly discerning the eye of the modern offspring must be. go on, go on!" elated by the sensation of appearing clever, sylvia continued with a fresh flow of eloquence. "and there never was such a highly moral bringing-up as we children have had. it's no fault of my family's if i've turned out a grasping materialist! i was brought up"--she flamed out suddenly as at some long-hoarded grievance--"i was brought up in a moral hot-house, and i haven't yet recovered from the shock of being transplanted into real earth in the real world." morrison paid instant tribute to her aroused and serious feeling by a grave look of attention. "won't you explain?" he asked. "i'm so dull i don't follow you. but i haven't been so interested in years." "why, i mean," said sylvia, trying hard to reduce to articulateness a complicated conception, "i mean that father and mother just deliberately represented values to me as different from what they really are, with real folks! and now i find that _i'm_ real folks! i can't help it. you are as you _are_, you know. they kept representing to me always that the _best_ pleasures are the ones that are the most important to folks--music, i mean, and milton's poetry, and a fine novel--and, in mother's case, a fine sunset, or a perfect rose, or things growing in the garden." no old associate of morrison's would have recognized the man's face, shocked as it was by surprise and interest out of his usual habit of conscious, acute, self-possessed observation. the angler had inadvertently stepped off a ledge into deep water, and a very swift current was tugging at him. he leaned forward, his eyes as eager with curiosity as a boy's. "do i understand you to say that you repudiate those 'best pleasures'?" "of course you don't understand anything of the sort," said sylvia very earnestly. "they've soaked me so in music that i'm a regular bond-slave to it. and a perfect rose is associated with so many lovely recollections of mother's wonderful silent joy in it, that i could weep for pleasure. what i'm talking about--what i'm trying to tell you, is the shock it was to me, when i got out of that artificially unworldly atmosphere of home--for there's no use talking, it _is_ artificial!--to find that _those_ pleasures aren't the ones that are considered important and essential. how did i find things in the real world? why, i find that people don't give a thought to those 'best pleasures' until they have a lot of other things first. everything _i_'d been trained to value and treasure was negligible, not worth bothering about. but money--position--not having to work--elegance--_those_ are _vital_--prime! real people can't enjoy hearing a concert if they know they've got to wash up a lot of dishes afterwards. hiring a girl to do that work is the _first_ thing to do! there isn't another woman in the world, except my mother, who'd take any pleasure in a perfect rose if she thought her sleeves were so old-fashioned that people would stare at her. folks _talk_ about liking to look at a fine sunset, but what they give their blood and bones for, is a fine house on the best street in town!" "well, but you're not 'people' in that vulgar sense!" protested morrison. he spoke now without the slightest _arrière-pensée_ of flattering her, and sylvia in her sudden burst for self-expression was unconscious of him, save as an opponent in an argument. "you just _say_ that, in that superior way," she flashed at him, "because _you_ don't have to bother your head about such matters, because you don't have to associate with people who are fighting for those essentials. for they _are_ what everybody except father and mother--_every_ body feels to be the essentials--a pretty house, handsome clothes, servants to do the unpleasant things, social life--oh, plenty of money sums it all up, 'vulgar' as it sounds. and i don't believe you are different. i don't believe anybody you know is really a bit different! let aunt victoria, let old mr. sommerville, lose their money, and you'd see how unimportant debussy and masaccio would be to them, compared to having to black their own shoes!" "well, upon my word!" exclaimed morrison. "are you at eighteen presuming to a greater knowledge of life than i at forty?" "i'm not eighteen, i'm twenty-three," said sylvia. "the difference is enormous. and if i don't know more about plain unvarnished human nature than you, i miss my guess! _you_ haven't gone through five years at a state university, rubbing shoulders with folks who haven't enough sophistication to pretend to be different from what they are. _you_ haven't taught music for three years in the middle-class families of a small western city!" she broke off to laugh an apologetic depreciation of her own heat. "you'd think i was addressing a meeting," she said in her usual tone. "i got rather carried away because this is the first time i ever really spoke out about it. there are so few who could understand. if i ever tried to explain it to father and mother, i'd be sure to find them so deep in a discussion of the relation between socrates and christ that they couldn't pay any attention! professor kennedy could understand--but he's such a fanatic on the other side." morrison looked a quick suspicion. "who is professor kennedy?" he inquired; and was frankly relieved when sylvia explained: "he's the head of the mathematics department, about seventy years old, and the crossest, cantankerousest old misanthrope you ever saw. and thinks himself immensely clever for being so! he just loathes people--the way they really are--and he dotes on mother and judith because they're not like anybody else. and he hates me because they couldn't all hypnotize me into looking through their eyes. he thinks it low of me to realize that if you're going to live at all, you've got to live _with people_, and you can't just calmly brush their values on one side. he said once that any sane person in this world was like a civilized man with plenty of gold coin, cast away on a desert island with a tribe of savages who only valued beads and calico, and buttons and junk. and i said (i knew perfectly well he was hitting at me) that if he was really cast away and couldn't get to another island, i thought the civilized man would be an idiot to starve to death, when he could buy food of the savages by selling them junk. and i thought he just wasted his breath by swearing at the savages for not knowing about the value of gold. there i was hitting at _him!_ he's spoiled his digestion, hating the way people are made. and professor kennedy said something nasty and neat (he's awfully clever) about that being rather a low occupation for a civilized being--taking advantage of the idiocies of savages--he meant me, of course--and he's right, it _is_ a mean business; i hate it. and that's why i've always wanted to get on another island--not an uninhabited island, like the one father and mother have--but one where--well, _this_ is one!" she waved her hand about the lovely room, "this _is_ just one! where everything's beautiful--costly too--but not just costly; where all the horrid, necessary consequences of things are taken care of without one's bothering--where flowers are taken out of the vases when they wilt and fresh ones put in; and dishes get themselves washed invisibly, inaudibly--and litter just vanishes without our lifting a hand. of course the people who live so always, can rejoice with a clear mind in sunsets and bright talk. that's what i meant the other day--the day judith came--when i said i'd arrived in capua at last; when old mr. sommerville thought me so materialistic and cynical. if _he_ did that, on just that phrase--what must _you_ think, after all this _confession intime d'un enfant du siècle?_" she stopped with a graceful pretense of dreading his judgment, although she knew that she had been talking well, and read nothing but admiration in his very expressive face. "but all this means, you extraordinary young person, that you're not in the least an _enfant du siècle!_" he cried. "it means that you're dropped down in this groaning, heavy-spirited twentieth century, troubled about many things, from the exact year that was the golden climax of the renaissance; that you're a perfect specimen of the high-hearted, glorious ..." he qualified on a second thought, "unless your astonishing capacity to analyze it all, comes from the nineteenth century?" "no, that comes from father," explained sylvia, laughing. "isn't it funny, using the tool father taught me to handle, against his ideas! he's just great on analysis. as soon as we were old enough to think at all, he was always practising us on analysis--especially of what made us want things, or not like them. it's one of his sayings--he's always getting it off to his university classes--that if you have once really called an emotion or an ambition by its right name, you have it by the tail, so to speak--that if you know, for instance, that it's your vanity and not your love that's wounded by something, you'll stop caring. but i never noticed that it really worked if you cared _hard_ enough. diagnosing a disease doesn't help you any, if you keep right on being sick with it." "my dear! my dear!" cried the man, leaning towards her again, and looking--dazzled--into the beauty and intelligence of her eyes, "the idea that you are afflicted with any disease could only occur to the morbid mind of the bluest-nosed puritan who ever cut down a may-pole! you're wonderfully, you're terrifyingly, you are superbly sound and vigorous!" breaking in upon this speech, there came the quick, smooth purr of an automobile with all its parts functioning perfectly, a streak of dark gray past the shutters, the sigh of an engine stopped suddenly--molly sommerville sprang from behind the steering wheel and ran into the house. she was exquisitely flushed and eager when she came in, but when she saw the two alone in the great, cool, dusky room, filled to its remotest corners with the ineffable aroma of long, intimate, and interrupted talk, she was brought up short. she faltered for an instant and then continued to advance, her eyes on sylvia. "it's so hot," she said, at random, "and i thought i'd run over for tea--" "oh, of course," said sylvia, jumping up in haste, "it's late! i'd forgotten it was time for tea! blame _me!_ since i've been here, aunt victoria has left it to me--where shall i say to have it set?" "the pergola's lovely," suggested molly. she took her close motor-hat from the pure gold of her hair with a rather listless air. "all right--the pergola!" agreed sylvia, perhaps a little too anxiously. in spite of herself, she gave, and she knew she was giving, the effect of needing somehow to make something up to molly.... chapter xxv nothing in the least modern sylvia was sitting in the garden, an unread book on her knees, dreaming among red and yellow and orange gladioli. she looked with a fixed, bright, beatific stare at the flame-colored flowers and did not see them. she saw only felix morrison, she heard only his voice, she was brimming with the sense of him. in a few moments she would go into the house and find him in the darkened living-room, as he had been every afternoon for the last fortnight, ostensibly come in to lounge away the afternoon over a book, really waiting for her to join him. and when she came in, he would look up at her, that wonderful penetrating deep look of his ... and she would welcome him with her eyes. and then they would talk! judith and arnold would be playing tennis, oblivious of the heat, and aunt victoria would be annihilating the tedious center of the day by sleep. nobody would interrupt them for hours. how they would talk! how they had talked! as she thought of it the golden fortnight hummed and sang about sylvia's ears like a liszt liebes-traum. they had talked of everything in the world, and it all meant but one thing, that they had discovered each other, a discovery visibly as wonderful for morrison as for the girl. they had discovered each other, and they had been intelligent enough to know at once what it meant. they knew! and in a moment she would go into the house to him. she half closed her eyes as before a too-great brilliance.... arnold appeared at the other end of the long row of gladioli. he was obviously looking for some one. sylvia called to him, with the friendly tone she always had for him: "here i am! i don't know where judith is. will i do?" from a distance arnold nodded, and continued to advance, the irregularity of his wavering gait more pronounced than usual. as soon as she could see the expression of his face, sylvia's heart began to beat fast, with a divination of something momentous. he sat down beside her, took off his hat, and laid it on the bench. "do you remember," he asked in a strange, high voice, "that you said you would like me for your brother?" she nodded. "well, i'm going to be," he said, and covering his face with his hands, burst into sobs. sylvia was so touched by his emotion, so sympathetically moved by his news, that even through her happy ejaculations the tears rained down her own cheeks. she tried to wipe them away and discovered, absurdly enough, that she had lost her handkerchief. "aren't we idiots!" she cried in a voice of joyful quavers. "i never understood before why everybody cries at a wedding. see here, arnold, i've lost my handkerchief. loan me yours." she pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket, she wiped her eyes, she put a sisterly kiss on his thin, sallow cheek, she cried: "you dears! isn't it too good to be true! arnold! so soon! inside two weeks! how ever could you have the courage? judith! my judith! why, she never looked at a man before. how did you dare?" his overmastering fit of emotion was passed now. his look was of white, incredulous exaltation. "we saw each other and ran into each other's arms," he said; "i didn't have to 'dare.' it was like breathing." "oh, how perfect!" she cried, "how simply, simply perfect!" and now there was for an instant a note of wistful envy in her voice. "it's _all_ perfect! she never so much as looked at a man before, and you said the other night you'd never been in love before." arnold looked at her wildly. "i said that!" he cried. "why, yes, don't you remember, after that funny, joking talk with me, you said that was the nearest you'd ever come to proposing to any girl?" "god almighty!" cried the man, and did not apologize for the blasphemy. he looked at her fixedly, as though unguessed-at horizons of innocence widened inimitably before his horrified eyes. and then, following some line of association which escaped sylvia, "i'm not fit to _look_ at judith!" he cried. the idea seemed to burst upon him like a thunder-clap. sylvia patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. "that's the proper thing for a lover to think!" she said with cheerful, commonplace inanity. she did not notice that he shrank from her hand, because she now sprang up, crying, "but where's judy? where _is_ judy?" he nodded towards the house. "she sent me out to get you. she's in her room--she wants to tell you--but when i saw you, i couldn't keep it to myself." his exaltation swept back like a wave, from the crest of which he murmured palely, "judith! judith!" and sylvia laughed at him, with the tears of sympathy in her eyes, and leaving him there on the bench staring before him at the living fire of the flame-colored flowers, she ran with all her speed into the house. morrison, lounging in a chair with a book, looked up, startled at her whirlwind entrance. "what's up?" he inquired. at the sound of his voice, she checked herself and pirouetted with a thistle-down lightness to face him. her face, always like a clear, transparent vase lighted from within, now gave out, deeply moved as she was, an almost visible brightness. "judith!" she cried, her voice ringing like a silver trumpet, "judith and arnold!" she was poised like a butterfly, and as she spoke she burst into flight again, and was gone. she had not been near him, but the man had the distinct impression that she had thrown herself on his neck and kissed him violently, in a transport of delight. in the silent room, still fragrant, still echoing with her passage, he closed his book, and later his eyes, and sat with the expression of a connoisseur savoring an exquisite, a perfect impression.... * * * * * tea that afternoon was that strangest of phenomena, a formal ceremony of civilized life performed in the abashing and disconcerting presence of naked emotion. arnold and judith sat on opposite sides of the pergola, judith shining and radiant as the dawn, her usually firmly set lips soft and tremulous; arnold rather pale, impatient, oblivious to what was going on around him, his spirit prostrated before the miracle; and when their starry eyes met, there flowed from them and towards them from every one in the pergola, a thousand unseen waves of excitement. the mistress of the house herself poured tea in honor of the great occasion, and she was very humorous and amusing about the mistakes caused by her sympathetic agitation. "there! i've put three lumps in yours, mr. sommerville. how _could_ i! but i really don't know what i'm doing. this business of having love-at-first-sight in one's very family--! give your cup to molly; i'll make you a fresh one. oh, arnold! how _could_ you look at judith just then! you made me fill this cup so full i can't pass it!" mr. sommerville, very gallant and full of compliments and whimsical allusions, did his best to help their hostess strike the decent note of easy pleasantry; but they were both battling with something too strong for them. unseconded as they were by any of the others, they gave a little the effect of people bowing and smirking to each other at the foot of a volcano in full eruption. morrison, picking up the finest and sharpest of his conversational tools, ventured the hazardous enterprise of expressing this idea to them. mrs. marshall-smith, trying one topic after another, expressed an impatience with the slow progress of a henry james novel she was reading, and mr. sommerville, remarking with a laugh, "oh, you cannot hurry henry," looked to see his mild witticism rewarded by a smile from the critic. but morrison shook his head, "no, my dear old friend. _il faut hurler avec les loups_--especially if you are so wrought up by their hurlements that you can't hear yourself think. i'm just giving myself up to the rareness, the richness of the impression." the new fiancée herself talked rather more than usual, though this meant by no means loquacity, and presented more the appearance of composure than any one else there; although this was amusingly broken by a sudden shortness of breath whenever she met arnold's eyes. she said in answer to a question that she would be going on to her hospital the day after tomorrow--her two weeks' vacation over--oh yes, she would finish her course at the hospital; she had only a few more months. and in answer to another question, arnold replied, obviously impatient at having to speak to any one but judith, that of course he didn't mind if she went on and got her nurse's diploma--didn't she _want_ to? anything she wanted.... no--decidedly the thing was too big to make a successful fête of. morrison was silent and appreciatively observant, his eyes sometimes on sylvia, sometimes on judith; mr. sommerville, continuing doggedly to make talk, descended to unheard-of trivialities in reporting the iniquities of his chauffeur; molly stirred an untasted cup, did not raise her eyes at all, and spoke only once or twice, addressing to sylvia a disconnected question or two, in the answers to which she had obviously no interest. judith and arnold had never been very malleable social material, and in their present formidable condition they were as little assistance in the manufacture of geniality as a couple of african lions. the professional fête-makers were consequently enormously relieved when it was over and their unavailing efforts could be decently discontinued. professing different reasons for escape, they moved in disjointed groups across the smooth perfection of the lawn towards the house, where molly's car stood, gleaming in the sun. sylvia found herself, as she expected, manoeuvered to a place beside morrison. he arranged it with his unobtrusive deftness in getting what he wanted out of a group of his fellow-beings, and she admired his skill, and leaned on it confidently. they had had no opportunity that day for the long talk which had been a part of every afternoon for the last week; and she now looked with a buoyant certainty to have him arrange an hour together before dinner. her anticipation of it on that burning day of reflected heat sent thrills of eager disquietude over her. it was not only for judith and arnold that the last week had been one of meeting eyes, long twilight evenings of breathless, quick-ripening intimacy.... as they slackened their pace to drop behind mr. sommerville, who walked hand-in-hand with his granddaughter in front of them, morrison said, looking at her with burning eyes, "... an instrument so finely strung that it vibrates at the mere sound of another wakened to melody--what mortal man lives who would not dream of its response if he could set his own hand to the bow?" the afternoon had been saturated with emotional excitement and the moment had come for its inevitable crystallization into fateful words. the man spoke as though he were not wholly conscious of what he was saying. he stepped beside her like one in a dream. he could not take his eyes from her, from her flushed, grave, receptive face, from her downcast, listening eyes, her slow, trance-like step as she waited for him to go on. he went on: "it becomes, my dear, i assure you--the idea of that possibility becomes absolutely an obsession--even to a man usually quite his own master--" they were almost at a standstill now, and the two in front of them had reached the house. sylvia had a moment of what seemed to her the purest happiness she had ever known.... from across the lawn they saw a violent gesture--molly had thrown her grandfather's clinging hand from her, and flashed back upon the two, lingering there in the sunlight. she cast herself on sylvia, panting and trying to laugh. her little white teeth showed in what was almost a grimace. "why in the world are you two poking along so?" she cried, passing her arm through sylvia's. her beautiful sunny head came no more than to sylvia's shoulder. without waiting for an answer she went on hurriedly, speaking in the tones of suppressed excitement which thrilled in every one's voice that day: "come on, sylvia--let's work it off together! let me take you somewhere--let's go to rutland and back." "that's thirty miles away!" said sylvia, "and it's past five now." "i'll have you there and back long before seven," asserted molly. "come on ... come on ..." she pulled impatiently, petulantly at the other girl's arm. "i'm not invited, i suppose," said morrison, lighting a cigarette with care. molly looked at him a little wildly. "no, felix, you're not invited!" she said, and laughed unsteadily. she had hurried them along to the car, and now they stood by the swift gray machine, molly's own, the one she claimed to love more than anything else in the world. she sprang in and motioned sylvia to the seat beside her. "hats?" suggested morrison, looking at their bare, shining heads. he was evidently fighting for time, manoeuvering for an opening. his success was that of a man gesticulating against a gale. molly's baldly unscrupulous determination beat down the beginnings of his carefully composed opposition before he could frame one of his well-balanced sentences. "no--no--it takes too long to go and get hats!" she cried peremptorily. "if you can't have what you want when you want it, it's no use having it at all!" "i'm not sure," remarked morrison, "that miss marshall wants this at all." "yes, she does; yes, she does!" molly contradicted him heatedly. sylvia, hanging undecided at the step, felt herself pulled into the car; the door banged, the engine started with a smooth sound of powerful machinery, the car leaped forward. sylvia cast one backward glance at morrison, an annoyed, distinguished, futile presence, standing motionless, and almost instantly disappearing in the distance in which first he, and then the house and tall poplars over it, shrank to nothingness. their speed was dizzying. the blazing summer air blew hot and vital in their faces; their hair tugged at the pins and flew back in fluttering strands; their thin garments clung to their limbs, molded as closely by the compressing wind as by water. molly did not turn her eyes from the road ahead, leaping up to meet them, and vanishing under the car. she tried to make a little casual talk: "don't you love to let it out, give it all the gas there is?" "there's nothing like a quick spin for driving the nightmares out of your mind, is there?" but as sylvia made no answer to these overtures (the plain fact was that sylvia had no breath for speech,--for anything but a horrified fascinated glare at the road), she said suddenly, somberly, "if i were you, i certainly should despise me!" she took the car around a sharp curve on two wheels. sylvia clutched at the side and asked wonderingly, "_why_ in the world?" in a tone so permeated with sincerity that even molly felt it. "don't you _know_?" she cried. "do you mean to say you don't _know_?" "know _what_?" asked sylvia. hypnotized by the driver's intent and unwavering gaze on the road, she kept her own eyes as fiercely concentrated, her attention leaping from one quickly seen, instantly disappearing detail to another,--a pile of gravel here,--a half-buried rock there.--they both raised their voices to be heard above the sound of the engine and the rush of the car. "know what?" repeated sylvia loudly. "why do you _suppose_ i made myself ridiculous by pulling you away from felix that idiotic, humiliating way!" molly threw this inquiry out, straight before her, angrily. the wind caught at her words and hurled them behind. in a flash sylvia understood something to which she had been resolutely closing her perceptions. she felt sick and scared. she clutched the side, watched a hill rise up steep before them and flatten out under the forward leap of the car. she thought hard. something of her little-girl, overmastering horror of things, rough, outspoken, disagreeable, swept over her. she violently wished that she could escape from the conversation before her. she would have paid almost any price to escape. but molly's nerves were not so sensitive. she evidently had no desire to escape or to let sylvia. the grim little figure at the steering-wheel controlled with her small hands the fate of the two. she broke out now, impatient at sylvia's silence: "any fool could see that it was because i couldn't bear to see you with felix another minute, and because i hadn't any other way to get you apart. everybody else there knew why. i knew they knew. but i couldn't help it. i couldn't bear it another instant!" she broke the glass of decent reticence with a great clattering blow. it shivered into fragments. there was nothing now between them but the real issue in all its uncomely bareness. this real issue, the maenad at the wheel now held up before them in a single brutal statement--"are you in love with felix? i am." there was something eerie, terrifying, in her casting these words out, straight before her. sylvia looked in awe at the pale, pinched profile, almost unrecognizable in its stern misery. "because if you're not," molly went on, her white lower lip twitching, "i wish you'd keep out. it was all right before you came with your horrible cleverness. it was all right. it was all right." through the iteration of this statement, through the tumult of her own thoughts, through the mad rush of the wind past her ears, sylvia heard as clearly as though she sat again in the great, dim, quiet room, a melodious voice saying gently, indulgently, laughingly, "_molly!_" secure in her own safe place of favor she felt a great wave of generous pity for the helpless self-deception of her sister-woman. fired by this and by the sudden perception of an opening for an act of spectacular magnanimity--would it be any the less magnanimous because it would cost her nothing in the end?--she reached for the mantle of the _beau rôle_ and cast it about her shoulders. "why, molly dear!" she cried, and her quick sympathies had never been more genuinely aroused, "molly dear, of course i'll keep out, if you want me to. i'll leave the coast clear to you as long as you please." she was almost thrown from the seat by the jarring grind of the car brought to a sudden standstill. molly caught her hands, looked into her face, the first time their eyes had met. "do you mean it ... sylvia?" sylvia nodded, much agitated, touched by the other's pain, half ashamed of her own apparent generosity which was to mean no loss to her, no gain to molly. in the sudden becalmed stillness of the hot afternoon their bright, blown hair fell about their faces in shining clouds. "i didn't understand before," said sylvia; and she was speaking the truth. "and you'll let him alone? you won't talk to him--play his accompaniments--oh, those long talks of yours!" "we've been talking, you silly dear, of the renaissance compared to the twentieth century, and of the passing of the leisure class, and all the beauty they always create," said sylvia. again she spoke the literal truth. but the true truth, burning on molly's tongue, shriveled this to ashes. "you've been making him admire you, be interested in you, see how little _i_ amount to!" she cried. "but if you _don't_ care about him yourself--if you'll--_two weeks_, sylvia--just keep out for two weeks...." as if it were part of the leaping forward of her imagination, she suddenly started the car again, and with a whirling, reckless wrench at the steering-wheel she had turned the car about and was racing back over the road they had come. "where are you going?" cried sylvia to her, above the noise of their progress. "back!" she answered, laughing out. "what's the use of going on now?" she opened the throttle to its widest and pressing her lips together tightly, gave herself up to the intoxication of speed. once she said earnestly: "you're _fine_, sylvia! i never knew a girl could be like you!" and once more she threw out casually: "do you know what i was going to do if i found out you and felix--if you hadn't...? i was going to jump the car over the turn there on prospect hill." remembering the terrible young face of pain and wrath which she had watched on the way out, sylvia believed her; or at least believed that she believed her. in reality, her immortal youth was incapable of believing in the fact of death in any form. but the words put a stamp of tragic sincerity on their wild expedition, and on her companion's suffering. she thought of the two weeks which lay before molly, and turned away her eyes in sympathy.... * * * * * ten days after this, an announcement was made of the engagement of mary montgomery sommerville, sole heiress of the great montgomery fortune, to felix morrison, the well-known critic of aesthetics. chapter xxvi molly in her element sylvia faced her aunt's dictum with heartsick shrinking from its rigor; but she recognized it as an unexaggerated statement of the facts. "you can't go home now, sylvia--everybody would say you couldn't stand seeing molly's snatch at felix successful. you really must stay on to let people see that you are another kind of girl from molly, capable of impersonal interest in a man of felix's brains." sylvia thought of making the obviously suitable remark that she cared nothing about what people thought, but such a claim was so preposterously untrue to her character that she could not bring the words past her lips. as a matter of fact, she did care what people thought. she always had! she always would! she remained silent, looking fixedly out of the great, plate-glass window, across the glorious sweep of blue mountain-slope and green valley commanded by mrs. marshall-smith's bedroom. she did not resemble the romantic conception of a girl crossed in love. she looked very quiet, no paler than usual, quite self-possessed. the only change a keen eye could have noted was that now there was about her an atmosphere of slightly rigid dignity, which had not been there before. she seemed less girlish. no eyes could have been more keenly analytical than those of mrs. marshall-smith. she saw perfectly the new attribute, and realized perfectly what a resolute stiffening of the will it signified. she had never admired and loved sylvia more, and being a person adept in self-expression, she saturated her next speech with her admiration and affection. "of course, you know, my dear, that _i'm_ not one of the herd. i know entirely that your feeling for felix was just what mine is--immense admiration for his taste and accomplishments. as a matter of fact it was apparent to every one that, even in spite of all molly's money, if you'd really cared to ..." sylvia winced, actually and physically, at this speech, which brought back to her with a sharp flick the egregiousness of her absurd self-deception. what a simpleton she had been--what a little naïve, provincial simpleton! in spite of her high opinion of her own cleverness and knowledge of people, how stupidly steeped she had been in the childish, idiotic american tradition of entire disinterestedness in the relations of men and women. it was another instance of how betrayed she constantly was, in any manoeuver in the actual world, by the fatuous idealism which had so colored her youth--she vented her emotion in despising that idealism and thinking of hard names to call it. "... though of course you showed your intelligence by _not_ really caring to," went on mrs. marshall-smith; "it would have meant a crippled life for both of you. felix hasn't a cent more than he needs for himself. if he was going to marry at all, he was forced to marry carefully. indeed, it has occurred to me that he may have thrown himself into this, because he was in danger of losing his head over you, and knew how fatal it would be. for you, you lovely thing of great possibilities, you need a rich soil for _your_ roots, too, if you're to bloom out as you ought to." sylvia, receiving this into a sore and raw consciousness, said to herself with an embittered instinct for cynicism that she had never heard more euphonious periphrases for selling yourself for money. for that was what it came down to, she had told herself fiercely a great many times during the night. felix had sold himself for money as outright as ever a woman of the streets had done. mrs. marshall-smith, continuing steadily to talk (on the theory that talking prevents too great concentration of thought), and making the round of all the possible things to say, chanced at this moment upon a qualification to this theory of morrison's conduct which for an instant caught sylvia's attention, "--and then there's always the possibility that even if you _had_ cared to--molly might have been too much for you, for both of you. she always has had just what she wanted--and people who have, get the habit. i don't know if you've noticed it, in the little you've seen of her, but it's very apparent to me, knowing her from childhood up as i have, that there's a slight coarseness of grain in molly, when it's a question of getting what she wants. i don't mean she's exactly horrid. molly's a dear in her way, and i'm very fond of her, of course. if she can get what she wants _without_ walking over anybody's prostrate body, she'll go round. but there's a directness, a brilliant lack of fine shades in molly's grab.... it makes one remember that her montgomery grandfather had firmness of purpose enough to raise himself from an ordinary illinois farmer to arbiter of the wheat pit. such impossible old aunts--such cousins--occasionally crop up still from the montgomery connection. but all with the same crude force. it's almost impossible for a temperament like felix's to contend with a nature like that." sylvia was struck by the reflection, but on turning it over she saw in it only another reason for anger at morrison. "you make your old friend out as a very weak character," she said. mrs. marshall-smith's tolerant, clear view of the infirmities of humanity was grieved by this fling of youthful severity. "oh, my dear! my dear! a young, beautiful, enormendously rich, tremendously enamored girl? that's a combination! i don't think we need consider felix exactly weak for not having resisted!" sylvia thought she knew reasons for his not yielding, but she did not care to discuss them, and said nothing. "but whether," continued mrs. marshall-smith, attempting delicately to convey the only reflection supposed to be of comfort to a girl in sylvia's situation, "whether or not molly will find after marriage that even a very masterful and ruthless temperament may fail entirely to possess and hold the things it has grabbed and carried off ..." sylvia repudiated the tacit conception that this would be a balm to her. "oh, i'm sure i hope they'll manage!" she said earnestly. "of course! of course!" agreed mrs. marshall-smith. "who doesn't hope so?" she paused, her loquacity run desperately thin. there was the sound of a car, driving up to the front door. sylvia rose in apprehension. her aunt motioned a reassurance. "i told tojiko to tell every one that we are not in--to anybody." hélène came to the door on silent, felt-shod feet, a black-and-white picture of well-trained servility. "pardon, madame, tojiko says that mlle. sommerville wishes to see mlle. sylvie." mrs. marshall-smith looked with considerable apprehension at her niece. "you must get it over with some time, sylvia. it'll be easier here than with a lot of people staring at you both, and making nasty speculations." neither she nor sylvia noticed that for an instant, in her haste, she had quite dropped her careful pretension that sylvia could, of course, if she had really cared to.... sylvia set her jaw, an action curiously visible under the smooth, subtle modeling of her young cheeks. she said to hélène in a quiet voice: "_mais bien sûr!_ tell her we're not yet dressed, but if she will give herself the trouble to come up...." hélène nodded and retreated. sylvia looked rather pale. "you don't know what a joy your perfect french is to me, dear," said mrs. marshall-smith, still rapidly turning every peg in sight in an endeavor to loosen tension; but no noticeable relaxation took place in sylvia. it did not seem to her at just that moment of great importance that she could speak good french. with desperate haste she was saying to herself, "at least molly doesn't know about anything. i told her i didn't care. she believed me. i must go on pretending that i don't. but can i! but can i!" light, rapid steps came flying up the stairs and down the long hall. "sylvia! sylvia!" molly was evidently hesitating between doors. "here--this way--last door--aunt victoria's room!" called sylvia, and felt like a terror-stricken actor making a first public appearance, enormously surprised, relieved, and heartened to find her usual voice still with her. as molly came flying into the room, she ran to meet her. they fell into each other's arms with incoherent ejaculations and, under the extremely appreciative eye of mrs. marshall-smith, kissed each other repeatedly. "oh, isn't she the dear!" cried molly, shaking out amply to the breeze a victor's easy generosity. "isn't she the darlingest girl in the world! she _understands_ so! when i saw how perfectly _sweet_ she was the day arnold and judith announced their engagement, i said to myself i wanted her to be the first person i spoke to about mine." the approach of the inexorable necessity for her first words roused sylvia to an inspiration which struck out an almost visible spark of admiration from her aunt. "you just count too much on my being 'queer,' molly," she said playfully, pulling the other girl down beside her, with an affectionate gesture. "how do _you_ know that i'm not fearfully jealous of you? _such_ a charmer as your fiancé is!" molly laughed delightedly. "isn't she wonderful--not to care a bit--really!" she appealed to sylvia's aunt. "how anybody _could_ resist felix--but then she's so clever. she's wonderful!" sylvia, smiling, cordial, clear-eyed and bitter-hearted, thought that she really was. "but i can't talk about it here!" cried molly restlessly. "i came to carry sylvia off. i can't sit still at home. i want to go ninety miles an hour! i can't think straight unless i'm behind the steering-wheel. come along, sylvia!" mrs. marshall-smith thereupon showed herself, for all her amenity and grace, more of a match of molly's force and energy than either sylvia or morrison had been on a certain rather memorable occasion ten days before. she opposed the simple irresistible obstacle of a flat command. "sylvia's _not_ going out in a car dressed in a lace-trimmed négligée, with a boudoir cap on, whether you get what you want the minute you want it or not, molly sommerville," she said with the authoritative accent which had always quelled arnold in his boyhood (as long as he was within earshot). the method was effective now. molly laughed. sylvia even made shift to laugh; and helene was summoned to put on the trim shirt-waist, the short cloth skirt and close hat which mrs. marshall-smith selected with care and the history of which she detailed at length, so copiously that there was no opportunity to speak of anything less innocuous. her unusual interest in the matter even caused her to accompany the girls to the head of the stairs, still talking, and she called down to them finally as they went out of the front door, "... it's the only way with briggs--he's simply incorrigible about delays--and yet nobody does skirts as he does! you just have to tell him you _will not take it_, if he doesn't get it done on time!" sylvia cast an understanding, grateful upward look at her aunt and stepped into the car. so far it had gone better than she feared. but a tête-à-tête with molly, overflowing with the confidences of the newly betrothed--she was not sure that she could get through with that with credit. molly, however, seemed as little inclined to overflow as sylvia to have her. she talked of everything in the world except of felix morrison; and it was not long before sylvia's acuteness discovered that she was not thinking of what she was saying. there passed through her mind a wild, wretched notion that molly might after all know--that felix might have been base enough to talk about her to molly, that molly might be trying to "spare her." but this idea was instantly rejected: molly was not subtle enough to conceive of such a course, and too headlong not to make a hundred blunders in carrying it out; and besides, it would not explain her manner. she was abstracted obviously for the simple reason that she had something on her mind, something not altogether to her liking, judging from the uneasy color which came and went in her face, by her rattling, senseless flow of chatter, by her fidgeting, unnecessary adjustments of the mechanism of the car. sylvia herself, in spite of her greater self-control, looked out upon the world with nothing of her usual eager welcome. the personality of the man they did not name hung between and around the two women like a cloud. as they swept along rapidly, young, fair, well-fed, beautifully dressed, in the costly, shining car, their clouded faces might to a country eye have been visible proofs of the country dictum that "rich city folks don't seem to get no good out'n their money and their automobiles: always layin' their ears back and lookin' 'bout as cheerful as a balky horse." but the country eyes which at this moment fell on them were anything but conscious of class differences. it was a desperate need which reached out a gaunt claw and plucked at them when, high on the flank of the mountain, as they swung around the corner of a densely wooded road, they saw a wild-eyed man in overalls leap down from the bushes and yell at them. sylvia was startled and her first impression was the natural feminine one of fear--a lonely road, a strange man, excited, perhaps drunk--but molly, without an instant's hesitation, ground the car to a stop in a cloud of dust. "what's the matter?" she shouted as the man sprang up on the running-board. he was gasping, purple, utterly spent, and for an instant could only beat the air with his hands. then he broke out in a hoarse shout--the sound in that quiet sylvan spot was like a tocsin: "fire! an awful fire! hewitt's pine woods--up that road!" he waved a wild, bare arm--his shirt-sleeve was torn to the shoulder. "go and git help. they need all the men they can git!" he dropped from the running-board and ran back up the hill through the bushes. they saw him lurch from one side to the other; he was still exhausted from his dash down the mountain to the road; they heard the bushes crash, saw them close behind him. he was gone. sylvia's eyes were still on the spot where he had disappeared when she was thrown violently back against the seat in a great leap forward of the car. she caught at the side, at her hat, and saw molly's face. it was transfigured. the brooding restlessness was gone as acrid smoke goes when the clear flame leaps up. "what are you doing?" shouted sylvia. "to get help," answered molly, opening the throttle another notch. the first staggering plunge over, the car settled down to a terrific speed, purring softly its puissant vibrant song of illimitable strength. "hear her sing! hear her sing!" cried molly. in three minutes from the time the man had left them, they tore into the nearest village, two miles from the woods. it seemed that in those three minutes molly had not only run the car like a demon, but had formed a plan. slackening speed only long enough to waltz with the car on a street-corner while she shouted an inquiry to a passer-by, she followed the wave of his hand and flashed down a side-street to a big brick building which proclaimed itself in a great sign, "peabody brush-back factory." the car stopped. molly sprang out and ran as though the car were a rifle and she the bullet emerging from it. she ran into a large, ugly, comfortable office, where several white-faced girls were lifting their thin little fingers from typewriter keys to stare at the young woman who burst through and in at a door marked "manager." "there's a fire on the mountain--a great fire in hewitt's pine woods," she cried in a clear, peremptory voice that sounded like a young captain leading a charge. "i can take nine men on my car. will you come with me and tell which men to go?" a dignified, elderly man, with smooth, gray hair and a black alpaca office coat, sat perfectly motionless behind his desk and stared at her in a petrified silence. molly stamped her foot. "there's not an instant to lose," she said; "they need every man they can get." "who's the fire-warden of this township?" said the elderly man foolishly, trying to assemble his wits. molly appeared visibly to propel him from his chair by her fury. "oh, they need help _now_!" she cried. "come on! come on!" then they stood together on the steps of the office. "those men unloading lumber over there could go," said the manager, "and i'll get three more from the packing-rooms." "don't go yourself! send somebody to get them!" commanded molly. "you go and telephone anybody in town who has a car. there'll be sure to be one or two at the garage." sylvia gasped at the prodigy taking place before her eyes, the masterful, keen-witted captain of men who emerged like a thunderbolt from their molly--molly, the pretty little beauty of the summer colony! she had galvanized the elderly new englander beside her out of his first momentary apathy of stupefaction. he now put his own competent hand to the helm and took command. "yes," he said, and with the word it was evident that he was aroused. over his shoulder, in a quiet voice that carried like the crack of a gun: "henderson, go get three men from the packing-room to go to a forest-fire. shut down the machinery. get all the able-bodied men ready in gangs of seven. perkins, you 'phone tim o'keefe to bring my car here at once. and get pat's and tom's and the two at the hotel." "tools?" said molly. he nodded and called out to the men advancing with a rush on the car: "there are hoes and shovels inside the power-house door. better take some axes too." in four minutes from the time they had entered the village (sylvia had her watch in her hand) they were flying back, the car packed with men in overalls and clustered thick with others on the running-board. back of them the whistle of the factory shrieked a strident announcement of disaster. women and children ran to the doors to stare up and down, to cry out, to look and with dismayed faces to see the great cloud of gray smoke pouring up from the side of the mountain. there was no soul in that village who did not know what a forest-fire meant. then in a flash the car had left the village and was rushing along the dusty highroad, the huge, ominous pillar of smoke growing nearer. the men stared up at it with sober faces. "pretty hot fire!" said one uneasily. they reached the place where the man had yelled to them--ten minutes exactly since they had left it. molly turned the car into the steep sandy side-road which led up the mountain. the men shouted out in remonstrance, "hey, lady! you can't git a car up there. we'll have to walk the rest of the way. they don't never take cars there." "this one is going up," sang out molly gallantly, almost gaily, opening the throttle to its fullest and going into second speed. the sound of the laboring engine jarred loudly through all the still, hot woods; the car shook and trembled under the strain on it. molly dropped into low. a cloud of evil-smelling blue gasoline smoke rose up from the exhaust behind, but the car continued to advance. rising steadily, coughing and choking, up the cruelly steep grades, bumping heavily down over the great water-bars, smoking, rattling, quivering--the car continued to advance. a trickle of perspiration ran down molly's cheeks. the floor was hot under their feet, the smell of hot oil pungent in their nostrils. they were eight minutes from the main road now, and near the fire. over the trail hung a cloud of smoke, and, as they turned a corner and came through this, they saw that they had arrived. sylvia drew back and crooked her arm over her eyes. she had never seen a forest fire before. she came from the plain-country, where trees are almost sacred, and her first feeling was of terror. but then she dropped her arm and looked, and looked again at the glorious, awful sight which was to furnish her with nightmares for months to come. the fire was roaring down one side of the road towards them, and away to the right was eating its furious, sulphurous way into the heart of the forest. they stopped a hundred feet short, but the blare of heat struck on their faces like a blow. through the dense masses of smoke, terrifying glimpses of fierce, clean flame; a resinous dead stump burning like a torch; a great tree standing helpless like a martyr at the stake, suddenly transformed into a frenzied pillar of fire.... along the front of this whirlpool of flame toiled, with despairing fury, four lean, powerful men. as they raised their blackened, desperate faces and saw the car there, actually there, incredibly there, black with its load of men, they gave a deep-throated shout of relief, though they did not for an instant stop the frantic plying of their picks and hoes. the nine men sprang out, their implements in their hands, and dispersed along the fighting-line. molly backed the car around, the rear wheels churning up the sand, and plunged down the hill into the smoke. through the choking fumes of this, sylvia shouted at her, "molly! molly! you're _great_!" she felt that she would always hear ringing in her ears that thrilling, hoarse shout of relief. molly shouted in answer, "i could scream, i'm so happy!" and as they plunged madly down the mountain road, she said: "oh, sylvia, you don't know--i never was any use before--never once--never! i got the first load of help there! how they shouted!" at the junction of the side-road with the highway, a car was discharging a load of men with rakes and picks. "_i_ took my car up!" screamed molly, leaning from the steering wheel but not slackening speed as she tore past them. the driver of the other car, a young man with the face of a fighting celt, flushed at the challenge and, motioning the men back into the car, started up the sandy hill. molly laughed aloud. "i never was so happy in my life!" she said again. both girls had forgotten the existence of felix morrison. they passed cars now, many of them, streaming south at breakneck speed, full to overflowing with unsmiling men in working clothes, bristling with long-handled implements. but as they fled down the street to the factory they saw, waiting still, some twenty or more men in overalls drawn up, ready, armed, resolute.... "how strong men are!" said molly, gazing in ecstasy at this array of factory hands. "i love them!" she added under her breath, "but _i_ take them there!" while the men were swarming into the car, the gray-haired manager came out to report, as though to an officer equal in command, "i've telephoned to ward and howe's marble-works in chitford," he said. "they've sent down fifty men from there. about seventy-five have gone from this village. i suppose all the farmers in that district are there by this time." "will they ever stop it!" asked sylvia despairingly, seeing wherever she looked nothing but that ravening, fiery leap of the flames, feeling that terrible hot breath on her cheek. the question and accent brought the man for the first time to a realization of the girls' youth and sex. he shifted to paternal reassurance. "oh yes, oh yes," he said, looking up the valley appraisingly at the great volume of the smoke, "with a hundred and fifty men there, almost at once, they'll have it under control before long. everything with a forest fire depends on getting help there _quickly_. ten men there almost at once do more than fifty men an hour later. that's why your friend's promptness was so important. i guess it might have been pretty bad if they'd had to wait for help till one of them could have run to the village. a fire, a bad fire like that, gets so in an hour that you can't stop it--can't stop it till it gets out where you can plow a furrow around it. and that's a terrible place for a fire up there. lots of slash left." molly called over her shoulder to the men climbing on the car, "all ready there?" and was off, a valkyr with her load of heroes. once more the car toiled and agonized up the execrable sandy steepness of the side-road; but in the twenty minutes since they had been there the tide had turned. sylvia was amazed at the total shifting of values. instead of four solitary workers, struggling wildly against overwhelming odds, a long line of men, working with a disciplined, orderly haste, stretched away into the woods. imperious and savage, the smoke and swift flames towered above them, leaping up into the very sky, darkening the sun. bent over their rakes, their eyes on the ground, mere black specks against the raging glory of the fire, the line of men, with an incessant monotonous haste, drew away the dry leaves with their rakes, while others who followed them tore at the earth with picks and hoes. it was impossible to believe that such ant-labors could avail, but already, near the road, the fire had burnt itself out, baffled by its microscopic assailants. as far as the girls could see into the charred underbrush, a narrow, clean line of freshly upturned earth marked where the fiercest of all the elements had been vanquished by the humblest of all the tools of men. bewildered, sylvia's eyes shifted from the toiling men to the distance, across the blackened desolation near them, to where the fire still tossed its wicked crest of flames defiantly into the forest. she heard, but she did not believe the words of the men in the car, who cried out expertly as they ran forward, "oh, the worst's over. they're shutting down on it." how could the worst be over, when there was still that whirling horror of flame and smoke beyond them? just after the men had gone, exultant, relieved, the girls turned their heads to the other side of the road, and there, very silent, very secret and venomous, leaped and glittered a little ring of flames. an hour before, it would have looked a pretty, harmless sight to the two who now sat, stricken by horror into a momentary frozen stillness. the flames licked at the dry leaves and playfully sprang up into a clump of tall dry grass. the fire was running swiftly towards a bunch of dead alders standing at the edge of the forest. before it had spread an inch further, the girls were upon it, screaming for help, screaming as people in civilization seldom scream, with all their lungs. with uplifted skirts they stamped and trod out, under swift and fearless feet, the sinister, silent, yellow tongues. they snatched branches of green leaves and beat fiercely at the enemy. it had been so small a spot compared to the great desolation across the road, they stamped out the flames so easily, that the girls expected with every breath to see the last of it. to see it escape them, to see it suddenly flare up where it had been dead, to see it appear behind them while they were still fighting it in front, was like being in a nightmare when effort is impossible. the ring widened with appalling, with unbelievable rapidity. sylvia could not think it possible that anything outside a dream could have such devouring swiftness. she trod and snatched and stamped and screamed, and wondered if she were indeed awake.... yet in an instant their screams had been heard, three or four smoke-blackened fire-fighters from beyond the road ran forward with rakes, and in a twinkling the danger was past. its disappearance was as incredible as its presence. "ain't that just like a fire in the woods?" said one of the men, an elderly farmer. he drew a long, tremulous breath. "it's so tarnation _quick_! it's either all over before you can ketch your breath, or it's got beyond you for good." it evidently did not occur to him to thank the girls for their part. they had only done what every one did in an emergency, the best they could. he looked back at the burned tract on the other side of the road and said: "they've got the best of that all right, too. i jest heard 'em shoutin' that the men from chitford had worked round from the upper end. so they've got a ring round it. nothin' to do now but watch that it don't jump. my! 'twas a close call. i've been to a lot of fires in my day, but i d'know as i ever see a _closeter_ call!" "it can't be _over_!" cried sylvia, looking at the lurid light across the road. "why, it isn't an hour since we--" "land! no, it ain't _over!_" he explained, scornful of her inexperience. "they'll have to have a gang of men here watchin' it all night--and maybe all tomorrow--'less we have some rain. but it won't go no further than the fire-line, and as soon as there're men enough to draw that all around, it's _got_ to stop!" he went on to his companion, irritably, pressing his hand to his side: "there ain't no use talkin', i got to quit fire-fightin'. my heart 'most gi'n out on me in the hottest of that. and yit i'm only sixty!" "it ain't no job for old folks," said the other bitterly. "if it had ha' gone a hundred feet further that way, 'twould ha' been in where ed hewitt's been lumberin', and if it had got into them dry tops and brush--well, i guess 'twould ha' gone from here to chitford village before it stopped. and 'twouldn't ha' stopped there, neither!" the old man said reflectively: "'twas the first load of men did the business. 'twas nip and tuck down to the last foot if we could stop it on that side. i tell you, ten minutes of that kind o' work takes about ten years off'n a man's life. we'd just about gi'n up when we saw 'em coming. i bet i won't be no gladder to see the pearly gates than i was to see them men with hoes." molly turned a glowing, quivering face of pride on sylvia, and then looked past her shoulder with a startled expression into the eyes of one of the fire-fighters, a tall, lean, stooping man, blackened and briar-torn like the rest. "why, cousin austin!" she cried with vehement surprise, "what in the world--" in spite of his grime, she gave him a hearty, astonished, affectionate kiss. "i was just wondering," said the man, smiling indulgently down on her, "how soon you'd recognize me, you little scatter-brain." "i thought you were going to stick in colorado all summer," said molly. "well, i heard they were short of help at austin farm and i came on to help get in the hay," said the man. both he and molly seemed to consider this a humorous speech. then, remembering sylvia, molly went through a casual introduction. "this is my cousin--austin page--my _favorite_ cousin! he's really awfully nice, though so plain to look at." she went on, still astonished, "but how'd you get _here?_" "why, how does anybody in vermont get to a forest fire?" he answered. "we were out in the hayfield, saw the smoke, left the horses, grabbed what tools we could find, and beat it through the woods. that's the technique of the game up here." "i didn't know your farm ran anywhere near here," said molly. "it isn't so terribly near. we came across lots tolerable fast. but there's a little field, back up on the edge of the woods that isn't so far. grandfather used to raise potatoes there. i've got it into hay now," he explained. as they talked, the fire beyond them gave definite signs of yielding. it had evidently been stopped on the far side and now advanced nowhere, showed no longer a malign yellow crest, but only rolling sullenly heavenward a diminishing cloud of smoke. the fire-fighters began to straggle back across the burned tract towards the road, their eyeballs gleaming white in their dark faces. "oh, they mustn't walk! i'll take them back--the darlings!" said molly, starting for her car. she was quite her usual brisk, free-and-easy self now. "cracky! i hope i've got gas enough. i've certainly been going _some!_" "why don't you leave me here?" suggested sylvia. "i'll walk home. that'll leave room for one more." "oh, you can't do that!" protested molly faintly, though she was evidently at once struck with the plan. "how'd you find your way home?" she turned to her cousin. "see here, austin, why don't _you_ take sylvia home? you ought to go anyhow and see grandfather. hell be awfully hurt to think you're here and haven't been to see him." she threw instantly into this just conceived idea the force which always carried through her plans. "do go! i feel so grateful to these men i don't want one of them to walk a step!" sylvia had thought of a solitary walk, longing intensely for isolation, and she did not at all welcome the suggestion of adapting herself to a stranger. the stranger, on his part, looked a very unchivalrous hesitation; but this proved to be only a doubt of sylvia's capacity as a walker. "if you don't mind climbing a bit, i can take you over the gap between hemlock and windward mountain and make a bee-line for lydford. it's not an hour from here, that way, but it's ten miles around by the road--and hot and dusty too." "can she _climb_!" ejaculated molly scornfully, impatient to be off with her men. "she went up to prospect rock in forty minutes." she high-handedly assumed that everything was settled as she wished it, and running towards the car, called with an easy geniality to the group of men, starting down the road on foot, "here, wait a minute, folks, i'll take you back!" she mounted the car, started the engine, waved her hand to the two behind her, and was off. the lean, stooping man looked dubiously at sylvia. "you're sure you don't mind a little climb?" he said. "oh no, i like it," she said listlessly. the moment for her was of stale, wearied return to real life, to the actual world which she was continually finding uglier than she hoped. the recollection of felix morrison came back to her in a bitter tide. "all ready?" asked her companion, mopping his forehead with a very dirty handkerchief. "all ready," she said and turned, with a hanging head, to follow him. chapter xxvii between windward and hemlock mountains for a time as they plodded up the steep wood-road, overgrown with ferns and rank grass, with dense green walls of beech and oak saplings on either side, what few desultory remarks they exchanged related to molly, she being literally the only topic of common knowledge between them. sylvia, automatically responding to her deep-lying impulse to give pleasure, to be pleasing, made an effort to overcome her somber lassitude and spoke of molly's miraculous competence in dealing with the fire. her companion said that of course molly hadn't made all that up out of her head on the spur of the moment. after spending every summer of her life in lydford, it would be surprising if so energetic a child as molly hadn't assimilated the vermont formula for fighting fire. "they always put for the nearest factory and get all hands out," he explained, adding meditatively, as he chewed on a twig: "all the same, the incident shows what i've always maintained about molly: that she is, like 'most everybody, lamentably miscast. molly's spirit oughtn't to have taken up its abiding place in that highly ornamental blond shell, condemned after a fashionable girl's education to pendulum swings between paris and new york and lydford. it doesn't fit for a cent. it ought to have for habitation a big, gaunt, powerful man's body, and for occupation the running of a big factory." he seemed to be philosophizing more to himself than to sylvia, and beyond a surprised look into his extremely grimy face, she made no comment. she had taken for granted from the talk between him and molly that he was one of the "forceful, impossible montgomery cousins," and had cast her own first remarks in a tone calculated to fit in with the supposititious dialect of such a person. but his voice, his intonations, and his whimsical idea about molly fitted in with the conception of an "impossible" as little as with the actual visible facts of his ragged shirt-sleeves and faded, earth-stained overalls. they toiled upwards in silence for some moments, the man still chewing on his birch-twig. he noticed her sidelong half-satirical glance at it. "don't you want one?" he asked, and gravely cut a long, slim rod from one of the saplings in the green wall shutting them into the road. as he gave it to her he explained, "it's the kind they make birch beer of. you nip off the bark with your teeth. you'll like it." still more at sea as to what sort of person he might be, and now fearing perhaps to wound him if he should turn out to be a very unsophisticated one, sylvia obediently set her teeth to the lustrous, dark bark and tore off a bit, which gave out in her mouth a mild, pleasant aromatic tang, woodsy and penetrating, unlike any other taste she knew. "good, isn't it?" said her companion simply. she nodded, slowly awakening to a tepid curiosity about the individual who strode beside her, lanky and powerful in his blue jeans. what an odd circumstance, her trudging off through the woods thus with a guide of whom she knew nothing except that he was molly sommerville's cousin and worked a vermont farm--and had certainly the dirtiest face she had ever seen, with the exception of the coal-blackened stokers in the power-house of the university. he spoke again, as though in answer to what might naturally be in her mind: "at the top of the road it crosses a brook, and i think a wash would be possible. i've a bit of soap in my pocket that'll help--though it takes quite a lot of scrubbing to get off fire-fighting grime." he looked pointedly down at her as he talked. sylvia was so astonished that she dropped back through years of carefully acquired self-consciousness into a moment of the stark simplicity of childhood. "why--is _my_ face dirty?" she cried out. the man beside her apparently found the contrast between her looks and the heartfelt sincerity of her question too much for him. he burst into helpless laughter, though he was adroit enough to thrust forward as a pretext, "the picture of my _own_ grime that i get from your accent is tremendous!" but it was evidently not at his own joke that he was laughing. for an instant sylvia hung poised very near to extreme annoyance. never since she had been grown up, had she appeared at such an absurd disadvantage. but at once the mental picture of herself, making inaudible carping strictures on her companion's sootiness and, all unconscious, lifting to observe it a critical countenance as swart as his own--the incongruity smote her deliciously, irresistibly! sore heart or not, black depression notwithstanding, she needs must laugh, and having laughed, laugh again, laugh louder and longer, and finally, like a child, laugh for the sake of laughing, till out through this unexpected channel she discharged much of the stagnant bitterness around her heart. her companion laughed with her. the still, sultry summer woods echoed with the sound. "how human, how lusciously _human_!" he exclaimed. "neither of us thought that _he_ might be the blackened one!" "oh, mine _can't_ be as bad as yours!" gasped out sylvia, but when she rubbed a testing handkerchief on her cheek, she went off in fresh peals at the sight of the resultant black smears. "don't, for heaven's sake, waste that handkerchief," cautioned her companion. "it's the only towel between us. mine's impossible!" he showed her the murky rag which was his own; and as they spoke, they reached the top of the road, heard the sound of water, and stood beside the brook. he stepped across it, in one stride of his long legs, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, took a book out of his pocket, laid it on a stone, and knelt down. "i choose this for _my_ wash-basin," he said, indicating a limpid pool paved with clean gray pebbles. sylvia answered in the same note of play, "this'll be mine." it lay at the foot of a tiny waterfall, plashing with a tinkling note into transparent shallows. she cast an idle glance on the book he had laid down and read its title, "a history of the institution of property," and reflected that she had been right in thinking it had a familiar-looking cover. she had dusted books with that sort of cover all her life. molly's cousin produced from his overalls a small piece of yellow kitchen-soap, which he broke into scrupulously exact halves and presented with a grave flourish to sylvia. "now, go to it," he exhorted her; "i bet i get a better wash than you." sylvia took off her hat, rolled up her sleeves, and began on vigorous ablutions. she had laughed, yes, and heartily, but in her complicated many-roomed heart a lively pique rubbed shoulders with her mirth, and her merriment was tinctured with a liberal amount of the traditional feminine horrified disgust at having been uncomely, at having unconsciously been subjected to an indignity. she was determined that no slightest stain should remain on her smooth, fine-textured skin. she felt, as a pretty woman always feels, that her personality was indissolubly connected with her looks, and it was a symbolic act which she performed as she fiercely scrubbed her face with the yellow soap till its acrid pungency blotted out for her the woodland aroma of moist earth and green leaves. she dashed the cold water up on her cheeks till the spattering drops gleamed like crystals on the crisp waviness of her ruddy brown hair. she washed her hands and arms in the icy mountain water till they were red with the cold, hot though the day was. she was chilled, and raw with the crude astringency of the soap, but she felt cleansed to the marrow of her bones, as though there had been some mystic quality in this lustration in running water, performed under the open sky. the racy, black-birch tang still lingering on her tongue was a flavor quite in harmony with this severely washed feeling. it was a taste notably clean. she looked across the brook at her companion, now sitting back on his heels, and saw that there had emerged from his grime a thin, tanned, high-nosed face, topped by drab-colored hair of no great abundance and lighted by a pair of extraordinarily clear, gray eyes. she perceived no more in the face at that moment, because the man, as he looked up at her, became nothing but a dazzled mirror from which was reflected back to her the most flattering image of her own appearance. almost actually she saw herself as she appeared to him, a wood-nymph, kneeling by the flowing water, vital, exquisite, strong, radiant in a cool flush, her uncovered hair gleaming in a thousand loosened waves. like most comely women of intelligence sylvia was intimately familiar with every phase of her own looks, and she knew down to the last blood-corpuscle that she had never looked better. but almost at once came the stab that felix morrison was not the man who was looking at her, and the heartsick recollection that he would never again be there to see her. her moment of honest joy in being lovely passed. she stood up with a clouded face, soberly pulled down her sleeves, and picked up her hat. "oh, why don't you leave it off?" said the man across the brook. "you'd be so much more comfortable!" she knew that he meant her hair was too pretty to cover, and did not care what he meant. "all right, i'll carry it," she assented indifferently. he did not stir, gazing up at her frankly admiring. sylvia made out, from the impression he evidently now had of her, that her face had really been very, very dirty; and at the recollection of that absurd ascent of the mountain by those two black-faced, twig-chewing individuals, a return of irrepressible laughter quivered on her lips. before his eyes, as swiftly, as unaccountably, as utterly as an april day shifts its moods, she had changed from radiant, rosy wood-goddess to saddened mortal and thence on into tricksy, laughing elf. he burst out on her, "who _are_ you, anyhow?" she remembered with a start. "why, that's so, molly didn't mention my name--isn't that like molly! why, i'm sylvia marshall," "you may be _named_ sylvia marshall!" he said, leaving an inference in the air like incense. "well, yes, to be sure," rejoined sylvia; "i heard somebody only the other day say that an introduction was the quaintest of grotesques, since people's names are the most--" he applied a label with precision. "oh, you know morrison?" she was startled at this abrupt emergence of the name which secretly filled her mind and was aware with exasperation that she was blushing. her companion appeared not to notice this. he was attempting the difficult feat of wiping his face on the upper part of his sleeve, and said in the intervals of effort: "well, you know _my_ name. molly didn't forget that." "but _i_ did," sylvia confessed. "i was so excited by the fire i never noticed at all. i've been racking my brains to remember, all the way up here." for some reason the man seemed quite struck with this statement and eyed her with keenness as he said: "oh--really? well, my name is austin page." at the candid blankness of her face he showed a boyish flash of white teeth in a tanned face. "do you mean to say you've never heard of me?" "_should_ i?" said sylvia, with a graceful pretense of alarm. "do you write, or something? lay it to my ignorance. it's immense." he shook his head. he smiled down on her. she noticed now that his eyes were very kind as well as clear and keen. "no, i don't write, or anything. there's no reason why you should ever have heard of me. i only thought--i thought possibly molly or uncle george might have happened to mention me." "i'm only on from the west for a visit," explained sylvia. "i never was in lydford before. i don't know the people there." "well then, to avoid morrison's strictures on introductions i'll add to my name the information that i am thirty-two years old; a graduate of columbia university; that i have some property in colorado which gives me a great deal of trouble; and a farm with a wood lot in vermont which is the joy of my heart. i cannot endure politics; i play the flute, like my eggs boiled three minutes, and admire george meredith." his manoeuvers with his sleeve were so preposterous that sylvia now cried to him: "oh, don't twist around that way. you'll give yourself a crick in the neck. here's my handkerchief. we were going to share that, anyhow." "and you," he went on gravely, wiping his face with the bit of cambric, "are sylvia marshall, presumably miss; you can laugh at a joke on yourself; are not afraid to wash your face with kitchen soap; and apparently are the only girl in the twentieth century who has not a mirror and a powder-puff concealed about her person." all approbation was sweet to sylvia. she basked in this. "oh, i'm a hottentot, a savage from the west, as i told you," she said complacently. "you've been in lydford long enough to hear morrison hold forth on the idiocies of social convention, the while he neatly manipulates them to his own advantage." sylvia had dreaded having to speak of morrison, but she was now greatly encouraged by the entire success of her casual tone, as she explained, "oh, he's an old friend of my aunt's, and he's been at the house a good deal." she ventured to try herself further, and inquired with a bright look of interest, "what do you think of his engagement to your cousin molly?" he was petrified with astonishment. "_molly_ engaged to _morrison_!" he cried. "we can't be talking about the same people. i mean _felix_ morrison the critic." she felt vindicated by his stupefaction and liked him for it. "why, yes; hadn't you heard?" she asked, with an assumption of herself seeing nothing surprising in the news. "no, i hadn't, and i can't believe it now!" he said, blinking his eyes. "i never heard such an insane combination of names in my life." he went on, "what under the _sun_ does molly want of morrison!" sylvia was vexed with him for this unexpected view. he was not so discerning as she had thought. she turned away and picked up her hat. "we ought to be going on," she said, and as they walked she answered, "you don't seem to have a very high opinion of mr. morrison." he protested with energy. "oh yes, i have. quite the contrary, i think him one of the most remarkable men i know, and one of the finest. i admire him immensely. i'd trust his taste sooner than i would my own." to this handsome tribute sylvia returned, smiling, "the inference is that you don't think much of molly." "i _know_ molly!" he said simply. "i've known her and loved her ever since she was a hot-tempered, imperious little girl--which is all she is now. engaged ... and engaged to morrison! it's a plain case of schoolgirl infatuation!" he was lost in wonder, uneasy wonder it seemed, for after a period of musing he brought out: "they'll cut each other's throats inside six months. or molly'll cut her own. what under the sun was her grandfather thinking of?" sylvia said gravely, "girls' grandfathers have such an influence in their marriages." he smiled a rueful recognition of the justice of her thrust and then fell into silence. the road did not climb up now, but led along the side of the mountain. through the dense woods the sky-line, first guessed at, then clearly seen between the thick-standing tree-trunks, sank lower and lower. "we are approaching," said page, motioning in front of them, "the jumping-off place." they passed from the tempered green light of the wood and emerged upon a great windy plateau, carpeted thickly with deep green moss, flanked right and left with two mountain peaks and roofed over with an expanse of brilliant summer sky. before them the plateau stretched a mile or more, wind-swept, sun-drenched, with an indescribable bold look of great altitude; but close to them at one side ran a parapet-like line of tumbled rock and beyond this a sheer descent. the eye leaped down abrupt slopes of forest to the valley they had left, now a thousand feet below them, jewel-like with mystic blues and greens, tremulous with heat. on the noble height where they stood, the wind blew cool from the sea of mist-blue peaks beyond the valley. sylvia was greatly moved. "oh, what a wonderful spot!" she said under her breath. "i never dreamed that anything could be--" she burst out suddenly, scarcely knowing what she said, "oh, i wish my _mother_ could be here!" she had not thought of her mother for days, and now hardly knew that she had spoken her name. standing there, poised above the dark richness of the valley, her heart responding to those vast airy spaces by an upward-soaring sweep, the quick tears of ecstasy were in her eyes. she had entirely forgotten herself and her companion. he did not speak. his eyes were on her face. she moved to the parapet of rock and leaned against it. the action brought her to herself and she flashed around on page a grateful smile. "it's a very beautiful spot you've brought me to," she said. he came up beside her now. "it's a favorite of mine," he said quietly. "if i come straight through the woods it's not more than a mile from my farm. i come up here for the sunsets sometimes--or for dawn." sylvia found the idea almost too much for her. "_oh!_" she cried--"dawn here!" "yes," said the man, smiling faintly. "it's all of that!" in her life of plains and prairies sylvia had never been upon a great height, had never looked down and away upon such reaches of far valley, such glorious masses of sunlit mountain; and beyond them, giving wings to the imagination, were mountains, more mountains, distant, incalculably distant, with unseen hollow valleys between; and finally, mountains again, half cloud, melting indistinguishably into the vaporous haze of the sky. above her, sheer and vast, lay hemlock mountain, all its huge bulk a sleeping, passionless calm. beyond was the solemnity of windward mountain's concave shell, full to the brim with brooding blue shadows, a well of mystery in that day of wind-blown sunshine. beneath her, above her, before her, seemingly the element in which she was poised, was space, illimitable space. she had never been conscious of such vastness, she was abashed by it, she was exalted by it, she knew a moment of acute shame for the pettiness of her personal grievances. for a time her spirit was disembarrassed of the sorry burden of egotism, and she drank deep from the cup of healing which nature holds up in such instants of beatitude. her eyes were shining pools of peace.... they went on in a profound silence across the plateau, the deep, soft moss bearing them up with a tough elasticity, the sun hot and lusty on their heads, the sweet, strong summer wind swift and loud in their ears, the only sound in all that enchanted upland spot. often sylvia lifted her face to the sky, so close above her, to the clouds moving with a soundless rhythm across the sky; once or twice she turned her head suddenly from one side to the other, to take in all the beauty at one glance, and smiled on it all, a vague, sunny, tender smile. but she did not speak. as she trod on the thick moss upspringing under her long, light step, her advance seemed as buoyant as though she stepped from cloud to cloud.... when they reached the other side, and were about to begin the descent into lydford valley, she lingered still. she looked down into the valley before her, across to the mountains, and, smiling, with half-shut eyes of supreme satisfaction, she said under her breath: "it's beethoven--just the blessedness of beethoven! the valley is a legato passage, quiet and flowing; those far, up-pricking hills, staccato; and the mountains here, the solemn chords." her companion did not answer. she looked up at him, inquiringly, thinking that he had not heard her, and found him evidently too deeply moved to speak. she was startled, almost frightened, almost shocked by the profundity of his gaze upon her. her heart stood still and gave a great leap. chiefly she was aware of an immense astonishment and incredulity. an hour before he had never seen her, had never heard of her--and during that hour she had been barely aware of him, absorbed in herself, indifferent. how could he in that hour have ... he looked away and said steadily, "--and the river is the melody that binds it all together." sylvia drew a great breath of relief. she had been the victim of some extraordinary hallucination: "--with the little brooks for variations on the theme," she added hastily. he held aside an encroaching briar, stretching its thorny arm across the path. "here's the beginning of the trail down to lydford," he said. "we will be there in twenty minutes. it's almost a straight drop down." chapter xxviii sylvia asks herself "why not?" if sylvia wondered, as she dropped down the heights to the valley, what her reception might be at her aunt's ceremonious household when she entered escorted by a strange hatless man in blue overalls, her fancy fell immeasurably short of the actual ensuing sensation. mrs. marshall-smith, her stepson, felix morrison, and old mr. sommerville were all sitting together on the wide north veranda, evidently waiting to be called to luncheon when, at half-past one, the two pedestrians emerged through a side wicket in the thick green hedge of spruce, and advanced up the path, with the free, swinging step of people who have walked far and well. the effect on the veranda was unimaginable. sheer, open-mouthed stupefaction blurred for an instant the composed, carefully arranged masks of those four exponents of decorum. they gaped and stared, unable to credit their eyes. and then, according to their natures, they acted. mrs. marshall-smith rose quickly, smiled brilliantly, and stepped forward with welcoming outstretched hands. "why, sylvia dear, how delightful! what an unexpected pleasure, mr. page!" old mr. sommerville fairly bounded past sylvia, caught the man's arm, and said in an anxious, affectionate, startled voice, "why, austin! austin! austin!" morrison rose, but stood quietly by his chair, his face entirely expressionless, palpably and correctly "at attention." he had not seen sylvia since the announcement of his engagement the day before. he gave her now a graceful, silent, friendly salute from a distance as she stood by her aunt, he called out to her companion a richly cordial greeting of "well, page. this is luck indeed!" but he indicated by his immobility that as a stranger he would not presume to go further until the first interchange between blood-kin was over. as for arnold, he neither stirred from his chair, nor opened his mouth to speak. a slow smile widened on his lips: it expanded. he grinned delightedly down at his cigarette, and up at the ceiling, and finally broke into an open laugh of exquisite enjoyment of the scene before him. four people were talking at once; mr. sommerville, a dismayed old hand still clutching at the new-comer, was protesting with extreme vigor, and being entirely drowned out by the others. "of course he can't stay--as he _is!_ i'll go home with him at once! his room at my house is always ready for him!--fresh clothes!--no, no--impossible to stay!" mrs. marshall-smith was holding firm with her loveliest manner of warm friendliness concentrated on page. "oh, no ceremony, mr. page, not between old friends. luncheon is just ready--who cares how you look?" she did not physically dispute with mr. sommerville the possession of the new-comer, but she gave entirely that effect. sylvia, unable to meet morrison's eyes, absorbed in the difficulty of the moment for her, unillumined by the byplay between her aunt and old mr. sommerville, strove for an appearance of vivacious loquacity, and cast into the conversation entirely disregarded bits of description of the fire. "oh, tantine, such an excitement!--we took nine men with hoes up such a steep--!" and finally page, resisting old mr. sommerville's pull on his arm, was saying: "if luncheon is ready, and i'm invited, no more needs to be said. i've been haying and fire-fighting since seven this morning. a wolf is nothing compared with me." he looked across the heads of the three nearest him and called to arnold: "smith, you'll lend me some flannels, won't you? we must be much of the same build." mrs. marshall-smith turned, taking no pains to hide her satisfaction. she positively gloated over the crestfallen mr. sommerville. "sylvia, run quick and have hélène smooth your hair. and call to tojiko to put on an extra place for luncheon. arnold, take mr. page up to your room, won't you, so that he--" sylvia, running up the stairs, heard her late companion protesting: "oh, just for a change of clothes, only a minute--you needn't expect me to do any washing. i'm clean. i'm washed within an inch of my life--yellow soap--kitchen soap!" "and our little scented toilet futilities," morrison's cameo of small-talk carried to the upper hall. "what could they add to such a spartan lustration?" "hurry, hélène," said sylvia. "it is late, and mr. page is dying of hunger," in spite of the exhortation to haste, hélène stopped short, uplifted brush in hand. "mr. page, the millionaire!" she exclaimed. sylvia blinked at her in the glass, amazed conjectures racing through her mind. but she had sufficient self-possession to say, carelessly as though his identity was nothing to her: "i don't know. it is the first time i have seen him. he certainly is not handsome." hélène thrust in the hairpins with impassioned haste and deftness, and excitedly snatched a lace jacket from a drawer. to the maid's despair sylvia refused this adornment, refused the smallest touch of rouge, refused an ornament in her hair. hélène wrung her hands. "but see, mademoiselle is not wise! for what good is it to be so savage! he is more rich than all! they say he owns all the state of colorado!" sylvia, already in full retreat towards the dining-room, caught this last geographic extravagance of gallic fancy, and laughed, and with this mirth still in her face made her re-entry on the veranda. she had not been away three minutes from the group there, and she was to the eye as merely flushed and gay when she came back as when she went away; but a revolution had taken place. closely shut in her hand, she held, held fast, the key hélène had thrust there. behind her smile, her clear, bright look of valiant youth, a great many considerations were being revolved with extreme rapidity by an extremely swift and active brain. swift and active as was the brain, it fairly staggered under the task of instantly rearranging the world according to the new pattern: for the first certainty to leap into sight was that the pattern was utterly changed by the events of the morning. she had left the house, betrayed, defenseless save for a barren dignity, and she had re-entered it in triumph, or at least with a valid appearance of triumph, an appearance which had already tided her over the aching difficulty of the first meeting with morrison and might carry her ... she had no time now to think how far. page and arnold were still invisible when she emerged again on the veranda, and mrs. marshall-smith pounced on her with the frankest curiosity. "sylvia, do tell us--how in the world--" sylvia was in the midst of a description of the race to the fire, as vivid as she could make it, when arnold sauntered back and after him, in a moment, page, astonishingly transformed by clothes. his height meant distinction now. sylvia noted again his long, strong hands, his aquiline, tanned face and clear eyes, his thoughtful, observant eyes. there was a whimsical quirk of his rather thin but gentle lips which reminded her of the big bust of emerson in her father's study. she liked all this; but her suspiciousness, alert for affront, since the experience with morrison, took offense at his great ease of manner. it had seemed quite natural and unaffected to her, in fact she had not at all noticed it before; but now that she knew of his great wealth, she instantly conceived a resentful idea that possibly it might come from the self-assurance of a man who knows himself much courted. she held her head high, gave to him as to arnold a nod of careless recognition, and continued talking: "such a road--so steep--sand half-way to the hubs, such water-bars!" she turned to morrison with her first overt recognition of the new status between them. "you ought to have seen your fiancée! she was wonderful! i was proud of her!" morrison nodded a thoughtful assent. "yes, molly's energy is irresistible," he commented, casting his remark in the form of a generalization the significance of which did not pass unnoticed by sylvia's sharp ears. they were the first words he had spoken to her since his engagement. "luncheon is ready," said mrs. marshall-smith. "do come in." every one by this time being genuinely hungry, and for various reasons extremely curious about the happenings back of sylvia's appearance, the meal was dedicated frankly to eating, varied only by sylvia's running account of the fire. "and then molly wanted to take the fire-fighters home, and i offered to walk to have more room for them, and mr. page brought me up the other side of hemlock and over the pass between hemlock and windward and down past deer cliff, home," she wound up, compressing into tantalizing brevity what was patently for her listeners by far the most important part of the expedition. "well, whatever route he took, it is astonishing that he knew the way to lydford at all," commented mrs. marshall-smith. "i don't believe you've been here before for years!" she said to page. "it's my confounded shyness," he explained, turning to sylvia with a twinkle. "the grand, sophisticated ways of lydford are too much for the nerves of a plain-living rustic like me. when i farm in vermont the spirit of the place takes hold of me. i'm quite apt to eat my pie with my knife, and lydford wouldn't like that." sylvia was aware, through the laughter which followed this joking remark, that there was an indefinable stir around the table. his turning to her had been pronounced. she took a sore pleasure in morrison's eclipse. for the first time he was not the undisputed center of that circle. he accepted it gravely, a little preoccupied, a little absent, a wonderfully fine and dignified figure. under her misanthropic exultation, sylvia felt again and again the stab of her immense admiration for him, her deep affinity for his way of conducting life. whatever place he might take in the circle around the luncheon table, she found him inevitably at the center of all her own thoughts. however it might seem to those evidently greatly struck with her extraordinary good luck, her triumph was in reality only the most pitiful of pretenses. but such as it was, and it gleamed richly enough on the eyes of the onlookers, she shook it out with a flourish and gave no sign of heartsick qualms. she gave a brilliantly undivided attention to the bit of local history page was telling her, of a regiment of green mountain boys who had gone down to the battle of bennington over the pass between windward and hemlock mountain, and she was able to stir page to enthusiasm by an appreciative comparison of their march with the splendid and affecting incident before marathon, when the thousand hoplites from the little town of plataea crossed the cithaeron range and went down to the plain to join the athenians in their desperate stand. "how do you _happen_ to come east just now, anyhow?" inquired old mr. sommerville, resolutely shouldering his way into the conversation. "my yellow streak!" affirmed his nephew. "colorado got too much for me. and besides, i was overcome by an atavistic longing to do chores." he turned to sylvia again, the gesture as unconscious and simple as a boy's. "my great-grandfather was a native of these parts, and about once in so often i revert to type." "all my mother's people came from this region too," sylvia said. she added meditatively, "and i think i must have reverted to type--up there on the mountain, this morning." he looked at her silently, with softening eyes. "you'll be going back soon, i suppose, as usual!" said old mr. sommerville with determination. "to colorado?" inquired page. "no, i think--i've a notion i'll stay on this summer for some time. there is an experiment i want to try with alfalfa in vermont." over his wineglass arnold caught sylvia's eye, and winked. "still reading as much as ever, i suppose." mr. sommerville was not to be put down. "when i last saw you, it was some fool socialistic poppycock about the iniquity of private exploitation of natural resources. how'd they ever have been exploited any other way i'd like to know! what's socialism? organized robbery! nothing else! 'down with success! down with initiative! down with brains!' stuff!" "it's not socialism this time: it's professor merritt's theories on property," said sylvia to the old gentleman, blandly ignoring his ignoring of her. page stared at her in astonishment. "are you a clairvoyant?" he cried. "no, no," she explained, laughing. "you took it out of your pocket up there by the brook." "but you saw only the title. merritt's name isn't on the cover." "oh, it's a pretty well-known book," said sylvia easily. "and my father's a professor of economics. when i was little i used to have books like that to build houses with, instead of blocks. and i've had to keep them in order and dusted ever since. i'm not saying that i know much about their insides." "just look there!" broke in arnold. "did i ever see a young lady pass up such a perfectly good chance to bluff!" as usual nobody paid the least attention to his remark. the conversation shifted to a radical play which had been on the boards in paris, the winter before. after luncheon, they adjourned into the living-room. as the company straggled across the wide, dimly shining, deeply shaded hall, sylvia felt her arm seized and held, and turning her head, looked into the laughing face of arnold. "what kind of flowers does judy like the best?" he inquired, the question evidently the merest pretext to detain her, for as the others moved out of earshot he said in a delighted whisper, his eyes gleaming in the dusk with amused malice: "go it, sylvia! hit 'em out! it's worth enduring oceans of greek history to see old sommerville squirm. molly gone--morrison as poor as a church mouse; and now page going fast before his very eyes--" she shook off his hand with genuine annoyance. "i don't know what you're talking about, arnold. you're horrid! judith doesn't like cut flowers at all,--any kind. she likes them alive, on plants." "she _would!_" arnold was rapt in his habitual certainty that every peculiarity of judith's was another reason for prostrate adoration. "i'll send her a window-box for every window in the hospital." his admiration overflowed to judith's sister. he patted her on the shoulder. "you're all right too, sylvia. you're batting about three-sixty, right now. i've always told the girls when they said page was offish that if they could only get in under his guard once--and somehow you've done it. i bet on _you_--" he began to laugh at her stern face of reproof. "oh, yes, yes, i agree! you don't know what i'm talking about! it's just alfalfa in vermont! only my low vulgarity to think anything else!" he moved away down the hall. "beat it! i slope!" "where are you going?" she asked. "away! away!" he answered. "anywhere that's away. the air is rank with oscar wilde and the renaissance. i feel them coming." still laughing, he bounded upstairs, three steps at a time. sylvia stepped forward, crossed the threshold of the living-room, and paused by the piano, penetrated by bitter-sweet associations. if morrison felt them also, he gave no sign. he had chosen a chair by a distant window and was devoting himself to molly's grandfather, who accepted this delicate and entirely suitable attention with a rather glum face. mrs. marshall-smith and page still stood in the center of the room, and turned as sylvia came in. "do give us some music, sylvia," said her aunt, sinking into a chair while page came forward to sit near the piano. sylvia's fingers rested on the keys for a moment, her face very grave, almost somber, and then, as though taking a sudden determination, she began to play a liszt liebes-traum. it was the last music morrison had played to her before the beginning of the change. into its fevered cadences she poured the quivering, astonished hurt of her young heart. no one stirred during the music nor for the moment afterward, in which she turned about to face the room. she looked squarely at morrison, who was rolling a cigarette with meticulous care, and as she looked, he raised his eyes and gave her across the room one deep, flashing glance of profound significance. that was all. that was enough. that was everything. sylvia turned back to the piano shivering, hot and cold with secret joy. his look said, "yes, of course, a thousand times of course, you are the one in my heart." what the facts said for him was, "but i am going to marry molly because she has money." sylvia was horrified that she did not despise him, that she did not resent his entering her heart again with the intimacy of that look. her heart ran out to welcome him back; but from the sense of furtiveness she shrank back with her lifetime habit and experience of probity, with the instinctive distaste for stealth engendered only by long and unbroken acquaintance with candor. with a mental action as definite as the physical one of freeing her feet from a quicksand she turned away from the alluring, dim possibility opened to her by that look. no, no! no stains, no smears, no shufflings! she was conscious of no moral impulse, in the usual sense of the word. her imagination took in no possibility of actual wrong. but when, with a fastidious impulse of good taste, she turned her back on something ugly, she turned her back unwittingly on something worse than ugly. but it was not easy! oh, not at all easy! she quailed with a sense of her own weakness, so unexpected, so frightening. would she resist it the next time? how pierced with helpless ecstasy she had been by that interchange of glances! what was there, in that world, by which she could steady herself? "how astonishingly well you play," said page, rousing himself from the dreamy silence of appreciation. "i ought to," she said with conscious bitterness. "i earn my living by teaching music." she was aware from across the room of an electric message from aunt victoria protesting against her perversity; and she reflected with a morose amusement that however delicately phrased aunt victoria's protests might be, its substance was the same as that of hélène, crying out on her for not adding the soupçon of rouge. she took a sudden resolution. well, why not? everything conspired to push her in that direction. the few factors which did not were mere imbecile idealism, or downright hypocrisy. she drew a long breath. she smiled at page, a smile of reference to something in common between them. "shan't i play you some beethoven?" she asked, "something with a legato passage and great solemn chords, and a silver melody binding the whole together?" "oh yes, do!" he said softly. and in a moment she was putting all of her intelligence, her training, and her capacity to charm into the tones of the e-flat minuet. chapter xxix a hypothetical livelihood the millionaire proprietor had asked them all over to the austin farm, and as they drew near the end of the very expensive and delicately served meal which page had spoken of as a "picnic-lunch," various plans for the disposition of the afternoon were suggested. these suggestions were prefaced by the frank statement of the owner of the place that whatever else the others did, it was his own intention to take miss marshall through a part of his pine plantations and explain his recent forestry operations to her. the assumption that miss marshall would of course be interested in his pine plantations and lumbering operations struck nobody but miss marshall as queer. with the most hearty and simple unconsciousness, they unanimously felt that of course miss marshall _would_ be interested in the pine plantations and the lumbering operations of any man who was worth nobody knew how many millions in coal, and who was so obviously interested in her. sylvia had been for some weeks observing the life about her with very much disillusioned eyes and she now labeled the feeling on the part of her friends with great accuracy, saying to herself cynically, "if it were prize guinea-pigs or collecting beer-steins, they would all be just as sure that i would jump up and say, 'oh yes, _do_ show me, mr. page!'" following this moody reflection she immediately jumped up and said enthusiastically, "oh yes, _do_ show me, mr. page!" the brilliance in her eyes during these weeks came partly from a relieved sense of escape from a humiliating position, and partly from an amusement at the quality of human nature which was as dubiously enjoyable as the grim amusement of biting on a sore tooth. she now took her place by the side of their host, and thought, looking at his outdoor aspect, that her guess at what to wear had been better than aunt victoria's or molly's. for the question of what to wear had been a burning one. pressure had been put on her to don just a lacy, garden-party toilette of lawn and net as now automatically barred both aunt victoria and molly from the proposed expedition to the woods. nobody had had the least idea what was to be the color of the entertainment offered them, for the great significance of the affair was that it was the first time that page had ever invited any one to the spot for which he evidently felt such an unaccountable affection. aunt victoria had explained to sylvia, "it's always at the big page estate in lenox that he entertains, or rather that he gets his mother to do the absolutely indispensable entertaining for him." morrison said laughingly: "isn't it the very quintessence of quaintness to visit him there! to watch his detached, whimsical air of not being in the least a part of all the magnificence which bears his name. he insists, you know, that he doesn't begin to know his way around that huge house!" "it was his father who built the lenox place," commented mrs. marshall-smith. "it suited _his_ taste to perfection. austin seems to have a sort of marie-antoinette reaction towards a somewhat painfully achieved simplicity. he's not the man to take any sort of pose. if he were, it would be impossible not to suspect him of a little pose in his fondness for going back to his farmer great-grandfather's setting." guided by this conversation, and by shrewd observations of her own, sylvia had insisted, even to the point of strenuousness, upon wearing to this first housewarming a cloth skirt and coat, tempering the severity of this costume with a sufficiently feminine and beruffled blouse of silk. as their car had swung up before the plain, square, big-chimneyed old house, and page had come to meet them, dressed in khaki-colored forester's garb, with puttees, aunt victoria had been generous enough to admit by an eye-flash to sylvia that the girl knew her business very well. there was not, of course, sylvia reflected, the slightest pretense of obscurity between them as to what, under the circumstances, her business was. all this lay back of the fact that, as sylvia, her face bright with spontaneous interest in pine plantations and lumbering operations, stepped to the side of the man in puttees, her costume exactly suited his own. from the midst of a daring and extremely becoming arrangement of black and white striped chiffon and emerald-green velvet, molly's beautiful face smiled on them approvingly. for various reasons, the spectacle afforded her as much pleasure as it did extreme discomfort to her grandfather, and with her usual masterful grasp on a situation she began to arrange matters so that the investigation of pine plantations and lumber operations should be conducted _en tête-à-tête_. "mrs. marshall-smith, you're going to stay here, of course, to look at austin's lovely view! think of his having hidden that view away from us all till now! i want to go through the house later on, and without austin, so i can linger and pry if i like! i want to look at every single thing. it's lovely--the completest yankee setting! it looks as though we all ought to have on clean gingham aprons and wear steel-rimmed spectacles. no, austin, don't frown! i don't mean that for a knock. i love it, honestly i do! i always thought i'd like to wear clean gingham aprons myself. the only things that are out of keeping are those shelves and shelves and shelves of solemn books with such terrible titles!" "that's a fact, page," said morrison, laughing. "molly's hit the nail squarely. your modern, economic spasms over the organization of industrialism are out of place in that delightful, eighteenth century, plain old interior. they threw _their_ fits over theology!" the owner of the house nodded. "yes, you know your period! a great-great-grandfather of mine, a ministerial person, had left a lot of books on the nature of the trinity and free will and such. they had to be moved up to the attic to make room for mine. what books will be on those shelves a hundred years from now, i wonder?" "treatises on psychic analysis, on how to transfer thought without words, unless i read the signs of the times wrong," morrison hazarded a guess. molly was bored by this talk and anxious to get the walkers off. "you'd better be starting if you're going far up on the mountain, austin. we have to be back for a tea at mrs. neville's, where sylvia's to pour. mrs. neville would have a thing or two to say to us, if we made her lose her main drawing card." "are you coming, morrison?" asked page. "no, he isn't," said molly decidedly. "he's going to stay to play to me on that delicious tin-panny old harpsichordy thing in your 'best room.' you do call it the 'best room,' don't you? they always do in new england dialect stories. grandfather, you have your cards with you, haven't you? you always have. if you'll get them out, felix and arnold and i'll play whist with you." only one of those thus laid hold of, slipped out from her strong little fingers. arnold raised himself, joint by joint, from his chair, and announced that he was a perfect nut-head when it came to whist. "and, anyhow," he went on insistently, raising his voice as molly began to order him back into the ranks--"and, anyhow, i don't want to play whist! and i do want to see what page has been up to all this time he's kept so dark about his goings-on over here. no, molly, you needn't waste any more perfectly good language on me. you can boss everybody else if you like, but i'm the original, hairy wild-man who gets what he wants." he strolled off across the old-fashioned garden and out of the gate with the other two, his attention given as usual to lighting a cigarette. it was an undertaking of some difficulty on that day of stiff september wind which blew sylvia's hair about her ears in bright, dancing flutters. they were no more than out of earshot of the group left on the porch, than sylvia, as so often happened in her growing acquaintanceship with page, found herself obliged entirely to reconstruct an impression of him. it was with anything but a rich man's arrogant certainty of her interest that he said, very simply as he said everything: "i appreciate very much, miss marshall, your being willing to come along and see all this. it's a part of your general kindness to everybody. i hope it won't bore you to extremity. i'm so heart and soul in it myself, i shan't know when to stop talking about it. in fact i shan't want to stop, even if i know i should. i've never said much about it to any one before, and i very much want your opinion on it." sylvia felt a decent pinch of shame, and her eyes were not brilliant with sardonic irony but rather dimmed with self-distrust as she answered with a wholesome effort for honesty: "i really don't know a single thing about forestry, mr. page. you'll have to start in at the very beginning, and explain everything. i hope i've sense enough to take an intelligent interest." very different, this, from the meretricious sparkle of her, "oh yes, _do_ show me, mr. page." she felt that to be rather cheap, as she remembered it. she wondered if he had seen its significance, had seen through her. from a three weeks' intensive acquaintance with him, she rather thought he had. his eyes were clear, formidably so. he put her on her mettle. arnold had lighted his cigarette by this time, offered one to page with his incurable incapacity to remember that not every sane man smokes, and on being refused, put his hands deep in his pockets. the three tall young people were making short work of the stretch of sunny, windy, upland pasture, and were already almost in the edge of the woods which covered the slope of the mountain above them up to the very crest, jewel-green against the great, piled, cumulus clouds. "well, i _will_ begin at the beginning, then," said page. "i'll begin back in , when this valley was settled and my ever-so-many-greats-grandfather took possession of a big slice of this side of hemlock mountain, with the sole idea that trees were men's enemies. the american colonists thought of forests, you know, as places for indians to lurk, spots that couldn't be used for corn, growths to be exterminated as fast as possible." they entered the woods now, walking at a good pace up the steeply rising, grass-grown wood-road. sylvia quite consciously summoned all her powers of attention and concentration for the hour before her, determined to make a good impression to counteract whatever too great insight her host might have shown in the matter of her first interest. she bent her fine brows with the attention she had so often summoned to face a difficult final examination, to read at the correct tempo a complicated piece of music, to grasp the essentials of a new subject. her trained interest in understanding things, which of late had been feeding on rather moldy scraps of cynical psychology, seized with energy and delight on a change of diet. she not only tried to be interested. very shortly she was interested, absorbed, intent. what page had to say fascinated her. she even forgot who he was, and that he was immensely rich. though this forgetfulness was only momentary it was an unspeakable relief and refreshment to her. she listened intently; at times she asked a pertinent question; as she walked she gave the man an occasional direct survey, as impersonal as though he were a book from which she was reading. and exactly as an intelligent reader, in a first perusal of a new subject, snatches the heart out of paragraph after paragraph, ignoring the details until later, she took to herself only the gist of her host's recital. yes, yes, she saw perfectly the generations of vermont farmers who had hated trees because they meant the wilderness, and whose destruction of forests was only limited by the puniness of the forces they matched against the great wooded slopes of the mountains they pre-empted. and she saw later, the long years of utter neglect of those hacked-at and half-destroyed forests while page's grandfather and father descended on the city and on financial operations with the fierce, fresh energy of frontiersmen. she was struck by the fact that those ruthless victors of wall street had not sold the hundreds of worthless acres, which they never took the trouble to visit; and by the still more significant fact that as the older ones of the family died, the austins, the pages, the woolsons, the hawkers, and as legacy after legacy of more worthless mountain acres came by inheritance to the financiers, those tracts too were never sold. they never thought of them, page told her, except grumblingly to pay the taxes on them; they considered them of ridiculously minute proportions compared to their own titanic manipulations, but they had never sold them. sylvia saw them vividly, those self-made exiles from the mountains, and felt in them some unacknowledged loyalty to the soil, the barren soil which had borne them, some inarticulate affection which had lived through the heat and rage of their embattled lives. the taproot had been too deep for them to break off, and now from it there was springing up this unexpected stem, this sole survivor of their race who turned away from what had been the flaming breath of life in their brazen nostrils, back to the green fragrance of their mutilated and forgotten forests. not the least of the charm of this conception for sylvia came from the fact that she quarried it out for herself from the bare narration presented to her, that she read it not at all in the words, but in the voice, the face, the manner of the raconteur. she was amused, she was touched, she was impressed by his studiously matter-of-fact version of his enterprise. he put forward with the shy, prudish shamefacedness of the new englander the sound financial basis of his undertaking, as its main claim on his interest, as its main value. "i heard so much about forestry being nothing but a rich man's plaything," he said. "i just got my back up, and wanted to see if it couldn't be made a paying thing. and i've proved it can be. i've had the closest account kept of income and outgo, and so far from being a drain on a man to reforest his woodland and administer it as he should, there's an actual profit in it, enough to make a business of it, enough to occupy a man for his lifetime and his son after him, if he gives it his personal care." at this plain statement of a comprehensible fact, arnold's inattention gave place to a momentary interest. "is there?" he asked with surprise. "how much?" "well," said page, "my system, as i've gradually worked it out, is to clear off a certain amount each year of our mediocre woodland, such as for the most part grows up where the bad cutting was done a couple of generations ago--maple and oak and beech it is, mostly, with little stands of white birch, where fires have been. i work that up in my own sawmill so as to sell as little of a raw product as possible; and dispose of it to the wood-working factories in the region." (sylvia remembered the great "brush-back factory" whence molly had recruited her fire-fighters.) "then i replant that area to white pine. that's the best tree for this valley. i put about a thousand trees to the acre. or if there seems to be a good prospect of natural reproduction, i try for that. there's a region over there, about a hundred acres," he waved his hand to the north of them, "that's thick with seedling ash. i'm leaving that alone. but for the most part, white pine's our best lay. pine thrives on soil that stunts oak and twists beech. our oak isn't good quality, and maple is such an interminably slow grower. in about twenty years from planting, you can make your first, box-board cutting of pine, and every ten years thereafter--" arnold had received this avalanche of figures and species with an astonished blink, and now protested energetically that he had had not the slightest intention of precipitating any such flood. "great scott, page, catch your breath! if you're talking to me, you'll have to use english, anyhow. i've no more idea what you're talking about! who do you take me for? _i_ don't know an ash-tree from an ash-cart. you started in to tell me what the profit of the thing is." page looked pained but patient, like a reasonable man who knows his hobby is running away with him, but who cannot bring himself to use the curb. "oh yes," he said apologetically. "why, we cleared last year (exclusive of the farm, which yields a fair profit)--we cleared about two thousand dollars." arnold seemed to regard this statement as quite the most ridiculous mouse which ever issued from a mountain. he burst into an open laugh. "almost enough to buy you a new car a year, isn't it?" he commented. page looked extremely nettled. an annoyed flush showed through the tan of his clear skin. he was evidently very touchy about his pet lumbering operations. "a great many american families consider that a sufficient income," he said stiffly. sylvia had another inspiration, such as had been the genesis of her present walking-costume. "you're too silly, arnold. the important thing isn't what the proportion with mr. page's own income is! what he was trying to do, and what he _has_ done, only you don't know enough to see it, is to prove that sane forestry is possible for forest-owners of small means. i know, if you don't, that two thousand is plenty to live on. my father's salary is only twenty-four hundred now, and we were all brought up when it was two thousand." she had had an intuitive certainty that this frank revelation would please page, and she was rewarded by an openly ardent flash from his clear eyes. there was in his look at her an element of enchanted, relieved recognition, as though he had nodded and said: "oh, you _are_ my kind of a woman after all! i was right about you." arnold showed by a lifted eyebrow that he was conscious of being put down, but he survived the process with his usual negligent obliviousness of reproof. "well, if two thousand a year produced judith, go ahead, page, and my blessing on you!" he added in a half-apology for his offensive laughter, "it just tickled me to hear a man who owns most of several counties of coal-mines so set up over finding a nickel on the street!" page had regained his geniality. "well, smith, maybe i needn't have jumped so when you stepped on my toe. but it's my pet toe, you see. you're quite right--i'm everlastingly set up over my nickel. but it's not because i found it. it's because i earned it. it happens to be the only nickel i ever earned. it's natural i should want it treated with respect." arnold did not trouble to make any sense out of this remark, and sylvia was thinking bitterly to herself: "but that's pure bluff! i'm _not_ his kind of a woman. i'm felix morrison's kind!" no comment, therefore, was made on the quaintness of the rich man's interest in earning capacity. they were now in one of the recent pine plantations, treading a wood-road open to the sky, running between acres and acres of thrifty young pines. page's eyes glistened with affection as he looked at them, and with the unwearied zest of the enthusiast he continued expanding on his theme. sylvia knew the main outline of her new subject now, felt that she had walked all around it, and was agreeably surprised at her sympathy with it. she continued with a genuine curiosity to extract more details; and like any man who talks of a process which he knows thoroughly, page was wholly at the mercy of a sympathetic listener. his tongue tripped itself in his readiness to answer, to expound, to tell his experiences, to pour out a confidently accurate and precise flood of information. sylvia began to take a playful interest in trying to find a weak place in his armor, to ask a question he could not answer. but he knew all the answers. he knew the relative weight per cubic foot of oak and pine and maple; he knew the railroad rates per ton on carload lots; he knew why it is cheaper in the long run to set transplants in sod-land instead of seeding it; he knew what per cent to write off for damage done by the pine weevil, he reveled in complicated statistics as to the actual cost per thousand for chopping, skidding, drawing, sawing logs. he laughed at sylvia's attempts to best him, and in return beat about her ears with statistics for timber cruising, explained the variations of the vermont and the scribner's decimal log rule, and recited log-scaling tables as fluently as the multiplication table. they were in the midst of this lively give-and-take, listened to with a mild amusement on arnold's part, when they emerged on a look-out ledge of gray slate, and were struck into silence by the grave loveliness of the immense prospect below them. "--and of course," murmured page finally, on another note, "of course it's rather a satisfaction to feel that you are making waste land of use to the world, and helping to protect the living waters of all that--" he waved his hand over the noble expanse of sunlit valley. "it seems"--he drew a long breath--"it seems something quite worth doing." sylvia was moved to a disinterested admiration for him; and it was a not unworthy motive which kept her from looking up to meet his eyes on her. she felt a petulant distaste for the calculating speculations which filled the minds of all her world about his intentions towards her. he was really too fine for that. at least, she owed it to her own dignity not to abuse this moment of fine, impersonal emotion to advance another step into intimacy with him. but as she stood, looking fixedly down at the valley, she was quite aware that a sympathetic silence and a thoughtful pose might make, on the whole, an impression quite as favorable as the most successfully managed meeting of eyes. chapter xxx arnold continues to dodge the renaissance a gaunt roaming figure of ennui and restlessness, arnold appeared at the door of the pergola and with a petulant movement tore a brilliant autumn leaf to pieces as he lingered for a moment, listening moodily to the talk within. he refused with a grimace the chair to which sylvia motioned him. "lord, no! hear 'em go it!" he said quite audibly and turned away to lounge back towards the house. sylvia had had time to notice, somewhat absently, that he looked ill, as though he had a headache. mrs. marshall-smith glanced after him with misgiving, and, under cover of a brilliantly resounding passage at arms between morrison and page, murmured anxiously to sylvia, "i wish judith would give up her nonsense and _marry_ arnold!" "oh, they've only been engaged a couple of months," said sylvia. "what's the hurry! she'll get her diploma in january. it'd be a pity to have her miss!" arnold's stepmother broke in rather impatiently, "if i were a girl engaged to arnold, i'd _marry_ him!" "--the trouble with all you connoisseurs, morrison, is that you're barking up the wrong tree. you take for granted, from your own tastes, when people begin to buy jade buddhas and zuloaga bull-fighters that they're wanting to surround themselves with beauty. not much! it's the consciousness of money they want to surround themselves with!" morrison conceded part of this. "oh, i grant you, there's a disheartening deal of imitation in this matter. but america's new to aesthetics. don't despise beginnings because they're small!" "a nettle leaf is small. but that's not the reason why it won't ever grow into an oak. look here! a sheaf of winter grasses, rightly arranged in clear glass, has as much of the essence of beauty as a bronze vase of the ming dynasty. i ask you just one question, how many people do you know who are capable of--" the art-critic broke in: "oh come! you're setting up an impossibly high standard of aesthetic feeling." "i'm not presuming to do any such thing as setting up a standard! i'm just insisting that people who can't extract joy from the shadow pattern of a leafy branch on a gray wall, are liars if they claim to enjoy a fine japanese print. what they enjoy in the print is the sense that they've paid a lot for it. in my opinion, there's no use trying to advance a step towards any sound aesthetic feeling till _some_ step is taken away from the idea of cost as the criterion of value about anything." he drew a long breath and went on, rather more rapidly than was his usual habit of speech: "i've a real conviction on that point. it's come to me of late years that one reason we haven't any national art is because we have too much magnificence. all our capacity for admiration is used up on the splendor of palace-like railway stations and hotels. our national tympanum is so deafened by that blare of sumptuousness that we have no ears for the still, small voice of beauty. and perhaps," he paused, looking down absently at a crumb he rolled between his thumb and finger on the table, "it's possible that the time is ripening for a wider appreciation of another kind of beauty ... that has little to do even with such miracles as the shadow of a branch on a wall." morrison showed no interest in this vaguely phrased hypothesis, and returned to an earlier contention: "you underestimate," he said, "the amount of education and taste and time it takes to arrange that simple-looking vase of grasses, to appreciate your leaf-shadows." "all i'm saying is that your campaign of aesthetic education hasn't made the matter vital enough to people, to any people, not even to people who call themselves vastly aesthetic, so that they _give_ time and effort and self-schooling to the acquisition of beauty. they not only want their money to do their dirty work for them, they try to make it do their fine living for them too, with a minimum of effort on their part. they want to _buy_ beauty, outright, with cash, and have it stay put, where they can get their fingers on it at any time, without bothering about it in the meantime. that's the way a turk likes his women--same impulse exactly," "i've known a few caucasians too ...," mrs. marshall-smith contributed a barbed point of malice to the talk. page laughed, appreciating her hit. "oh, i mean turk as a generic term." sylvia, circling warily about the contestants, looking for a chance to make her presence felt, without impairing the masculine gusto with which they were monopolizing the center of the stage, tossed in a suggestion, "was it hawthorne's--it's a queer fancy like hawthorne's--the idea of the miser, don't you remember, whose joy was to roll naked in his gold pieces?" page snatched up with a delighted laugh the metaphor she had laid in his hand. "capital! precisely! there's the thing in a nutshell. we twentieth century midases have got beyond the simple taste of that founder of the family for the shining yellow qualities of money, but we love to wallow in it none the less. we like to put our feet on it, in the shape of rugs valued according to their cost, we like to eat it in insipid, out-of-season fruit and vegetables." "doesn't it occur to you," broke in morrison, "that you may be attacking something that's a mere phase, an incident of transition?" "is anything ever anything else!" page broke in to say. morrison continued, with a slight frown at the interruption, "america is simply emerging from the frontier condition of bareness, and it is only natural that one, or perhaps two generations must be sacrificed in order to attain a smooth mastery of an existence charged and enriched with possession." he gave the effect of quoting a paragraph from one of his lectures. "isn't the end of that 'transition,'" inquired page, "usually simply that after one or two generations people grow dulled to everything _but_ possession and fancy themselves worthily occupied when they spend their lives regulating and caring for their possessions. i hate," he cried with sudden intensity, "i hate the very sound of the word!" "does you great credit, i'm sure," said morrison, with a faint irony, a hidden acrimony, pricking, for an instant, an ugly ear through his genial manner. ever since the day of the fire, since page had become a more and more frequent visitor in lydford and had seen more and more of sylvia, she had derived a certain amount of decidedly bad-tasting amusement from the fact of morrison's animosity to the other man. but this was going too far. she said instantly, "do you know, i've just thought what it is you all remind me of--i mean lydford, and the beautiful clothes, and nobody bothering about anything but tea and ideas and knowing the right people. i knew it made me think of something else, and now i know--it's a henry james novel!" page took up her lead instantly, and said gravely, putting himself beside her as another outsider: "well, of course, that's their ideal. that's what they _try_ to be like--at least to talk like james people. but it's not always easy. the vocabulary is so limited." "limited!" cried mrs. marshall-smith. "there are more words in a henry james novel than in any dictionary!" "oh yes, _words_ enough!" admitted page, "but all about the same sort of thing. it reminds me of the seminarists in rome, who have to use latin for everything. they can manage predestination and vicarious atonement like a shot, but when it comes to ordering somebody to call them for the six-twenty train to naples they're lost. now, you can talk about your bric-à-brac in henry-jamesese, you can take away your neighbor's reputation by subtle suggestion, you can appreciate a fine deed of self-abnegation, if it's not too definite! i suppose a man could even make an attenuated sort of love in the lingo, but i'll be hanged if i see how anybody could order a loaf of bread," "one might do without bread, possibly?" suggested morrison, pressing the tips of his beautiful fingers together. "by jove," cried page, in hearty assent, "i've a notion that lots of times they do!" this was getting nowhere. mrs. marshall-smith put her hand to the helm, and addressed herself to morrison with a plain reminder of the reason for the grotesqueness of his irritability. "where's _molly_ keeping herself nowadays?" she inquired. "she hasn't come over with you, to tea, for ever so long. the pergola isn't itself without her sunny head." "molly is a grain of sand in a hurricane, nowadays," said morrison seriously. "it seems that the exigencies of divine convention decree that a girl who is soon to be married belongs neither to herself, to her family, to her fiancé--oh, least of all to her fiancé--but heart and soul and body to a devouring horde of dressmakers and tailors and milliners and hairdressers and corsetières and petticoat specialists and jewelers and hosiery experts and--" they were all laughing at the interminable defile of words proceeding with a spanish gravity, and mrs. marshall-smith broke in, "i don't hear anything about house-furnishers." "no," said morrison, "the house-furnisher's name is f. morrison, and he has no show until after the wedding." "what _are_ your plans?" asked mrs. marshall-smith. "nothing very definite except the great date. that's fixed for the twenty-first." "oh, so soon ... less than three weeks from now!" morrison affected to feel a note of disapproval in her voice, and said with his faint smile, "you can hardly blame me for not wishing to delay." "oh, no _blame!_" she denied his inference. "after all it's over a month since the engagement was announced, and who knows how much longer before that you and molly knew about it. no. i'm not one who believes in long engagements. the shorter the better." sylvia saw an opportunity to emerge with an appearance of ease from a silence that might seem ungracious. it was an enforced manoeuver with which the past weeks had made her wearily familiar. "aunt victoria's hitting at arnold and judith over your head," she said to morrison. "it's delicious, the way tantine shows herself, for all her veneer of modernity, entirely nineteen century in her impatience of judith's work. now that there's a chance to escape from it into the blessed haven of idle matrimony, she can't see why judith doesn't give up her lifetime dream and marry arnold tomorrow." somewhat to her surprise, her attempt at playfulness had no notable success. the intent of her remarks received from her aunt and morrison the merest formal recognition of a hasty, dim smile, and with one accord they looked at once in another direction. "and after the wedding?" mrs. marshall-smith inquired--"or is that a secret?" "oh no, when one belongs to molly's exalted class or is about to be elevated into it, nothing is secret. i'm quite sure that the society editor of the _herald_ knows far better than i the names of the hotels in jamaica we're to frequent." "oh! jamaica! how ... how ... original!" mrs. marshall-smith cast about her rather desperately for a commendatory adjective. "yes, quite so, isn't it?" agreed morrison. "it's molly's idea. she _is_ original, you know. it's one of her greatest charms. she didn't want to go to europe because there is so much to see there, to do. she said she wanted a honeymoon and not a personally conducted trip." they all laughed again, and sylvia said: "how _like_ molly! how clever! nobody does her thinking for her!" "the roads in jamaica are excellent for motoring, too, i hear," added morrison. "that's another reason, of course." page gave a great laugh. "well, as molly's cousin, let me warn you! molly driving a car in jamaica will be like pavlova doing a bacchante on the point of a needle! you'll have to keep a close watch on her to see that she doesn't absentmindedly dash across the island and jump off the bank right on into the ocean." "where does f. morrison, house-furnishing-expert, come in?" asked mrs. marshall-smith. "after the wedding, after jamaica," said morrison. "we're to come back to new york and for a few months impose on the good nature of molly's grandfather's household, while we struggle with workmen _et al_. the montgomery house on fifth avenue, that's shut up for so many years,--ever since the death of molly's parents,--is the one we've settled on. it's very large, you know. it has possibilities. i have a plan for remodeling it and enlarging it with a large inner court, glass-roofed--something slightly saracenic about the arches--and what is now a suite of old-fashioned parlors on the north side is to be made into a long gallery. there'll be an excellent light for paintings. i've secured from duveen a promise for some tapestries i've admired for a long time--beauvais, not very old, louis xvii--but excellent in color. those for the staircase ..." he spoke with no more animation than was his custom, with no more relish than was seemly; his carefully chosen words succeeded each other in their usual exquisite precision, no complacency showed above the surface; his attitude was, as always, composed of precisely the right proportion of dignity and ease; but as he talked, some untarnished instinct in sylvia shrank away in momentary distaste, the first she had ever felt for him. mrs. marshall-smith evidently did not at all share this feeling. "oh, what a house that will be!" she cried, lost in forecasting admiration. "_you!_ with a free hand! a second house of jacques coeur!" sylvia stood up, rather abruptly. "i think i'll go for a walk beside the river," she said, reaching for her parasol. "may i tag along?" said page, strolling off beside her with the ease of familiarity. sylvia turned to wave a careless farewell to the two thus left somewhat unceremoniously in the pergola. she was in brown corduroy with suede leather sailor collar and broad belt, a costume which brought out vividly the pure, clear coloring of her face. "good-bye," she called to them with a pointedly casual accent, nodding her gleaming head. "she's a _very_ pretty girl, isn't she?" commented mrs. marshall-smith. morrison, looking after the retreating figures, agreed with her briefly. "yes, very. extraordinarily perfect specimen of her type." his tone was dry. mrs. marshall-smith looked with annoyance across the stretch of lawn to the house. "i think i would better go to see where arnold is," she said. her tone seemed to signify more to the man than her colorless words. he frowned and said, "oh, is arnold ...?" she gave a fatigued gesture. "no--not yet--but for the last two or three days ..." he began impatiently, "why can't you get him off this time before he...." "an excellent idea," she broke in, with some impatience of her own. "but slightly difficult of execution." chapter xxxi sylvia meets with pity under the scarlet glory of frost-touched maples, beside the river strolled sylvia, conscious of looking very well and being admired; but contrary to the age-old belief about her sex and age, the sensation of looking very well and being admired by no means filled the entire field of her consciousness. in fact, the corner occupied by the sensation was so small that occasional efforts on her part to escape to it from the less agreeable contents of her mind were lamentable failures. aloud, in terms as felicitous as she could make them, she was commenting on the beauty of the glass-smooth river, with the sumptuously colored autumn trees casting down into it the imperial gold and crimson of their reflections. silently she was struggling to master and dominate and suppress a confusion of contradictory mental processes. at almost regular intervals, like a hollow stroke on a brazen gong, her brain resounded to the reverberations of "the wedding is on the twenty-first." and each time that she thrust that away, there sprang up with a faint hissing note of doubt and suspicion, "why does aunt victoria want arnold married?" a murmur, always drowned out but incessantly recurring, ran: "what about father and mother? what about their absurd, impossible, cruel, unreal, and beautiful standards?" contemptible little echoes from the silly self-consciousness of the adolescence so recently left behind her ... "i must think of something clever to say. i must try to seem different and original and independent and yet must attract," mingled with an occasional fine sincerity of appreciation and respect for the humanity of the man beside her. like a perfume borne in gusts came reaction to the glorious color about her. quickly recurring and quickly gone, a sharp cymbal-clap of alarm ... "what shall i do if austin page now ... today ... or tomorrow ... tells me ...!" and grotesquely, the companion cymbal on which this smote, gave forth an antiphonal alarm of, "what shall i do if he does not!" while, unheard of her conscious ear, but coloring everything with its fundamental note of sincerity, rose solemnly from the depths of her heart the old cry of desperate youth, "what am i to do with my life?" no, the eminently successful brown corduroy, present though it was to the mind of the handsome girl wearing it, was hardly the sure and sufficient rock of refuge which tradition would have had it. with an effort she turned her attention from this confused tumult in her ears, and put out her hand, rather at random, for an introduction to talk. "you spoke, back there in the pergola, of another kind of beauty--i didn't know what you meant." he answered at once, with his usual direct simplicity, which continued to have for sylvia at this period something suspiciously like the calmness of a reigning sovereign who is above being embarrassed, who may speak, without shamefacedness, of anything, even of moral values, that subject tabu in sophisticated conversation. "ah, just a notion of mine that perhaps all this modern ferment of what's known as 'social conscience' or 'civic responsibility,' isn't a result of the sense of duty, but of the old, old craving for beauty." sylvia looked at him, astonished. "beauty?" "why yes, beauty isn't only a matter of line and color, is it? there's the desire for harmony, for true proportions, for grace and suavity, for nobility of movement. perhaps the lack of those qualities is felt in human lives as much as on canvases ... at least perhaps it may be felt in the future." "it's an interesting idea," murmured sylvia, "but i don't quite see what it means, concretely, as applied to our actual america." he meditated, looking, as was his habit when walking, up at the trees above them. "well, let's see. i think i mean that perhaps our race, not especially inspired in its instinct for color and external form, may possibly be fumbling toward an art of living. why wouldn't it be an art to keep your life in drawing as well as a mural decoration?" he broke off to say, laughing, "i bet you the technique would be quite as difficult to acquire," and went on again, thoughtfully: "in this modern maze of terrible closeness of inter-relation, to achieve a life that's happy and useful and causes no undeserved suffering to the untold numbers of other lives which touch it--isn't there an undertaking which needs the passion for harmony and proportion? isn't there a beauty as a possible ideal of aspiration for a race that probably never could achieve a florentine or japanese beauty of line?" he cast this out casually, as an idea which had by chance been brought up to the top by the current of the talk, and showed no indication to pursue it further when sylvia only nodded her head. it was one of the moments when she heard nothing but the brazen clangor of "the wedding is on the twenty-first," and until the savage constriction around her heart had relaxed she had not breath to speak. but that passed again, and the two sauntered onward, in the peaceable silence which was one of the great new pleasures which page was able to give her. it now seemed like a part of the mellow ripeness of the day. they had come to a bend in the slowly flowing river, where, instead of torch-bright maples and poplars, rank upon rank of somber pines marched away to the summit of a steeply ascending foothill. the river was clouded dark with their melancholy reflections. on their edge, overhanging the water, stood a single sumac, a standard-bearer with a thousand little down-drooping flags of crimson. "oh," said sylvia, smitten with admiration. she sat down on a rock partly because she wanted to admire at her leisure, partly because she was the kind of a girl who looks well sitting on a rock; and as she was aware of this latter motive, she felt a qualm of self-scorn. what a cheap vein of commonness was revealed in her--in every one--by the temptation of a great fortune! morrison had succumbed entirely. she was nowadays continually detecting in herself motives which made her sick. page stretched his great length on the dry leaves at her feet. any other man would have rolled a cigarette. it was one of his oddities that he never smoked. sylvia looked down at his thoughtful, clean face and reflected wonderingly that he seemed the only person not warped by money. was it because he had it, or was it because he was a very unusual person? he was looking partly at the river, at the pines, at the flaming tree, and partly at the human embodiment of the richness and color of autumn before him. after a time sylvia said: "there's cassandra. she's the only one who knows of the impending doom. she's trying to warn the pines." it had taken her some moments to think of this. page accepted it with no sign that he considered it anything remarkable, with the habit of a man for whom people produced their best: "she's using some very fine language for her warning, but like some other fine language it's a trifle misapplied. she forgets that no doom hangs over the pines. _she's_ the fated one. they're safe enough." sylvia clasped her hands about her knees and looked across the dark water at the somber trees. "and yet they don't seem to be very cheerful about it." it was her opinion that they were talking very cleverly. "perhaps," suggested page, rolling over to face the river--"perhaps she's not prophesying doom at all, but blowing a trumpet-peal of exultation over her own good fortune. the pines may be black with envy of her." sylvia enjoyed this rather macabre fancy with all the zest of healthful youth, secure in the conviction of its own immortality. "yes, yes, life's ever so much harder than death." page dissented with a grave irony from the romantic exaggeration of this generalization. "i don't suppose the statistics as to the relative difficulty of life and death are really very reliable." sylvia perceived that she was being, ever so delicately, laughed at, and tried to turn her remark so that she could carry it off. "oh, i don't mean for those who die, but those who are left know something about it, i imagine. my mother always said that the encounter with death is the great turning-point in the lives of those who live on. she said you might miss everything else irrevocable and vital--falling in love, having children, accomplishing anything--but that sooner or later you have to reckon with losing somebody dear to you." she spoke with an academic interest in the question. "i should think," meditated page, taking the matter into serious consideration, "that the vitalness of even that experience would depend somewhat on the character undergoing it. i've known some temperaments of a proved frivolity which seemed to have passed through it without any great modifications. but then i know nothing about it personally. i lost my father before i could remember him, and since then i haven't happened to have any close encounter with such loss. my mother, you know, is very much alive." "well, i haven't any personal experience with death in my immediate circle either," said sylvia. "but i wasn't brought up with the usual cult of the awfulness of it. father was always anxious that we children should feel it something as natural as breathing--you are dipped up from the great river of consciousness, and death only pours you back. if you've been worth living, there are more elements of fineness in humanity." page nodded. "yes, that's what they all say nowadays. personal immortality is as out of fashion as big sleeves." "do you believe it?" asked sylvia, seeing the talk take an intimate turn, "or are you like me, and don't know at all what you do believe?" if she had under this pseudo-philosophical question a veiled purpose analogous to that of the less subtle charmer whose avowed expedient is to get "a man to talk about himself" the manoeuver was eminently successful. "i've never had the least chance to think about it," he said, sitting up, "because i've always been so damnably beset by the facts of living. i know i am not the first of my race to feel convinced that his own problems are the most complicated, but ..." "_yours!_" cried sylvia, genuinely astonished. "and one of the hardships of my position," he told her at once with a playful bitterness, "is that everybody refuses to believe in the seriousness of it. because my father, after making a great many bad guesses as to the possible value of mining stock in nevada, happened to make a series of good guesses about the value of mining stock in colorado, it is assumed that all questions are settled for me, that i can joyously cultivate my garden, securely intrenched in the certainty that this is the best possible of all possible worlds," "oh yes--labor unions--socialism--i.w.w.," sylvia murmured vaguely, unable, in spite of her intelligence, to refrain from marking, by a subsidence of interest, her instinctive feeling that those distant questions could not in the nature of things be compared to present, personal complications. "no--no--!" he protested. "that's no go! i've tried for five years now to shove it out of sight on some one of those shelves. i've learned all the arguments on both sides. i can discuss on both sides of those names as glibly as any other modern quibbler. i can prove the rights of all those labels or i can prove the wrongs of them, according to the way my dinner is digesting. what stays right there, what i never can digest (if you'll pardon an inelegant simile that's just occurred to me), a lump i never can either swallow entirely down or get up out of my throat, is the fact that there are men, hundreds of men, thousands of men, working with picks underground all day, every day, all their lives, and that part of their labor goes to provide me with the wherewithal to cultivate my taste, to pose as a patron of the arts, to endow promising pianists--to go through all the motions suitable to that position to which it has pleased providence to call me. it sticks in my crop that my only connection with the entire business was to give myself the trouble to be born my father's son." "but you _do_ work!" protested sylvia. "you work on your farm here. you run all sorts of lumbering operations in this region. the first time i saw you, you certainly looked less like the traditional idea of a predatory coal-operator." she laughed at the recollection. "oh yes, i work. when my undigested lump gets too painful i try to work it off--but what i do bears the same relation to real sure-enough work that playing tennis does to laying brick. but such as it is, it's real satisfaction i get out of my minute vermont holdings. they come down to me from my farmer great-grandfather who held the land by working it himself. there's no sore spot there. but speak of colorado or coal--and you see me jump with the same shooting twinge you feel when the dentist's probe reaches a nerve. an intelligent conscience is a luxury a man in my position can't afford to have." he began with great accuracy to toss small stones at a log showing above the surface of the water. sylvia, reverting to a chance remark, now said: "i never happened to hear you speak of your mother before. does she ever come to lydford?" he shook his head. "no, she vibrates between the madison avenue house and the newport one. she's very happy in those two places. she's mr. sommerville's sister, you know. she's one of morrison's devotees too. she collects under his guidance." "collects?" asked sylvia, a little vaguely. "oh, it doesn't matter much what--the instinct, the resultant satisfaction are the same. as a child, it's stamps, or buttons, or corks, later on--as a matter of fact, it's lace that my mother collects. she specializes in venetian lace--the older the better, of course. the connection with coal-mines is obvious. but after all, her own fortune, coming mostly from the sommerville side, is derived from oil. the difference is great!" "do you live with her?" asked sylvia. "my washing is said to be done in new york," he said seriously. "i believe that settles the question of residence for a man." "oh, how quaint!" said sylvia, laughing. then with her trained instinct for contriving a creditable exit before being driven to an enforced one by flagging of masculine interest, she rose and looked at her watch. "oh, don't go!" he implored her. "it's so beautiful here--we never were so--who knows when we'll ever again be in so ..." sylvia divined with one of her cymbal-claps that he had meant, perhaps, that very afternoon to--she felt a dissonant clashing of triumph and misgiving. she thought she decided quite coolly, quite dryly, that pursuit always lent luster to the object pursued; but in reality she did not at all recognize the instinct which bade her say, turning her watch around on her wrist: "it's quite late. i don't think i'd better stay longer. aunt victoria likes dinner promptly." she turned to go. he took his small defeat with his usual imperturbable good nature, in which sylvia not infrequently thought she detected a flavor of the unconscious self-assurance of the very rich and much-courted man. he scrambled to his feet now promptly, and fell into step with her quick-treading advance. "you're right, of course. there's no need to be grasping. there's tomorrow--and the day after--and the day after that--and if it rains we can wear rubbers and carry umbrellas." "oh, i don't carry an umbrella for a walk in the rain," she told him. "it's one of our queer marshall ways. we only own one umbrella for the whole family at home, and that's to lend. i wear a rubber coat and put on a sou'wester and _let_ it rain." "you would!" he said in an unconscious imitation of arnold's accent. she laughed up at him. "shall i confess why i do? because my hair is naturally curly." "confession has to be prompter than that to save souls," he answered. "i knew it was, five weeks ago, when you splashed the water up on it so recklessly there by the brook." she was astonished by this revelation of depths behind that well-remembered clear gaze of admiration, and dismayed by such unnatural accuracy of observation. "how cynical of you to make such a mental comment!" he apologized. "it was automatic--unconscious. i've had a good deal of opportunity to observe young ladies." and then, as though aware that the ice was thin over an unpleasant subject, he shifted the talk. "upon my word, i wonder how molly and morrison _will_ manage?" "oh, molly's wonderful. she'd manage anything," said sylvia with conviction. "morrison is rather wonderful himself," advanced page. "and that's a magnanimous concession for me to make when i'm now so deep in his bad books. do you know, by the way," he asked, looking with a quick interrogation at the girl, "_why_ i'm so out of favor with him?" sylvia's eyes opened wide. she gazed at him, startled, fascinated. could "it" be coming so suddenly, in this casual, abrupt manner? "no, i don't know," she managed to say; and braced herself. "i don't blame him in the least. it was very vexing. i went back on him--so to speak; dissolved an aesthetic partnership, in which he furnished the brains, and my coal-mines the sinews of art. _i_ was one of his devotees, you know. for some years after i got out of college i collected under his guidance, as my mother does, as so many people do. i even specialized. i don't like to boast, but i dare affirm that no man knows more than i about sixteenth century mezza-majolica. it is a branch of human knowledge which you must admit is singularly appropriate for a dweller in the twentieth century. and of great value to the world. my collection was one of morrison's triumphs." sylvia felt foolish and discomfited. with an effort she showed a proper interest in his remarks. "was?" she asked. "what happened to it?" "i went back on it. in one of the first of those fits of moral indigestion. one day, i'd been reading a report in one of the newspapers on the status of the coal-miner, and the connection between my bright-colored pots and platters, and my father's lucky guess, became a little too dramatic for my taste. i gave the collection to the metropolitan, and i've never bought a piece since. morrison was immensely put out. he'd been to great trouble to find some fine fontana specimens for me. and then not to have me look at them--he was right too. it was a silly, pettish thing to do. i didn't know any better then. i don't know any better now." it began to dawn on sylvia that, under his air of whimsical self-mockery he was talking to her seriously. she tried to adjust herself to this, to be sympathetic, earnest; though she was still smarting with the sense of having appeared to herself as undignified and ridiculous. "and besides that," he went on, looking away, down the dusty highroad they were then crossing on their way back to the house--"besides that, i went back on a great scheme of morrison's for a national academy of aesthetic instruction, which i was to finance and he to organize. he had gone into all the details. he had shown wonderful capacity. it's really very magnanimous of him not to bear me more of a grudge. he thought that giving it up was one of my half-baked ideas. and it was. as far as anything i've accomplished since, i might as well have been furthering the appreciation of etruscan vases in the middle west. but then, i don't think he'll miss it now. if he still has a fancy for it, he can do it with molly's money. she has plenty. but i don't believe he will. it has occurred to me lately (it's an idea that's been growing on me about everybody) that morrison, like most of us, has been miscast. he doesn't really care a continental about the aesthetic salvation of the country. it's only the contagion of the american craze for connecting everything with social betterment, tagging everything with that label, that ever made him think he did. he's far too thoroughgoing an aesthete himself. what he was brought into the world for, was to appreciate, as nobody else can, all sorts of esoterically fine things. now that he'll be able to gratify that taste, he'll find his occupation in it. why shouldn't he? it'd be a hideously leveled world if everybody was, trying to be a reformer. besides, who'd be left to reform? i love to contemplate a genuine, whole-souled appreciator like morrison, without any qualms about the way society is put together. and i envy him! i envy him as blackly as your pines envied the sumac. he's got out of the wrong rôle into the right one. i wish to the lord i could!" they were close to the house now, in the avenue of poplars, yellow as gold above them in the quick-falling autumn twilight. sylvia spoke with a quick, spirited sincerity, her momentary pique forgotten, her feeling rushing out generously to meet the man's simple openness. "oh, that's the problem for all of us! to know what rôle to play! if you think it hard for you who have only to choose--how about the rest of us who must--?" she broke off. "what's that? what's that?" she had almost stumbled over a man's body, lying prone, half in the driveway, half on the close-clipped grass on the side; a well-dressed man, tall, thin, his limbs sprawled about broken-jointedly. he lay on his back, his face glimmering white in the clear, dim dusk. sylvia recognized him with a cry. "oh, it's arnold! he's been struck by a car! he's dead!" she sprang forward, and stopped short, at gaze, frozen. the man sat up, propping himself on his hands and looked at her, a wavering smile on his lips. he began to speak, a thick, unmodulated voice, as though his throat were stiff. "comingtomeetyou," he articulated very rapidly and quite unintelligibly, "an 'countered hill in driveway ... no hill _in_ driveway, and climbed and climbed"--he lost himself in repetition and brought up short to begin again, "--labor so 'cessive had to rest--" sylvia turned a paper-white face on her companion. "what's the matter with him?" she tried to say, but page only saw her lips move. he made no answer. that she would know in an instant what was the matter flickered from her eyes, from her trembling white lips; that she did know, even as she spoke, was apparent from the scorn and indignation which like sheet-lightning leaped out on him. "arnold! for _shame_! arnold! think of judith!" at the name he frowned vaguely as though it suggested something extremely distressing to him, though he evidently did not recognize it. "judish? judish?" he repeated, drawing his brows together and making a grimace of great pain. "what's judish?" and then, quite suddenly the pain and distress were wiped from his face by sodden vacuity. he had hitched himself to one of the poplars, and now leaned against this, his head bent on his shoulder at the sickening angle of a man hanged, his eyes glassy, his mouth open, a trickle of saliva flowing from one corner. he breathed hard and loudly. there was nothing there but a lump of uncomely flesh. sylvia shrank back from the sight with such disgust that she felt her flesh creep. she turned a hard, angry face on page. "oh, the beast! the beast!" she cried, under her breath. she felt defiled. she hated arnold. she hated life. page said quietly: "you'll excuse my not going with you to the house? i'll have my car and chauffeur here in a moment." he stepped away quickly and sylvia turned to flee into the house. but something halted her flying feet. she hesitated, stopped, and pressed her hands together hard. he could not be left alone there in the driveway. a car might run over him in the dusk. she turned back. she stood there, alone with the horror under the tree. she turned her back on it, but she could see nothing but the abject, strengthless body, the dreadful ignominy of the face. they filled the world. and then quickly--everything came quickly to sylvia--there stood before her the little boy who had come to see them in la chance so long ago, the little honest-eyed boy who had so loved her mother and judith, who had loved pauline the maid and suffered with her pain; and then the bigger boy who out of his weakness had begged for a share of her mother's strength and been refused; and then the man, still honest-eyed, who, aimless, wavering, had cried out to her in misery upon the emptiness of his life; and who later had wept those pure tears of joy that he had found love. she had a moment of insight, of vision, of terrible understanding. she did not know what was taking place within her, something racking--spasmodic throes of sudden growth, the emergence for the first time in all her life of the capacity for pity ... when, only a moment or two later, page's car came swiftly down the driveway, and he sprang out, he found sylvia sitting by the drunkard, the quiet tears streaming down her face. she had wiped his mouth with her handkerchief, she held his limp hand in hers, his foolish staring face was hidden on her shoulder.... the two men lifted him bodily, an ignoble, sagging weight, into the car. she stood beside him and, without a word, stooped and gently disposed his slackly hanging arms beside him. dark had quite fallen by this time. they were all silent, shadowy forms. she felt that page was at her side. he leaned to her. her hand was taken and kissed. chapter xxxii much ado ... the rest of october was a period never clear in sylvia's head. everything that happened was confusing and almost everything was painful; and a great deal happened. she had thought at the time that nothing would ever blur in her mind the shock of finding aunt victoria opposed to what seemed to her the first obvious necessity: writing to judith about arnold. she had been trying for a long time now with desperate sincerity to take the world as she found it, to see people as they were with no fanatic intolerance, to realize her own inexperience of life, to be broad, to take in without too much of a wrench another point of view; but to aunt victoria's idea, held quite simply and naturally by that lady, that judith be kept in ignorance of arnold's habits until after marriage, sylvia's mind closed as automatically, as hermetically as an oyster-shell snaps shut. she could not discuss it, she could not even attend with hearing ears to mrs. marshall-smith's very reasonable presentation of her case; the long tradition as to the justifiability of such ignorance on a bride's part; the impossibility that any woman should ever know all of any man's character before marriage; the strong presumption that marriage with a woman he adored would cure habits contracted only through the inevitable aimlessness of too much wealth; the fact that, once married, a woman like judith would accept, and for the most part deal competently with, facts which would frighten her in her raw girlish state of ignorance and crudeness. sylvia did not even hear these arguments and many more like them, dignified with the sanction of generations of women trying their best to deal with life. she had never thought of the question before. it was the sort of thing from which she had always averted her moral eyes with extreme distaste; but now that it was forced on her, her reaction to it was instantaneous. from the depths of her there rose up fresh in its original vigor, never having been dulled by a single enforced compliance with a convention running counter to a principle, the most irresistible instinct against concealment. she did not argue; she could not. she could only say with a breathless certainty against which there was no holding out: "judith must know! judith must know!" mrs. marshall-smith, alarmed by the prospect of a passage-at-arms, decreed quietly that they should both sleep on the question and take it up the next morning. sylvia had not slept. she had lain in her bed, wide-eyed; a series of pictures passing before her eyes with the unnatural vividness of hallucinations. these pictures were not only of arnold, of arnold again, of arnold and judith. there were all sorts of odd bits of memories--a conversation overheard years before, between her father and lawrence, when lawrence was a little, little boy. he had asked--it was like lawrence's eerie ways--apropos of nothing at all, "what sort of a man was aunt victoria's husband?" his father had said, "a rich man, very rich." this prompt appearance of readiness to answer had silenced the child for a moment: and then (sylvia could see his thin little hands patting down the sand-cake he was making) he had persisted, "what kind of a rich man?" his father had said, "well, he was bald--quite bald--lawrence, come run a race with me to the woodshed." sylvia now, ten years later, wondered why her father had evaded. what kind of a man _had_ arnold's father been? but chiefly she braced herself for the struggle with aunt victoria in the morning. it came to her in fleeting glimpses that aunt victoria would be only human if she resented with some heat this entire disregard of her wishes; that the discussion might very well end in a quarrel, and that a quarrel would mean the end of lydford with all that lydford meant now and potentially. but this perception was swept out of sight, like everything else, in the singleness of her conviction: "judith must know! judith must know!" there was, however, no struggle with aunt victoria in the morning. mrs. marshall-smith, encountering the same passionate outcry, recognized an irresistible force when she encountered it; recognized it, in fact, soon enough to avoid the long-drawn-out acrimony of discussion into which a less intelligent woman would inevitably have plunged; recognized it almost, but not quite, in time to shut off from sylvia's later meditations certain startling vistas down which she had now only fleeting glimpses. "very well, my dear," said mrs. marshall-smith, her cherished clarity always unclouded by small resentments,--"very well, we will trust in your judgment rather than my own. i don't pretend to understand present-day girls, though i manage to be very fond of one of them. judith is your sister. you will do, of course, what you think is right. it means, of course, judith being what she is, that she will instantly cast him off; and arnold being what he is, that means that he will drink himself into delirium tremens in six months. his father ..." she stopped short, closing with some haste the door to a vista, and poured herself another cup of coffee. they were having breakfast in her room, both in négligée and lacy caps, two singularly handsome representatives of differing generations. mrs. marshall-smith looked calm, sylvia extremely agitated. she had been awake at the early hour of deadly pale dawn when a swift, long-barreled car had drawn up under the porte-cochère and arnold had been taken away under the guard of a short, broad, brawny man with disproportionately long arms. she was not able to swallow a mouthful of breakfast. during the night, she had not looked an inch beyond her blind passion of insistence. now that aunt victoria yielded with so disconcerting a suddenness, she faced with a pang what lay beyond. "oh, judith wouldn't cast him off! she loves him so! she'll give him a chance. you don't know judith. she doesn't care about many things, but she gives herself up absolutely to those that do matter to her. she adores arnold! it fairly frightened me to see how she was burning up when he was near. she'll insist on his reforming, of course--she ought to--but--" "suppose he doesn't reform to suit her," suggested mrs. marshall-smith, stirring her coffee. "he's been reformed at intervals ever since he was fifteen. he never could stay through a whole term in any decent boys' school." here was a vista, ruthlessly opened. sylvia's eyes looked down it and shuddered. "poor arnold!" she said under her breath, pushing away her untasted cup. "i'm dull enough to find you take an odd way to show your sympathy for him," murmured mrs. marshall-smith, with none of the acidity the words themselves seemed to indicate. she seemed indeed genuinely perplexed. "it's not been exactly a hilarious element in _my_ life either. but i've always tried to hold on to arnold. i thought it my duty. and now, since felix morrison has found this excellent specialist for me, it's much easier. i telegraph to him and he comes at once and takes arnold back to his sanitarium, till he's himself again." for the first time in weeks morrison's name brought up between them no insistently present, persistently ignored shadow. the deeper shadow now blotted him out. "but aunt victoria, it's for judith to decide. _she_'ll do the right thing." "sometimes people are thrown by circumstances into a situation where they wouldn't have dreamed of putting themselves--and yet they rise to it and conquer it," philosophized aunt victoria. "life takes hold of us with strong hands and makes us greater than we thought. judith will _mean_ to do the right thing. if she were married, she'd _have_ to do it! it seems to me a great responsibility you take, sylvia--you may, with the best of intentions in the world, be ruining the happiness of two lives." sylvia got up, her eyes red with unshed tears. it was not the first time that morning. "it's all too horrible," she murmured. "but i haven't any right to conceal it from judith." her eyes were still red when, an hour later, she stepped into the room again and said, "i've mailed it." her aunt, still in lavender silk négligée, so far progressed towards the day's toilet as to have her hair carefully dressed, looked up from the _revue bleue_, and nodded. her expression was one of quiet self-possession. sylvia came closer to her and sat down on a straight-backed chair. she was dressed for the street, and hatted, as though she herself had gone out to mail the letter. "and now, tantine," she said, with the resolute air of one broaching a difficult subject, "i think i ought to be planning to go home very soon." it was a momentous speech, and a momentous pause followed it. it had occurred to sylvia, still shaken with the struggle over the question of secrecy, that she could, in decency, only offer to take herself away, after so violently antagonizing her hostess. she realized with what crude intolerance she had attacked the other woman's position, how absolutely with claw and talon she had demolished it. she smarted with the sense that she had seemed oblivious of an "obligation." she detested the sense of obligation. and having become aware of a debt due her dignity, she had paid it hastily, on the impulse of the moment. but as the words still echoed in the air, she was struck to see how absolutely her immediate future, all her future, perhaps, depended on the outcome of that conversation she herself had begun. she looked fixedly at her aunt, trying to prepare herself for anything. but she was not prepared for what mrs. marshall-smith did. she swept the magazine from her lap to the floor and held out her arms to sylvia. "i had hoped--i had hoped you were happy--with me," she said, and in her voice was that change of quality, that tremor of sincerity which sylvia had always found profoundly moving. the girl was overcome with astonishment and remorse--and immense relief. she ran to her. "oh, i am! i am! i was only thinking--i've gone against your judgment." her nerves, stretched with the sleepless night and the strain of writing the dreadful letter to judith, gave way. she broke into sobs. she put her arms tightly around her aunt's beautiful neck and laid her head on her shoulder, weeping, her heart swelling, her mind in a whirling mass of disconnected impressions. arnold--judith ... how strange it was that aunt victoria really cared for her--did she really care for aunt victoria or only admire her?--did she really care for anybody, since she was agreeing to stay longer away from her father and mother?--how good it would be not to have to give up hélène's services--what a heartless, materialistic girl she was--she cared for nothing but luxury and money--she would be going abroad now to paris--austin page--he had kissed her hand ... and yet she felt that he saw through her, saw through her mean little devices and stratagems--how astonishing that he should be so very, very rich--it seemed that a very, very rich man ought to be different from other men--his powers were so unnaturally great--girls could not feel naturally about him ... and all the while that these varying reflections passed at lightning speed through her mind, her nervous sobs were continuing. aunt victoria taking them, naturally enough, as signs of continued remorse, lifted her out of this supposed slough of despond with affectionate peremptoriness. "don't feel so badly about it, darling. we won't have any more talk for the present about differing judgments, or of going away, or of anything uncomfortable"; and in this way, with nothing clearly understood, on a foundation indeed of misunderstanding, the decision was made, in the haphazard fashion which characterizes most human decisions. the rest of the month was no more consecutive or logical. into the midst of the going-away confusion of a household about to remove itself half around the world, into a house distracted with packing, cheerless with linen-covers, desolate with rolled-up rugs and cold lunches and half-packed trunks, came, in a matter-of-fact manner characteristic of its writer, judith's answer to sylvia's letter. sylvia opened it, shrinking and fearful of what she would read. she had, in the days since hers had been sent, imagined judith's answer in every possible form; but never in any form remotely resembling what judith wrote. the letter stated in judith's concise style that of course she agreed with sylvia that there should be no secrets between betrothed lovers, nor, in this case, were there any. arnold had told her, the evening before she left lydford, that he had inherited an alcoholic tendency from his father. she had been in communication with a great specialist in wisconsin about the case. she knew of the sanitarium to which arnold had been taken and did not like it. the medical treatment there was not serious. she hoped soon to have him transferred to the care of dr. rivedal. if arnold's general constitution were still sound, there was every probability of a cure. doctors knew so much more about that sort of thing than they used to. had sylvia heard that madame la rue was not a bit well, that old trouble with her heart, only worse? they'd been obliged to hire a maid--how in the world were the la rues going to exist on american cooking? cousin parnelia said she could cure madame with some sanopractic nonsense, a new fad that cousin parnelia had taken up lately. professor kennedy had been elected vice-president of the american mathematical association, and it was funny to see him try to pretend that he wasn't pleased. mother's garden this autumn was ... "_well_!" ejaculated sylvia, stopping short. mrs. marshall-smith had stopped to listen in the midst of the exhausting toil of telling hélène which dresses to pack and which to leave hanging in the lydford house. she now resumed her labors unflaggingly, waving away to the closet a mauve satin, and beckoning into a trunk a favorite black-and-white chiffon. to sylvia she said, "now i know exactly how a balloon feels when it is pricked." sylvia agreed ruefully. "i might have known judith would manage to make me feel flat if i got wrought up about it. she hates a fuss made over anything, and she can always take you down if you make one." she remembered with a singular feeling of discomfiture the throbbing phrases of her letter, written under the high pressure of the quarrel with aunt victoria. she could almost see the expression of austere distaste in the stern young beauty of judith's face. judith was always making her appear foolish! "we were both of us," commented mrs. marshall-smith dryly, "somewhat mistaken about the degree of seriousness with which judith would take the information." sylvia forgot her vexation and sprang loyally to judith's defense. "why, of course she takes it like a trained nurse, like a doctor--feels it a purely medical affair--as i suppose it is. we might have known she'd feel that way. but as to how she really feels inside, personally, you can't tell anything by her letter! you probably couldn't tell anything by her manner if she were here. you never can. she may be simply wild about a thing inside, but you'd never guess." mrs. marshall-smith ventured to express some skepticism as to the existence of volcanic feelings always so sedulously concealed. "after all, can you be so very sure that she is ever 'simply wild' if she never shows anything?" "oh, you're _sure_, all right, if you've lived with her--you feel it. and then, after about so long a time of keeping it down, she breaks loose and _does_ something awful, that i'd never have the nerve to do, and tears into flinders anything she doesn't think is right. why, when we were little girls and went to the public schools together, two of our little playmates, who turned out to have a little negro blood, we ..." sylvia stopped, suddenly warned by some instinct that aunt victoria would not be a sympathetic listener to that unforgotten episode of her childhood, that episode which had seemed to have no consequences, no sequel, but which ever since that day had insensibly affected the course of her growth, like a great rock fallen into the current of her life. mrs. marshall-smith, deliberating with bated breath between broadcloth and blue panama, did not notice the pause. she did, however, add a final comment on the matter, some moments later, when she observed, "how any girl in her senses can go on studying, when she's engaged to a man who needs her as much as arnold needs judith!" to which sylvia answered irrelevantly with a thought which had just struck her thrillingly, "but how perfectly fine of arnold to tell her himself!" "she must have hypnotized him," said mrs. marshall-smith with conviction, "but then i don't pretend to understand the ways of young people nowadays." she was now forty-five, in the full bloom of a rarely preserved beauty, and could afford to make remarks about the younger generation. "at any rate," she went on, "it is a comfort to know that judith has set her hand to the wheel. i have not in years crossed the ocean with so much peace of mind about arnold as i shall have this time," said his stepmother. "no, leave that blue voile, hélène, the collar never fitted." "oh, he doesn't spend the winters in paris with you?" asked sylvia. "he's been staying here in lydford of late--crazy as it sounds. he was simply so bored that he couldn't think of anything else to do. he has, besides, an absurd theory that he enjoys it more in winter than in summer. he says the natives are to be seen then. he's been here from his childhood. he knows a good many of them, i suppose. now, hélène, let's see the gloves and hats." it came over sylvia with a passing sense of great strangeness that she had been in this spot for four months and, with the exception of the men at the fire, she had not met, had not spoken to, had not even consciously seen a single inhabitant of the place. and in the end, she went away in precisely the same state of ignorance. on the day they drove to the station she did, indeed, give one fleeting glimpse over the edge of her narrow prison-house of self-centered interest. surrounded by a great many strapped and buckled pieces of baggage, with hélène, fascinatingly ugly in her serf's uniform, holding the black leather bag containing aunt victoria's jewels, they passed along the street for the last time, under the great elms already almost wintry with their bare boughs. now that it was too late, sylvia felt a momentary curiosity about the unseen humanity which had been so near her all the summer. she looked out curiously at the shabby vehicles (it seemed to her that there were more of them than in the height of the season), at the straight-standing, plainly dressed, briskly walking women and children (there seemed to be a new air of life and animation about the street now that most of the summer cottages were empty), and at the lounging, indifferent, powerfully built men. she wondered, for a moment, what they were like, with what fortitude their eager human hearts bore the annual display of splendor they might never share. they looked, in that last glimpse, somehow quite strong, as though they would care less than she would in their places. perhaps they were only hostile, not envious. "i dare say," said aunt victoria, glancing out at a buck-board, very muddy as to wheels, crowded with children, "that it's very forlorn for the natives to have the life all go out of the village when the summer people leave. they must feel desolate enough!" sylvia wondered. the last thing she saw as the train left the valley was the upland pass between windward and hemlock mountains. it brought up to her the taste of black birch, the formidably clean smell of yellow soap, and the rush of summer wind past her ears. chapter xxxiii "whom god hath joined ..." they were to sail on the d, and ever since the big square invitation had come it had been a foregone conclusion, conceded with no need for wounding words, that there was no way out of attending the sommerville-morrison wedding on the st. they kept, of course, no constrained silence about it. aunt victoria detested the awkwardness of not mentioning difficult subjects as heartily as she did the mention of them; and as the tree toad evolves a skin to answer his needs, she had evolved a method all her own of turning her back squarely on both horns of a dilemma. no, there was no silence about the wedding, only about the possibility that it might be an ordeal, or that the ordeal might be avoided. it could not be avoided. there was nothing to be said on that point. but there was much talk, during the few days of their stay in new york, about the elaborate preparations for the ceremony. morrison, who came to see them in their temporary quarters, kept up a somewhat satirical report as to the magnificence of the performance, and on the one occasion when they went to see molly they found her flushed, excited, utterly inconsecutive, distracted by a million details, and accepting the situation as the normal one for a bride-to-be. there were heart-searchings as to toilets to match the grandeur of the occasion; and later satisfaction with the moss-green chiffon for sylvia and violet-colored velvet for her aunt. there were consultations about the present aunt victoria was to send from them both, a wonderfully expensive, newly patented, leather traveling-case for a car, guaranteed to hold less to the square inch and pound than any other similar, heavy, gold-mounted contrivance. mrs. marshall-smith told morrison frankly, in this connection, that she had tried to select a present which molly herself would enjoy. "am i not to have a present myself?" asked morrison. "something that you selected expressly for me?" "no," said sylvia, dropping the sugar into his tea with deliberation. "you are not to have any present for yourself." she was guiltily conscious that she was thinking of a certain scene in "the golden bowl," a scene in which a wedding present figures largely; and when, a moment later, he said, "i have a new volume of henry james i'd like to loan you," she knew that the same scene had been in his head. she would not look at him lest she read in his eyes that he had meant her to know. as she frequently did in those days, she rose, and making an excuse of a walk in the park, took herself off. she was quite calm during this period, her mind full of trivial things. she had the firm conviction that she was living in a dream, that nothing of what was happening was irrevocable. and besides, as at lydford, for much of the day, she was absorbed in the material details of her life, being rubbed and dressed and undressed, and adorned and fed and catered to. they were spending the few days before sailing in a very grand hotel, overlooking central park. sylvia had almost every day the thought that she herself was now in the center of exactly the same picture in which, as a child, she had enviously watched aunt victoria. she adored every detail of it. it was an opening-out, even from the lydford life. she felt herself expanding like a dried sponge placed in water, to fill every crack and crevice of the luxurious habits of life. the traveling along that road is always swift; and sylvia's feet were never slow. during the first days in vermont, it had seemed a magnificence to her that she need never think of dish-washing or bed-making. by this time it seemed quite natural to her that hélène drew and tempered the water for her bath, and put on her stockings. occasionally she noticed with a little surprise that she seemed to have no more free time than in the laborious life of la chance; but for the most part she threw out, in all haste, innumerable greedy root-tendrils into the surcharged richness of her new soil and sent up a rank growth of easeful acquiescence in redundance. the wedding was quite as grand as the sommervilles had tried to make it. the street was crowded with staring, curious, uninvited people on either side of the church, and when the carriage containing the bride drove up, the surge forward to see her was as fierce as though she had been a defaulting bank-president being taken to prison. the police had to intervene. the interior, fern and orchid swathed, very dimly lighted by rich purple stained glass and aristocratic dripping wax candles instead of the more convenient electric imitations, was murmurous with the wonderful throbbing notes of a great organ and with the discreet low tones of the invited guests as they speculated about the relative ages and fortunes of the bride and bridegroom. the chancel was filled with a vested choir which, singing and carrying a cross, advanced down the aisle to meet the bridal party. molly, who had not been in a church since her childhood, had needed to be coached over and over again in the ins and outs of the complicated service. sylvia, seated several guests away from the aisle, saw little of the procession as it went up into the chancel. she caught a glimpse of a misty mass of white and, beside it, old mr. sommerville's profile, very white and nervous and determined. she did not at that time see the bridegroom at all. the ceremony, which took place far within the chancel, was long and interspersed with music from the choir. sylvia, feeling very queer and callous, as though, under an anaesthetic, she were watching with entire unconcern the amputation of one of her limbs, fell to observing the people about her. the woman in front of her leaned against the pew and brought her broad, well-fed back close under sylvia's eyes. it was covered with as many layers as a worm in a cocoon. there were beads on lace, the lace incrusted on other lace, chiffon, fish-net, a dimly seen filmy satin, cut in points, and, lower down, an invisible foundation of taffeta. through the interstices there gleamed a revelation of the back itself, fat, white, again like a worm in a cocoon. sylvia began to plan out a comparison of dress with architecture, bringing out the insistent tendency in both to the rococo, to the burying of structural lines in ornamentation. the cuff, for instance, originally intended to protect the skin from contact with unwashable fabrics, degenerated into a mere bit of "trimming," which has lost all its meaning, which may be set anywhere on the sleeve. like a strong hand about her throat came the knowledge that she was planning to say all this to please felix morrison, who was now within fifty feet of her, being married to another woman. she flamed to fever and chilled again to her queer absence of spirit.... there was a chorister at the end of the line near her, a pale young man with a spiritual face who chanted his part with shining rapt eyes. while he sang he slipped his hand under his white surplice and took out his watch. still singing "glory be to the father, the son, and the holy ghost," he cast a hasty eye on the watch and frowned impatiently. he was evidently afraid the business in hand would drag along and make him late to another appointment, "--is now and ever shall be, world without end. amen!" he sang fervently. sylvia repressed an hysterical desire to laugh. the ceremony was over; the air in the building beat wildly against the walls, the stained-glass windows, and the ears of the worshipers in the excited tumult of the wedding-march; the procession began to leave the chancel. this time sylvia caught one clear glimpse of the principals, but it meant nothing to her. they looked like wax effigies of themselves, self-conscious, posed, emptied of their personalities by the noise, the crowds, the congestion of ceremony. the idea occurred to sylvia that they looked as though they had taken in as little as she the significance of what had happened. the people about her were moving in relieved restlessness after the long immobility of the wedding. the woman next her went down on her knees for a devout period, her face in her white gloves. when she rose, she said earnestly to her companion, "do you know if i had to choose one hat-trimming for all the rest of my life, i should make it small pink roses in clusters. it's perfectly miraculous how, with black chiffon, they _never_ go out!" she settled in place the great cluster of costly violets at her breast which she seemed to have exuded like some natural secretion of her plump and expensive person. "why don't they let us out!" she said complainingly. a young man, one of those born to be a wedding usher, now came swiftly up the aisle on patent leather feet and untied with pearl-gray fingers the great white satin ribbon which restrained them in the pew. sylvia caught her aunt's eye on her, its anxiety rather less well hidden than usual. with no effort at all the girl achieved a flashing smile. it was not hard. she felt quite numb. she had been present only during one or two painful, quickly passed moments. but the reception at the house, the big, old-fashioned, very rich sommerville house, was more of an ordeal. there was the sight of the bride and groom in the receiving-line, now no longer badly executed graven images, but quite themselves--molly starry-eyed, triumphant, astonishingly beautiful, her husband distinguished, ugly, self-possessed, easily the most interesting personality in the room; there was the difficult moment of the presentation, the handclasp with felix, the rapturous vague kiss from molly, evidently too uplifted to have any idea as to the individualities of the people defiling before her; then the passing on into the throng, the eating and drinking and talking with acquaintances from the lydford summer colony, of whom there were naturally a large assortment. sylvia had a growing sense of pain, which was becoming acute when across the room she saw molly, in a lull of arrivals, look up to her husband and receive from him a smiling, intimate look of possession. why, they were _married_! it was done! the delicate food in sylvia's mouth turned to ashes. mrs. marshall-smith's voice, almost fluttered, almost (for her) excited, came to her ears: "sylvia--here is mr. page! and he's just told me the most delightful news, that he's decided to run over to paris for a time this fall." "i hope miss marshall will think that paris will be big enough for all of us?" asked austin page, fixing his remarkably clear eyes on the girl. she made a great effort for self-possession. she turned her back on the receiving-line. she held out her hand cordially. "i hope paris will be quite, quite small, so that we shall all see a great deal of each other," she said warmly. chapter xxxiv sylvia tells the truth they left mrs. marshall-smith with a book, seated on a little yellow-painted iron chair, the fifteen-centime kind, at the top of the great flight of steps leading down to the wide green expanse of the tapis vert. she was alternately reading huysmans' highly imaginative ideas on gothic cathedrals, and letting her eyes stray up and down the long façade of the great louis. her powers of aesthetic assimilation seemed to be proof against this extraordinary mixture of impressions. she had insisted that she would be entirely happy there in the sun, for an hour at least, especially if she were left in solitude with her book. on which intimation sylvia and page had strolled off to do some exploring. it was a situation which a month of similar arrangements had made very familiar to them. "no, i don't know versailles very well," he said in answer to her question, "but i believe the gardens back of the grand and petit trianon are more interesting than these near the château itself. the conscientiousness with which they're kept up is not quite so formidable." so they walked down the side of the grand canal, admiring the rather pensive beauty of the late november woods, and talking, as was the proper thing, about the great louis and his court, and how they both detested his style of gilded, carved wall ornamentation, although his chairs weren't as bad as some others. they turned off at the cross-arm of the canal towards the great trianon; they talked, again dutifully in the spirit of the place, about madame de maintenon. they differed on this subject just enough to enjoy discussing it. page averred that the whole affair had always passed his comprehension, "--what that ease-loving, vain, indulgent, trivial-minded grandson of henri quatre could ever have seen for all those years in that stiff, prim, cold old school-ma'am--" but sylvia shook her head. "i know how he felt. he _had_ to have her, once he'd found her. she was the only person in all his world he could depend on." "why not depend on himself?" page asked. "oh, he couldn't! he couldn't! she had character and he hadn't." "what do you mean by character?" he challenged her. "it's what i haven't!" she said. he attempted a chivalrous exculpation. "oh, if you mean by character such hard, insensitive lack of imagination as madame de maintenon's--" "no, not that," said sylvia. "_you_ know what i mean by character as well as i." by the time they were back of the little trianon, this beginning had led them naturally enough away from the frivolities of historical conversation to serious considerations, namely themselves. the start had been a reminiscence of sylvia's, induced by the slow fall of golden leaves from the last of the birches into the still water of the lake in the midst of marie antoinette's hamlet. they stopped on an outrageously rustic bridge, constructed quite in the artificially rural style of the place, and, leaning on the railing, watched in a fascinated silence the quiet, eddying descent of the leaves. there was not a breath of wind. the leaves detached themselves from the tree with no wrench. they loosened their hold gradually, gradually, and finally out of sheer fullness of maturity floated down to their graves with a dreamy content. "i never happened to see that effect before," said page. "i supposed leaves were detached only by wind. it's astonishingly peaceful, isn't it?" "i saw it once before," said sylvia, her eyes fixed on the noiseless arabesques traced by the leaves in their fall--"at home in la chance. i'll never forget it." she spoke in a low tone as though not to break the charmed silence about them, and, upon his asking her for the incident, she went on, almost in a murmur: "it isn't a story you could possibly understand. you've never been poor. but i'll tell you if you like. i've talked to you such a lot about home and the queer people we know--did i ever mention cousin parnelia? she's a distant cousin of my mother's, a queer woman who lost her husband and three children in a train-wreck years ago, and has been a little bit crazy ever since. she has always worn, for instance, exactly the same kind of clothes, hat and everything, that she had on, the day the news was brought to her. the spiritualists got hold of her then, and she's been one herself for ever so long--table-rapping--planchette-writing--all the horrid rest of it, and she makes a little money by being a "medium" for ignorant people. but she hardly earns enough that way to keep her from starving, and mother has for ever so long helped her out. "well, there was a chance to buy a tiny house and lot for her--two hundred and twenty dollars. it was just a two-roomed cottage, but it would be a roof over her head at least. she is getting old and ought to have something to fall back on. mother called us all together and said this would be a way to help provide for cousin parnelia's old age. father never could bear her (he's so hard on ignorant, superstitious people), but he always does what mother thinks best, so he said he'd give up the new typewriter he'd been hoping to buy. mother gave up her chicken money she'd been putting by for some new rose-bushes, and she loves her roses too! judith gave what she'd earned picking raspberries, and i--oh, how i hated to do it! but i was ashamed not to--i gave what i'd saved up for my autumn suit. lawrence just stuck it out that he hated cousin parnelia and he wouldn't give a bit. but he was so little that he only had thirty cents or something like that in a tin bank, so it didn't matter. when we put it all together it wasn't nearly enough of course, and we took the rest out of our own little family savings-bank rainy-day savings and bought the tiny house and lot. father wanted to 'surprise' cousin parnelia with the deed. he wanted to lay it under some flowers in a basket, or slip it into her pocket, or send it to her with some eggs or something. but mother--it was so like her!--the first time cousin parnelia happened to come to the house, mother picked up the deed from her desk and said offhand, 'oh, parnelia, we bought the little garens house for you,' and handed her the paper, and went to talking about cutworms or bordeaux mixture." page smiled, appreciative of the picture. "i see her. i see your mother--vermont to the core." "well, it was only about two weeks after that, i was practising and mother was rubbing down a table she was fixing over. nobody else happened to be at home. cousin parnelia came in, her old battered black straw hat on one ear as usual. she was all stirred up and pleased about a new 'method' of using planchette. you know what planchette is, don't you? the little heart-shaped piece of wood spiritualists use, with a pencil fast to it, to take down their silly 'messages,' some spiritualistic fake was visiting town conducting séances and he claimed he'd discovered some sort of method for inducing greater receptivity--or something like that. i don't know anything about spiritualism but little tags i've picked up from hearing cousin parnelia talk. anyway, he was 'teaching' other mediums for a big price. and it came out that cousin parnelia had mortgaged the house for more than it was worth, and had used the money to take those 'lessons.' i couldn't believe it for a minute. when i really understood what she'd done, i was so angry i felt like smashing both fists down on the piano keys and howling! i thought of my blue corduroy i'd given up--i was only fourteen and just crazy about clothes. mother was sitting on the floor, scraping away at the table-leg. she got up, laid down her sandpaper, and asked cousin parnelia if she'd excuse us for a few minutes. then she took me by the hand, as though i was a little girl. i felt like one too, i felt almost frightened by mother's face, and we both marched out of the house. she didn't say a word. she took me down to our swimming-hole in the river. there is a big maple-tree leaning over that. it was a perfectly breathless autumn day like this, and the tree was shedding its leaves like that birch, just gently, slowly, steadily letting them go down into the still water. we sat down on the bank and watched them. the air was full of them, yet all so quiet, without any hurry. the water was red with them, they floated down on our shoulders, on our heads, in our laps--not a sound--so peaceful--so calm--so perfect. it was like the andante of the kreutzer. "i knew what mother wanted, to get over being angry with cousin parnelia. and she was. i could see it in her face, like somebody in church. i felt it myself--all over, like an e string that's been pulled too high, slipping down into tune when you turn the peg. but i didn't _want_ to feel it. i _wanted_ to hate cousin parnelia. i thought it was awfully hard in mother not to want us to have even the satisfaction of hating cousin parnelia! i tried to go on doing it. i remember i cried a little. but mother never said a word--just sat there in that quiet autumn sunshine, watching the leaves falling--falling--and i had to do as she did. and by and by i felt, just as she did, that cousin parnelia was only a very small part of something very big. "when we went in, mother's face was just as it always was, and we got cousin parnelia a cup of tea and gave her part of a boiled ham to take home and a dozen eggs and a loaf of graham bread, just as though nothing had happened." she stopped speaking. there was no sound at all but the delicate, forlorn whisper of the leaves. "that is a very fine story!" said page finally. he spoke with a measured, emphatic, almost solemn accent. "yes, it's a very fine story," murmured sylvia a little wistfully. "it's finer as a story than it was as real life. it was years before i could look at blue corduroy without feeling stirred up. i really cared more about my clothes than i did about that stupid, ignorant old woman. if it's only a cheerful giver the lord loves, he didn't feel much affection for me." they began to retrace their steps. "you gave up the blue corduroy," he commented as they walked on, "and you didn't scold your silly old kinswoman." "that's only because mother hypnotized me. _she_ has character. i did it as louis signed the revocation of the edict of nantes, because madame de maintenon thought he ought to." "but she couldn't hypnotize your brother lawrence, althought he was so much younger. he didn't give up his thirty-seven cents. i think you're bragging without cause if you claim any engaging and picturesque absence of character." "oh, lawrence--he's different! he's extraordinary! sometimes i think he is a genius. and it's judith who hypnotizes him. _she_ supplies his character." they emerged into an opening and walked in silence for some moments towards the grand trianon. "you're lucky, very lucky," commented page, "to have such an ample supply of character in the family. i'm an only child. there's nobody to give me the necessary hypodermic supply of it at the crucial moments." he went on, turning his head to look at the great trianon, very mellow in the sunshine. "it's my belief, however, that at the crucial moments you have plenty of it of your own." "that's a safe guess!" said sylvia ironically, "since there never have _been_ any crucial moments in a life so uninterestingly eventless as mine. i wonder what i _would_ do," she mused. "my own conviction is that--suppose i'd lived in the days of the reformation--in the days of christ--in the early abolition days--" she had an instant certainty: "oh, i have been entirely on the side of whatever was smooth, and elegant, and had amenity--i'd have hated the righteous side!" page did not look very deeply moved by this revelation of depravity. indeed, he smiled rather amusedly at her, and changed the subject. "you said a moment ago that i couldn't understand, because i'd always had money. isn't it a bit paradoxical to say that the people who haven't a thing are the only ones who know anything about it?" "but you couldn't realize what _losing_ the money meant to us. you can't know what the absence of money can do to a life." "i can know," said page, "what the presence of it cannot do for a life." his accent implied rather sadly that the omissions were considerable. "oh, of course, of course," sylvia agreed. "there's any amount it can't do. after you have it, you must get the other things too." he brought his eyes down to her from a roving quest among the tops of the trees. "it seems to me you want a great deal," he said quizzically. "yes, i do," she admitted. "but i don't see that you have any call to object to my wanting it. you don't have to wish for everything at once. you have it already." he received this into one of his thoughtful silences, but presently it brought him to a standstill. they were within sight of the grand canal again, looking down from the terrace of the trianon. he leaned against the marble balustrade and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. his clear eyes were clouded. he looked profoundly grave. "i am thirty-two years old," he said, "and never for a moment of that time have i made any sense out of my position in life. if you call that 'having everything'--" it occurred to sylvia fleetingly that she had never made any sense out of her position in life either, and had been obliged to do a great many disagreeable things into the bargain, but she kept this thought to herself, and looked conspicuously what she genuinely felt, a sympathetic interest. the note of plain direct sincerity which was page's hallmark never failed to arrest her attention, a little to arouse her wonder, and occasionally, for a reason that she did not like to dwell upon, somewhat to abash her. the reason was that he never spoke for effect, and she often did. he was not speaking for effect now: he seemed scarcely even to be speaking to her, rather to be musingly formulating something for his own enlightenment. he went on. "the fact is that there _is_ no sense to be made out of my situation in life. i am like a man with a fine voice, who has no ear." he showed surprise that sylvia failed to follow this, and explained. "i mean the voice is no good to that kind of a man, it's no good to anybody. it's the craziest, accidental affair anyhow, haven't you ever noticed it?--who draws the fine voices. half the time--more than half the time, _most_ of the time it seems to me when i've been recently to a lot of concerts, the people who have the voices haven't any other qualifications for being singers. and it's so with coal-mines, with everything else that's inherited. for five years now i've given up what i'd like to do, and i've tried, under the best _maestri_ i could find, to make something out of my voice, so to speak. and it's no go. it's in the nature of things that i can't make a go of it. over everything i do lies the taint that i'm the 'owner'! they are suspicious of me, always will be--and rightly so. anybody else not connected with the mediaeval idea of 'possession' could do better than i. the whole relation's artificial. i'm in it for the preposterous reason that my father, operating on wall street, made a lucky guess,--as though i should be called upon to run a locomotive because my middle initial is l!" sylvia still felt the same slight sense of flatness when this recurring topic thrust itself into a personal talk; but during the last month she had adjusted herself to page so that this no longer showed on the surface. she was indeed quite capable of taking an interest in the subject, as soon as she could modulate herself into the new key. "yes, of course," she agreed, "it's like so many other things that are perfectly necessary to go on with, perfectly absurd when you look closely at them. my father nearly lost his position once for saying that all inheritance was wrong. but even he never had the slightest suggestion as to what to do about it, how to get an inheritance into the hands of the people who might make the best use of it." she was used from her childhood to this sort of academic doubt of everything, conducted side by side with a practical acceptance of everything. professor and madame la rue, in actual life devotedly faithful married lovers, staid, stout, habit-ridden elderly people, professed a theoretical belief in the flexibility of relationships sanctioned by the practice of free love. it was perhaps with this recollection in her mind that she suggested, "don't you suppose it will be like the institution of marriage, very, very gradually altered till it fits conditions better?" "in the meantime, how about the cases of those who are unhappily married?" "i don't see anything for them but just to get along the best they can," she told him. "you think i'd better give up trying to do anything with my colorado--?" he asked her, as though genuinely seeking advice. "i should certainly think that five years was plenty long enough for a fair trial! you'd make a better ambassador than an active captain of industry, anyhow," she said with conviction. whereupon he bestowed on her a long, thoughtful stare, as though he were profoundly pondering her suggestion. they moved forward towards the grand canal in silence. privately she was considering his case hardly one of extreme hardship. privately also, as they advanced nearer and nearer the spot where they had left mrs. marshall-smith, she was a little dreading the return to the perfect breeding with which aunt victoria did not ask, or intimate, or look, the question which was in her mind after each of these strolling tête-à-têtes which consistently led nowhere. there were instants when sylvia would positively have preferred the vulgar openness of a direct question to which she might have answered, with the refreshing effect to her of a little honest blood-letting: "dear aunt victoria, i haven't the least idea myself what's happening! i'm simply letting myself go because i don't see anything else to do. i have even no very clear idea as to what is going on inside my own head. i only know that i like austin page so much (in spite of a certain quite unforgotten episode) there would be nothing at all unpleasant about marrying him; but i also know that i didn't feel the least interest in him until hélène told me about his barrels of money: i also know that i feel the strongest aversion to returning to the spartan life of la chance; and it occurs to me that these two things may throw considerable light on my 'liking' for austin. as for what's in _his_ mind, there is no subject on which i'm in blacker ignorance. and after being so tremendously fooled, in the case of felix, about the degree of interest a man was feeling, i do not propose to take anything for granted which is not on the surface. it is quite possible that this singularly sincere and simple-mannered man may not have the slightest intention of doing anything more than enjoy a pleasant vacation from certain rather hair-splitting cares which seem to trouble him from time to time." as they walked side by side along the stagnant waters, she was sending inaudible messages of this sort towards her aunt; she had even selected the particular mauve speck at the top of the steps which might be mrs. marshall-smith. in the glowing yellow gold of the sky, a faintly whirring dark-gray spot appeared: an airman made his way above the grand canal, passed above the château, and disappeared. they had sat down on a bench, the better to crane their heads to watch him out of sight. sylvia was penetrated with the strangeness of that apparition in that spot and thrilled out: "isn't it wonderful! isn't it wonderful! _here!_" "there's something _more_ wonderful!" he said, indicating with his cane the canal before them, where a group of neat, poorly dressed, lower middle-class people looked proudly out from their triumphal progress in the ugly, gasping little motor-boat which operates at twenty-five centimes a trip. she had not walked and talked a month with him for nothing. she knew that he did not refer to motor-boats as against aëroplanes. "you mean," she said appreciatively, "you mean those common people going freely around the royal canal where two hundred years ago--" he nodded, pleased by her quickness. "two hundred years from now," he conjectured, "the stubs of my checkbook will be exhibited in an historical museum along with the regalia of the last hereditary monarch." here she did not follow, and she was too intelligent to pretend she did. he lifted his eyebrows. "relic of a quaint old social structure inexplicably tolerated so late as the beginning of the twentieth century," "oh, coal-mines forever!" she said, smiling, her eyes brilliant with friendly mockery. "aye! _toujours perdrix!_" he admitted. he continued to look steadily and seriously into her smiling, sparkling face, until, with a sudden pulse of premonition, she was stricken into a frightened gravity. and then, with no prelude, no approach, quite simply and directly, he spoke. "i wonder how much you care for me?" he said musingly, as he had said everything else that afternoon: and as she positively paled at the eeriness of this echo from her own thought, he went on, his voice vibrating in the deep organ note of a great moment, "you must know, of course, by this time that i care everything possible for you." compressed into an instant of acute feeling sylvia felt the pangs which had racked her as a little girl when she had stood in the schoolyard with camilla fingál before her, and the terrifying hostile eyes about her. her two selves rose up against each other fiercely, murderously, as they had then. the little girl sprang forward to help the woman who for an instant hesitated. the fever and the struggle vanished as instantly as they had come. sylvia felt very still, very hushed. page had told her that she always rose to crucial moments. she rose to this one. "i don't know," she said as quietly as he, with as utter a bravery of bare sincerity, "i don't know how much i care for you--but i think it is a great deal." she rose upon a solemn wing of courage to a greater height of honesty. her eyes were on his, as clear as his. the mere beauty of her face had gone like a lifted veil. for a instant he saw her as sylvia herself did not dream she could be. "it is very hard," said sylvia marshall, with clear eyes and trembling lips of honest humility, "for a girl with no money to know how much she cares for a very rich man." she had never been able to imagine what she would say if the moment should come. she had certainly not intended to say this. but an unsuspected vein of granite in her rang an instant echo to his truth. she was bewildered to see his ardent gaze upon her deepen to reverence. he took her hand in his and kissed it. he tried to speak, but his voice broke. she was immensely moved to see him so moved. she was also entirely at a loss. how strangely different things always were from forecasts of them! they had suddenly taken the long-expected stride away from their former relation, but she did not know where they had arrived. what was the new status between them? what did austin think she meant? it came to her with a shock that the new status between them was, on the surface, exactly what it was in reality; that the avowed relation between them was, as far as it went, precisely in accord with the facts of the case. the utter strangeness of this in any human relationship filled her with astonishment, with awe, almost with uneasiness. it seemed unnatural not to have to pretend anything! apparently it did not seem unnatural to the man beside her. "you are a very wonderful woman," he now said, his voice still but partly under his control. "i had not thought that you could exist." he took her hand again and continued more steadily: "will you let me, for a little while longer, go on living near you? perhaps things may seem clearer to us both, later--" sylvia was swept by a wave of gratitude as for some act of magnanimity. "_you_ are the wonderful one!" she cried. not since the day hélène had told her who he was, had she felt so whole, so sound, so clean, as now. the word came rushing on the heels of the thought: "you make one feel so _clean_!" she said, unaware that he could scarcely understand her, and then she smiled, passing with her free, natural grace from the memorable pause, and the concentration of a great moment forward into the even-stepping advance of life. "that first day--even then you made me feel clean--that soap! that cold, clean water--it is your aroma!" their walk along the silent water, over the great lawn, and up the steps was golden with the level rays of the sun setting back of them, at the end of the canal, between the distant, sentinel poplars. their mood was as golden as the light. sometimes they spoke, sometimes they were silent. truth walked between them. sylvia's mind, released from the tension of that great moment, began making its usual, sweeping, circling explorations of its own depths. not all that it found was of an equal good report. once she thought fleetingly: "this is only a very, very pretty way of saying that it is all really settled. with his great wealth, he is like a reigning monarch--let him be as delicate-minded as he pleases, when he indicates a wish--" more than once--many, many times--felix morrison's compelling dark eyes looked at her penetratingly, but she resolutely turned away her head from them, and from the impulse to answer their reproach even with an indignant, well-founded reproach of her own. again and again she felt a sweet strangeness in her new position. the aroma of utter sincerity was like the scent of a wildflower growing in the sun, spicy, free. she wondered at a heart like his that could be at once ardent and subtle, that could desire so profoundly (the deep vibrations of that voice of yearning were in her ears still) and yet pause, and stand back, and wait, rather than force a hair's breadth of pretense. how he had liberated her! and once she found herself thinking, "i shall have sables myself, and diamonds, and a house as great as molly's, and i shall learn how to entertain ambassadors, as she will never know." she was ashamed of this, she knew it to be shockingly out of key with the grand passage behind them. but she had thought it. and, as these thoughts, and many more, passed through her mind, as she spoke with a quiet peace, or was silent, she was transfigured into a beauty almost startling, by the accident of the level golden beams of light back of her. her aureole of bright hair glowed like a saint's halo. the curiously placed lights and unexpected shadows brought out new subtleties in the modeling of her face. her lightened heart gleamed through her eyes, like a lighted lamp. after a time, the man fell into a complete silence, glancing at her frequently as though storing away a priceless memory.... chapter xxxv "a milestone passed, the road seems clear" as the "season" heightened, the beautiful paneled walls of mrs. marshall-smith's salon were frequently the background for chance gatherings of extremely appropriate callers. they seemed a visible emanation of the room, so entirely did they represent what that sort of a room was meant to contain. they were not only beautifully but severely dressed, with few ornaments, and those few a result of the same concentrated search for the rare which had brought together the few bibelots in the room, which had laid the single great dull persian rug on the unobtrusively polished oaken floor, which had set in the high, south windows the boxes of feathery green plants with delicate star-like flowers. and it was not only in externals that these carefully brushed and combed people harmonized with the mellow beauty of their background. they sat, or stood, moved about, took their tea, and talked with an extraordinary perfection of manner. there was not a voice there, save perhaps austin page's unstudied tones, which was not carefully modulated in a variety of rhythm and pitch which made each sentence a work of art. they used, for the most part, low tones and few gestures, but those well chosen. there was an earnest effort apparent to achieve true conversational give-and-take, and if one of the older men found himself yielding to the national passion for lengthy monologues on a favorite theme, or to the mediocre habit of anecdote, there was an instant closing in on him of carefully casual team-work on the part of the others which soon reduced him to the tasteful short comment and answer which formed the framework of the afternoon's social activities. the topics of the conversation were as explicitly in harmony with the group-ideal as the perfectly fitting gloves of the men, or the smooth, burnished waves of the women's hair. they talked of the last play at the français, of the exhibitions then on view at the petit palais, of a new tenor in the choir of the madeleine, of the condition of the automobile roads in the loire country, of the restoration of the stained glass at bourges. on such occasions, a good deal of sylvia's attention being given to modulating her voice and holding her hands and managing her skirts as did the guests of the hour, she usually had an impression that the conversation was clever. once or twice, looking back, she had been somewhat surprised to find that she could remember nothing of what had been said. it occurred to her, fleetingly, that of so much talk, some word ought to stick in her usually retentive memory; but she gave the matter no more thought. she had also been aware, somewhat dimly, that austin page was more or less out of drawing in the carefully composed picture presented on those social afternoons. he had the inveterate habit of being at his ease under all circumstances, but she had felt that he took these great people with a really exaggerated lack of seriousness, answering their chat at random, and showing no chagrin when he was detected in the grossest ignorance about the latest move of the french royalist party, or the probabilities as to the winner of the grand prix. she had seen in the corners of his mouth an inexplicable hidden imp of laughter as he gravely listened, cup in hand, to the remarks of the beautiful mrs. william winterton perth about the inevitable promiscuity of democracy, and he continually displayed a tendency to gravitate into the background, away from the center of the stage where their deference for his name, fortune, and personality would have placed him. sylvia's impression of him was far from being one of social brilliance, but rather of an almost wilful negligence. she quite grew used to seeing him, a tall, distinguished figure, sitting at ease in a far corner, and giving to the scene a pleasant though not remarkably respectful attention. on such an afternoon in january, the usual routine had been preserved. the last of the callers, carrying off mrs. marshall-smith with her, had taken an urbane, fair-spoken departure. sylvia turned back from the door of the salon, feeling a fine glow of conscious amenity, and found that austin page's mood differed notably from her own. he had lingered for a tête-à-tête, as was so frequently his habit, and now stood before the fire, his face all one sparkle of fun. "don't they do it with true american fervor!" he remarked. "it would take a microscope to tell the difference between them and a well-rehearsed society scene on the stage of the français! that's their model, of course. it is positively touching to see old colonel patterson subduing his twang and shutting the lid down on his box of comic stories. i should think mrs. patterson might allow him at least that one about the cowboy and the tenderfoot who wanted to take a bath!" the impression made on sylvia had not in the least corresponded to this one; but with a cat-like twist of her flexible mind, she fell on her feet, took up his lead, and deftly produced the only suitable material she had at command. "they _seem_ to talk well, about such interesting things, and yet i can never remember anything they say. it's odd," she sat down near the fireplace with a great air of pondering the strange phenomenon. "no, it isn't odd," he explained, dropping into the chair opposite her and stretching out his long legs to the blaze. "it's only people who do something, who have anything to say. these folks don't do anything except get up and sit down the right way, and run their voices up and down the scale so that their great-aunts would faint away to hear them! they haven't any energy left over. if some one would only write out suitable parts for them to memorize, the performance would be perfect!" he threw back his head and laughed aloud, the sound ringing through the room. sylvia had seldom seen him so light-heartedly amused. he explained: "i haven't seen this sort of solemn, genteel posturing for several years now, and i find it too delicious! to see the sweet, invincible american naïveté welling up in their intense satisfaction in being so sophisticated,--oh, the harmless dears!" he cried out upon them gaily, with the indulgence of an adult who looks on at children's play. sylvia was a trifle breathless, seeing him disappear so rapidly down this unexpected path, but she was for the moment spared the effort to overtake him by the arrival of tojiko with a tray of fresh mail. "oh, letters from home!" sylvia rejoiced, taking a bulky one and a thin one from the pile. "the fat one is from father," she said, holding it up. "he is like me, terribly given to loquaciousness. we always write each other reams when we're apart. the little flat one is from judith. she never can think of anything to say except that she is still alive and hopes i am, and that her esteem for me is undiminished. dear spartan judy!" "do you know," said the man opposite her, "if i hadn't met you, i should have been tempted to believe that the institution of the family had disappeared. i never saw anything like you marshalls! you positively seem to have a real regard for each other in spite of what bernard shaw says about the relations of blood-kin. you even, incredible as it seems, appear to feel a mutual respect!" "that's a very pretty compliment indeed," said sylvia, smiling at him flashingly, "and i'm going to reward you by reading some of judith's letter aloud. letters do paint personalities so, don't they?" he settled himself to listen. "oh, it won't take long!" she reassured him laughingly. she read: "'dear sylvie: your last letter about the palaces at versailles was very interesting. mother looked you up on the plan of the grounds in father's old baedeker. i'm glad to know you like paris so much. our chief operating surgeon says he thinks the opportunities at the school of medicine in paris are fully as good as in vienna, and chances for individual diagnoses greater. have you visited that yet?'" over the letter sylvia raised a humorous eyebrow at page, who smiled, appreciative of the point. she went on: "'lawrence is making me a visit of a few days. isn't he a queer boy! i got dr. wilkinson to agree, as a great favor, to let lawrence see a very interesting operation. right in the middle of it, lawrence fainted dead away and had to be carried out. but when he came to, he said he wouldn't have missed it for anything, and before he could really sit up he was beginning a poem about the "cruel mercy of the shining knives."'" sylvia shook her head. "isn't that lawrence! isn't that judith!" page agreed thoughtfully, their eyes meeting in a trustful intimacy. they themselves might have been bound together by a family tie, so wholly natural seemed their sociable sitting together over the fire. sylvia thought with an instant's surprise, "isn't it odd how close he has come to seem--as though i'd always, always known him; as though i could speak to him of anything--nobody else ever seemed that way to me, nobody!" she read on from the letter: "'all of us at st. mary's are feeling very sore about lawyers. old mr. winthrop had left the hospital fifteen thousand dollars in his will, and we'd been counting on that to make some changes in the operating-room and the men's accident ward that are awfully needed. and now comes along a miserable lawyer who finds something the matter with the will, and everything goes to that worthless charlie winthrop, who'll probably blow it all in on one grand poker-playing spree. it makes me tired! we can't begin to keep up with the latest x-ray developments without the new apparatus, and only the other day we lost a case, a man hurt in a railroad wreck, that i know we could have pulled through if we'd been better equipped! well, hard luck! but i try to remember mother's old uncle's motto, "whatever else you do, _don't_ make a fuss!" father has been off for a few days, speaking before alumni reunions. he looks very well. mother has got her new fruit cellar fixed up, and it certainly is great. she's going to keep the carrots and parsnips there too. i've just heard that i'm going to graduate first in my class--thought you might like to know. have a good time, sylvia. and don't let your imagination get away with you. "'your loving sister, "'judith,'" "of all the perfect characterizations!" murmured page, as sylvia finished. "i can actually see her and hear her!" "oh, there's nobody like judith!" agreed sylvia, falling into a reverie, her eyes on the fire. the peaceful silence which ensued spoke vividly of the intimacy between them. after a time sylvia glanced up, and finding her companion's eyes abstractedly fixed on the floor, she continued to look into his face, noting its fine, somewhat gaunt modeling, the level line of his brown eyebrows, the humor and kindness of his mouth. the winter twilight cast its first faint web of blue shadow into the room. the fire burned with a steady blaze. as minute after minute of this hushed, wordless calm continued, sylvia was aware that something new was happening to her, that something in her stirred which had never before made its presence known. she felt very queer, a little startled, very much bewildered. what was that half-thought fluttering a dusky wing in the back of her mind? it came out into the twilight and she saw it for what it was. she had been wondering what she would feel if that silent figure opposite her should rise and take her in his arms. as she looked at that tender, humorous mouth, she had been wondering what she would feel to press her lips upon it? she was twenty-three years old, but so occupied with mental effort and physical activity had been her life, that not till now had she known one of those half-daring, half-frightened excursions of the fancy which fill the hours of any full-blooded idle girl of eighteen. it was a woman grown with a girl's freshness of impression, who knew that ravished, scared, exquisite moment of the first dim awakening of the senses. but because it was a woman grown with a woman's capacity for emotion, the moment had a solemnity, a significance, which no girl could have felt. this was no wandering, flitting, wingèd excursion. it was a grave step upon a path from which there was no turning back. sylvia had passed a milestone. but she did not know this. she sat very still in her chair as the twilight deepened, only knowing that she could not take her eyes from those tender, humorous lips. that was the moment when if the man had spoken, if he had but looked at her ... but he was following out some thought of his own, and now rose, went to mrs. marshall-smith's fine, small desk, snapped on an electric light, and began to write. when he finished, he handed a bit of paper to sylvia. "do you suppose your sister would be willing to let me make up for the objectionable charlie winthrop's deficiences?" he asked with a deprecatory air as though he feared a refusal. sylvia looked at the piece of paper. it was a check for fifteen thousand dollars. she held there in her hand seven years of her father's life, as much money as they all had lived on from the years she was sixteen until now. and this man had but to dip pen into ink to produce it. there was something stupefying about the thought to her. she no longer saw the humor and tenderness of his mouth. she looked up at him and thought, "what an immensely rich man he is!" she said to him wonderingly, "you can't imagine how strange it is--like magic--not to be believed--to have money like that!" his face clouded. he looked down uncertainly at his feet and away at the lighted electric bulb. "i thought it might please your sister," he said and turned away. sylvia was aghast to think that she had perhaps wounded him. he seemed to fear that he had flaunted his fortune in her face. he looked acutely uncomfortable. she found that, as she had thought, she could say anything, anything to him, and say it easily. she went to him quickly and laid her hand on his arm. "it's splendid," she said, looking deeply and frankly into his eyes. "judith will be too rejoiced! it _is_ like magic. and nobody but you could have done it so that the money seems the least part of the deed!" he looked down at her, touched, moved, his eyes very tender, but sad as though with a divination of the barrier his fortune eternally raised between them. the door opened suddenly and mrs. marshall-smith came in quickly, not looking at them at all. from the pale agitation of her face they recoiled, startled and alarmed. she sat down abruptly as though her knees had given way under her. her gloved hands were perceptibly trembling in her lap. she looked straight at sylvia, and for an instant did not speak. if she had rushed in screaming wildly, her aspect to sylvia's eyes would scarcely have been more eloquent of portentous news to come. it was a fitting introduction to what she now said to them in an unsteady voice: "i've just heard--a despatch from jamiaca--something terrible has happened. the news came to the american express office when i was there. it is awful. molly sommerville driving her car alone--an appalling accident to the steering-gear, they think. molly found dead under the car." chapter xxxvi the road is not so clear it shocked sylvia that molly's death should make so little difference. after one sober evening with the stunning words fresh before their eyes, the three friends quickly returned to their ordinary routine of life. it was not that they did not care, she reflected--she _did_ care. she had cried and cried at the thought of that quivering, vital spirit broken by the inert crushing mass of steel--she could not bring herself to think of the soft body, mangled, bloody. austin cared too: she was sure of it; but when they had expressed their pity, what more could they do? the cabled statement was so bald, they hardly could believe it--they failed altogether to realize what it meant--they had no details on which to base any commentary. she who had lived so intensely, was dead. they were sorry for her. that was all. as an apology for their seeming callousness they reiterated aunt victoria's dictum: "we can know nothing about it until felix comes. let us hold our minds in suspense until we know what to think." that morrison would be in paris soon, none of them doubted. indeed, they united in insisting on the number of natural--oh, perfectly natural--reasons for his coming. he had always spent a part of every winter there, had in fact a tiny apartment on the rue st. honoré which dated from his bachelor life; and now he had a double reason for coming, since much of molly's fortune chanced to be in french bonds. her father had been (among other things) american agent for the comptoir national des escomptes, and he had taken advantage of his unusual opportunities for acquiring solid french and remunerative algerian securities. page had said at once that morrison would need to go through a good many formalities, under the french laws. so pending fuller information, they did not discuss the tragedy. their lives ran on, and molly, dead, was in their minds almost as little as molly, living but absent, had been. it was only two months before felix morrison arrived in paris. they had expected him. they had spoken of the chance of his arrival on this or that day. sylvia had rehearsed all the possible forms of self-possession for their first meeting; but on the rainy february afternoon when she came in from representing aunt victoria at a reception and saw him sitting by the fire, her heart sank down and stopped for an instant, and when it went on beating she could hear no sound but the drumming of her pulse. the back of his chair was towards her. all she could see as she stood for a moment in the doorway was his head, the thick, graying dark hair, and one long-fingered, sensitive, beautiful hand lying on the arm of the chair. at the sight, she felt in her own palm the soft firmness of those fingers as palpably as ever she had in reality. the instant's pause before aunt victoria saw her standing there, gave her back her self-control. when mrs. marshall-smith turned and gravely held out her hand, sylvia came forward with a sober self-possession. the man turned too, sprang up with an exclamation apparently of surprise, "miss marshall, you _here_!" and extended his hand. sylvia, searching his face earnestly, found it so worn, saw in it such dark traces of suffering and sorrow, that the quick tears of sympathy stood in her eyes. her dread of the meeting, a morbid dread that had in it an acknowledged element of horror, vanished. before that moment she had seen only molly's face as it had looked the day of their desperate talk, white and despairing, and resolutely bent over the steering-wheel. she had not been able to imagine felix' face at all, had instinctively put it out of her mind; but as she looked into it now, her fear of it disappeared. it was the fine, sensitive face of a fine, sensitive man who has known a great shock. what had she feared she would see there? he was still holding her hand, very much affected at seeing her, evidently still in a super-sensitive condition when everything affected him strongly. "she loved you--she admired you so!" he said, his wonderful voice wavering and uncertain. sylvia's tears fell openly at this. she sat down on a low stool near her aunt's knees. "i can't believe it--i haven't been able to believe it!" she told him; "molly was--she was more alive than anybody i ever saw!" "if you had seen her that morning," he told them both,--"like a flame of vitality--almost frightening--so vivid. she waved good-bye, and then that was not enough; she got out of the car and ran back up the hotel-step to say good-bye for just those few moments--and was off--such youth! such youth in all her--" sylvia cried out, "oh, no! no! it's too dreadful!" she felt the horror sweep down on her again; but now it did not bear felix' face among its baneful images. he stood there, shocked, stricken, but utterly bewildered, utterly ignorant--for the moment in her relief she had called his ignorance utter innocence ... they did not see him again for many days, and when he came, very briefly, speaking of business technicalities which absorbed him, he was noticeably absent and careworn. he looked much older. the gray in his thick hair had increased. he looked very beautiful and austere to sylvia. they exchanged no more than the salutations of arrival and farewell. then one day, as she and aunt victoria and austin page strolled down the long gallery of the louvre, they came upon him, looking at the ribera entombment. he joined them, walking with them through the salon carré and out to the winged victory, calling sylvia's attention to the botticelli frescoes beyond on the landing. "it's the first time i've been here," he told them, his only allusion to what lay back of him. "it is like coming back to true friends. blessed be all true friends." he shook hands with them, and went away down the great stairway, a splendid figure of dignity and grace. after this he came once and again to the apartment of the rue de presbourg, generally it would appear to use the piano. he had none in his own tiny _pied-à-terre_ and he missed it. sylvia immensely liked his continuing to cling for a time to the simple arrangements of his frugal bachelor days. he could now of course have bought a thousand pianos. they understood how he would miss his music, and stole in quietly when, upon opening the door, tojiko told them that mr. morrison had come in, and they heard from the salon his delicately firm touch on the keys. sometimes they listened from their rooms, sometimes the two women took possession of the little octagonal room off the salon, all white paneling and gilt chairs, and listened there; sometimes, as the weeks went on and an especially early spring began to envelop paris in a haze of sunshine and budding leaves, they stepped out to listen on the wrought-iron balcony which looked down the long, shining vista of the tree-framed avenue. for the most part he played bach, grave, courageous, formal, great-hearted music. sometimes he went away with no more than a nod and a smile to them, but more and more, when he had finished, he came out where they were, and stood or sat to exchange brief impressions on the enchanting season, or on some social or aesthetic treat which "_ces dames_" had been enjoying. austin page was frequently with them, as in the earlier part of the winter, and it was finally he himself who one day took the step of asking morrison if he would not go with them to the louvre. "no one could appreciate more than miss marshall what has always been such a delight to us all." they went, and not only once. that was the beginning of another phase; a period when, as he began to take up life again, he turned to his old friends to help him do it. he saw almost no one else, certainly no one else there, for he was sure to disappear upon the arrival of a caller, or the announcement of an expedition in which other people were included. but he returned again and again to the louvre with them, his theory of galleries necessitating frequent visits. nothing could be more idiotic, he held, than to try to see on one occasion all, or even half, or even a tenth part, of a great collection of works of art. "it is exactly as reasonable," he contended, "as to read through on the same day every poem in a great anthology. who could have anything but nausea for poetry after such a gorge? and they _must_ hate pictures or else be literally blind to them, the people who look at five hundred in a morning! if i had looked at every picture in the long gallery in one walk through it, i should thrust my cane through the titian francis-first itself when i came to the salon carré." so he took them to see only a few, five or six, carefully selected things--there was one wonderful day when he showed them nothing but the da vinci saint anne, and the venus of melos, comparing the dissimilar beauty of those two divine faces so vitally, that sylvia for days afterwards, when she closed her eyes and saw them, felt that she looked on two living women. she told them this and, "which one do you see most?" he asked her. "oh, the saint anne," she told him. he seemed dissatisfied. but she did not venture to ask him why. they lived in an atmosphere where omissions were vital. sylvia often wondered in those days if there ever had been a situation so precariously balanced which continued to hang poised and stable, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day. there were moments when her head was swimming with moral dizziness. she wondered if such moments ever came to the two quiet, self-controlled men who came and went, with cordial, easy friendliness, in and out of the appartement on the rue de presbourg. they gave no sign of it, they gave no sign of anything beyond the most achieved appearance of a natural desire to be obliging and indulgent to the niece of an old friend. this appearance was kept up with such unflagging perseverance that it almost seemed consciously concerted between them. they so elaborately avoided the slightest appearance of rivalry that their good taste, like a cloth thrown over an unknown object, inevitably excited curiosity as to what was concealed beneath it. and sylvia was not to be outdone. she turned her own eyes away from it as sedulously as they. she never let a conscious thought dwell on it--and like all other repressed and strangled currents of thought, it grew swollen and restive, filling her subconsciousness with monstrous, unformulated speculations. she was extremely absorbed in the luxury, the amenity, the smooth-working perfection of the life about her. she consciously concentrated all her faculties on her prodigious opportunity for aesthetic growth, for appreciation of the fine and marvelous things about her. she let go the last scruple which had held her back from accepting from aunt victoria the shower of beautiful things to wear which that connoisseur in wearing apparel delighted to bestow upon an object so deserving. she gave a brilliant outward effect of enjoying life as it came which was as impersonal as that of the two men who looked at her so frequently, and this effect went as deep as her will-power had command. but beneath--unacknowledged waves beating on the shore of her life and roughly, irresistibly, rudely fashioning it--rolled a ground-swell of imperious questionings.... was felix' perfect manner of impersonal interest solely due to the delicacy of his situation? did he feel now that he was as rich as austin ...? but, on the other hand, why did he come now and put himself in a situation which required the utmost efforts for unconsciousness on everybody's part if not because austin's being there had meant he dared not wait? and austin's change of manner since the arrival of the other man, the film of ceremony which had slid imperceptibly over the tender friendliness of his manner, did that mean that he would not take advantage of morrison's temporarily tied hands, but, with a scrupulousness all his own, would wait until the race was even and they stood foot to foot on the same level? or had he noticed at once, with those formidably clear eyes of his, some shade of her manner to felix which she had not been able to command, and was he waiting for some move from her? and how could she move until she had some sign from felix and how could he give a sign? there was nothing to do but to wait, to hope that the thin ice which now bent perilously under the pleasant ceremonies of their life in common, would hold them until.... even the wildest up-leaping wave of that tossing tide never went beyond the blank wall which came after the "until...." there were other moments when all that surge swung back and forth to the rhythm of the poisoned recollection of her unacknowledged humiliation in lydford; when, inflamed with determination to avoid another such blow in the face, sylvia almost consciously asked herself, self-contemptuously, "who am i, an obscure, poverty-stricken music-teacher out of the west, to fancy that i have but to choose between two such men, two such fortunes?" but against this counted strongly the constantly recurring revelations of the obscure pasts of many of the women whom she met during those days, women who were now shining, acknowledged firsts in the procession of success. the serene, stately, much-admired princesse de chevrille had been a miss sommers from cleveland, ohio, and she had come to paris first as a governess. the beautiful mrs. william winterton perth, now aunt victoria's favorite friend, who entertained lesser royalty and greater men of letters with equal quiet dignity, had in her youth, so she chanced casually one day to mention, known what it was to be thrifty about car-fares. there was nothing intrinsically impossible in any of the glittering vistas down which sylvia's quick eye cast involuntary glances. but inevitably, when the heaving dark tide rose as high as this, there came a swift and deadly ebbing away of it all, and into sylvia's consciousness (always it seemed to her with the most entire irrelevance) there flared up the picture of molly as she had seen her last, shimmering like a jewel in her white veil--then the other picture, the over-turned car, the golden head bruised and bloody and forever stilled--and always, always beyond that, the gaunt, monstrous possibility, too awful ever to be put into words, too impossible for credence ... from that shapeless, looming, black mass, sylvia fled away actually and physically, springing to her feet wherever she was, entering another room, taking up some other occupation. just once she had the faintest sign from beyond the wall that she was not alone in her fear of this horror. she was sitting near austin page at a tea, one of the frequent, small, richly chosen assemblages which mrs. marshall-smith gathered about her. part of the ensuing chatter on one of these occasions turned, as modern chatter frequently does, on automobiles. the husband of mrs. william winterton perth was an expert on such matters, having for some years diverted by an interest in mechanics the immense enforced leisure of a transplanted male american. he was talking incessantly that day of the wonderful improvement in steering mechanism the last few years had brought about. "i tell you what, miss marshall!" he insisted, as though she had disputed the point with him, "i tell you _what_, there used to be some excuse for piling your car up by the side of the road, but nowadays any one who doesn't keep in the road and right side up must be just plain _looking_ for a chance to use his car like a dose of cold poison." for a moment sylvia could not conceive why she felt so sickening a thrust at her heart. she turned her eyes from the speaker. they fell on a man's hand, on the arm of the chair next hers. it was austin's hand and it was shaking uncontrollably. as she gazed at it, fascinated, he thrust it deep into his pocket. she did not look at him. in a moment he rose and crossed the room. the husband of mrs. william winterton perth asked for another _petit four_, confessing his fondness for chocolate éclairs,--and embarked upon demountable rims. chapter xxxvii "_... his wife and children perceiving it, began to cry after him to return; but the man put his fingers in his ears and ran on, crying, 'life! life eternal!_'" they had been in the louvre, had spent an hour with felix in that glowing embodiment of the pomp and majesty of human flesh known as the rubens medici-room, and now, for the sheer pleasure of it, had decided to walk home. mrs. marshall-smith, endowed with a figure which showed as yet no need for exercise, and having passed youth's restless liking for it, had vetoed the plan as far as she went, and entering her waiting ear, had been borne smoothly off, an opulent juno without her peacocks. the three who were left, lingered for a moment in the quiet sunny square of the louvre, looking up at the statue of lafayette, around at the blossoming early shrubs. sylvia was still under the spell of the riotous, full-blown splendor of the paintings she had seen. wherever she looked, she saw again the rainbow brilliance of those glossy satins, that rippling flooding golden hair, those ample, heaving bosoms, those liquid gleaming eyes, the soft abundance of that white and ruddy flesh, with the patina of time like a golden haze over it. the spectacle had been magnificent and the scene they now entered was a worthy successor to it. they walked down through the garden of the tuileries and emerged upon the place de la concorde at five o'clock of a perfect april afternoon, when the great square hummed and sang with the gleaming traffic of luxury. countless automobiles, like glistening beetles, darted about, each one with its load of carefully dressed and coiffed women, looking out on the weaving glitter of the street with the proprietary, complacent stare of those who feel themselves in the midst of a civilization with which they are in perfect accord. up the avenue, beyond, streamed an incessant parade of more costly ears, more carriages, shining, caparisoned horses, every outfit sumptuous to its last detail, every one different from all the others, and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them, till in the distance they dwindled to a black stream dominated by the upward sweep of the arc de triomphe, magnified to fabulous proportions by the filmy haze of the spring day. to their left flowed the seine, blue and flashing. a little breeze stirred the new leaves on the innumerable trees. sylvia stopped for an instant to take in the marvel of this pageant, enacted every day of every season against that magnificent background. she made a gesture to call her companions' attention to it--"isn't it in the key of rubens--bloom, radiance, life expansive!" "and chabrier should set it to music," said morrison. "what does it make you think of?" she asked. "it makes me think of a beautiful young greek, in a purple chiton, with a wreath of roses in his hair." "it makes me think of a beautiful young woman, all fire and spirit, and fineness, who drinks life like a perfumed wine," said morrison, his eyes on hers. she felt a little shiver of frightened pleasure, and turned to page to carry it off, "what does it make you think of?" she asked. "it makes me think," he answered her at once, his eyes on the haze caught like a dream in the tender green of the budding trees,--"it makes me think of a half-naked, sweating man, far underground in black night, striking at a rock with a pick." if he had burst into loud profanity, the effect could not have been more shocking. "_oh!_" said sylvia, vexed and put out. she began to walk forward. morrison in his turn gave an exclamation which seemed the vent of long-stored exasperation, and said with heat: "look here, page, you're getting to be a perfect monomaniac on the subject! what earthly good does it do your man with a pick to ruin a fine moment by lugging him in!" they were all advancing up the avenue now, sylvia between the two men. they talked at each other across her. she listened intently, with the feeling that morrison was voicing for her the question she had been all her life wishing once for all to let fly at her parents' standards: "what good _did_ it do anybody to go without things you might have? conditions were too vast for one person to influence." "no earthly good," said page peaceably; "i didn't say it did him any good. miss marshall asked me what all this made me think of, and i told her." "it is simply becoming an obsession with you!" urged morrison. sylvia remembered what page had said about his irritation years ago when austin had withdrawn from the collector's field. "yes, it's becoming an obsession with me," agreed page thoughtfully. he spoke as he always did, with the simplest manner of direct sincerity. "you ought to make an effort against it, really, my dear fellow. it's simply spoiling your life for you!" "worse than that, it's making me bad company!" said page whimsically. "i either ought to reform or get out." morrison set his enemy squarely before him and proceeded to do battle. "i believe i know just what's in your mind, page: i've been watching it grow in you, ever since you gave up majolica." "i never claimed that was anything but the blindest of impulses!" protested page mildly. "but it wasn't. i knew! it was a sign you had been infected by the spirit of the times and had 'caught it' so hard that it would be likely to make an end of you. it's all right for the collective mind. that's dense, obtuse; it resists enough to keep its balance. but it's not all right for you. now you just let me talk for a few minutes, will you? i've an accumulated lot to say! we are all of us living through the end of an epoch, just as much as the people of the old régime lived through the last of an epoch in the years before the french revolution. i don't believe it's going to come with guillotines or any of those picturesque trimmings. we don't do things that way any more. in my opinion it will come gradually, and finally arrive about two or three generations from now. and it oughtn't to come any sooner! sudden changes never save time. there's always the reaction to be gotten over with, if they're sudden. gradual growths are what last. now anybody who knows about the changes of society knows that there's little enough any one person can do to hasten them or to put them off. they're actuated by a law of their own, like the law which makes typhoid fever come to a crisis in seven days. now then, if you admit that the process ought not to be hastened, and in the second place that you couldn't hasten it if you tried, what earthly use _is_ there in bothering your head about it! there are lots of people, countless people, made expressly to do whatever is necessary, blunt chisels fit for nothing but shaping grindstones. _let them do it!_ you'll only get in their way if you try to interfere. it's not your job. for the few people capable of it, there is nothing more necessary to do for the world than to show how splendid and orderly and harmonious a thing life can be. while the blunt chisels hack out the redemption of the overworked (and heaven knows i don't deny their existence), let those who can, preserve the almost-lost art of living, so that when the millennium comes (you see i don't deny that this time it's on the way!) it won't find humanity solely made up of newly freed serfs who don't know what use to make of their liberty. how is beauty to be preserved by those who know and love and serve her, and how can they guard beauty if they insist on going down to help clean out the sewers? miss marshall, don't you see how i am right? don't you see how no one can do more for the common weal than just to live, as finely, as beautifully, as intelligently as possible? and people who are capable of this noblest service to the world only waste themselves and serve nobody if they try to do the work of dray-horses." sylvia had found this wonderfully eloquent and convincing. she now broke in. "when i was a young girl in college, i used to have a pretentious, jejune sort of idea that what i wanted out of life was to find athens and live in it--and your idea sounds like that. the best athens, you know, not sensuous and selfish, but full of lovely and leisurely sensations and fine thoughts and great emotions." "it wasn't pretentious and jejune at all!" said morrison warmly, "but simply the most perfect metaphor of what must have been--of course, i can see it from here--the instinctive sane effort of a nature like yours. let's all try to live in athens so that there will be some one there to welcome in humanity." page volunteered his first contribution to the talk. "oh, i wouldn't mind a bit if i thought we were really doing what morrison thinks is our excuse for living, creating fine and beautiful lives and keeping alive the tradition of beauty and fineness. but our lives aren't beautiful, they're only easeful. they're not fine, they're only well-upholstered. you've got to have fitly squared and substantial foundations before you can build enduring beauty. and all this," he waved his hand around him at the resplendent, modern city, "this isn't athens; it's--it's corinth, if you want to go on being classic. as near as i can make out from what sylvia lets fall, the nearest approach to athenian life that i ever heard of, was the life she left behind her, her parents' life. that has all the elements of the best athenian color, except physical ease. and ease is no athenian quality! it's persian! socrates was a stone-cutter, you know. and even in the real athens, even that best athens, the one in plato's mind--there was a whole class given over to doing the dirty work for the others. that never seemed to bother plato--happy plato! but--i'm sure i don't pretend to say if it ultimately means more or less greatness for the human race--but somehow since christianity, people find it harder and harder to get back to plato's serenity on that point. i'm not arguing the case against men like you, morrison--except that there's only one of you. you've always seemed to me more like plato than anybody alive, and i've regarded you as the most enviable personality going. i'd emulate you in a minute--if i could; but if mine is a case of mania, it's a genuine case. i'm sane on everything else, but when it comes to that--it's being money that i don't earn, but they, those men off there underground, do earn and are forced to give to me--when it comes to that, i'm as fixed in my opinion as the man who thought he was a hard-boiled egg. i don't blame you for being out of patience with me. as you say i only spoil fine minutes by thinking of it, and as you charitably refrained from saying, i spoil other people's fine moments by speaking of it." "what would you _have_ us do!" morrison challenged him--"all turn in and clean sewers for a living? and wouldn't it be a lovely world, if we did!" page did not answer for a moment. "i wonder," he finally suggested mildly, "if it were all divided up, the dirty work, and each of us did our share--" "oh, impractical! impractical! wholly a back-eddy in the forward-moving current. you can't go back of a world-wide movement. things are too complicated now for everybody to do his share of anything. it's as reasonable, as to suggest that everybody do his share of watchmaking, or fancy juggling. every man to his trade! and if the man who makes watches, or cleans sewers, or even mines coal--your especial sore spot--does his work well, and is suited to it in temperament, who knows that he does not find it a satisfaction as complete as mine in telling a bit of genuine palissy ware from an imitation. you, for instance, you'd make a _pretty_ coal-miner, wouldn't you? you're about as suited to it as miss marshall here for being a college settlement worker!" sylvia broke out into an exclamation of wonder. "oh, how you do put your finger on the spot! if you knew how i've struggled to justify myself for not going into 'social work' of some kind! every girl nowadays who doesn't marry at twenty, is slated for 'social betterment' whether she has the least capacity for it or not. public opinion pushes us into it as mediaeval girls were shoved into convents, because it doesn't know what else to do with us. it's all right for judith,--it's fine for her. she's made for it. i envy her. i always have. but me--i never could bear the idea of interfering in people's lives to tell them what to do about their children and their husbands just because they were poor. it always seemed to me it was bad enough to be poor without having other people with a little more money messing around in your life. i'm different from that kind of people. if i'm sincere i can't pretend i'm not different. and i'm not a bit sure i know what's any better for them to do than what they're doing!" she had spoken impetuously, hotly, addressing not the men beside her but a specter of her past life. "how true that is--how unerring the instinct which feels it!" said morrison appreciatively. page looked at sylvia quickly, his clear eyes very tender. "yes, yes; it's her very own life that sylvia needs to live," he said in unexpected concurrence of opinion. sylvia felt that the honors of the discussion so far were certainly with felix. and austin seemed oddly little concerned by this. he made no further effort to retrieve his cause, but fell into a silence which seemed rather preoccupied than defeated. they were close to the arc de triomphe now. a brilliant sunset was firing a salvo of scarlet and gold behind it, and they stood for a moment to admire. "oh, paris! paris!" murmured morrison. "paris in april! there's only one thing better, and that we have before us--paris in may!" they turned in past the loge of the concierge, and mounted in the languidly moving elevator to the appartement. felix went at once to the piano and began playing something sylvia did not recognize, something brilliantly colored, vivid, resonant, sonorous, perhaps chabrier, she thought, remembering his remark on the avenue. without taking off her hat she stepped to her favorite post of observation, the balcony, and sat down in the twilight with a sigh of exquisitely complete satisfaction, facing the sunset, the great arch lifting his huge, harmonious bulk up out of the dim, encircling trees, the resplendent long stretch of the lighted boulevard. the music seemed to rise up from the scene like its natural aroma. austin page came out after her and leaned silently on the railing, looking over the city. morrison finished the chabrier and began on something else before the two on the balcony spoke. sylvia was asking no questions of fate or the future, accepting the present with wilful blindness to its impermanence. austin said: "i have been trying to say good-bye all afternoon. i am going back to america tomorrow." sylvia was so startled and shocked that she could not believe her ears. her heart beat hard. to an incoherent, stammered inquiry of hers, he answered, "it's my colorado property--always that. it spoils everything. i must go back, and make a decision that's needed there. i've been trying to tell you. but i can't. every time i have tried, i have not dared. if i told you, and you should beckon me back, i should not be strong enough to go on. i could not leave you, sylvia, if you lifted your hand. and that would be the end of the best of us both." he had turned and faced her, his hands back of him, gripping the railing. the deep vibrations of his voice transported her to that never-forgotten moment at versailles. he went on: "when it is--when the decision is made, i'll write you. i'll write you, and then--i shall wait to hear your answer!" from inside the room felix poured a dashing spray of diamond-like trills upon them. she murmured something, she did not know what; her breathing oppressed by her emotion. "won't you--shan't we see you--here--?" she put her hand to her side, feeling an almost intolerable pain. he moved near her, and, to bring himself to her level, knelt down on one knee, putting his elbows on the arm of her chair. the dusk had fallen so thickly that she had not seen his face before. she now saw that his lips were quivering, that he was shaking from head to foot. "it will be for you to say, sylvia," his voice was rough and harsh with feeling, "whether you see me again." he took her hands in his and covered them with kisses--no grave tokens of reverence these, as on the day at versailles, but human, hungry, yearning kisses that burned, that burned-- and then he was gone. sylvia was there alone in the enchanted twilight, the triumphal arch before her, the swept and garnished and spangled city beneath her. she lifted her hand and saw that he had left on it not only kisses but tears. if he had been there then, she would have thrown herself into his arms. chapter xxxviii sylvia comes to the wicket-gate three weeks passed before his letter came. the slow, thrilling crescendo of may had lifted the heart up to a devout certainty of june. the leaves were fully out, casting a light, new shadow on the sprinkled streets. every woman was in a bright-colored, thin summer dress, and every young woman looked alluring. the young men wore their hats tilted to one side, swung jaunty canes as they walked, and peered hopefully under the brim of every flowered feminine headdress. the days were like golden horns of plenty, spilling out sunshine, wandering perfumed airs, and the heart-quickening aroma of the new season. the nights were cool and starry. every one in paris spent as much as possible of every hour out of doors. the pale-blue sky flecked with creamy clouds seemed the dome, and the city the many-colored pavement of some vast building, so grandly spacious that the sauntering, leisurely crowds thronging the thoroughfares seemed no crowds at all, but only denoted a delightful sociability. all the spring vegetables were at their crispest, most melting perfection, and the cherries from anjou were like miniature apples of hesperus. up and down the smaller streets went white-capped little old women, with baskets on their arms, covered with snowy linen, and they chanted musically on the first three notes of the scale, so that the sunny vault above them resounded to the cry, "de la crème, fromage à la crème!" the three americans had enchanted expeditions to chantilly, to versailles again, called back from the past and the dead by the miracle of spring; to more distant formidable coucy, grimly looking out over the smiling country at its foot, to fontainebleau, even a two days' dash into touraine, to blois, amboise, loches, jewels set in the green enamels of may ... and all the time sylvia's attempt to take the present and to let the future bring what it would, was pitched perforce in a higher and higher key,--took a more violent effort to achieve. she fell deeper than ever under morrison's spell, and yet the lack of austin was like an ache to her. she had said to herself, "i will not let myself think of him until his letter comes," and she woke up in the night suddenly, seeing the fire and tenderness and yearning of his eyes, and stretching out her arms to him before she was awake. and yet she had never tried so hard to divine every shade of morrison's fastidiousness and had never felt so supreme a satisfaction in knowing that she did. there were strange, brief moments in her life now, when out of the warring complexity in her heart there rose the simple longing of a little girl to go to her mother, to feel those strong, unfailing arms about her. she began to guess dimly, without thinking about it at all, that her mother knew some secret of life, of balance, that she did not. and yet if her mother were at hand, she knew she could never explain to her--how could she, when she did not know herself?--what she was living through. how long she had waited the moment when she _would_ know! one day towards the end of may, morrison had come in for lunch, a delicately chosen, deceptively simple meal for which yoshida had outdone himself. there had been a savory mixture of sweetbreads and mushrooms in a smooth, rich, creamy sauce; green peas that had been on the vines at three o'clock that morning, and which still had the aroma of life in their delectable little balls; sparkling saumur; butter with the fragrance of dew and clover in it; crisp, crusty rolls; artichokes in oil--such a meal as no money can buy anywhere but in paris in the spring, such a simple, simple meal as takes a great deal of money to buy even in paris. "it is an art to eat like this," said morrison, more than half seriously, after he had taken the first mouthful of the golden soufflé which ended the meal. "what a may we have had! i have been thinking so often of talleyrand's saying that no one who had not lived before the french revolution, under the old régime, could know how sweet life could be; and i've been thinking that we may live to say that about the end of this régime. such perfect, golden hours as it has for those who are able to seize them. it is a debt we own the spirit of things to be grateful and to appreciate our opportunity." "as far as the luncheon goes, it's rather a joke, isn't it," said his hostess, "that it should be an oriental cook who has so caught the true gallic accent? i'll tell tojiko to tell yoshido that his efforts weren't lost on you. he adores cooking for you. no, you speak about it yourself. here comes tojiko with the mail." she reached for the _herald_ with one hand, and with the other gave sylvia a letter with the american postmark. "oh, tojiko," said morrison with the familiarity of an habitué of the house, "will you tell your brother for me that i never tasted anything like his ..." mrs. marshall-smith broke in with an exclamation of extreme astonishment. "oh--what _do_ you think--! sylvia, did you know anything about this? of all the crazy--why, what under the sun--? i always knew there was a vein of the fanatic--any man who won't smoke--you may be sure there's something unbalanced--!" she now turned the paper as she spoke and held it so that the headlines leaped out across the table: millionaire coal operator turns vast holdings over to the state son of old peter page converted to socialism "_what_!" cried morrison. even in the blankness of her stupefaction, sylvia was aware of a rising note in his voice that was by no means dismay. "yes," continued mrs. marshall-smith, reading rapidly and disconnectedly from the paper, beginning an item and dropping it, as she saw it was not the one she was searching for, "'mr. page is said to have contemplated some such step for a long ...'--m-m-m, not that ... 'well-known collector of ceramics--metropolitan museum--member of the racquet, the yacht, the century, the yale--thirty-two--mother miss allida sommerville of baltimore, formerly a great beauty'--_here_ it is," she stopped skimming and read consecutively: "'mr. page's plan has been worked out in all detail with experts. a highly paid, self-perpetuating commission of labor experts, sociologists, and men of practical experience in coal-operating has been appointed to administer mr. page's extremely extensive holdings. the profits form a fund which, under the stipulations of mr. page's agreement with the state, is to be used to finance a program of advanced social activities; to furnish money for mothers' pensions, even perhaps for fathers' pensions in the case of families too numerous to be adequately cared for on workingmen's wages; to change the public school system of the locality into open-air schools with spacious grounds for manual activities of all kinds; greatly to raise wages; to lengthen the period of schooling before children go into remunerative occupations ...'" mrs. marshall-smith looked up, said, "oh, _you_ know, the kind of thing such people are always talking about," and began to skip again, "'--extensive plans for garden cities--public libraries--books of the business to be open to employés--educational future--no philanthropy--and so forth and so forth.'" she glanced hurriedly down the page, caught the beginning of another sentence, and read: "'the news has created an immense sensation all over the country. it is prophesied that mr. page's unexpected action will throw the coal business into great confusion. other operators will find it extremely difficult to go on with the old conditions. already it is rumored that the chilton coal and coke company ...'" "well, i should think so indeed!" cried morrison emphatically, breaking in. "with modern industrial conditions hung on a hair trigger as they are, it's as though a boy had exploded a fire-cracker in the works of a watch. that means his whole fortune gone. old peter put everything into coal. austin will not have a cent--nothing but those vermont scrub forests of his. what a mad thing to do! but it's been growing on him for a long time. i've seen--i've felt it!" sylvia gave a dazed, mechanical look at the letter she held and recognized the handwriting. she turned very white. aunt victoria said instantly: "i see you have a letter to read, my dear, and i want felix to play that d'indy interlude for me and explain it--bauer is going to play it tonight for the princess de chevrille. we'll bother you with our chatter. don't you want to take it to your room to read?" sylvia stood up, holding the unopened letter in her hand. she looked about her a little wildly and said: "oh no, no! i think i'd rather be out of doors. i'll go out on the balcony." "it's raining," said mrs. marshall-smith. "no, not yet," said morrison, making a great effort to speak in an ordinary tone. "it's only going to." he sat down at the piano. sylvia passed him and went out to the balcony. she opened the letter and read it through very carefully. it was a long one and this took some time. she did not hear a note of the music which poured its plaintive, eerie cadences around her. when she had finished the letter she instantly started to read it again, with the sensation that she had not yet begun to understand it. she was now deeply flushed. she continually put back a floating strand of hair, which recurrently fell across her forehead and cheek. after a time, mrs. marshall-smith said from the open door: "felix and i are going to madeleine perth's. would you rather stay here?" sylvia nodded without looking up. she sat motionless, looking at the letter long after she had finished it. an hour passed thus. then she was aware that it was beginning to rain. the drops falling on the open letter dissolved the ink into blurred smears. she sprang up hastily and went into the salon, where she stood irresolute for a moment, and then, without calling hélène, went to her room and dressed for the street. she moved very quickly as though there were some need for extreme haste, and when she stepped into the street she fell at once automatically into the swinging step of the practised walker who sees long miles before him. half an hour later she was looking up at the façade of notre dame through the rain, and seeing there these words: "i shall be waiting at austin farm to hear if you are at all able to sympathize with me in what i have done. the memory of our last words together may help you to imagine with what anxiety i shall be waiting." she pushed open the greasy, shining leather door, passed into the interior, and stood for a moment in the incense-laden gloom of the nave. a mass was being said. the rapidly murmured latin words came to her in a dim drone, in which she heard quite clearly, quite distinctly: "there is another kind of beauty i faintly glimpse--that isn't just sweet smells and lovely sights and harmonious lines--it's the beauty that can't endure disharmony in conduct, the fine, true ear for the loveliness of life lived at its best--sylvia, finest, truest sylvia, it's what you could, if you would--you more than any other woman in the world--if we were together to try--" sylvia sank to her knees on a prie-dieu and hid her face in her hands, trying to shut out the words, and yet listening to them so intently that her breath was suspended.... "what morrison said is true--for him, since he feels it to be true. no man can judge for another. but other things are true too, things that concern me. it's true that an honest man cannot accept an ease founded, even remotely, on the misery of others. and my life has been just that. i don't know what success i shall have with the life that's beginning, but i know at least it will begin straight. there seems a chance for real shapeliness if the foundations are all honest--doesn't there? oh, sylvia--oh, my dearest love, if i could think you would begin it with me, sylvia! sylvia!" the girl sprang up and went hastily out of the church. the nun kneeling at the door, holding out the silent prayer for alms for the poor, looked up in her face as she passed and then after her with calm, understanding eyes. kneeling there, day after day, she had seen many another young, troubled soul fleeing from its own thoughts. sylvia crossed the parvis of notre dame, glistening wet, and passed over the gray seine, slate under the gray mist of the rain. under her feet the impalpable dust of a city turned to gray slime which clung to her shoes. she walked on through a narrow, mean street of mediaeval aspect where rag-pickers, drearily oblivious of the rain, quarreled weakly over their filthy piles of trash. she looked at them in astonishment, in dismay, in horror. since leaving la chance, save for that one glimpse over the edge back in the vermont mountains, she had been so consistently surrounded by the padded satin of possessions that she had forgotten how actual poverty looked. in fact, she had never had more than the briefest fleeting glances at it. this was so extravagant, so extreme, that it seemed impossible to her. and yet--and yet--she looked fleetingly into those pale, dingy, underfed, repulsive faces and wondered if coal-miners' families looked like that. but she said aloud at once, almost as though she had crooked an arm to shield herself: "but he _said_ he did not want me to answer at once! he _said_ he wanted me to take time--to take time--to take time ..." she hastened her steps to this refrain, until she was almost running; and emerged upon the broad, well-kept expanse of the boulevard st. germain with a long-drawn breath of relief. ahead of her to the right, the rue st. jacques climbed the hill to the pantheon. she took it because it was broad and clean and differed from the musty darkness from which she had come out; she fled up the steep grade with a swift, light step as though she were on a country walk. she might indeed have been upon some flat road near la chance for all she saw of the buildings, the people around her. how like austin's fine courage that was, his saying that he did not want her to decide in haste, but to take time to know what she was doing! what other man would not have stayed to urge her, to hurry her, to impose his will on hers, masterfully to use his personality to confuse her, to carry her off? for an instant, through all her wretched bewilderment, she thrilled to a high, impersonal appreciation of his saying: "if i had stayed with you, i should have tried to take you by force--but you are too fine for that, sylvia! what you could be to the man you loved if you went to him freely--that is too splendid to risk losing. i want all of you--heart, soul, mind--or nothing!" sylvia looked up through this clear white light to austin's yearning eyes, and back through the ages with a wondering pity at the dark figure of jerry fiske, emerging from his cave. she had come a long way since then. and then all this, everything fine, everything generous, ebbed away from her with deadly swiftness, and in a cold disgust with herself she knew that she had been repeating over and over morrison's "austin will not have a cent left ... nothing but those vermont scrub forests." so that was the kind of a woman she was. well, if that was the kind of woman she was, let her live her life accordingly. she was sick with indecision as she fled onward through the rain. few pedestrians were abroad in the rain, and those who were, sheltered themselves slant-wise with their umbrellas against the wind, and scudded with the storm. sylvia had an umbrella, but she did not open it. she held her face up once, to feel the rain fall on it, and this reminded her of home, and long rainy walks with her father. she winced at this, and put him hastily out of her mind. and she had been unconsciously wishing to see her mother! at the very recollection of her mother she lengthened her stride. there was another thought to run away from! she swung around the corner near the pantheon and rapidly approached the door of the great library of ste. geneviève. a thin, draggled, middle-aged woman-student, entering hastily, slipped on the wet stones and knocked from under his arm the leather portfolio of a thin, draggled, middle-aged man who was just coming out. the woman did not stop to help repair the damage she had done, but hastened desperately on into the shelter of the building. sylvia's eyes, absent as they were, were caught and held by the strange, blank look of the man, who stood motionless, his shabby hat knocked to one side of his thin, gray hair, his curiously filmed eyes fixed stupidly on the litter of papers scattered at his feet. the rain was beginning to convert them into sodden pulp, but he did not stir. the idea occurred to sylvia that he might be ill, and she advanced to help him. as he saw her stoop to pick them up, he said in french, in a toneless voice, very indifferently: "don't give yourself the trouble. they are of no value. i carry them only to make the library attendants think i am a bona-fide reader. i go there to sleep because i have no other roof." his french was entirely fluent, but the accent was american. sylvia looked up at him surprised. he returned her gaze dully, and without another look at the papers, scuffled off through the rain, across the street towards the pantheon. his boots were lamentable. sylvia had an instantly vanishing memory of a pool of quiet sunshine, of a ripely beautiful woman and a radiant young man. before she knew she was speaking, an impulsive cry had burst from her: "why, professor saunders! professor saunders! don't you know me? i am sylvia marshall!" chapter xxxix sylvia drifts with the majority "no, they don't let you sit down in here if you're as shabby as i am," said the man, continuing his slow, feeble, shuffling progress. "they know you're only a vagrant, here to get out of the rain. they won't even let you stand still long." sylvia had not been inside the pantheon before, had never been inside a building with so great a dome. they stood under it now. she sent her glance up to its vast, dim, noble heights and brought it down to the saturnine, unsavory wreck at her side. she was regretting the impulse which had made her call out to him. what could she say to him now they were together? what word, what breath could be gentle enough, light enough not to be poison to that open sore? on his part he seemed entirely unconcerned about the impression he made on her. his eyes, his sick, filmed eyes, looked at her with no shrinking, with no bravado, with an entire indifference which gave, through all the desolation of his appearance, the strangest, careless dignity to the man. he did not care what she thought of him. he did not care what any one thought of him. he gave the impression of a man whose accounts are all reckoned and the balance struck, long ago. "so this is sylvia," he said, with the slightest appearance of interest, glancing at her casually. "i always said you would make a beautiful woman. but since i knew victoria, i've seen that you must be quite what she was at your age." it might have been a voice speaking from beyond the grave, so listless, so dragging was its rhythm. "how do you happen to be in paris?" he asked. "are your parents still alive?" "oh _yes_!" said sylvia, half startled by the preposterousness of the idea that they might not be. "they're very well too. i had such a good letter from mother the other day. do you remember professor kennedy? he has just given up his position to be professor emeritus. i suppose now he'll write that book on the idiocy of the human race he's been planning so long. and old mr. reinhardt, he's still the same, they say ... wonderful, isn't it, at his age?" she was running on, not knowing what to say, and chattering rather foolishly in her embarrassment. "judith is a trained nurse; isn't that just the right thing for her? i'm visiting aunt victoria here for a while. lawrence is a freshman at...." he broke in, his hollow voice resounding in the immense, vault-like spaces around them. "you'd better go home," he said. "i'd leave tonight, if i were you." she looked at him startled, half-scared, thinking that she had been right to fancy him out of his mind. she saw with relief a burly attendant in a blue uniform lounging near a group of statuary. she could call to him, if it became necessary. "you'd better go away from her at once," went on the man, advancing aimlessly from one bay of the frescoes to another. sylvia knew now of whom he was speaking, and as he continued talking with a slow, dreary monotony, her mind raced back over the years, picking up a scrap here, a half-forgotten phrase there, an intercepted look between her father and mother, a recollection of her own, a half-finished sentence of arnold's ... "she can't be fatal for you in the same way she has been for the others, of course," the man was saying. "what she'll do for you is to turn you into a woman like herself. i remember now, i have thought many times, that you _were_ like her ... of the same clay. but you have something else too, you have something that she'll take away from you if you stay. you can't keep her from doing it. no one can get the better of her. she doesn't fight. but she always takes life. she has taken mine. she must have taken her bogie-husband's, she took young gilbert's, she took gilbert's wife's, she took arnold's in another way.... god! think of leaving a young, growing, weak soul in the care of a woman like victoria! she took that poet's, i forget his name; i suppose by this time felix morrison is ..." at this name, a terrible contraction of the heart told sylvia that she was listening to what he said. "felix morrison!" she cried in stern, angry protest. "i don't know what you're talking about--but if you think that aunt victoria--if you think felix morrison--" she was inarticulate in her indignation. "he was married last autumn to a beautiful girl--and aunt victoria--what an idea!--_no_ one was more pleased than she--why--you are _crazy_!" she flung out at him the word, which two moments before she would not have been so cruel as to think. it gave him no discomfort. "oh no, i'm not," he said with a spectral laugh, which had in it, to sylvia's dismay, the very essence of sanity. she did not know why she now shrank away from him, far more frightened than before. "i'm about everything else you might mention, but i'm not crazy. and you take my word for it and get out while you still can ... _if_ you still can?" he faintly indicated an inquiry, looking at her sideways, his dirty hand stroking the dishonoring gray stubble of his unshaven face. "as for morrison's wife ... let her get out too. gilbert tried marrying, tried it in all unconsciousness. it's only when they try to get away from her that they know she's in the marrow of their bones. she lets them try. she doesn't even care. she knows they'll come back. gilbert did. and his wife ... well, i'm sorry for morrison's wife." "she's dead," said sylvia abruptly. he took this in with a nod of the head. "so much the better for her. how did it happen that _you_ didn't fall for morrison's ..." he looked at her sharply at a change in her face she could not control. "oh, you did," he commented slackly. "well, you'd better start home for la chance tonight," he said again. they were circling around and around the shadowy interior, making no pretense of looking at the frescoed walls, to examine which had been their ostensible purpose in entering. sylvia was indeed aware of great pictured spaces, crowded dimly with thronging figures, men, horses, women--they reached no more than the outer retina of her eye. she remembered fleetingly that they had something to do with the story of ste. geneviève. she wanted intensely to escape from this phantom whom she herself had called up from the void to stalk at her side. but she felt she ought not to let pass, even coming from such a source, such utterly frenzied imaginings against one to whom she owed loyalty. she spoke coldly, with extreme distaste for the subject: "you're entirely wrong about aunt victoria. she's not in the least that kind of a woman." he shook his head slowly. "no, no; you misunderstand me. your aunt victoria is quite irreproachable, she always has been, she always will be. she is always in the right. she always will be. she did nothing to me but hire me to teach her stepson, and when my habits became too bad, discharge me, as any one would have done. she did nothing to arnold except to leave him to the best schools and the best tutors money could buy. what more could any one have done? she had not the slightest idea that horace gilbert would try to poison his wife, had not the slightest connection with their quarrel. the young poet,--adams was his name, now i remember--did not consult her before he took to cocaine. morphine is my own specialty. victoria of course deplored it as much as any one could. no, i'm not for a minute intimating that victoria is a messalina. we'd all be better off if she were. it's only our grossness that finds fault with her. your aunt is one of the most respectable women who ever lived, as 'chaste as unsunned snow--the very ice of chastity is in her!' indeed, i've often wondered if the redoubtable ephraim smith himself, for all that he succeeded in marrying her, fared any better than the rest of us. victoria would be quite capable of cheating him out of his pay. she parches, yes, she dries up the blood--but it's not by her passion, not even by ours. honest passion never kills. it's the sahara sands of her egotism into which we've all emptied our veins." sylvia was frozen to the spot by her outraged indignation that any one should dare speak to her thus. she found herself facing a fresco of a tall, austere figure in an enveloping white garment, an elderly woman with a thin, worn, noble face, who laid one fine old hand on a stone parapet and with divine compassion and tenderness looked out over a sleeping city. the man followed the direction of her eyes. "it's puvis de chavannes' ste. geneviève as an old woman, guarding and praying for the city. very good, isn't it? i especially admire the suggestion of the plain bare cell she has stepped out from. i often come here to look at it when i've nothing to eat." he seemed as flaccidly willing to speak on this as on any other topic; to find it no more interesting than the subject of his former speech. sylvia was overcome with horror of him. she walked rapidly away, towards the door, hoping he would not follow her. he did not. when she glanced back fearfully over her shoulder, she saw him still standing there, looking up at the gaunt gray figure of beneficent old age. his dreadful broken felt hat was in his hand, the water dripped from his frayed trousers over the rotting leather of his shoes. as she looked, he began to cough, loudly, terribly, so that the echoing reaches of the great nave resounded to the sound. sylvia ran back to him and thrust her purse into his hand. at first he could not speak, for coughing, but in a moment he found breath to ask, "is it victoria's money?" she did not answer. he held it for a moment, and then opening his hand let it drop. as she turned away sylvia heard it fall clinking on the stone floor. at the door she turned for one last look, and saw him weakly stooping to pick it up again. she fairly burst out of the door. it was almost dusk when she was on the street again, looking down the steep incline to the luxembourg gardens. in the rainy twilight the fierce tension of the rodin "thinker" in front of the pantheon loomed huge and tragic. she gave it a glance of startled sympathy. she had never understood the statue before. now she was a prey to those same ravaging throes. there was for the moment no escaping them. she felt none of her former wild impulse to run away. what she had been running away from had overtaken her. she faced it now, looked at it squarely, gave it her ear for the first time; the grinding, dissonant note under the rich harmony of the life she had known for all these past months, the obscure vaults underlying the shining temple in which she had been living. what beauty could there be which was founded on such an action as felix' marriage to molly--molly, whose passionate directness had known the only way out of the impasse into which felix should never have let her go?... an echo from what she had heard in the mass at notre dame rang in her ears, and now the sound was louder--austin's voice, austin's words: "a beauty that can't endure disharmony in conduct, the fine true ear for the deeper values, the foundations--" it was austin, asking himself what beauty could be in any life founded, even remotely as his was, on any one's misery? for a long time she stood there, silent, motionless, her hands clenched at her sides, looking straight before her in the rain. above her on his pedestal, the great, bronze, naked, tortured man ground his teeth as he glared out from under the inexorable limitations of his ape-like forehead, and strove wildly against the barriers of his flesh.... wildly and vainly, against inexorable limitations! sylvia was aware that an insolent young man, with moist protuberant eyes, had come up where she stood there, alone, motionless on the public street. he put his arm in hers, clasped her hand in a fat, soft palm, and, "_allons, ma belle!_" he said with a revolting gayety. sylvia pulled away from him, cried out fiercely in english, "don't you dare to touch me!" and darted away. he made no attempt at pursuit, acknowledging his mistake with an easy shrug and turning off to roam, a dim, predatory figure, along the dusky street. he had startled and frightened the girl so that she was trembling when she ventured to slow down to a walk under the glaring lights of the boulevard st. michel. she was also shivering with wet and cold, and without knowing it, she was extremely hungry. as she fled along the boulevard in the direction of her own quarter of the city, her eye caught the lighted clock at the kiosk near cluny. she was astonished to see that it was after seven o'clock. how long could she have stood there, under the shadow of that terrific thinker, consumed quite as much as he by the pain of trying to rise above mere nature? an hour--more than an hour, she must have been there. the pantheon must have closed during that time, and the dreadful, sick man must have passed close by her. where was he now? what makeshift shelter harbored that cough, those dirty, skeleton hands, those awful eyes which had outlived endurance and come to know peace before death.... she shivered and tried to shrink away from her wet, clinging clothing. she had never, in all her life before, been wet and cold and hungry and frightened, she had never known from what she had been protected. and now the absence of money meant that she must walk miles in the rain before she could reach safety and food. for three cents she could ride. but she had not three cents. how idiotic she had been not to keep a few sous from her purse. what a sickening thing it had been to see him stoop to pick it up after he had tried to have the pride not to touch it. that was what morphine had done for him. and he would buy more morphine with that money, that was the reason he had not been able to let it lie ... the man who had been to her little girlhood the radiant embodiment of strength and fineness! her teeth were chattering, her feet soaked and cold. she tried to walk faster to warm her blood, and discovered that she was exhausted, tired to the marrow of her bones. her feet dragged on the pavement, her arms hung heavily by her side, but she dared not stop a moment lest some other man with abhorrent eyes should approach her. she set her teeth and walked; walked across the seine without a glance at its misted lights blinking through the rain, walked on past the prison of marie antoinette, without a thought of that other harmless woman who had loved bright and lovely things while others suffered: walked on upon the bridge across the seine again. this bewildered her, making her think that she was so dazed she had doubled on her tracks. she saw, a long way off, a solitary hooded sergent de ville, and dragged herself across an endless expanse of wet asphalt to ask him her way. but just before she reached him, she remembered suddenly that of course she was on the island and was obliged to cross the seine again before reaching the right bank. she returned weary and disheartened to her path, crossed the bridge, and then endlessly, endlessly, set one heavy foot before the other under the glare of innumerable electric lights staring down on her and on the dismal, wet, and deserted streets. the clocks she passed told her that it was nearly eight o'clock. then it was past eight. what must they be thinking of her on the rue de presbourg? she tried again to hurry, but could force her aching muscles to no more than the plod, plod, plod of her dogged advance over those interminable miles of pavement. there was little of her then that was not cold, weary, wet flesh, suffering all the discomforts that an animal can know. she counted her steps for a long time, and became so stupidly absorbed in this that she made a wrong turning and was blocks out of her way before she noticed her mistake. this mishap reduced her almost to tears, and it was when she was choking them weakly back and setting herself again to the cruel long vista of the champs-elysées that an automobile passed her at top speed with a man's face pressed palely to the panes. almost at once the car stopped in answer to a shouted command; it whirled about and bore down on her. felix morrison sprang out and ran to her with outstretched arms, his rich voice ringing through the desolation of the rain and the night--"sylvia! sylvia! are you safe?" he almost carried her back to the car, lifted her in. there were wraps there, great soft, furry, velvet wraps which he cast about her, murmuring broken ejaculations of emotion, of pity, of relief--"oh, your hands, how cold! sylvia, how _could_ you? here, drink this! i've been insane,--absolutely out of my mind! let me take off your hat--oh, your poor feet--i was on my way to--i was afraid you might have--oh, sylvia, sylvia, to have you safe!" she tried to bring to mind something she had intended to remember; she even repeated the phrase over to herself, "it was an ugly, ugly thing to have married molly," but she knew only that he was tenderness and sheltering care and warmth and food and safety. she drew long quivering breaths like a child coming out of a sobbing fit. then before there was time for more thought, the car had whirled them back to the door, where aunt victoria, outwardly calm, but very pale, stood between the concierge and his wife, looking out into the rainy deserted street. at the touch of those warm embracing arms, at that radiant presence, at the sound of that relieved, welcoming voice, the nightmare of the pantheon faded away to blackness.... half an hour later, she sat, fresh from a hot bath, breathing out delicately a reminiscence of recent violet water and perfumed powder; fresh, fine under-linen next her glowing skin; shining and refreshed, in a gown of chiffon and satin; eating her first mouthful of yoshido's ambrosial soup. "why, i'm so sorry," she was saying. "i went out for a walk, and then went further than i meant to. i've been over on the left bank part of the time, in notre dame and the pantheon. and then when i started to come home it took longer than i thought. it's so apt to, you know." "why in the world, my dear, did you _walk_ home?" cried aunt victoria, still brooding over her in pitying sympathy. "i'd--i'd lost my purse. i didn't have any money." "but you don't pay for a cab till you come to the end of your journey! you could have stepped into a taxi and borrowed the money of the concierge here." sylvia was immensely disconcerted by her rustic naïveté in not thinking of this obvious device. "oh, of course! how could i have been so--but i was tired when i came to start home--i was very tired--too tired to think clearly!" this brought them all back to the recollection of what had set her off on her walk. there was for a time rather a strained silence; but they were all very hungry--dinner was two hours late--and the discussion of yoshido's roast duckling was anything but favorable for the consideration of painful topics. they had champagne to celebrate her safe escape from the adventure. to the sensation of perfect ease induced by the well-chosen dinner this added a little tingling through all sylvia's nerves, a pleasant, light, bright titillation. all might have gone well if, after the dinner, felix had not stepped, as was his wont, to the piano. sylvia had been, up to that moment, almost wholly young animal, given over to bodily ecstasy, of which not the least was the agreeable warmth on her silk-clad ankle as she held her slippered foot to the fire. but at the first chords something else in her, slowly, with extreme pain, awoke to activity. all her life music had spoken a language to which she could not shut her ears, and now--her face clouded, she shifted her position, she held up a little painted screen to shield her face from the fire, she finally rose and walked restlessly about the room. every grave and haunting cadence from the piano brought to her mind, flickering and quick, like fire, a darting question, and every one she stamped out midway, with an effort of the will. the intimacy between felix and aunt victoria, it was strange she had never before thought--of course not--what a hideous idea! that book, back in lydford, with horace gilbert's name on the fly-leaf, and aunt victoria's cool, casual voice as she explained, "oh, just a young architect who used to--" oh, the man in the pantheon was simply brutalized by drugs; he did not know what he was saying. his cool, spectral laugh of sanity sounded faintly in her ears again. and then, out of a mounting foam of arpeggios, there bloomed for her a new idea, solid enough, broad enough, high enough, for a refuge against all these wolfish fangs. she sat down to think it out, hot on the trail of an answer, the longed-for answer. it had just occurred to her that there was no possible logical connection between any of those skulking phantoms and the golden lovely things they tried to defile. even if some people of wealth and ease and leisure were not as careful about moral values as about colors, and aesthetic harmonies--that meant nothing. the connection was purely fortuitous. how silly she had been not to see that. grant, for purposes of argument, that aunt victoria was self-centered and had lived her life with too little regard for its effect on other people,--grant even that felix had, under an almost overpowering temptation, not kept in a matter of conduct the same rigid nicety of fastidiousness which characterized his judgment of marbles--what of it? that did not mean that one could only be fine and true in conduct by giving up all lovely things and wearing hair-shirts. what an outgrown, mediaeval idea! how could she have been for a moment under its domination! it was just that old puritanism, spartanism of her childhood, which was continually reaching up its bony hand from the grave where she had interred it. the only danger came, she saw it now, read it plainly and clear-headedly in the lives of the two people with her, the only danger came from a lack of proportion. it certainly did seem to be possible to allow the amenities and aesthetic pleasures to become so important that moral fineness must stand aside till they were safe. but anybody who had enough intelligence could keep his head, even if the temptation was alluring. and simply because there was that possible danger, why not enjoy delightful things as long as they did not run counter to moral fineness! how absurd to think there was any reason why they should; quite the contrary, as a thousand philosophers attested. they would not in her case, at least! of course, if a decision had to be taken between the two, she would never hesitate--never! as she phrased this conviction to herself, she turned a ring on her white slim finger and had a throb of pleasure in the color of the gem. what harmless, impersonal pleasures they were! how little they hurt any one! and as to this business of morbidly probing into healthy flesh, of insisting on going back of everything, farther than any one could possibly go, and scrutinizing the origin of every dollar that came into your hand ... why, that way lay madness! as soon try to investigate all the past occupants of a seat in a railway before using it for a journey. modern life was not organized that way. it was too complicated. her mind rushed on excitedly, catching up more certainty, more and more reinforcements to her argument as it advanced. there was, therefore, nothing inherent in the manner of life she had known these last months to account for what seemed ugly underneath. there was no reason why some one more keenly on his guard could not live as they did and escape sounding that dissonant note! the music stopped. morrison turned on the stool and seeing her bent head and moody stare at the fire, sent an imploring glance for help to mrs. marshall-smith. just let her have the wealth and leisure and let her show how worthily she could use it! there would be an achievement! sylvia came around to another phase of her new idea, there would be something worth doing, to show that one could be as fine and true in a palace as in a hut,--even as in a vermont farmhouse! at this, suddenly all thought left her. austin page stood before her, fixing on her his clear and passionate and tender eyes. at that dear and well-remembered gaze, her lip began to quiver like a child's, and her eyes filled. mrs. marshall-smith stirred herself with the effect of a splendid ship going into action with all flags flying. "sylvia dear," she said, "this rain tonight makes me think of a new plan. it will very likely rain for a week or more now. paris is abominable in the rain. what do you say to a change? madeleine perth was telling me this afternoon that the white star people are running a few ships from portsmouth by way of cherbourg around by gibraltar, through the mediterranean to naples. that's one trip your rolling-stone of an aunt has never taken, and i'd rather like to add it to my collection. we could be in naples in four days from cherbourg and spend a month in italy, going north as the heat arrived. felix--why don't you come along? you've been wanting to see the new low reliefs in the terme, in rome?" sylvia's heart, like all young hearts, was dazzled almost to blinking by the radiance shed from the magic word italy. she turned, looking very much taken aback and bewildered, but with light in her eyes, color in her face. morrison burst out: "oh, a dream realized! something to live on all one's days, the pines of the borghese--the cypresses of the villa medici--roses cascading over the walls in rome, the view across the campagna from the terraces at rocca di papa--" sylvia thought rapidly to herself: "austin _said_ he did not want me to answer at once. he _said_ he wanted me to take time--to take time! i can decide better, make more sense out of everything, if i--after i have thought more, have taken more time. no, i am not turning my back on him. only i must have more time to think--" aloud she said, after a moment's silence, "oh, nothing could be lovelier!" she lay in her warm, clean white bed that night, sleeping the sound sleep of the healthy young animal which has been wet and cold and hungry, and is now dry and warmed and fed. outside, across the city, on his bronze pedestal, the tortured thinker, loyal to his destiny, still strove terribly against the limitations of his ape-like forehead. book iv; _the strait path_ chapter xl a call from home it was quite dark when they arrived in the harbor at naples; and they were too late to go through the necessary formalities of harbor entering. in company with several other in-and outward-bound steamers, the _carnatic_ lay to for the night. some one pointed out a big liner which would sail for new york the next morning, lying like a huge, gaily lighted island, the blare of her band floating over the still water. sylvia slept little that night, missing the rolling swing of the ship, and feeling breathless in the stifling immobility of the cabin. she tossed about restlessly, dozing off at intervals and waking with a start to get up on her knees and look out through the port-hole at the lights of naples blazing steadily in their semicircle. she tried to think several times, about her relations to felix, to austin--but nothing came to her mind except a series of scenes in which they had figured, scenes quite disconnected, which brought no enlightenment to her. as she lay awake thus, staring at the ceiling, feeling in the intense silence and blackness that the fluttering of her eyelids was almost audible, her heart beating irregularly, now slow, now fast, it occurred to her that she was beginning to know something of the intensity of real life--real grown-up life. she was astonished to enjoy it so little. she fell at last, suddenly, fathoms deep into youthful slumber, and at once passed out from tormented darkness into some strange, sunny, wind-swept place on a height. and she was all one anguish of longing for austin. and he came swiftly to her and took her in his arms and kissed her on the lips. and it was as it had been when she was a child and heard music, she was carried away by a great swelling tide of joy ... but dusk began to fall again; austin faded; through the darkness something called and called to her, imperatively. with great pain she struggled up through endless stages of half-consciousness, until she was herself again, sylvia marshall, heavy-eyed, sitting up in her berth and saying aloud, "yes, what is it?" in answer to a knocking on the door. the steward's voice answered, announcing that the first boat for shore would leave in an hour. sylvia sprang out of bed, the dream already nothing more than confused brightness in her mind. by the time she was dressed, it had altogether gone, and she only knew that she had had a restless night. she went out on the deck, longing for the tonic of pure air. the morning was misty--it had rained during the night--and clouds hung heavy and low over the city. out from this gray smother the city gleamed like a veiled opal. neither felix nor her aunt was to be seen. when she went down to breakfast, after a brisk tramp back and forth across the deck, she was rosy and dewy, her triumphant youth showing no sign of her vigils. she was saying to herself: "now i've come, it's too idiotic not to enjoy it. i _shall_ let myself go!" hélène attended to the ladies' packing and to the labeling and care of the baggage. empty-handed, care-free, feeling like a traveling princess, sylvia climbed down from the great steamer into a dirty, small harbor-boat. aunt victoria sat down at once on the folding camp-chair which hélène always carried for her. sylvia and felix stood together at the blunt prow, watching the spectacle before them. the clouds were lifting from the city and from vesuvius, and from sylvia's mind. her spirits rose as the boat went forward into the strange, foreign, glowing scene. the oily water shimmered in smooth heavings as the clumsy boat advanced upon it. the white houses on the hills gleamed out from their palms. as the boat came closer to the wharf, the travelers could see the crowds of foreign-looking people, with swarthy faces and cheap, ungraceful clothes, looking out at the boat with alert, speculative, unwelcoming eyes. the noise of the city streets, strange to their ears after the days of sea silence, rose clattering, like a part of the brilliance, the sparkle. the sun broke through the clouds, poured a flood of glory on the refulgent city, and shone hotly on the pools of dirty water caught in the sunken spots of the uneven stone pavement. aunt victoria made her way up the gang-plank to the landing dock, achieving dignity even there. felix sprang after her, to hand her her chair, and helene and sylvia followed. mrs. marshall-smith sat down at once, opening her dark-purple parasol, the tense silk of which was changed by the hot southern sun into an iridescent bubble. "we will wait here till the steward gets our trunks out," she announced." it will be amusing to watch the people." the four made an oasis of aristocracy in the seething, shouting, frowzy, gaudy, southern crowd, running about with the scrambling, undignified haste of ants, sweating, gesticulating, their faces contorted with care over their poor belongings. sylvia was acutely conscious of her significance in the scene. she was also fully aware that felix missed none of the contrast she made with the other women. she felt at once enhanced and protected by the ignobly dressed crowd about her. felix was right--in america there could be no distinction, there was no background for it. the scene about them was theatrically magnificent. in the distance vesuvius towered, cloud-veiled and threatening, the harbor shone and sparkled in the sun, the vivid, outreaching arms of naples clasped the jewel-like water. from it all sylvia extracted the most perfect distillation of traveler's joy. she felt the well-to-do tourist's care-free detachment from the fundamentals of life, the tourist's sense that everything exists for the purpose of being a sight for him to see. she knew, and knew with delight, the wanderer's lightened, emancipated sense of being at a distance from obligations, that cheerful sense of an escape from the emprisoning solidarity of humanity which furnishes the zest of life for the tourist and the tramp, enabling the one light-heartedly to offend proprieties and the other casually to commit murder. she was embarked upon a moral vacation. she was out of the bastile of right and wrong. she had a vision of what freedom from entangling responsibilities is secured by traveling. she understood her aunt's classing it as among the positive goods of life. a man in a shabby blue uniform, with a bundle of letters in his hand, walked past them towards the boat. "oh, the mail," said mrs. marshall-smith. "there may be some for us." she beckoned the man to her, and said, "marshall-smith? marshall? morrison?" the man sorted over his pile. "cable for miss marshall," he said, presenting it to the younger lady with a bold, familiar look of admiration. "letter for f. morrison: two letters for mrs. marshall-smith." sylvia opened her envelope, spread out the folded sheet of paper, and read what was scrawled on it, with no realization of the meaning. she knew only that the paper, felix, her aunt, the crowd, vanished in thick blackness, through which, much later, with a great roaring in her ears, she read, as though by jagged flashes of lightning: "mother very ill. come home at once. judith." it seemed to her an incalculably long time between her first glance at the words and her understanding of them, but when she emerged from the blackness and void, into the flaunting sunlight, the roaring still in her ears, the paper still in her hands, the scrawled words still venomous upon it, she saw that not a moment could have passed, for felix and her aunt were unfolding letters of their own, their eyes beginning to run quickly over the pages. sylvia stood quite still, feeling immeasurably and bitterly alone. she said to herself: "mother is very sick. i must go home at once. judith." but she did not know what she said. she felt only an impulse to run wildly away from something that gave her intolerable pain. mrs. marshall-smith turned over a page of her letter, smiling to herself, and glanced up at her niece. her smile was smitten from her lips. sylvia had a fantastic vision of her own aspect from the gaping face of horror with which her aunt for an instant reflected it. she had never before seen aunt victoria with an unprepared and discomposed countenance. it was another feature of the nightmare. for suddenly everything resolved itself into a bad dream,--her aunt crying out, hélène screaming and running to her, felix snatching the telegram from her and reading it aloud--it seemed to sylvia that she had heard nothing for years but those words, "mother very sick. come home at once. judith." she heard them over and over after his voice was silent. through their constant echoing roar in her ears she heard but dimly the babel of talk that arose--aunt victoria saying that she could not of course leave at once because no passage had been engaged, hélène foolishly offering smelling-salts, felix darting off to get a carriage to take them to the hotel where she could be out of the crowd and they could lay their plans--"oh, my poor dear!--but you may have more reassuring news tomorrow, you know," said mrs. marshall-smith soothingly. the girl faced her aunt outraged. she thought she cried out angrily, "tomorrow!" but she did not break her silence. she was so torn by the storm within her that she had no breath for recriminations. she turned and ran rapidly some distance away to the edge of the wharf, where some small rowboats hung bobbing, their owners sprawled on the seats, smoking cigarettes and chattering. sylvia addressed the one nearest her in a strong, imperious voice. "i want you to take me out to that steamer," she said, pointing out to the liner in the harbor. the man looked up at her blankly, his laughing, impertinent brown face sobered at once by the sight of her own. he made a reply in italian, raising his shoulders. some ill-dressed, loafing stragglers on the wharf drew near sylvia with an indolent curiosity. she turned to them and asked, "do any of you speak english?" although it was manifestly inconceivable that any of those typical neapolitans should. one of them stepped forward, running his hand through greasy black curls. "i kin, lady," he said with a fluent, vulgar new york accent. "what ye want?" "tell that man," said sylvia, her lips moving stiffly, "to take me out to the ship that is to leave for america this morning--and now--this minute, i may be late now!" after a short impassioned colloquy, the loafer turned to her and reported: "he says if he took you out, you couldn't git on board. them big ships ain't got no way for folks in little boats to git on. and he'd ask you thirty lire, anyhow. that's a fierce price. say, if you'll wait a minute, i can get you a man that'll do it for--" mrs. marshall-smith and hélène had followed, and now broke through the line of ill-smelling loungers. mrs. marshall-smith took hold of her niece's arm firmly, and began to draw her away with a dignified gesture. "you don't know what you are doing, child," she said with a peremptory accent of authority. "you are beside yourself. come with me at once. this is no--" sylvia did not resist her. she ignored her. in fact, she did not understand a word that her aunt said. she shook off the older woman's hand with one thrust of her powerful young arm, and gathering her skirts about her, leaped down into the boat. she took out her purse and showed the man a fifty-lire bill. "row fast! fast!" she motioned to him, sitting down in the stern and fixing her eyes on the huge bulk of the liner, black upon the brilliance of the sunlit water. she heard her name called from the wharf and turned her face backward, as the light craft began to move jerkily away. felix had come up and now stood between mrs. marshall-smith and her maid, both of whom were passionately appealing to him! he looked over their heads, saw the girl already a boat-length from the wharf, and gave a gesture of utter consternation. he ran headlong to the edge of the dock and again called her name loudly, "sylvia! _sylvia!_" there was no mistaking the quality of that cry. it was the voice of a man who sees the woman he loves departing from him, and who wildly, imperiously calls her back to him. but she did not return. the boat was still so close that she could look deeply into his eyes. through all her tumult of horror, there struck cold to sylvia's heart the knowledge that they were the eyes of a stranger. the blow that had pierced her had struck into a quivering center of life, so deep within her, that only something as deep as its terrible suffering could seem real. the man who stood there, so impotently calling to her, belonged to another order of things--things which a moment ago had been important to her, and which now no longer existed. he had become for her as remote, as immaterial as the gaudy picturesqueness of the scene in which he stood. she gave him a long strange look, and made a strange gesture, a gesture of irrevocable leave-taking. she turned her face again to the sea, and did not look back. they approached the liner, and sylvia saw some dark heads looking over the railing at her. her boatman rowed around the stern to the other side, where the slanting stairs used in boarding the harbor-boats still hung over the side. the landing was far above their heads. sylvia stood up and cried loudly to the dull faces, staring down at her from the steerage deck. "send somebody down on the stairs to speak to me." there was a stir; a man in a blue uniform came and looked over the edge, and went away. after a moment, an officer in white ran down the stairs to the hanging landing with the swift, sure footing of a seaman. sylvia stood up again, turning her white face up to him, her eyes blazing in the shadow of her hat. "i've just heard that my mother is very sick, and i must get back to america at once. if you will let down the rope ladder, i can climb up. i must go! i have plenty of money. i _must_!" the officer stared, shook his head, and ran back up the stairs, disappearing into the black hole in the ship's side. the dark, heavy faces continued to hang over the railing, staring fixedly down at the boat with a steady, incurious gaze. sylvia's boatman balanced his oar-handles on his knees, rolled a cigarette and lighted it. the boat swayed up and down on the shimmering, heaving roll of the water, although the ponderous ship beside it loomed motionless as a rock. the sun beat down on sylvia's head and up in her face from the molten water till she felt sick, but when another officer in white, an elderly man with an impassive, bearded face, came down the stairs, she rose up, instantly forgetful of everything but her demand. she called out her message again, straining her voice until it broke, poised so impatiently in the little boat, swinging under her feet, that she seemed almost about to spring up towards the two men leaning over to catch her words. when she finished, the older man nodded, the younger one ran back up the stairs, and returned with a rope ladder. sylvia's boatman stirred himself with an ugly face of misgiving. he clutched at her arm, and made close before her face the hungry, mediterranean gesture of fingering money. she took out her purse, gave him the fifty-lire note, and catching at the ladder as it was flung down, disregarding the shouted commands of the men above her to "wait!" she swung herself upon it, climbing strongly and surely in spite of her hampering skirts. the two men helped her up, alarmed and vexed at the risk she had taken. they said something about great crowds on the boat, and that only in the second cabin was there a possibility for accommodations. if she answered them, she did not know what she said. she followed the younger man down a long corridor, at first dark and smelling of hemp, later white, bright with electric light, smelling strongly of fresh paint, stagnant air, and machine-oil. they emerged in a round hallway at the foot of a staircase. the officer went to a window for a conference with the official behind it, and returned to sylvia to say that there was no room, not even a single berth vacant. some shabby woman-passengers with untidy hair and crumpled clothes drew near, looking at her with curiosity. sylvia appealed to them, crying out again, "my mother is very sick and i must go back to america at once. can't any of you--can't you--?" she stopped, catching at the banisters. her knees were giving way under her. a woman with a flabby pale face and disordered gray hair sprang towards her and took her in her arms with a divine charity. "you can have half my bed!" she cried, drawing sylvia's head down on her shoulder. "poor girl! poor girl! i lost my only son last year!" her accent, her look, the tones of her voice, some emanation of deep humanity from her whole person, reached sylvia's inner self, the first message that had penetrated to that core of her being since the deadly, echoing news of the telegram. upon her icy tension poured a flood of dissolving warmth. her hideous isolation was an illusion. this plain old woman, whom she had never seen before, was her sister, her blood-kin,--they were both human beings. she gave a cry and flung her arms about the other's neck, clinging to her like a person falling from a great height, the tears at last streaming down her face. chapter xli home again the trip home passed like a long shuddering bad dream in which one waits eternally, bound hand and foot, for a blow which does not fall. somehow, before the first day was over, an unoccupied berth was found for sylvia, in a tiny corner usually taken by one of the ship's servants. sylvia accepted this dully. she was but half alive, all her vital forces suspended until the journey should be over. the throbbing of the engines came to seem like the beating of her own heart, and she lay tensely in her berth for hours at a time, feeling that it was partly her energy which was driving the ship through the waters. she only thought of accomplishing the journey, covering the miles which lay before her. from what lay at the end she shrank back, returning again to her hypnotic absorption in the throbbing of the engines. the old woman who had offered to share her berth had disappeared at the first rough water and had been invisible all the trip. sylvia did not think of her again. that was a recollection which with all its sacred significance was to come back later to sylvia's maturer mind. the ship reached new york late in the afternoon, and docked that night. sylvia stood alone, in her soiled wrinkled suit, shapeless from constant wear, her empty hands clutching at the railing, and was the first passenger to dart down the second-class gang-plank. she ran to see if there were letters or a telegram for her. "yes, there is a telegram for you," said the steward, holding out a sealed envelope to her. "it came on with the pilot and ought to have been given you before." she took the envelope, but was unable to open it. the arc lights flared and winked above her in the high roof of the wharf; the crowds of keen-faced, hard-eyed men and women in costly, neat-fitting clothing were as oblivious of her and as ferociously intent on their own affairs as the shabby, noisy crowd she had left in naples, brushing by her as though she were a part of the wharf as they bent over their trunks anxiously, and locked them up with determination. it seemed to sylvia that she could never break the spell of fear which bound her fast. minute after minute dragged by, and she still stood, very white, very sick. she was aware that some one stood in front of her, looking into her face, and she recognized one of the ship's officials whom she had noticed from a distance on the ship, an under-officer, somehow connected with the engines, who had sat at table with the second-class passengers. he was a burly, red-faced man, with huge strong hands and a bald head. he looked at her now for a moment with an intent kindness, and taking her arm led her a step to a packing-case on which he made her sit down. at the break in her immobility, a faintness came over sylvia. the man bent over her and began to fan her with his cap. a strong smell of stale and cheap tobacco reached sylvia from all of his obese person, but his vulgar, ugly face expressed a profoundly self-forgetful concern. "there, feelin' better?" he asked, his eyes anxiously on hers. the man looked at the envelope comprehendingly: "oh--bad news--" he murmured. sylvia opened her hand and showed him that it had not been opened. "i haven't looked at it yet," she said pitifully. the man made an inarticulate murmur of pity--put out his thick red fingers, took the message gently from her hand, and opened it. as he read she searched his face with an impassioned scrutiny. when he raised his eyes from the paper, she saw in them, in that grossly fleshy countenance, such infinite pity that even her swift intuition of its meaning was not so swift as to reach her heart first. the blow did not reach her naked and unprotected in the solitude of her egotism, as it had at naples. confusedly, half-resentfully, but irresistibly she knew that she did not--could not--stand alone, was not the first thus to be struck down. this knowledge brought the tonic summons to courage. she held out her hand unflinchingly, and stood up as she read the message, "mother died this morning at dawn." the telegram was dated three days before. she was now two days from home. she looked up at the man before her and twice tried to speak before she could command her voice. then she said quite steadily: "i live in the west. can you tell me anything about trains to chicago?" "i'm going with ye, to th' train," he said, taking her arm and moving forward. two hours later his vulgar, ugly, compassionate face was the last she saw as the train moved out of the station. he did not seem a stranger to sylvia. she saw that he was more than middle-aged, he must have lost _his_ mother, there must have been many deaths in his past. he seemed more familiar to her than her dearest friends had seemed before; but from now on she was to feel closer to every human being than before to her most loved. a great breach had been made in the wall of her life--the wall which had hidden her fellows from her. she saw them face the enigma as uncomprehendingly, as helplessly as she, and she felt the instinct of terror to huddle close to others, even though they feel--_because_ they feel--a terror as unrelieved. it was not that she loved her fellow-beings more from this hour, rather that she felt, to the root of her being, her inevitable fellowship with them. the journey home was almost as wholly a period of suspended animation for sylvia as the days on the ocean had been. she had read the telegram at last; now she knew what had happened, but she did not yet know what it meant. she felt that she would not know what it meant until she reached home. how could her mother be dead? what did it mean to have her mother dead? she said the grim words over and over, handling them with heartsick recklessness as a desperate man might handle the black, ugly objects with smoking fuses which he knows carry death. but for sylvia no explosion came. no ravaging perception of the meaning of the words reached her strained inner ear. she said them over and over, the sound of them was horrifying to her, but in her heart she did not believe them. her mother, _her_ mother could not die! there was no one, of course, at the la chance station to meet her, and she walked out through the crowd and took the street-car without having seen a familiar face. it was five o'clock in the afternoon then, and six when she walked up the dusty country road and turned in through the gate in the hedge. there was home--intimately a part of her in every detail of its unforgotten appearance. the pines stood up strong in their immortal verdure, the thick golden hush of the summer afternoon lay like an enchantment about the low brown house. and something horrible, unspeakably horrible had happened there. under the forgotten dust and grime of her long railway journey, she was deadly pale as she stepped up on the porch. judith came to the door, saw her sister, opened her arms with a noble gesture, and clasped sylvia to her in a strong and close embrace. not a word was spoken. the two clung to each other silently, sylvia weeping incessantly, holding fast to the dear human body in her arms, feeling herself dissolved in a very anguish of love and pain. her wet cheek was pressed against judith's lips, the tears rained down in a torrent. all the rich, untapped strength of her invincible youth was in that healthful flood of tears. there were none such in the eyes of professor marshall as he came down the stairs to greet his daughter. sylvia was immeasurably shocked by his aspect. he did not look like her father. she sought in vain in that gray countenance for any trace of her father's expression. he came forward with a slow, dragging step, and kissed his daughter, taking her hand--his, she noticed, felt like a sick man's, parched, the skin like a dry husk. he spoke, in a voice which had no resonance, the first words that had been uttered: "you must be very tired, sylvia. you would better go and lie down. your sister will go with you." he himself turned away and walked slowly towards the open door. sylvia noticed that he shuffled his feet as he walked. judith drew sylvia away up the stairs to her own slant-ceilinged room, and the two sat down on the bed, side by side, with clasped hands. judith now told briefly the outline of what had happened. sylvia listened, straining her swollen eyes to see her sister's face, wiping away the tears which ran incessantly down her pale, grimy cheeks, repressing her sobs to listen, although they broke out in one burst after another. her mother had gone down very suddenly and they had cabled at once--then she grew better--she had been unspeakably brave--fighting the disease by sheer will-power--she had conquered it--she was gaining--they were sorry they had cabled sylvia--she had not known she was going to die--none of them had dreamed she was going to die--suddenly as the worst of her disease had spent itself and the lungs were beginning to clear--suddenly her heart had given way, and before the nurse could call her husband and children to her, she was gone. they had been there under the same roof, and had not been with her at the last. the last time they had seen her, she was alive and smiling at them--such a brave, wan shadow of her usual smile--for a few moments they went about their affairs, full of hope--and when they entered the sick-room again-- sylvia could bear no more, screaming out, motioning judith imperiously to stop;--she began to understand what had happened to her; the words she had repeated so dully were like thunder in her ears. her mother was dead. judith took her sister again in her arms, holding her close, as though she were the older. sylvia was weeping again, the furious, healing, inexhaustible tears of youth. to both the sisters it seemed that they were passing an hour of supreme bitterness; but their strong young hearts, clinging with unconscious tenacity to their right to joy, were at that moment painfully opening and expanding beyond the narrow bounds of childhood. henceforth they were to be great enough to harbor joy--a greater joy--and sorrow, side by side. moreover, as though their action-loving mother were still watching over them, they found themselves confronted at once with an inexorable demand for their strength and courage. judith detached herself, and said in a firm voice: "sylvia, you mustn't cry any more. we must think what to do." as sylvia looked at her blankly, she went on: "somehow lawrence must be taken away for a while--until father's--either you or i must go with him and stay, and the other one be here with father until he's--he's more like himself." sylvia, fresh from the desolation of solitude in sorrow, cried out: "oh, judith, how can you! now's the time for us all to stay together! why should we--?" judith went to the door and closed it before answering, a precaution so extraordinary in that house of frank openness that sylvia was struck into silence by it. standing by the door, judith said in a low tone, "you didn't notice--anything--about father?" "oh yes, he looks ill. he is so pale--he frightened me!" judith looked down at the floor and was silent a moment. sylvia's heart began to beat fast with a new foreboding. "why, what _is_ the matter with--" she began. judith covered her face with her hands. "i don't know what to _do_!" she said despairingly. no phrase coming from judith could have struck a more piercing alarm into her sister's heart. she ran to judith, pulled her hands down, and looked into her face anxiously. "what do you mean, judy--what do you mean?" "why--it's five days now since mother died, three days since the funeral--and father has hardly eaten a mouthful--and i don't think he's slept at all. i know he hasn't taken his clothes off. and--and--" she drew sylvia again to the bed, and sat down beside her, "he says such things ... the night after mother died lawrence had cried so i was afraid he would be sick, and i got him to bed and gave him some hot milk,"--the thought flashed from one to the other almost palpably, "that is what mother would have done"--"and he went to sleep--he was perfectly worn out. i went downstairs to find father. it was after midnight. he was walking around the house into one room after another and out on the porch and even out in the garden, as fast as he could walk. he looked so--" she shuddered. "i went up to him and said, 'father, father, what are you doing?' he never stopped walking an instant, but he said, as though i was a total stranger and we were in a railway station or somewhere like that, 'i am looking for my wife. i expect to come across her any moment, but i can't seem to remember the exact place i was to meet her. she must be somewhere about, and i suppose--' and then, sylvia, before i could help it, he opened the door to mother's room quick--and the men were there, and the coffin--" she stopped short, pressing her hand tightly over her mouth to stop its quivering. sylvia gazed at her in horrified silence. after a pause, judith went on: "he turned around and ran as fast as he could up the stairs to his study and locked the door. he locked me out--the night after mother died. i called and called to him--he didn't answer. i was afraid to call very loud for fear of waking lawrence. i've had to think of lawrence too." she stopped again to draw a long breath. she stopped and suddenly reached out imploring hands to hold fast to sylvia. "i'm so _glad_ you have come!" she murmured. this from judith ran like a galvanic shock through sylvia's sorrow-sodden heart. she sat up, aroused as she had never been before to a stern impulse to resist her emotion, to fight it down. she clasped judith's hand hard, and felt the tears dry in her eyes. judith went on: "if it hadn't been for lawrence--he's sick as it is. i've kept him in his room--twice when he's been asleep i've managed to get father to eat something and lie down--there seem to be times when he's so worn out that he doesn't know what he's doing. but it comes back to him. one night i had just persuaded him to lie down, when he sat up again with that dreadful face and said very loud: 'where is my wife? where is barbara?' that was on the night after the funeral. and the next day he came to me, out in the garden, and said,--he never seems to know who i am: 'i don't mind the separation from my wife, you understand--it's not that--i'm not a child, i can endure that--but i _must_ know where she is. i _must_ know where she is!' he said it over and over, until his voice got so loud he seemed to hear it himself and looked around--and then he went back into the house and began walking all around, opening and shutting all the doors. what i'm afraid of is his meeting lawrence and saying something like that. lawrence would go crazy. i thought, as soon as you came, you could take him away to the helman farm--the helmans have been so good--and mrs. helman offered to take lawrence--only he oughtn't to be alone--he needs one of us--" judith was quiet now, and though very pale, spoke with her usual firmness. sylvia too felt herself iron under the pressure of her responsibilities. she said: "yes, i see. all right--i'll go," and the two went together into lawrence's room. he was lying on the bed, his face in the pillows. at the sound of their steps he turned over and showed a pitiful white face. he got up and moved uncertainly towards sylvia, sinking into her arms and burying his face on her shoulder. but a little later when their plan was told him, he turned to judith with a cry: "no, _you_ go with me, judy! i want _you_! you 'know'--about it." over his head the sisters looked at each other with questioning eyes; and sylvia nodded her consent. lawrence had always belonged to judith. chapter xlii "_strange that we creatures of the petty ways, poor prisoners behind these fleshly bars, can sometimes think us thoughts with god ablaze, touching the "fringes of the outer stars_."" and so they went away, lawrence very white, stooping with the weight of his suitcase, his young eyes, blurred and red, turned upon judith with an infinite confidence in her strength. judith herself was pale, but her eyes were dry and her lips firm in her grave, steadfast face, so like her mother's, except for the absence of the glint of humor. sylvia kissed her good-bye, feeling almost a little fear of her resolute sister; but as she watched them go down the path, and noted the appealing drooping of the boy towards judith, sylvia was swept with a great wave of love and admiration--and courage. she turned to face the difficult days and nights before her and forced herself to speak cheerfully to her father, who sat in a chair on the porch, watching the departing travelers and not seeing them. "how splendid judith is!" she cried, and went on with a break in the voice she tried to control: "she will take mother's place for us all!" her father frowned slightly, as though she had interrupted him in some effort where concentration was necessary, but otherwise gave no sign that he heard her. sylvia watched him anxiously through the window. presently she saw him relax from his position of strained attention with a great sigh, almost a groan, and lean back in his chair, covering his eyes with his hands. when he took them down, his face had the aged, ravaged expression of exhaustion which had so startled her on her arrival. now she felt none of her frightened revulsion, but only an aching pity which sent her out to him in a rush, her arms outstretched, crying to him brokenly that he still had his children who loved him more than anything in the world. for the first time in her life, her father repelled her, shrinking away from her with a brusque, involuntary recoil that shocked her, thrusting her arms roughly to one side, and rising up hastily to retreat into the house. he said in a bitter, recriminating tone, "you don't know what you are talking about," and left her standing there, the tears frozen in her eyes. he went heavily upstairs to his study on the top floor and locked the door. sylvia heard the key turn. it shut her into an intolerable solitude. she had not thought before that anything could seem worse than the desolation of her mother's absence. she felt a deathlike sinking of her heart. she was afraid of her father, who no longer seemed her father, created to protect and cherish her, but some maniac stranger. she felt an impulse like that of a terrified child to run away, far away to some one who should stand before her and bear the brunt. she started up from her chair with panic haste, but the familiar room, saturated with recollections of her mother's gallant spirit, stood about her like a wall, shutting her in to the battle with her heart. who was there to summon whom she could endure as a spectator of her father's condition? her mother's empty chair stood opposite her, against the wall. she looked at it fixedly; and drawing a long breath sat down quietly. this act of courage brought a reward in the shape of a relaxation of the clutch on her throat and about her heart. her mother's wise materialism came to her mind now and she made a heartsick resolve that she would lead as physically normal a life as possible, working out of doors, forcing herself to eat, and that, above all things, she would henceforth deny herself the weakening luxury of tears. and yet but an hour later, as she bent over her mother's flower-beds blazing in the sun, she found the tears again streaming from her eyes. she tried to wipe them away, but they continued to rain down on her cheeks. her tongue knew their saltness. she was profoundly alarmed and cowed by this irresistible weakness, and stood helplessly at bay among the languid roses. the sensation of her own utter weakness, prostrate before her dire need for strength, was as bitter as the taste of her tears. she stood there, among the sun-warmed flowers, looking like a symbolic figure of youth triumphant ... and she felt herself to be in a black and windowless prison, where the very earth under her feet was treacherous, where everything betrayed her. then, out of her need, her very great need, out of the wide and empty spaces of her inculcated unbelief, something rose up and overwhelmed her. the force stronger than herself which she had longed to feel, blew upon her like a wind out of eternity. she found herself on her knees, her face hidden in her hands, sending out a passionate cry which transcended words. the child of the twentieth century, who had been taught not to pray, was praying. she did not know how long she knelt there before the world emerged from the white glory which had whirled down upon it, and hidden it from her. but when she came to herself, her eyes were dry, and the weakening impulse to tears had gone. she stretched out her hands before her, and they did not tremble. the force stronger than herself was now in her own heart. from her mother's garden there rose a strong, fragrant exhalation, as sweet as honey. * * * * * for more than an hour sylvia worked steadily among the flowers, consciously wrought upon by the healing emanations from the crushed, spicy leaves, the warm earth, and the hot, pure breath of the summer wind on her face. once she had a passing fancy that her mother stood near her ... smiling. chapter xliii "_call now; is there any that will answer thee?_"--job. when she went back to the silent, echoing house, she felt calmer than at any time since she had read the telegram in naples. she did not stop to wash her earth-stained hands, but went directly up the stairs to the locked door at the top. she did not knock this time. she stood outside and said authoritatively in a clear, strong voice, the sound of which surprised her, "father dear, please open the door and let me in." there was a pause, and then a shuffle of feet. the door opened and professor marshall appeared, his face very white under the thick stubble of his gray, unshaven beard, his shoulders bowed, his head hanging. sylvia went to his side, took his hand firmly in hers, and said quietly: "father, you must eat something. you haven't taken a bit of food in two days. and then you must lie down and rest," she poured all of her new strength into these quietly issued commands, and permitted herself no moment's doubt of his obedience to them. he lifted his head, looked at her, and allowed her to lead him down the stairs and again into the dining-room. here he sat, quite spent, staring before him until sylvia returned from the kitchen with a plate of cold meat and some bread. she sat down beside him, putting out again consciously all her strength, and set the knife and fork in his nerveless hands. in the gentle monologue with which she accompanied his meal she did not mention her mother, or anything but slight, casual matters about the house and garden. she found herself speaking in a hushed tone, as though not to awake a sleeping person. although she sat quite quietly, her hands loosely folded on the table, her heart was thrilling and burning to a high resolve. "now it is my turn to help my father." after he had eaten a few mouthfuls and laid down the knife and fork, she did not insist further, but rose to lead him to the couch in the living-room. she dared not risk his own room, the bed on which her mother had died. "now you must lie down and rest, father," she said, loosening his clothes and unlacing his shoes as though he had been a sick child. he let her do what she would, and as she pushed him gently back, he yielded and lay down at full length. sylvia sat down beside him, feeling her strength ebbing. her father lay on his back, his eyes wide open. on the ceiling above him a circular flicker of light danced and shimmered, reflected from a glass of water on the table. his eyes fastened upon this, at first unwinkingly, with a fixed intensity, and later with dropped lids and half-upturned eyeballs. he was quite quiet, and finally seemed asleep, although the line of white between his eyelids made sylvia shudder. with the disappearance of the instant need for self-control and firmness, she felt an immense fatigue. it had cost her dearly, this victory, slight as it was. she drooped in her chair, exhausted and undone. she looked down at the ash-gray, haggard face on the pillow, trying to find in those ravaged features her splendidly life-loving father. it was so quiet that she could hear the big clock in the dining-room ticking loudly, and half-consciously she began to count the swings of the pendulum: one--two--three--four--five--six-- seven--eight--nine--ten--eleven--twelve--thirteen--fourteen-- she awoke to darkness and the sound of her mother's name loudly screamed. she started up, not remembering where she was, astonished to find herself sitting in a chair. as she stood bewildered in the dark, the clock in the dining-room struck two. at once from a little distance, outside the window apparently, she heard the same wild cry ringing in her ears--"_bar-ba-ra!_" all the blood in her body congealed and the hair on her head seemed to stir itself, in the instant before she recognized her father's voice. the great impulse of devotion which had entered her heart in the garden still governed her. now she was not afraid. she did not think of running away. she only knew that she must find her father quickly and take care of him. outside on the porch, the glimmering light from the stars showed her his figure, standing by one of the pillars, leaning forward, one hand to his ear. as she came out of the door, he dropped his hand, threw back his head, and again sent out an agonizing cry--"_bar-ba-ra!_ where are you?" it was not the broken wail of despair; it was the strong, searching cry of a lost child who thinks trustingly that if he but screams loudly enough his mother must hear him and come--and yet who is horribly frightened because she does not answer. but this was a man in his full strength who called! it seemed the sound must reach beyond the stars. sylvia felt her very bones ringing with it. she went along the porch to her father, and laid her hand on his arm. through his sleeve she could feel how tense and knotted were the muscles. "oh, father, _don't!_" she said in a low tone. he shook her off roughly, but did not turn his head or look at her. sylvia hesitated, not daring to leave him and not daring to try to draw him away; and again was shaken by that terrible cry. the intensity of his listening attitude seemed to hush into breathlessness the very night about him, as it did sylvia. there was not a sound from the trees. they stood motionless, as though carved in wood; not a bird fluttered a wing; not a night-insect shrilled; the brook, dried by the summer heat to a thread, crept by noiselessly. as once more the frantic cry resounded, it seemed to pierce this opaque silence like a palpable missile, and to wing its way without hindrance up to the stars. not the faintest murmur came in answer. the silence shut down again, stifling. sylvia and her father stood as though in the vacuum of a great bell-glass which shut them away from the rustling, breathing, living world. sylvia said again, imploringly, "oh, _father_!" he looked at her angrily, sprang from the porch, and walked rapidly towards the road, stumbling and tripping over the laces of his shoes, which sylvia had loosened when she had persuaded him to lie down. sylvia ran after him, her long bounds bringing her up to his side in a moment. the motion sent the blood racing through her stiffened limbs again. she drew a long breath of liberation. as she stepped along beside her father, peering in the starlight at his dreadful face, half expecting him to turn and strike her at any moment, she felt an immense relief. the noise of their feet on the path was like a sane voice of reality. anything was more endurable than to stand silent and motionless and hear that screaming call lose itself in the grimly unanswering distance. they were on the main road now, walking so swiftly that, in the hot summer night, sylvia felt her forehead beaded and her light dress cling to her moist body. she took her father's hand. it was parched like a sick man's, the skin like a dry husk. after this, they walked hand-in-hand. professor marshall continued to walk rapidly, scuffling in his loose, unlaced shoes. they passed barns and farmhouses, the latter sleeping, black in the starlight, with darkened windows. in one, a poor little shack of two rooms, there was a lighted pane, and as they passed, sylvia heard the sick wail of a little child. the sound pierced her heart. she longed to go in and put her arms about the mother. now she understood. she tightened her hold on her father's hand and lifted it to her lips. he suffered this with no appearance of his former anger, and soon after sylvia was aware that his gait was slackening. she looked at him searchingly, and saw that he had swung from unnatural tension to spent exhaustion. his head was hanging and as he walked he wavered. she put her hand under his elbow and turned him about on the road. "now we will go home," she said, drawing his arm through hers. he made no resistance, not seeming to know what she had done, and shuffled along wearily, leaning all his weight on her arm. she braced herself against this drag, and led him slowly back, wiping her face from time to time with her sleeve. there were moments when she thought she must let him sink on the road, but she fought through these, and as the sky was turning faintly gray over their heads, and the implacably silent stars were disappearing in this pale light, the two stumbled up the walk to the porch. professor marshall let himself be lowered into the steamer chair. sylvia stood by him until she was sure he would not stir, and then hurried into the kitchen. in a few moments she brought him a cup of hot coffee and a piece of bread. he drank the one and ate the other without protest she set the tray down and put a pillow under her father's head, raising the foot-rest. he did not resist her. his head fell back on the pillow, but his eyes did not close. they were fixed on a distant point in the sky. sylvia tiptoed away into the house and sank down shivering into a chair. a great fit of trembling and nausea came over her. she rose, walked into the kitchen, her footsteps sounding in her ears like her mother's. there was some coffee left, which she drank resolutely, and she cooked an egg and forced it down, her mother's precepts loud in her ears. whatever else happened, she must have her body in condition to be of use. after this she went out to the porch again and lay down in the hammock near her father. the dawn had brightened into gold, and the sun was showing on the distant, level, green horizon-line. * * * * * it was almost the first moment of physical relaxation she had known, and to her immense, her awed astonishment it was instantly filled with a pure, clear brilliance, the knowledge that austin page lived and loved her. it was the first, it was the only time she thought of anything but her father, and this was not a thought, it was a vision. in the chaos about her, a great sunlit rock had emerged. she laid hold on it and knew that she would not sink. * * * * * but now, _now_ she must think of nothing but her father! there was no one else who could help her father. could she? could any one? she herself, since her prayer among the roses, cherished in her darkened heart a hope of dawn. but how could she tell her father of that? even if she had been able to force him to listen to her, she had nothing that words could say, nothing but the recollection of that burning hour in the garden to set against the teachings of a lifetime. that had changed life for her ... but what could it mean to her father? how could she tell him of what was only a wordless radiance? her father had taught her that death meant the return of the spirit to the great, impersonal river of life. if the spirit had been superb and splendid, like her mother's, the river of life was the brighter for it, but that was all. her mother had lived, and now lived no more. that was what they had tried to teach her to believe. that was what her father had taught her--without, it now appeared, believing it himself. and yet she divined that it was not that he would not, but that he could not now believe it. he was like a man set in a vacuum fighting for the air without which life is impossible. and she knew no way to break the imprisoning wall and let in air for him. _was_ there, indeed, any air outside? there must be, or the race could not live from one generation to the next. every one whose love had encountered death must have found an air to breathe or have died. constantly through all these thoughts, that day and for many days and months to come, there rang the sound of her mother's name, screamed aloud. she heard it as though she were again standing by her father under the stars. and there had been no answer. she felt the tears stinging at her eyelids and sat up, terrified at the idea that her weakness was about to overtake her. she would go again out to the garden where she had found strength before. the morning sun was now hot and glaring in the eastern sky. chapter xliv "_a bruised reed will he not break, and a dimly burning wick will he not quench_,"--isaiah. as she stepped down the path, she saw a battered black straw hat on the other side of the hedge. cousin parnelia's worn old face and dim eyes looked at her through the gate. under her arm she held planchette. sylvia stepped through the gate and drew it inhospitably shut back of her. "what is it, cousin parnelia?" she said challengingly, determined to protect her father. the older woman's face was all aglow. "oh, my dear; i've had such a wonderful message from your dear mother. last night--" sylvia recoiled from the mad old creature. she could not bear to have her sane, calm, strong mother's name on those lips. cousin parnelia went on, full of confidence: "i was sound asleep last night when i was awakened by the clock's striking two. it sounded so loud that i thought somebody had called to me. i sat up in bed and said, 'what is it?' and then i felt a great longing to have planchette write. i got out of bed in my nightgown and sat down in the dark at the table. planchette wrote so fast that i could hardly keep up with it. and when it stopped, i lighted a match and see ... here ... in your mother's very handwriting"--fervently she held the bit of paper up for sylvia to see. the girl cast a hostile look at the paper and saw that the writing on it was the usual scrawl produced by cousin parnelia, hardly legible, and resembling anything rather than her mother's handwriting. "read it--read it--it is too beautiful!" quivered the other, "and then let me show it to your father. it was meant for him--" sylvia shook like a roughly plucked fiddle-string. she seized the wrinkled old hand fiercely. "cousin parnelia, i forbid you going anywhere near my father! you know as well as i do how intensely he has always detested spiritualism. to see you might be the thing that would--" the old woman broke in, protesting, her hat falling to one side, her brown false front sliding with it and showing the thin, gray hairs beneath. "but, sylvia, this is the very thing that would save him--such a beautiful, beautiful message from your mother,--_see_! in her own handwriting!" sylvia snatched the sheet of yellow paper. "_that's_ not my mother's handwriting! do you think i am as crazy as _you_ are!" she tore the paper into shreds and scattered them from her, feeling a relief in the violence of her action. the next moment she remembered how patient her mother had always been with her daft kinswoman and seeing tears in the blurred old eyes, went to put placating arms about the other's neck. "never mind, cousin parnelia," she said with a vague kindness, "i know you mean to do what's right--only we don't believe as you do, and father _must_ not be excited!" she turned sick as she spoke and shrank away from the hedge, carrying her small old cousin with her. above the hedge appeared her father's gray face and burning eyes. he was not looking at her, but at cousin parnelia, who now sprang forward, crying that she had had a beautiful, beautiful message from cousin barbara. "_it_ came last night at two o'clock ... just after the clock struck two--" professor marshall looked quickly at his daughter, and she saw that he too had heard the clock striking in the dreadful night, and that he noted the coincidence. "just after the clock struck two she wrote the loveliest message for you with planchette. sylvia tore it up. but i'm sure that if we try with faith, she will repeat it ..." professor marshall's eyes were fixed on his wife's old cousin. "come in," he said in a hoarse voice. they were almost the first words sylvia had heard him say. cousin parnelia hastened up the path to the house. sylvia followed with her father, at the last extremity of agitation and perplexity. when cousin parnelia reached the dining-room table, she sat down by it, pushed the cloth to one side, and produced a fresh sheet of yellow paper from her shabby bag. "put yourselves in a receptive frame of mind," she said in a glib, professional manner. sylvia stiffened and tried to draw her father away, but he continued to stand by the table, staring at the blank sheet of paper with a strange, wild expression on his white face. he did not take his eyes from the paper. in a moment, he sat down suddenly, as though his knees had failed him. there was a long silence, in which sylvia could hear the roaring of the blood in her arteries. cousin parnelia put one deeply veined, shrunken old hand on planchette and the other over her eyes and waited, her wrinkled, commonplace old face assuming a solemn expression of importance. the clock ticked loudly. planchette began to write--at first in meaningless flourishes, then with occasional words, and finally sylvia saw streaming away from the pencil the usual loose, scrawling handwriting. several lines were written and then the pencil stopped abruptly. sylvia standing near her father heard his breathing grow loud and saw in a panic that the veins on his temples were swollen. cousin parnelia took her hand off planchette, put on her spectacles, read over what had been written, and gave it to professor marshall. sylvia was in such a state of bewilderment that nothing her father could have done would have surprised her. she half expected to see him dash the paper in the old woman's face, half thought that any moment he would fall, choking with apoplexy. what he did was to take the paper and try to hold it steadily enough to read. but his hand shook terribly. "i will read it to you," said cousin parnelia, and she read aloud in her monotonous, illiterate voice: "'i am well and happy, dearest elliott, and never far from you. when you call to me, i hear you. all is not yet clear, but i wish i could tell you more of the whole meaning. i am near you this moment. i wish that--' the message stopped there," explained cousin parnelia, laying down the paper. professor marshall leaned over it, straining his eyes to the rude scrawls, passing his hand over his forehead as though to brush away a web. he broke out in a loud, high voice. "that is her handwriting.... good god, her very handwriting--the way she writes elliott--it is from _her!_" he snatched the paper up and took it to the window, stumbling over the chairs blindly as he went. as he held it up to the light, poring over it again, he began to weep, crying out his wife's name softly, the tears streaming down his unshaven cheeks. he came back to the table, and sank down before it, still sobbing, still murmuring incessantly, "oh, barbara--barbara!" and laid his head on his outstretched arms. "let him cry!" whispered cousin parnelia sentimentally to sylvia, drawing her away into the hall. a few moments later when they looked in, he had fallen asleep, his head turned to one side so that sylvia saw his face, tear-stained and exhausted, but utterly relaxed and at peace, like that of a little child in sleep. crushed in one hand was the yellow sheet of paper covered with coarse, wavering marks. chapter xlv "_that our soul may swim we sink our heart down, bubbling, under wave_" the two sisters, their pale faces grave in the shadow of their wide hats, were on their knees with trowels in a border of their mother's garden. judith had been giving a report of lawrence's condition, and sylvia was just finishing an account of what had happened at home, when the gate in the osage-orange hedge clicked, and a blue-uniformed boy came whistling up the path. he made an inquiry as to names, and handed sylvia an envelope. she opened it, read silently, "am starting for america and you at once. felix." she stood looking at the paper for a moment, her face quite unmoved from its quiet sadness. the boy asked, "any answer?" "no," she said decisively, shaking her head. "no answer." as he lingered, lighting a cigarette, she put a question in her turn, "anything to pay?" "no," said the boy, putting the cigarette-box back in his pocket, "nothing to pay." he produced a worn and greasy book, "sign on this line," he said, and after she had signed, he went away down the path, whistling. the transaction was complete. sylvia looked after the retreating figure and then turned to judith as though there had been no interruption. "... and you can see for yourself how little use i am to him now. since he got cousin parnelia in the house, there's nothing anybody else could do for him. even you couldn't, if you could leave lawrence. not for a while, anyhow. i suppose he'll come slowly out of this to be himself again ... but i'm not sure that he will. and for now, i actually believe that he'd be easier in his mind if we were both away. i never breathe a word of criticism about planchette, of course. but he knows. there's that much left of his old self. he knows how i must feel. he's really ever so much better too, you know. he's taken up his classes in the summer school again. he said he had 'a message' from mother that he was to go back to his work bravely; and the very next day he went over to the campus, and taught all his classes as though nothing had happened. isn't it awfully, terribly touching to see how even such a poor, incoherent make-believe of a 'message' from mother has more power to calm him than anything we could do with our whole hearts? but how _can_ he! i can't understand it! i can't bear it, to come in on him and cousin parnelia, in their evenings, and see them bent over that grotesque planchette and have him look up at me so defiantly, as though he were just setting his teeth and saying he wouldn't care what i thought of him. he doesn't really care either. he doesn't think of anything but of having evening come when he can get another 'message' from mother ... from mother! mother!" "well, perhaps it would be as well for us not to be here for a while," murmured judith. there were deep dark rings under her eyes, as though she had slept badly for a long time. "perhaps it may be better later on. i can take lawrence back with me when i go to the hospital. i want to keep him near me of course, dear little lawrence. my little boy! he'll be my life now. he'll be what i have to live for." something in the quality of her quiet voice sent a chill to sylvia's heart. "why, judy dear, after you are married of course you and arnold can keep lawrence with you. that'll be the best for him, a real home, with you. oh, judy dear," she laid down her trowel, fighting hard against a curious sickness which rose within her. she tried to speak lightly. "oh, judy dear, when _are_ you going to be married? or don't you want to speak about it now, for a while? you never write long letters, i know--but your late ones haven't had _any_ news in them! you positively haven't so much as mentioned arnold's name lately." as she spoke, she knew that she was voicing an uneasiness which had been an unacknowledged occupant of her mind for a long time. but she looked confidently to see one of judith's concise, comprehensive statements make her dim apprehensions seem fantastic and far-fetched, as judith always made any flight of the imagination appear. but nothing which sylvia's imagination might have been able to conceive would have struck her such a blow as the fact which judith now produced, in a dry, curt phrase: "i'm not going to be married." sylvia did not believe her ears. she looked up wildly as judith rose from the ground, and advanced upon her sister with a stern, white face. before she had finished speaking, she had said more than sylvia had ever heard her say about a matter personal to her; but even so, her iron words were few. "sylvia, i want to tell you about it, of course. i've got to. but i won't say a word, unless you can keep quiet, and not make a fuss. i couldn't stand that. i've got all i can stand as it is." she stood by an apple-tree and now broke from it a small, leafy branch, which she held as she spoke. there was something shocking in the contrast between the steady rigor of her voice and the fury of her fingers as they tore and stripped and shredded the leaves. "arnold is an incurable alcoholic," she said; "dr. rivedal has pronounced him hopeless. dr. charton and dr. pansard (they're the best specialists in that line) have had him under observation and they say the same thing. he's had three dreadful attacks lately. we ... none of their treatment does any good. it's been going on too long--from the time he was first sent away to school, at fourteen, alone! there was an inherited tendency, anyhow. nobody took it seriously, that and--and the other things boys with too much money do. apparently everybody thought it was just the way boys are--if anybody thought anything about it, except that it was a bother. he never had anybody, you know--_never, never_ anybody who ..." her voice rose, threatened to break. she stopped, swallowed hard, and began again: "the trouble is he has no constitution left--nothing for a doctor to work with. it's not arnold's fault. if he had come out to us, that time in chicago when he wanted to--we--he could--with mother to--" her steady voice gave way abruptly. she cast the ravaged, leafless branch violently to the ground and stood looking down at it. there was not a fleck of color in her beautiful, stony face. sylvia concentrated all her will-power on an effort to speak as judith would have her, quietly, without heroics; but when she broke her silence she found that she had no control of her voice. she tried to say, "but, judith dear, if arnold is like that--doesn't he need you more than ever? you are a nurse. how can you abandon him now!" but she could produce only a few, broken, inarticulate words in a choking voice before she was obliged to stop short, lest she burst out in the flood of horror which judith had forbidden. broken and inarticulate as they were, judith knew what was the meaning of those words. the corners of her mouth twitched uncontrollably. she bit her marble lower lip repeatedly before she could bring out the few short phrases which fell like clods on a coffin. "if i--if we--arnold and i are in love with each other." she stopped, drew a painful breath, and said again: "arnold and i are in love with each other. do you know what that means? he is the only man i could not take care of--arnold! if i should try, we would soon be married, or lovers. if we were married or lovers, we would soon have--" she had overestimated her strength. even she was not strong enough to go on. she sat down on the ground, put her long arms around her knees, and buried her face in them. she was not weeping. she sat as still as though carved in stone. sylvia herself was beyond tears. she sat looking down at the moist earth on the trowel she held, drying visibly in the hot sun, turning to dust, and falling away in a crumbling, impalpable powder. it was like seeing a picture of her heart. she thought of arnold with an indignant, passionate pity--how could judith--? but she was so close to judith's suffering that she felt the dreadful rigidity of her body. the flat, dead tones of the man in the pantheon were in her ears. it seemed to her that life was an adventure perilous and awful beyond imagination. there was no force to cope with it, save absolute integrity. everything else was a vain and foolish delusion, a two-edged sword which wounded the wielding hand. she did not move closer to judith, she did not put out her hand. judith would not like that. she sat quite motionless, looking into black abysses of pain, of responsibilities not met, feeling press upon her the terrifying closeness of all human beings to all other human beings--there in the sun of june a cold sweat stood on her forehead.... but then she drew a long breath. why, there was austin! the anguished contraction of her heart relaxed. the warm blood flowed again through her veins. there was austin! she was rewarded for her effort to bring herself to judith's ways, when presently her sister moved and reached out blindly for her hand. at this she opened her arms and took judith in. no word was spoken. their mother was there with them. sylvia looked out over the proud, dark head, now heavy on her bosom, and felt herself years older. she did not try to speak. she had nothing to say. there was nothing she could do, except to hold judith and love her. there was nothing, _nothing_ left but love. chapter xlvi a long talk with arnold the tall, lean young man, sitting his galloping horse very slackly, riding fast with a recklessly loose rein, and staring with bloodshot eyes down at the dust of the road, gave an exclamation, brought the mare upon her haunches, and sprang down from the saddle. a woman, young, tall, grave, set like a pearl in her black mourning dress, stood up from the roadside brook and advanced to meet him. they looked at each other as people do who meet after death has passed by. they stammered vague words, their eyes brimming. "i--she was always so good to me," said arnold, his voice breaking and quavering as he wrung sylvia's hand again and again. "i never knew--saw much of her, i know--but when i was a little boy, i used--i used to dream about her at night." his thin, sallow face flushed with his earnestness. "i don't believe--honestly, sylvia, i don't believe her own children loved her any more than i did. i've thought so many times how different everything would have been if i'd--i don't suppose you remember, but years ago when you and she were in chicago, i ran away from school to go out there, and ask if--" sylvia remembered, had thought of nothing else from the moment she had seen far down the road the horseman vainly fleeing the black beast on his crupper. she shook her head now, her hand at her throat, and motioned him to silence. "don't! don't!" she said urgently. "yes, i remember. i remember." there was a moment's silence, filled by the murmur of the little brook at their feet. the mare, which had been drinking deeply, now lifted her head, the water running from the corners of her mouth. she gave a deep breath of satisfaction, and began cropping the dense green grass which grew between the water and the road. her master tossed the reins over the pommel and let her go. he began speaking again on a different note. "but, sylvia, what in the world--here, can't we go up under those trees a few minutes and have a talk? i can keep my eye on the mare." as they took the few steps he asked again, "how ever does it happen that you're here at lydford junction of all awful holes?" sylvia took an abrupt resolution, sat down on the pine-needles, and said, very directly, "i am on my way to austin farm to see if austin page still wants to marry me." her manner had the austere simplicity of one who has been moving in great and grave emotions. arnold spoke with an involuntary quickness: "but you've heard, haven't you, about his giving up all his colorado ..." sylvia flushed a deep crimson and paid with a moment of bitter, shamed resentment for the other bygone moments of calculation. "yes, yes, of course." she spoke with a stern impatience. "did you suppose it was for his fortune that--" she paused and said humbly, "of course, it's natural that you should think that of me." arnold attempted no self-exculpation. he sat down by her, his riding-crop across his knees. "could you--do you feel like telling me about it?" he asked. she nodded. it came to her like an inspiration that only if she opened her heart utterly to arnold, could he open his sore heart to her. "there's not much to tell. i don't know where to begin. perhaps there's too much to tell, after all, i didn't know what any of it meant till now. it's the strangest thing, arnold, how little people know what is growing strong in their lives! i supposed all the time i only liked him because he was so rich. i thought it must be so. i thought that was the kind of girl i was. and then, besides, i'd--perhaps you didn't know how much i'd liked felix morrison." arnold nodded. "i sort of guessed so. you were awfully game, then, sylvia. you're game now--it's awfully white to fall in love with a man because he's rich and then stick to him when he's--" sylvia waved her hand impatiently. "oh, you don't understand. it's not because i think _i ought_ to--heavens, no! let me try to tell you. listen! when the news came, about this colorado business--i was about crazy for a while. i just went to pieces. i knew i ought to answer his letter, but i couldn't. i see now, looking back, that i had just crumpled up under the weight of my weakness. i didn't know it then. i kept saying to myself that i was only putting off deciding till i could think more about it, but i know now that i had decided to give him up, never to see him again--felix was there, you know--i'd decided to give austin up because he wasn't rich any more. did you know i was that base sort of a woman? do you suppose he will ever be willing to take me back?--now after this long time? it's a month since i got his letter." arnold bent his riding-crop between his thin, nervous hands. "are you sure now, sylvia, are you sure now, dead sure?" he asked. "it would be pretty hard on austin if you--afterwards--he's such a square, straight sort of a man, you ought to be awfully careful not to--" sylvia said quickly, her quiet voice vibrant, her face luminous: "oh, arnold, i could never tell you how sure i am. there just isn't anything else. over there in paris, i tried so hard to think about it--and i couldn't get anywhere at all. the more i tried, the baser i grew; the more i loved the things i'd have to give up, the more i hung on to them. thinking didn't do a bit of good, though i almost killed myself thinking--thinking--all i'd done was to think out an ingenious, low, mean compromise to justify myself in giving him up. and then, after judith's cablegram came, i started home--arnold, what a journey that was!--and i found--i found mother was gone, just gone away forever--and i found father out of his head with sorrow--and judith told me about--about her trouble. it was like going through a long black corridor. it seemed as though i'd never come out on the other side. but when i did--a door that i couldn't ever, ever break down--somehow it's been just quietly opened, and i've gone through it into the only place where it's worth living. it's the last thing mother did for me--what nobody but mother could have done. i don't want to go back. i couldn't if i wanted to. those things don't matter to me now. i don't think they're wrong, the ease, the luxury, if you can have them without losing something finer. and i suppose some people's lives are arranged so they don't lose the finer. but mine wouldn't be. i see that now. and i don't care at all--it all seems so unimportant to me, what i was caring about, before. nothing matters now but austin. he is the only thing that has lived on for me. i'm down on my knees with thankfulness that he just exists, even if he can't forgive me--even if he doesn't care for me any more--even if i shouldn't ever see him again--even if he should die--he would be like mother, he couldn't die, for me. he's there. i know what he is. somehow everything's all right--because there's austin." she broke off, smiling palely and quietly at the man beside her. he raised his eyes to hers for an instant and then dropped them. sylvia went on. "i don't pretend to know all the ins and outs of this colorado business. it may be that it was quixotic on austin's part. maybe it _has_ upset business conditions out there a lot. it's too complicated to be _sure_ about how anything, i suppose, is likely to affect an industrial society. but i'm sure about how it has affected the people who live in the world--it's a great golden deed that has enriched everybody--not just austin's coal-miners, but everybody who had heard of it. the sky is higher because of it. everybody has a new conception of the good that's possible. and then for me, it means that a man who sees an obligation nobody else sees and meets it--why, with such a man to help, anybody, even a weak fumbling person like me, can be sure of at least loyally _trying_ to meet the debts life brings. it's awfully hard to know what they are, and to meet them--and it's too horrible if you don't." she stopped, aware that the life of the man beside her was one of the unpaid debts so luridly present to her mind. "sylvia," said arnold, hesitating, "sylvia, all this sounds so--look here, are you sure you're in _love_ with austin?" she looked at him, her eyes steady as stars. "aren't there as many ways of being in love, as there are people?" she asked. "i don't know--i don't know if it's what everybody would call being in love--but--" she met his eyes, and unashamed, regally, opened her heart to him with a look. "i can't live without austin," she said quickly, in a low tone. he looked at her long, and turned away. "oh yes, you're in love with him, all right!" he murmured finally, "and i don't believe that the colorado business or any of the rest of what you're saying has much to do with anything. austin's a live man and you're in love with him; and that's all there is to it. you're lucky!" he took out his handkerchief, and wiped his forehead and the back of his neck. sylvia, looking at him more closely, was shocked to see how thin and haggard was his face. he asked now, "did you ever think that maybe what austin was thinking about when he chucked the money was what you'd say, how you'd take it? i should imagine," he added with a faint smile,' "that he is hard to please if he's not pretty well satisfied." sylvia was startled. "no. why no," she said, "i thought i'd looked at every single side of it, but i never dreamed of that." "oh, i don't mean he did it _for_ that! lord, no! i suppose it's been in his mind for years. but afterwards, don't you suppose he thought ... he'd been run after for his money such a terrible lot, you know ... don't you suppose he thought he'd be sure of you one way or the other, about a million times surer than he could have been any other way; if you stuck by him, don't you see, with old felix there with all his fascinations, plus molly's money." he turned on her with a sudden confused wonder in his face. "god! what a time he took to do it! i hadn't realized all his nerve till this minute. he must have known what it meant, to leave you there with felix ... to risk losing you as well as--any other man would have tried to marry you first and then--! well, what a dead-game sport he was! and all for a lot of dirty polacks who'd never laid eyes on him!" he took his riding-cap from his head and tossed it on the dried pine-needles. sylvia noticed that his dry, thin hair was already receding from his parchment-like forehead. there were innumerable fine lines about his eyes. one eyelid twitched spasmodically at intervals. he looked ten years older than his age. he looked like a man who would fall like a rotten tree at the first breath of sickness. he now faced around to her with a return to everyday matters. "see here, sylvia, i've just got it through my head. are you waiting here for that five-fifteen train to west lydford and then are you planning to walk out to the austin farm? great scott! don't do that, in this heat. i'll just run back to the village and get a car and take you there in half an hour." he rose to his feet, but sylvia sprang up quickly, catching at his arm in a panic. "no! no! arnold, you don't understand. i haven't written austin a word--he doesn't know i'm coming. at first in paris i couldn't--i was so despicable--and then afterwards i couldn't either,--though it was all right then. there aren't any words. it's all too big, too deep to talk about. i didn't want to, either. i wanted to _see_ him--to see if he still, if he wants me now. he could _write_ anything. he'd feel he'd have to. how would i ever know but that it was only because he thought he ought to? i thought i would just go to him all by myself, without his knowing i was coming. _i_ can tell--the first moment he looks at me i can tell--for all my life, i'll be sure, one way or the other. that first look, what's in him will show! he can't hide anything then, not even to be kind. i'll know! i'll know!" arnold sat down again with no comment. evidently he understood. he leaned his head back against the rough bark of the pine, and closed his eyes. there was a painful look of excessive fatigue about his whole person. he glanced up and caught sylvia's compassionate gaze on him. "i haven't been sleeping very well lately," he said very dryly. "it breaks a fellow up to lose sleep." sylvia nodded. evidently he was not minded to speak of his own troubles. he had not mentioned judith. she looked up thoughtfully at the well-remembered high line of the mountain against the sky. her mother's girlhood eyes had looked at that high line. she fell into a brooding meditation, and presently, obeying one of her sure instincts, she sat down by arnold, and began to talk to him about what she divined for the moment would most touch and move him; she began to talk about her mother. he was silent, his worn, sallow face impassive, but she knew he was listening. she told one incident after another of her mother's life, incidents which, she told him, she had not noted at the time, incidents which were now windows in her own life, letting in the sunlight her mother loved so well. "all the time i was growing up, i was blind, i didn't see anything. i don't feel remorseful, i suppose that is the way children have to be. but i didn't see her. there were so many minor differences between us ... tastes, interests. i always said hatefully to myself that mother didn't understand me. and it was true too. as if it matters! what if she didn't! she never talked morality to us, anyhow. she never talked much at all. she didn't need to. she was herself. no words would express that. she lived her life. and there it is now, there it always will be for me, food for me to live on. i thought she had died. but she has never been so living for me. she's part of me now, for always. and just because i see the meaning of her life, why, there's the meaning of mine as clear as morning. how can poor father crave those 'messages' from her! everything is a message from her. we've lived with her. we have her in our hearts. it's all brightness when i think of her. and i see by that brightness what's in my heart, and that's austin ... austin!" on the name, her voice rose, expanded, soared, wonderfully rang in the ensuing silence.... arnold said slowly, without opening his eyes: "yes, yes, i see. i see how it is all right with you and austin. he's big enough for you, all of you. and felix--he's not so bad either--but he has, after all, a yellow streak. poor felix!" this brought up to sylvia the recollection of the day, so short a time ago when she had sat on the ground thus, much as she now sat next to arnold, and had felt judith's body rigid and tense. there was nothing rigid about arnold. he was relaxed in an exhausted passivity, a beaten man. let what would, befall. he seemed beyond feeling. she knew that probably never again, so life goes, could they speak together thus, like disembodied spirits, freed for once from the blinding, entangling tragic web of self-consciousness. she wondered again if he would find it in his heart to speak to her of judith. she remembered something else she had meant to ask him, if she could ever find words for her question; and she found that, in that hour of high seriousness, they came quite without effort. "arnold, when i was in paris, i met professor saunders. i ran across him by accident. he told me some dreadful things. i thought they couldn't all be true. but i wondered--" arnold opened his eyes and turned them on her. she saw again, as she had so many times, the honesty of them. they were bloodshot, yellowed, set deep in dark hollows; but it was a good gaze they gave. "oh, don't take poor old saunders too seriously. he went all to pieces in the end. he had a lot to say about madrina, i suppose. i shouldn't pay much attention to it. madrina's not such a bad lot as he makes her out. madrina's all right if you don't want anything out of her. she's the way she is, that's all. it's not fair to blame her. we're all like that," he ended with a pregnant, explanatory phrase which fell with an immense significance on sylvia's ear. "madrina's all right when she's got what she wants." the girl pondered in silence on this characterization. after a time arnold roused himself to say again: "i mean she wouldn't go out of her way to hurt anybody, for anything. she's not the kind that enjoys seeing other folks squirm. only she wants things the way she wants them. don't let anything old saunders said worry you. i suppose he laid all my worthlessness at madrina's door too. he'd got into that way of thinking, sort of dotty on the subject anyhow. he was terribly hard hit, you know. i don't deny either that madrina did keep him strung on hot wire for several years. i don't suppose it occurred to her that there was any reason why she shouldn't if he were fool enough. i never could see that he wasn't some to blame too. all he had to do--all they any of them ever had to do, was to get out and stay out. madrina'd never lift a finger to hinder. even saunders, i guess, would have had to admit that madrina always had plenty of dignity. and as for me, great scott! what could you expect a woman like madrina to do with a boy like me! she never liked me, for one thing; and then i always bored her almost more than she could stand. but she never showed her impatience, never once. she's really awfully good-natured in her way. she wanted to make me into a salon sort of person, somebody who'd talk at her teas--converse, don't you know. you see _me_, don't you! it was hard on her. if she'd had you, now--i always thought you were the only person in the world she ever really cared for. she does, you know. all this year you've been with her, she's seemed so different, more like a real woman. maybe she's had her troubles too. maybe she's been deathly lonely. don't you go back on her too hard. madrina's no vampire. that's just old saunders' addled wits. she's one of the nicest people in the world to live with, if you don't need her for anything. and she really does care a lot for you, sylvia. that time out in chicago, when we were all kids, when i wanted to go to live with your mother, i remember that madrina suggested to her (and madrina would have done it in a minute, too)--she suggested that they change off, she take you to bring up and i go out to live with your mother," he stopped to look at the woman beside him. "i don't know about you, sylvia, but i guess it would have made some difference in my life!" sylvia drew back, horrified that he was even in thought, even for a moment robbing her of her mother. "oh, what i would have been--i can't bear to _think_ of what kind of woman i would have been without my mother!" the idea was terrible to her. she shrank away from her aunt as never before in her life. the reminiscence brought an idea, evidently as deeply moving, into arnold's mind. the words burst from him, "i might now be married to judith!" he put his hands over his eyes and cast himself down among the pine-needles. sylvia spoke quickly lest she lose courage. "arnold! arnold! what are you going to do with yourself now? i'm so horribly anxious about you. i haven't dared speak before--" he turned over and lay on his back, staring up into the dark green of the pine. "i'm going to drink myself to death as soon as i can," he said very quietly. "the doctors say it won't take long." she looked at his wasted face and gave a shocked, pitying exclamation, thinking that it would be illness and not drink which was to come to his rescue soon. he looked at her askance, with his bloodshot eyes. "can you give me any single reason why i shouldn't?" he challenged her. sylvia, the modern, had no answer. she murmured weakly, "why must any of us try to be decent?" "that's for the rest of you," he said. "i'm counted out. the sooner i get myself out of the way, the better for everybody. that's what _judith_ thinks." the bitterness of his last phrase was savage. sylvia cried out against it. "arnold! that's cruel of you! it's killing judith!" "she can't care for me," he said, with a deep, burning resentment. "she can't ever have cared a rap, or she wouldn't be _able_ to--" sylvia would not allow him to go on. "you must not say such a thing, arnold. you know judith's only reason is--she feels if she--if she had children and they were--" he interrupted her with an ugly hardness. "oh, i know what her reason is, all right. it's the latest fad. any magazine article can tell you all about it. and i don't take any stock in it, i tell you. it's just insanity to try to guess at every last obligation you may possibly have! you've got to live your life, and have some nerve about it! if judith and i love each other, what is it to anybody else if we get married? maybe we wouldn't have any children. maybe they'd be all right--how could they be anything else with judith for their mother? and anyhow, leave that to them! let them take care of themselves! we've had to do it for ourselves! what the devil did my father do for me, i'd like to know, that i should die to keep my children unborn? my mother was a country girl from up here in the mountains. since i've been staying here winters, i've met some of her people. her aunt told me that my father was as drunk as a lord on his wedding night--what did he think of _his_ son? why should i think of mine?" he was so evidently talking wildly, desperately, that sylvia made no attempt to stop him, divining with an aching pity what lay under his dreadful words. but when he said again, "it's simply that judith doesn't care enough about me to stick by me, now i'm down and out. she can't bear me in her narrow little good world!" judith's sister could keep her silence no more. "look here, arnold, i haven't meant to tell you, but i _can't_ have you thinking that. listen! you know judith, how splendid and self-controlled she is. she went all through the sorrow of mother's death without once breaking down, not once. but the night before i started to come here, in the middle of the night, i heard such a sound from judith's room! it frightened me, so i could hardly get my breath! it was judith crying, crying terribly, so that she couldn't keep it back any more. i never knew her to cry before. i didn't dare go into her room--mother would--but i didn't dare. and yet i couldn't leave her there alone in such awful trouble. i stood by the door in the dark--oh, arnold, i don't know how long--and heard her--when it began to be light she was quiet, and i went back to bed; and after a while i tiptoed in. she had gone to sleep at last. arnold, there under her cheek was that old baseball cap of yours ... all wet, all wet with her tears, judith's tears." before she had finished she was sorry she had spoken. arnold's face was suffused with purple. he put his hand up to his collar and wrenched at it, clenched his fists, and finally, flinging his riding-crop far from him, hid his face in his hands and burst into tears. "isn't it damnable!" he said over and over. "isn't it damnable!" sylvia had nothing more to say. it seemed indeed damnable to her. she wondered again at judith's invincible force of will. that alone was the obstacle--no, it was something back of judith's will, something which even arnold recognized; for now, to her astonishment, he looked up, his face smeared like a weeping child's, and said in a low tone, "you know, of course, that judith's right." the testimony was wrung out of him. but it came. the moment was one never to be forgotten. out of her passionate pity was born strength that was not to be denied. she took his hand in hers, his dry, sick man's hand. "arnold, you asked me to give you a reason why you should get the best you can out of yourself. i'll give you a reason. judith is a reason. austin is a reason. i'm a reason. i am never going to let you go. judith can't be the one to help you get through the best you can, even though it may not be so very well--poor, poor judith, who would die to be able to help you! mother wasn't allowed to. she wanted to, i see that now. but i can. i'm not a thousandth part as strong or as good as they; but if we hang together! all my life is going to be settled for me in a few hours. i don't know how it's going to be. but however it is, you will always be in my life. for as long as you live," she caught her breath at the realization of how little that phrase meant, "for as long as you live, you are going to be what you wanted to be, what you ought to have been, my brother--my mother's son." he clung to her hand, he clung to it with such a grip that her fingers ached--and she blessed the pain for what it meant. chapter xlvii "... and all the trumpets sounded!" they had told her at the farm, the old man and the old woman who had looked so curiously at her, that mr. page had gone on up the wood-road towards the upper pasture. he liked to go there sometimes, they said, to look at the sunset from a big rock that stood in the edge of the white birch woods. they added, in extenuation of this, that of course somebody had to go up there anyhow, once in a while, to salt the sheep. sylvia had passed on, passed the great, square, many-chimneyed house, passed the old-fashioned garden, and struck into the wood-road beyond the bars. the sun was so low now, almost below the edge of the notch, that the rays were level and long behind her. so she had walked, bathed in luminous gold at versailles, on the day when austin had first told her that he loved her, on the day she had told him the truth. from the first moment she had seen him how he had always brought out from her the truest and best, finer and truer than anything she had thought was in her, like a reflection from his own integrity. his eyes that day, what clear wells of loyalty and honor ... how her mother would have loved him! and that other day, when he said farewell and went away to his ordeal ... she closed her eyes for an instant, pierced with the recollection of his gaze on her! what was she, what poor thing transfigured to divinity, that such passion, such tenderness had been hers ... even for a moment ... even if now ... she looked timidly up the green tunnel of the arching trees, fearing to see him at any moment. and yet how she hastened her steps towards where he was! the moments were too long till she should find her heart's home! after a time, there came a moment of such terrible throbbing of the heart, such trembling, that she could not go on. she sat down on a rock beside the road and pressed her shaking hands on her cheeks. no, it was too awful. she had been insane to think of putting everything, her whole life, to the test of a moment's shock. she would go back. she would write him.... she looked up and saw her mother's gallant figure standing there before her. she smiled, and started on. strange that she had thought her mother could be dead. her first instinct had been right. her mother, _her_ mother could not die. the road turned sharply to the left. she came out from the white birches. she was in the edge of the pasture, sweet-fern at her feet, a group of sheep raising startled heads to gaze at her, the sun's rim red on the horizon below her. and up there, the sunlight on his face, above her, stood austin. the sight of him was like a great burst of music in her heart, like a great flood of light. her doubts, her uncertainties, they were gone out, as utterly as night goes before the sun. her ears rang to a sound like singing voices. for a moment she did not feel the ground under her feet.... austin looked down and saw her. he stood like a man in a dream. and then he knew. he knew. and sylvia knew. he gave a great cry of welcome which was to ring in her ears for all her life, like a benediction. he ran down to meet her, and took her in his arms. the end the visioning a novel by susan glaspell chapter i miss katherine wayneworth jones was bunkered. having been bunkered many times in the past, and knowing that she would be bunkered upon many occasions in the future, miss jones was not disposed to take a tragic view of the situation. the little white ball was all too secure down there in the sand; as she had played her first nine, and at least paid her respects to the game, she could now scale the hazard and curl herself into a comfortable position. it was a seductively lazy spring day, the very day for making arm-chairs of one's hazards. and let it be set down in the beginning that miss jones was more given to a comfortable place than to a tragic view. katherine wayneworth jones, affectionately known to many friends in many lands as katie jones, was an "army girl." and that not only for the obvious reasons: not because her people had been of the army, even unto the second and third generations, not because she had known the joys and jealousies of many posts, not even because bachelor officers were committed to the habit of proposing to her--those were but the trappings. she was an army girl because "well, when you know her, you don't have to be told, and if you don't know her you can't be," a floundering friend had once concluded her exposition of why katie was so "army." for her to marry outside the army would be regarded as little short of treason. to-day she was giving a little undisturbing consideration to that thing of her marrying. for it was her twenty-fifth birthday, and twenty-fifth birthdays are prone to knock at the door of matrimonial possibilities. just then the knock seemed answered by captain prescott. unblushingly miss jones considered that doubtless before the summer was over she would be engaged to him. and quite likely she would follow up the engagement with a wedding. it seemed time for her to be following up some of her engagements. she did not believe that she would at all mind marrying harry prescott. all his people liked all hers, which would facilitate things at the wedding; she would not be rudely plunged into a new set of friends, which would be trying at her time of life. everything about him was quite all right: he played a good game of golf, not a maddening one of bridge, danced and rode in a sort of joy of living fashion. and she liked the way he showed his teeth when he laughed. she always thought when he laughed most unreservedly that he was going to show more of them; but he never did; it interested her. and it interested her the way people said: "prescott? oh yes--he was in cuba, wasn't he?" and then smiled a little, perhaps shrugged a trifle, and added: "great fellow--prescott. never made a mess of things, anyhow." to have vague association with the mysterious things of life, and yet not to have "made a mess of things"--what more could one ask? of course, pounding irritably with her club, the only reason for not marrying him was that there were too many reasons for doing so. she could not think of a single person who would furnish the stimulus of an objection. stupid to have every one so pleased! but there must always be something wrong, so let that be appeased in having everything just right. and then there was cuba for one's adventurous sense. she looked about her with satisfaction. it frequently happened that the place where one was inspired keen sense of the attractions of some other place. but this time there was no place she would rather be than just where she found herself. for she was a little tired, after a long round of visits at gay places, and this quiet, beautiful island out in the mississippi--large, apart, serene--seemed a great lap into which to sink. she liked the quarters: big old-fashioned houses in front of which the long stretch of green sloped down to the river. there was something peculiarly restful in the spaciousness and stability, a place which the disagreeable or distressing things of life could not invade. most of the women were away, which was the real godsend, for the dreariness and desolation of pleasure would be eliminated. a quiet post was charming until it tried to be gay--so mused miss katherine wayneworth jones. and of various other things, mused she. her brother, captain wayneworth jones, was divorced from his wife and wedded to something he was hoping would in turn be wedded to a rifle; all the scientific cells of the family having been used for wayne's brain, it was hard for katie to get the nature of the attachment, but she trusted the ordnance department would in time solemnly legalize the affair--wayne giving in marriage--destruction profiting happily by the union. meanwhile wayne was so consecrated to the work of making warfare more deadly that he scarcely knew his sister had arrived. but on the morrow, or at least the day after, would come young wayneworth, called worth, save when his aunt kate called him wayne the worthy. wayne the worthy was also engaged in perfecting a death-dealing instrument, the same being the interrogation point. doubtless he would open fire on aunt kate with--why didn't his mother and father live in the same place any more, and--why did he have to live half the time with mama if he'd rather stay all the time with father? poor worth, he had only spent six years in a world of law and order, and had yet to learn about courts and incompatibilities and annoying things like that. it did not seem fair that the hardest part of the whole thing should fall to poor little wayne the worthy. he couldn't help it, certainly. but how worthie would love those collie pups! they would evolve all sorts of games to play with them. picturing herself romping with the boy and dogs, prowling about on the river in wayne's new launch, lounging under those great oak trees reading good lazying books, doing everything because she wanted to and nothing because she had to, flirting just enough with captain prescott to keep a sense of the reality of life, she lay there gloating over the happy prospect. and then in that most irresponsible and unsuspecting of moments something whizzed into her consciousness like a bullet--something shot by her vision pierced the lazy, hazy, carelessly woven web of imagery--bullet-swift, bullet-true, bullet-terrible--striking the center clean and strong. the suddenness and completeness with which she sat up almost sent her from her place. for from the very instant that her eye rested upon the figure of the girl in pink organdie dress and big hat she knew something was wrong. and when, within a few feet of the river the girl stopped running, shrank back, covered her face with her hands, then staggered on, she knew that that girl was going to the river to kill herself. there was one frozen instant of powerlessness. then--what to do? call to her? she would only hurry on. run after her? she could not get there. it was intuition--instinct--took the short cut a benumbed reason could not make; rolling headlong down the bunker, twisting her neck and mercilessly bumping her elbow, katherine wayneworth jones emitted a shriek to raise the very dead themselves. and then three times a quick, wild "help--help--help!" and a less audible prayer that no one else was near. it reached; the girl stopped, turned, saw the rumpled, lifeless-looking heap of blue linen, turned back toward the river, then once more to the motionless miss jones, lying face downward in the sand. and then the girl who thought life not worth living, delaying her own preference, with rather reluctant feet--feet clad in pink satin slippers--turned back to the girl who wanted to live badly enough to call for help. through one-half of one eye katie could see her; she was thinking that there was something fine about a girl who wanted to kill herself putting it off long enough to turn back and help some one who wanted to live. miss jones raised her head just a trifle, showed her face long enough to roll her eyes in a grewsome way she had learned at school, and with a "help me!" buried her face in the sand and lay there quivering. the girl knelt down. "you sick?" she asked, and katie had the fancy of her voice sounding as though she had not expected to use it any more. "so ill!" panted kate, rolling over on her back and holding her heart. "here! my heart!" the girl looked around uncertainly. it must be a jar, katie conceded, being called back to life, expected to fight for the very thing one was running away from. her rescuer was evidently considering going to the river for water--saving water (katie missed none of those fine points)--but instead she pulled the patient to a sitting position, supporting her. "you can breathe better this way, can't you?" she asked solicitously. "have you had them before? will it go away? shall i call some one?" katie rolled her head about as she had seen people do who were dying on the stage. "often--before. go away--soon. but don't leave me!" she implored, clutching at the girl wildly. "i will not leave you," the stranger assured her. "i have plenty of time." miss jones made what the doctors would call a splendid recovery. her breath began coming more naturally; her spine seemed to regain control of her head; her eyes rolled less wildly. "it's going," she panted; "but you'll have to help me to the house." "why of course," replied the girl who was being delayed. "do you think i'd leave a sick girl sitting out here all alone?" kate felt like apologizing. it seemed rather small--that interrupting a death to save a life. "where do you live?" her companion was asking. she pointed to the quarters. "in one of those?" "the second one," katie told her. "and thank heaven," she told herself, "the first one is closed!" "lean on me," directed the girl in pink, with a touch of the gentle authority of strong to weak. "don't be afraid to lean on me." kate felt the quick warm tears against her eyelids. "you're very kind," she said, and the quiver in her voice was real. they walked slowly on, silently. katie was trembling now, and in earnest. "my name is katherine jones," she said at last, looking timidly at the girl who was helping her. it wrought a change. the girl's mouth closed in a hard line. a hard, defending glitter seemed to seal her eyes. she did not respond. "may i ask to whom i am indebted for this kindness?" it was asked with gentleness. but for the moment it brought no response. "my name is verna woods," came at last with an unsteady defiance. they had reached the steps of the big, hospitable porch. with deep relief katie saw that there was no one about. nora had gone out with one of her adorers from the barracks. they turned, and were looking back to the river. it was may at may's loveliest: the grass and trees so tender a green, the river so gently buoyant, and a softly sympathetic sky over all. a soldier had appeared and was picking twigs from the putting green in front of them; another soldier was coming down the road with some eggs which he was evidently taking to captain prescott's quarters. he was whistling. everything seemed to be going very smoothly. and a launch was coming down the river; a girl's laugh came musically across the water and the green; it inspired the joyful throat of a nearby robin. and into this had been shot--! katie turned to the intruder. "it's lovely, isn't it?" she asked in a queer, hushed way. the girl looked at her, and at the fierce rush of things kate took a frightened step backward. but quickly the other had turned away her face. only her clenched hand and slightly moving shoulder told anything. there was another call to make, and instinct alone could not reach this time. for the moment thought of it left her mute. "you have been so kind to me," she began, her timidity serving well as helplessness, "so very kind. i wonder if i may ask one thing more? am--am i keeping you from anything you should be doing?" there was no response at first, just a little convulsive clenching of the hand, an accentuated movement of the shoulder. then, "i have time enough," was the low, curt answer, face still averted. "i am alone here, as you see. i am just a little afraid of a--a return attack. i wonder--would you be willing to come up to my room with me--help make a cup of tea for us and--stay with me a little while?" again for the minute, no reply. then the girl turned hotly upon her, suspicion, resentment--was it hatred, too?--in her eyes. but what she saw was as a child's face--wide eyes, beseeching mouth. women who wondered "what in the world men saw in katie jones" might have wondered less had they seen her then. the girl did not seem to know what to say. suddenly she was trembling from head to foot. kate laid a hand upon the quivering arm. "i've frightened you," she said regretfully and tenderly. "you need the tea, too. you'll come?" the girl's eyes roved all around like the furtive eyes of a frightened animal. but they came back to katie's steadying gaze. "why yes--i'll come--if you want me to," she said in voice she was clearly making supreme effort to steady. "i do indeed," said kate simply and led the way into the house. chapter ii and now that they were face to face across a tea-table miss jones was bunkered again. how get out of the sand? she did not know. she did not even know what club to use. for never had she drunk tea under similar circumstances. life had brought her varied experiences, but sitting across the teacups from one whom she had interrupted on the brink of suicide did not chance to be among them. she was wholly without precedent, and it was trying for an army girl to be stripped of precedent. they were sitting at a window which overlooked the river; the river which was flowing on so serenely, which was so blue and lazy and lovely that may afternoon. she looked to the place where--then back to the girl across from her--the girl who but for her-- she shivered. "is it coming back?" the girl asked. "n--o; i think not; but i hope you will not go." then, desperately resolved to break through, she asked boldly: "am i keeping you from anything important?" a strange gleam, compounded of things she did not understand, shot out at her. to be followed with: "important? oh i don't know. that depends on how you look at it. the only thing i have left to do is to kill myself. i guess it won't take long." kate met it with a sharp, involuntary cry. for the sullen steadiness, dispassionateness, detachment with which it was said made it more real than it had been at the water's edge. "but--but you see it's such a lovely day. you know--you know it's such a beautiful place," was what the resourceful miss jones found herself stammering. "yes," agreed her companion, "pleasant weather, isn't it?" she looked at katie contemptuously. "you think _weather_ makes any difference? that's like a girl like you!" katie laughed. laughing seemed the only sand club she had just then. "i _am_ a fool," she agreed. "i've often thought so myself. but like most other fools i mean well, and this just didn't seem to me the sort of day when it would occur to one to kill one's self. now if it were terribly hot, the kind of hot that takes your brains away, or so cold you were freezing, or even if it were raining, not a decent rain, but that insulting drizzle that makes you hate everything--why then, yes, i might understand. but to kill one's self in the sunshine!" as she was finishing she had a strange sensation. she saw that the girl was looking at her compassionately. katherine wayneworth jones was not accustomed to being viewed with compassion. "it would be foolish to try to make you understand," said the girl simply, finality in her weariness. "it would be foolish to try to make a girl like you understand that nothing can be so bad as sunshine." katie leaned across the table. this interested her. "why i suppose that might be true. i suppose--" but the girl was not listening. she was leaning back in the great wicker chair. she seemed actually to be relaxing, resting. that seemed strange to kate. how could she be resting in an hour which had just been tacked on to her life? and then it came to her that perhaps it was a long time since the girl had sat in a chair like that. if she had had a chance, when things were going badly, to sit in such a chair and rest, might the river have seemed a less desirable place? she had always supposed it was _big_ things--queer, abstract, unknowable things like forces and traits that made life and death. did _chairs_ count? as the girl's eyes closed, surrenderingly, katie was glad that no matter what she might decide to do about things she had had that hour in the big, tenderly cushioned wicker chair. it might be a kinder memory to take with her from life than anything she had known for a long time. katherine had grown very still, still both outwardly and inwardly. people spoke of her enviously as having experienced so much; living in all parts of the world, knowing people of all nations and kinds. but it seemed all of that had been mere splashing around on the beach. she was out in the big waves now. she looked at the girl; looked with the eyes of one who would understand. and what she saw was that some one, something, had, as it were, struck a blow at the center, and the girl, the something that really _was_ her, had gone to pieces. everything was scattered. even her features scarcely seemed to belong to each other, so how must it not be with those other things, inner things, oh, things one did not know what to call? was it because she could not get things together it seemed to her she must make them all stop? was that it? did people lose the power to hold themselves in the one that made you _you_? what could do that? something that reached the center; not many things could; something, perhaps, that kept battering at it for a long time, and just shook it at first, and then-- it was too dreadful to think of it that way. she tried to make herself stop. the girl's face was turned to the out-of-doors; to a great tree in front of the window, a tree in which some robins had built their nests. such a tired face! so many tear marks, and so much less reachable than tear stains. a beautiful face, too. if all were back which the blow at the center had struck away, if she had all of her--if lighted--it would be a rarely beautiful face. the girl was like a flower; a flower, it seemed to kate, which had not been planted in the right place. the gardener had been unwise in his selection of a place for this flower; perhaps he had not used the right kind of soil, perhaps he had put it in the full heat of the sun when it was a flower to have more shade; perhaps too much wind or too much rain--katie wondered just what the mistake had been. for the flower would have been so lovely had the gardener not made those mistakes. even now, it was lovely: lovely with a saddening loveliness, for one saw at a glance how easily a breeze too rough could beat it down. and one knew there had been those breezes. every petal drooped. a strange desire entered the heart of katherine: a desire to see whether those petals could take their curves again, whether a color which blunders had faded could come back to its own. she was like the new gardener eager to see whether he can redeem the mistakes of the old. and the new gardener's zeal is not all for the flower; some of it is to show what he can do, and much of it the true gardener's passion for experiment. katie jones would have made a good gardener. and yet it was something less cold than the experimenting instinct tightened her throat as she looked at the frail figure of the girl for whom life had been too much. "i must go now," she was saying, with what seemed mighty effort to summon all of herself over which she could get command. "you are all right now. i must go." but she sank back in the chair, as if that one thing left at the center pulled her back, crying out that if it could but have a little more time there-- the girl in blue linen was sitting at the feet of the girl in pink organdie. she had hold of her hand, so slim a hand. everything about the girl was slim, built for favoring breezes. "i have one thing more to ask." it was kate's voice was not well controlled this time. "you may call it a whim, a notion, foolish notion; call it what you like, but i want you to stay here to-night." the girl was looking down at her, down into the upturned face, all light and strength and purpose as one standing apart and disinterested might view a spectacle. slowly, comprehendingly, dispassionately she shook her head. "it would be--no use." "perhaps," katie acquiesced. "some of the very nicest things in life are--no use. but i have something planned. may i tell you what it is i want to do?" still she did not take her eyes from katie's kindling face, looking at it as at something a long way off and foreign. "i am not a philanthropist, have no fears of that. but i have an idea, a theory, that what seem small things are perhaps the only things in life to help the big things. for instance, a hot bath. i can't think of any sorrow in the world that a hot bath wouldn't help, just a little bit." "now we have such a beautiful bathroom. i loathe hot baths in tiny bathrooms, where the air gets all steamy and you can't get your breath. perhaps one thing the matter with you is that all the bathrooms you've been in lately were too small. of course, you didn't _know_ that was one thing the matter; like once at a dance i thought i was very sad about a man's dancing so much with another girl, a new girl--don't you loathe 'new girls'?--but when i got home i found that one of my dress stays was digging into me and when i got my dress off i didn't feel half so broken up about the man." an odd thing happened; one thing struck away came back. there was a light in the eyes telling that something human and understanding, something to link her to other things human, would like to come back. she looked and listened as to something nearer. seeing it, katie chattered on, against time, about nothing; foolish talk, heartless talk, it might even seem, to be pouring out to a girl who felt there was no place for her in life. but it was nonsense carried by tenderness. nonsense which made for kinship. it reached. several times the girl who thought she must kill herself was not far from a smile and at last there was a tear on the long lashes. "so i'm going to undress you," katie unfolded her plan, encouraged by the tear, "and then let's just see what hot water can do about it. and maybe a little rub. i used to rub my mother's spine. she said life always seemed worth living after i had done that." she patted the hand she held ever so lightly as she said: "how happy i would be if i could make you feel that way about it, too. then i've a dear room to take you into, all soft grays and greens, and oh, such a good bed! why you know you're tired! that's what's the matter with you, and you're just too tired to know what's the matter." the girl nodded, tears upon her cheeks, looking like a child that has had a cruel time and needs to be comforted. katie's voice was lower, different, as she went on: "then after i've brushed your hair and done all those 'comfy' things i'm going to put you in a certain, a very special gown i have. it was made by the nuns in a convent in southern france. as they worked upon it they sat in a garden on a hillside. they thought serene thoughts, those nuns. you see i know them, lived with them. i don't know, one has odd fancies sometimes, and it always seemed to me that something of the peace of things there was absorbed in that wonderful bit of linen. it seems far away from things that hurt and harm. almost as if it might draw back things that had gone. i was going to keep it--" katie's eyes deepened, there was a little catch in her voice. "well, i was just keeping it. but because you are so tired--oh just because you need it so.--i want you to let me give it to you." and with a tender strength holding the sobbing girl katie unfastened her collar and began taking off her dress. chapter iii "kate," demanded captain jones, "what's that noise?" "how should i know?" airily queried kate. "i heard a noise in the room above. this chimney carries every sound." "nonsense," jeered his sister. "wayne, you've lived alone so long that you're getting spooky." he turned to the other man. "prescott, didn't you hear something?" "believe i did. it sounded like a cough." "well, what of it?" railed kate. "isn't poor nora permitted to cough, if she is disposed to cough? she's in there doing the room for me. i'm going to try sleeping in there--isn't insomnia a fearful thing? but the fussiness of men!" they were in the library over their coffee. kate was peculiarly charming that night in one of the thin white gowns she wore so much, and which it seemed so fitting she should wear. she had been her gayest. prescott was thinking he had never known any one who seemed to sparkle and bubble that way; and so easily and naturally, as though it came from an inner fount of perpetual action, and could more easily rise than be held down. and he was wondering why a girl who had so many of the attributes of a boy should be so much more fascinating than any mere girl. "there are two kinds of girl," he had heard an older officer once say. "there are girls, and then there is katie jones." he had condemned that as distinctly maudlin at the time, but recalled it to-night with less condemnation. "katie," exclaimed wayne, after his sister had read aloud some one's engagement from the army and navy register, and wondered vehemently how those two people ever expected to live together, "nora's out on the side porch with watts!" "do you disapprove of this affair between nora and watts?" katie wanted to know, critically inspecting the design on her coffee spoon. "i distinctly disapprove of having some one coughing in the room upstairs and not being satisfied who the some one is!" she leaned forward, pointing her spoon at him earnestly. "wayne, they say there are some excellent nerve specialists in chicago. i'd advise you to take the night train. take the rifle along, wayne, and find out just what it's done to you." "that's all very well! but if you'd been reading the papers lately you'd know that ideas of house-breaking are not necessarily neurasthenic." "dear wayne, lover of maps and charts, let me take this pencil and make a little sketch for you. _a_ is the chamber above. in that chamber is nora. nora coughs in parting. then she parts. _b_ is the back hall through which nora walks. _c_ is the back stairs which she treads. watts being waiting, she treads--or is it kinder to say trips?--with good blithe speed. _d_ is the side door and _e_ the side porch. now i ask you, oh master of engineering and weird mechanical and mathematical mysteries, what is to prevent nora from getting from _a_ to _e_ in the interval of time between the coughing and the viewing?" prescott laughed, but wayne only grunted and ominously eyed the chimney place. "there!" he cried, triumphantly on his feet before his sister, as again came the faint but unmistakable little cough. "a little harder to make a map this time, isn't it? talk about nerve specialists--!" he started for the door, but katie slipped in in front of him, and closed it. "don't go, wayne," she said quietly; queerly, prescott thought. "don't _go?_ kate, what's the matter with you? now don't be foolish, katie," he admonished with the maddening patronage of the older brother. "open the door." "i wish you wouldn't go," she sighed plaintively, arms outstretched against the door. "i do hope you won't insist on going. you'll frighten ann." "frighten _who?_" "ann," she repeated demurely. "ann--_who?_ ann--_what?_" "ann _who!_ ann _what!_ that's a nice way to speak of my friends! it's all very well to blow up the world, wayne, but i think one should retain some of the civilities of life!" "but i don't understand," murmured poor wayne. "no, of course not. do you understand anything except things that nobody else wants to understand? ann is not smokeless powder, so i presume you are not interested in her, but it seems to me you might tax your brain sufficiently to bear in mind that i told you she was coming!" "i'm sorry," said wayne humbly. "i don't seem able to recall a word about her." "i scarcely expected you would," was the withering response. "tell me about her," captain prescott asked sympathetically. "i like girls better than guns. has ann another name? do i know her?" katie was bending down inspecting a tear she had discovered at the bottom of her dress. "oh yes, why yes, certainly, ann has another name. her name is forrest. no, i think you do not know her. i don't know that ann knows many army people. i knew her in europe." then, as they seemed waiting for more: "i am very fond of ann." she had resumed her seat and the critical examination of her coffee spoon. the men were silent, respecting the moment of tender contemplation of her fondness for ann. "ann is a dear girl," she volunteered at last. "having had it impressed upon me that i am such a duffer," captain jones began, a little haughtily, "i naturally hesitate to make many inquiries, but i cannot quite get it through my stupid and impossible head just why 'ann' is hidden away in this mysterious manner." "there's nothing mysterious about it," said kate sharply. "ann was tired." "and why, if i may venture still another blundering question, was poor nora held responsible for a cough she never coughed?" once more miss jones surveyed the torn ruffle at the bottom of her skirt. she seemed to be giving it serious consideration. "i am glad that i do not live in the mississippi valley," was the remark she finally raised herself to make. "one of kate's greatest charms," wayne informed prescott, "is the emphasis and assurance with which she unfailingly produces the irrelevant. now when you ask her if she likes benedictine, don't be at all surprised to have her dreamily murmur: 'but why should oranges always be yellow?'" "i am glad that i do not live in the mississippi valley," kate went on, superiorly ignoring the observation, "because the joy of living seems to be at a very low ebb out here." "honestly now, do you get that?" he demanded of his friend. "ann and i had planned a beautiful surprise for you, wayne." "thanks," said wayne drily. "to-night ann was tired. she did not wish to come down to dinner. of course, i might have told you: 'ann is here.' to the orderly, west-pointed mind, the well oiled, gun-constructing mind, i presume that would present itself as the thing to do. but ann and i have a sense of the joy of living, a delight in the festive, in the--the bubbling wine of youth, you know. so we said, 'how beautiful to surprise dear wayne.' in the morning ann, refreshed by the long night's sleep, was to go out and gather roses. wayne--" "the roses don't bloom until next month," brutally interrupted wayne. "of course, you would think of that! as we had planned it, wayne, looking from his window was to see the beautiful girl--she is a beautiful girl--gathering dew-laden roses in the garden. perhaps captain prescott, chancing at that very moment to look from his window, would see her too. it was to be a beautiful, a never-to-be-forgotten moment for you both." "we humbly apologize," laughed prescott. "hum!" grunted dear wayne. chapter iv she stepped out on the porch for a moment as captain prescott was saying good-night. the moonlight was falling weirdly through the big trees, stretching itself over the grass in shapes that seemed to spell unearthly things. and there were mystical lights on the water down there, flitting about with the movement of the stream as ghosts might flit. because it looked so other-world-like she wondered if it knew what it had just missed. she had never thought anything about water save as something to look beautiful and have a good time on. it seemed now that perhaps it knew a great deal about things of which she knew nothing at all. "oh, i say, jolly night, isn't it?" he exclaimed as they stood at the head of the steps. "yes," said kate grimly, "pleasant weather, isn't it?" and laughed oddly. "it's great about your friend coming; miss--?" "forrest." she spoke it decisively. "she arrived this afternoon?" "yes, unexpectedly. i was never more surprised in my life than when i looked up and saw ann standing there." katie was not too impressed to resist toying a little with the situation. "oh, is that so? i thought--" but he was too well-bred to press it. "of course," she hastened to patch together her thread, "of course, as i told wayne, i knew that ann was coming. but i didn't really expect her until day after to-morrow. you see, there have been complications." "oh, i see. well, at any rate it's great that she's here. she will be with you for the summer?" "ann's plans are a little uncertain," kate informed him. "i hope she'll not find it dull. does she care for golf?" "u--m, i--ann has never played much, i believe. you see she has lived so much in europe--on the continent--places where they don't play golf! and then ann is not very strong." "then this is just the place for her. great place for loafing, you know. i hope she is fond of the water?" kate was leaning against one of the pillars, still looking down toward the river. it might have been the moonlight made her look so strange as she said, with a smile of the same quality as those shadows on the grass: "why yes; in fact, ann's fondness for the water was the first thing i ever noticed about her. i think i might even say it was the water drew us together." "oh, well then, that is great. we can take the boat and do all sorts of jolly things. now i wonder--about a horse for her. she rides?" "perhaps you had better make no plans for ann," she suddenly advised. "it really would not surprise me at all if she went away to-morrow. there is a great deal of uncertainty about the whole thing. in fact, ann has had a great deal of trouble." "i'm sorry," he said with a simplicity she liked in him. "yes, a great deal of trouble. last year both her father and mother died, which was a great blow to her." "well, rather!" "and now there are all sorts of business things to straighten out. it's really very hard for ann." "perhaps we can help her," he suggested. "perhaps we can," agreed kate. her eyes left him to wander across the shadows down to the river again. but she came back to him to say, and this with the oddest smile of all, "wouldn't it be a queer sensation for us? that thing of really 'helping' some one?" she could not go to sleep that night. for a long time she sat in her room in the same big chair in which ann had sat that afternoon. poor ann, who had sat there before she knew she was ann, who was sleeping now without knowing she was ann. for ann was indeed sleeping. from her door as kate carefully opened it had come the deep breathing as of an exhausted child. who was ann? where had she come from? how did she get there? what had happened? why had she wanted to kill herself? she wanted to know. in truth, she was madly curious to know. and probably she never would know. and what would happen now? it suddenly occurred to her that wayne might be rather annoyed at having ann commit suicide. but there was a little catch in her laugh at the thought of wayne's consternation. a long time she sat there wondering. where _had_ ann come from? she had just seemed whirled out of the nowhere into the there, as an unannounced comet in well-ordered heavens ann had come. from what other world?--and why? did she belong to anybody? another pleasant prospect for poor wayne! was some one looking for ann? would there be things in the paper about her? surely a girl could not step out of her life and leave no trail behind. things could not close up like that, even about ann. every one had a place. then how could one step from that place without leaving a conspicuous looking vacancy? why had ann been dressed that way? it seemed a strange costume in which to kill one's self. it seemed to katie that one would prefer to meet the unknown in a smaller hat. she went to the closet and took out the organdie dress and satin slippers. from whence? and why thither? they opened long paths of wondering. the dress was bedraggled about the bottom, as though trailed through fields and over roads. and so strangely crumpled, and so strange the scent--a scent hauntingly familiar, yet baffling in its relation to gowns. a poorly made gown, katie noted, but effective. she tried to read the story, but could not read beyond the fact that there was a story. the pink satin slippers had broken heels and were stained and soaked. they had traveled ground never meant for them. something about ann made one feel she was not the girl to be walking about in satin slippers. something had happened. she had been dressed for one thing and then had done another thing. could it be that ever since the night before she had been out of her place in the scheme of things?--loosened from the great human unit?--seeking destruction, perhaps, because she could not regain her place therein? "where have you been?" katie murmured to the ruined slippers. "what did it? what do you know? what did you want?" many a pair of just such slippers she had danced to the verge of shabbiness. to her they were associated with hops, the gayest of music and lightest of laughter, brilliant crowds in flower-scented rooms, dancing and flirtation--the froth and bubble of life. but something sterner than waxed floors had wrought the havoc here. how much of life's ground all unknown to her had these poor little slippers trodden? was it often like that?--that the things created for the fun and the joy found the paths of tragedy? she had put them away and was at last going to bed when she idly picked up the evening paper. what she saw was that the daisey-maisey opera company was playing at the city across the river. something made her stand there very still. could it be--? might it not be--? she did not know. would she ever know? it drew her back to the girl's room. she was sleeping serenely. with shaded candle katie stood at the door watching her. surely the hour was past! sleep such as that must draw one back to life. lying there in the sweet dignity of her braided hair, in that simple lovely gown, she might have been ann indeed. there was tenderness just then in the heart of katherine wayneworth jones. she was glad that this girl who was sleeping as though sleep had been a treasure long withheld, was knowing to-night the balm of a good bed, glad that she could sink so unquestioningly into the lap of protection. protection!--it was that which one had in a place like this. why was it given the anns--and not the vernas? the sleeping girl seemed to feel that all was well in the house which sheltered her that night. suddenly katie knew what it was had gone. fear. it was terror had slipped back, leaving the weariness which can give itself over to sleep. katie was thinking, striking deeper things than were wont to invade katie's meditations. the protection of a wayne, the chivalrous comradeship of a captain prescott--how different the life of an ann from the life this girl might have had! she stood at the door for a long moment, looking at her with a searching tenderness. what had she been through? what was there left for her? once, as a child, she had taken a turtle from its native mud and brought it home. soon after that they moved into an apartment and her father said that she must give the turtle up. "but, father," she had cried, "you don't understand! i took it! now how can i throw it away?" "you are right, katherine," he had replied gravely--her dear, honorable, understanding father; "it is rather inconvenient to have a turtle in an apartment, but, as you say, responsibilities are greater than conveniences." she was thinking of that story as she finally went to bed. chapter v "nora," said katie next morning, "miss forrest has had a great misfortune." nora paused in her dusting, all ready with the emotion which katie's tone invited. "she has lost all of her luggage!" "the poor young lady!" cried good nora. "yes, it is really terrible, isn't it? everything lost; through the carelessness of the railroads, you know. and such beautiful gowns as they were. so--so unusual. poor miss ann was forced to arrive in a dress most unsuited to traveling, and is now quite--oh quite--destitute." nora held her head with both hands, speechless. "didn't you tell me, nora, that your cousin's wife was very clever at sewing--at fixing things over?" "yes, yes, miss kate--yes'm." "i wonder, nora, would she come and help us?" "she would be that glad, miss kate. she--" "you see, miss ann is not very well. she--poor miss ann, i hope you will be very kind to her. she is an orphan, like you, nora." nora wiped both eyes. "and just now it would be too dreadful for her to have to see about a lot of things. so i think, temporarily, we could arrange some of my things; let them down a little, and perhaps take them in--miss ann is a little taller and a little slimmer than i. could you send for your cousin's wife to help us, nora?" profusely, o'erflowingly, nora affirmed that this would be possible. when captain jones came in from the shops for luncheon it was to find his sister installed in the hall, one of those roomy halls adapted to all purposes of living, some white and pink and blue things strewn around her, doing something with a scissors. just what she was doing seemed to concern him very little, for he sat down at a table near her, pulled out some blue prints, and began studying them. "thank heaven for the saving qualities of firearms," mused katherine, industriously letting out a tuck. but luncheon seemed to suggest the social side of life, for after they were seated he asked: "oh yes, by the way, where's miss--" "ann is still sleeping," replied kate easily. "she must be a good sleeper," ventured wayne. "ann is tired, wayne," she said with reproving dignity, "and as i have already told you several times without seeming to reach through the bullets on your brain, not well. she is here for a rest. she may not come down for several days." "not what one would call a hilarious guest," he commented. "no, less hilarious than zelda fraser." katie spitefully mentioned a former guest whom wayne had particularly detested. he laughed. "well, who is she? what did you say her name was?" "oh wayne," she sighed long-sufferingly, "again--once again--let me tell you that her name is forrest." "what forrest?" "'um, i don't believe you know ann's people." "not the major forrest family?" "no, not that family; not army people at all." "well, what people? i can't seem to place her." "ann is of--artistic people. her father was a great artist. that is, he would have been a great artist had he not died when he was very young." "rather an assumption, isn't it, that a man would have--" "why not at all, if he has done enough during his brief lifetime to warrant the assumption." "is her mother living?" "oh no," said katie irritably, "certainly not. her mother has been dead--five years." then, looking into the dreamy distance and drawing it out as though she loved it: "her mother was a great musician." "i shan't like her," announced wayne decisively; "she is probably exotic and self-conscious and supercilious, and not at all a comfortable person to have about. it's bad enough for her father to have been a great artist--without her mother needs having been a great musician." "she is simple and sweet and very shy," reproved kate. "so shy that she will doubtless be painfully embarrassed at meeting you, and seem--well, really ill at ease." "that will be an odd spectacle--a young woman of to-day 'painfully embarrassed' at meeting a man. i never saw any of them very ill at ease, save when there were no men about." "ann's experiences have not all been happy ones, wayne," said katie in the manner of the deeply understanding to one of lesser comprehension. "i hope she'll go on sleeping. a young woman of artistic people--painfully embarrassed--unhappy experiences--it doesn't sound at all comfortable to me." but a little later he said: "prescott seems to think that daisey-maisey company not bad. if you girls would like to go we'll telephone for seats." katie paused in the eating of a peach. "thank you, wayne, but i have an idea--just a vague sort of idea--that ann would not care especially for that." "she's probably right," said wayne, returning with relief to the blue prints. katie's sporting blood was up. ann was to be ann. never in her life had she been so fascinated with anything as with this creation of an ann. "i have prepared a place for her," she mused, over the untucking of the softest of rose pink muslins. "i have prepared for her a family and a temperament and a sorrow and all that a young woman could most desire. from out the nothing a conscious something i have evoked. it would be most ungracious--ungrateful--of ann to refuse to be what i made her. i invented her. by all laws of decency, she must be ann. indeed, she _is_ ann." and katie was truly beginning to think so. katie's imagination coquetted successfully with conviction. ann, or more accurately the idea of ann, fascinated her. never before had she known any one all unencumbered, unbound, by facts. most people were rendered commonplace by the commonplace things one knew about them. but ann was as interesting as one's brain could make her. anything one choose to think--or say--about ann could just as well as not be true. it swept one all unchained out into a virgin land of fancy. there was but one question. could ann keep within hailing distance of one's imagination? did ann have it in her to live up to the things one wished to believe about her? was she capable of taking unto herself the past and temperament with which one would graciously endow her? katie's sense of justice forced from her the admission that it was expecting a good deal of ann. she could see that nothing would be more bootless than thrusting traditions upon people who would not know what to do with them. but something about ann encouraged one to believe she could fit into a background prepared for her. and if she could--would--! the prospect lured--excited. it was as inexplicably intoxicating as a grimace at the preacher--a wink at the professor. it seemed to be saucily tweaking the ear of that insufferably solemn things-as-they-are goddess. there was in her eyes the light of battle when nora finally came to tell her that miss forrest was awake. but it changed to another light at sight of the girl sitting up in bed so bewilderedly, turning upon her eyes which seemed to say--"and what are you going to do with me now?" fighting down the lump in her throat katie seized briskly upon that look of inquiry. "what she needs now," she decided, "is not tears, but a high hand." "next thing on the program," she began, buoyantly raising the shades and throwing the windows wide, "is air. you're a good patient, for you do as you're told. it's been a fine sleep, hasn't it? and now i mean to get you into some clothes and take you out for a drive." the girl shrank down in the pillows, pulling the covers clear to her chin, as if to shut herself in. she did not speak, but shook her head. but katie rode right over that look of pain and fear in her eyes, refusing to emphasize it by recognition. she left the room and returned after a moment with a white flannel suit which she spread out on the bed. "this is not a bad looking suit, is it? your dress is scarcely warm enough for driving, so i want you to wear this. i told nora that your luggage was lost. it may be just as well for you to know, from time to time, what i'm telling about you. i have an idea this suit will be very becoming to you. it came from paris. i presume i'm rather foolish about things from paris, but they always seem to me to have brought a little life and gayety along. there's a dear little white hat and stunning automobile veil goes with this suit. i can scarcely wait to see how pretty you're going to look in it all." for answer the girl turned to the wall, hid her face in the pillows, and sobbed. kate laid a hand upon her hair--soft, fine brown hair with tempting little waves and gleams in it. there came to her a hideous vision of how that hair might have looked by this time had she not--by the merest chance-- it gave her a feeling of proprietary tenderness for the girl. it seemed indeed that this life was in her hands--for was it not her hands had kept it a life? "please," she murmured gently, persuasively, as the sobs grew wilder. suddenly the girl raised her head and turned upon katie passionately. "what do you mean? what is this all about? i know well enough that people are not like this! this is not the way the world is!" "not like what?" kate asked quietly. "doing things for people they don't have to do things for! taking people into their houses and giving them things--their best things!--treating them as if there was some reason for treating them like that! i never heard of such a thing. what are you doing it for?" katie sat there smiling at her calmly. "do you want to know the honest truth?" the girl nodded, looking at her with anticipatory defiance, but that defiance which could so easily crumble to despair. "very well then," she began lightly, "here goes. i don't know that it will sound very well, but it has the doubtful virtue of being true. the first reason is that it interests me; perhaps i should even say--amuses me. i always did like new things--queer things--surprises--things different. and the other reason is that i've taken a sure enough liking to you." she had drawn back at the first reason; but the bluntness of the first must have conveyed a sense of honesty in the second, for like the child who has been told something nice, a smile was faintly suggested beneath the tears. "would you like to hear my favorite quotation from scripture?" kate wanted to know. at thought of katie's having a favorite quotation the smile grew a little more defined. "my favorite quotation is this: 'take no thought for the morrow.' perhaps it ends in a way that spoils it; i would never read the rest of it, fearing it would ruin itself, but taking just so much and no more--and it certainly is your privilege to do that if you wish--if all of a thing is good for you, part of it must be somewhat good--it does make the most comfortable philosophy of life i know of. it's a great solace to me. now when i am seventy, i don't doubt i will have lost my teeth. losing one's teeth is such a distressing thing that i could sit here and weep bitterly for mine were it not for the sustaining power of my favorite quotation. why don't you adopt it for your favorite, too? and, taking no thought for the morrow, is there any reason in the world why you shouldn't go out now and have a beautiful drive? going for a drive doesn't commit one to any philosophy of life, or line of action, does it? and whatever you do, don't ever refuse nice things because you can't see the reason for people's doing them. i shudder to think how much--or better, how little fun i would have had in life had i first been compelled to satisfy myself i was entitled to it. we're entitled to nothing--most of us; that's all the more reason for taking all we can get. but come now! here are some fresh things--yours seem a bit dusty." in such wise she rambled on as a bewildered but unresisting girl surrendered herself to her wiles and hands. when katie returned from a call to the telephone it was to find ann rubbing her hand over a pretty ankle adorned with the most silky of silken hose. "likes them," katie made of it, at sight of the down-turned face; "always wanted them--maybe never had them. moral--if you want people to believe in you, give them something they don't need, but would like to have." she did her hair for her, chatting all the while about ways of doing hair, exclaiming about the beauty of ann's and planning things she was going to do with it. "were i as proud of all my works as i am of this, i might be a more self-respecting person," she said, finally passing ann the hand mirror as if the girl's one concern in life was to see whether she approved of the plaiting of those soft glossy braids. and unmistakably she did approve. "it does look nice this way, doesn't it?" she agreed, looking up at katie with a shy eagerness. when at last ann had been made ready, when katie had slipped on the long loosely fitted white coat, had adjusted the big veil with just the right touch of sophisticated carelessness, as she surveyed the work of her hands her excitement could with difficulty contain itself. "she _is_ ann," she gloated. "her father _was_ a great artist. her mother simply couldn't _be_ anything but a great musician. and she's lived all her life in--italy, i think it is. oh--i know! she's from florence. why she couldn't be any place but from florence--and she doesn't know anything about bridge and scandal and pay and promotion--but she knows all about dreaming dreams and seeing visions. she's lived a life apart--aloof--looking at great pictures and hearing great music. of course, she's a little shy with us--she doesn't understand our roistering ways--that's part of her being ann." but when she came back after getting her own things, ann had gone. the girl in white was still sitting there in the chair, but she was not at all ann. things not from florence, other things than dreams and visions and great pictures and music had taken hold of her. frightened and disorganized again, she was huddled in the chair, and as katie stood in the doorway she said not a word, but shook her head, and the eyes told all. katie bent over the chair. "it's all 'up to me,'" she said quietly. "don't you see that it is? you haven't a thing in the world to do but follow my lead. won't you trust me enough to know that you will not be asked to do anything that would be too hard? believe in me enough to feel i will put through anything i begin? isn't it rather--oh, unthrifty, to let pasts and futures spoil presents? some time soon we may want to talk of the future, but just now there's only the present. and not a very terrifying present. nothing more fearful than winding in and out of the wooded roads of this beautiful place--listening to birds and--but come--" changing briskly to the practical and helping her rise as though dismissing the question--"i hear our horse." "i see miss jones has got some of her swell friends visitin' her," a soldier who was cutting grass remarked to a comrade newer to the service. "great swell--they tell me miss jones is. they say she's it in washington all right--way ahead of some that outranks her. got outside money--their own money. handy, ain't it?" he laughed. "though it ain't just the money, either. her mother was--well, somebody big--don't just recollect the name. friendly, miss jones is. not like some, afraid you're going to forget your place the minute she has a civil word with you. that one with her is some swell from washington or new york. you can tell that by the looks of her, all right. lord, don't they have it easy though?" chapter vi it would indeed seem so. men looking from the windows of the big shops--those great shops where army supplies were manufactured--noticed them with much the same thought, some of them admiringly, some resentfully, as they chanced to feel about things. they drove past building after building, buildings in which hundreds of men toiled on preparations for a possible war. the throb of those engines, sight of the perspiring faces, might suggest that rather large, a trifle extravagant, a bit cumbersome, was the price for peace. but these girls did not seem to be thinking of the possible war, or of the men who earned their bread thwarting it by preparation. one would suppose them to be just two beautifully cared for, careless-of-life girls, thinking of what some man had said at the dance the night before, or of the texture of the plume on some one's hat, or, to get down to the really serious issues of life, whether or not they could afford that love of a dinner gown. they left the main avenue and were winding in and out of the by-roads, roads which had all the care of a great park and all the charm of the deep woods. here and there were soldiers doing nothing more warlike than raking grass or repairing roads. it seemed far removed from the stress and the struggle, place where the sense of protection but contributed to the sense of freedom. there would come occasional glimpses of the river, the beautiful homes and great factories of the busy, prosperous, middle-western city opposite. to the other side was a town, too, a little city of large enterprises; to either side seethed the questions of steel, and all those attendant questions of mind and heart whose pressure grew ever bigger and whose safety valves seemed tested to their uttermost. to either side the savage battles of peace, and there in between--an island--the peaceful preparations for war. and in such places, sheltered, detached, yet offered all she would have from without, had always lived katie jones, a favorite child of the favored men whom precautions against war offered so serene a life; surrounded by friends who were likewise removed from the battles of peace to the peace of possible war, knowing the social struggle only as it touched their own detached questions of pay and rank, pleasant and stupid posts, hospitable and inhospitable commandants. and into this had rushed a victim of the battles of peace! from the stony paths of peace there to the well-kept roads of war! the irony of it struck katie anew: the incongruity of choosing so well-regulated a place for the performance of so disorderly an act as the taking of one's life. choosing army headquarters as the place in which to desert from the army of life! such an infringement of discipline as seeking self-destruction in that well-ordered spot where the machinery of destruction was so peacefully accumulated! she looked covertly at ann; she could do it, for the girl seemed for the most part unconscious of her. she was leaning back in the comfortably rounded corner of the stanhope, her hands lax in her lap, her eyes often closed--a tired child of peace drinking in the peace furnished by the military, was ann. it was plain that ann was one who could drink things in, could draw beauty to her as something which was of her, something, too, it seemed, of which she had been long in need. could it be that in the big outside world into which these new wonderings were sent, world which they seemed to penetrate but such a little way, there were many who did not find their own? might it not be that some of the most genuine florentines had never been to florence? and because all this was _of_ ann, it was banishing the things it could not assimilate. those hurt looks, fretted looks, that hard look, already kate had come to know them, would come, but always to go as ann would swiftly raise her head to get the song of a bird, or yield her face to the caress of a soft spring breeze. katie was grateful to the benign breezes, rich with the messages of opening buds, full, tender, restoring, which could blow away hard memories and bitter visions. yet those same breezes had blown yesterday. why could they not reach then? what was it had closed the door and shut in those things that were killing ann? what were those things that had filled up and choked ann's poor soul? from a hundred different paths she kept approaching it, could not keep away from it. one read of those things in the papers; they had always seemed to concern a people apart, to be pitied, but not understood, much less reached. overwhelming that one who had wished to kill one's self should be enjoying anything! that a door so tragically shut should open to so simple a knock! mere human voice reach that incomprehensible outermost brink! were they not people different, but just people like one's self, who had simply fallen down in the struggle, and only needed some one to help them up, give them a cool drink and chance for a moment's rest? _were_ the big and the little things so close? one's own kind and the other kind just one kind, after all? "i love winding roads," katie was saying, after a long silence. "i suppose the thing so alluring about them is that one can never be sure just what is around the bend. when i was a little girl i used to pretend it was fairies waiting around the next curve, and i have never--" but she drew in her horse sharply, for the moment at a loss; for it was not fairies, but captain prescott, riding smilingly toward them, very handsome on his fine mount. "it's--one of our officers," she said sharply. "i--i'll have to present him." "oh please--_please_!" was the girl's panic-stricken whisper. "let me get out! i must! i can't!" "you _can_. you must!" commanded katie. and then she had just time for just an imploring little: "for my sake." he had halted beside them and katie was saying, with her usual cool gaiety: "you care for this day, too, do you? we're fairly steeped in it. ann,"--not with the courage to look squarely at her--"at this moment i present your next-door neighbor. and a very good neighbor he is. we use his telephone when our telephone is discouraged. we borrow his books and bridles; we eat his bread and salt, drink his water and wine--especially his wine--we impose on him in every way known to good neighboring. yes, to be sure, this is miss forrest of whom i told you last night." as the captain was looking at ann and not seeming overpowered with amazement, looking, on the other hand, as though seeing something rarely good to look at, katie had the courage to look too. and at what she saw her heart swelled quite as the heart of the mother swells when the child speaks his piece unstutteringly. ann was _doing_ it!--rising to the occasion--meeting the situation. then she had other qualities no less valuable than looking florentine. that thing of _doing_ it was a thing that had always commanded the affectionate admiration of katie jones. it was not what ann did so much as her effective manner of doing nothing. one would not say she lacked assurance; one would put it the other way--that she seemed shy. it seemed to katie she looked for all the world like a startled bird, and it also seemed that captain prescott particularly admired startled birds. he turned and rode a little way beside them, he and katie assuming conversational responsibilities. but ann's smile warmed her aloofness, and her very shyness seemed well adjusted to her fragility. "and just fits in with what i told him!" gloated kate. and though she said so little, for some reason, perhaps because she looked so different, one got the impression of her having said something unusual. she had a way of listening which conveyed the impression she could say things worth listening to--if she chose. one took her on faith. he said to her at the last, with that direct boyish smile it seemed could not frighten even a startled bird: "you think you are going to like it here?" and ann replied, slowly, a tremor in her voice, and a child's earnestness and sweetness in it too: "i think it the most beautiful place i ever saw in all my life." at the simple enough words his face softened strangely. it was with an odd gentleness he said he hoped they could all have some good times together. but, the moment conquered, things which it had called up swept in. the whole of it seemed to rush in upon her. she turned harshly upon katie. "this is--ridiculous! i'm going away to-night!" "we will talk it over this evening," replied kate quietly. "you will wait for that, won't you? i have something to suggest. and in the end you will be at liberty to do exactly as you think best. certainly there can be no question as to that." on their way home they encountered the throng of men from the shops--dirty, greasy, alien. it was not pleasant--meeting the men when one was driving. and yet, though certainly distasteful, they interested katie, perhaps just because they were so different. she wondered how they lived and what they talked about. chancing to look at ann, she saw that stranger than the men was the look with which ann regarded them. she could not make it out. but one thing she did see--the soft spring breezes had much yet to do. chapter vii wayne had gone over to colonel leonard's for bridge. kate was to have gone too, but had pleaded fatigue. the plea was not wholly hollow. the last thirty hours had not been restful ones. and now she was to go upstairs and do something which she did not know how to do, or why she was doing. sitting there alone in the library she grew serious in the thought that a game was something more than a game when played with human beings. not that seriousness robbed her of the charm that was her own. the distinctive thing about katie was that there always seemed a certain light about her, upon her, coming from her. usually it was as iridescent lights dancing upon the water; but to-night it was more as one light, a more steady, deeper light. it made her gray eyes almost black; made her clear-cut nose and chin seem more finely chiseled than they actually were, and brought out both the strength and the tenderness of her not very small mouth. katie's friends, when pinned down to it, always admitted with some little surprise that she was not pretty; they made amends for that, however, in saying that she just missed being beautiful. "but that's not what you think of when you see her," they would tell you. "you think, 'what a good sort! she must be great fun!'" and there were some few who would add: "katie is the kind you would expect to find doing splendid service in that last ditch." yet even those few were not familiar with the katie jones of that moment, for it was a new katie, less new when leaning forward, tense, puzzled, hand clenched, brow knitted, her whole well-knit, athletic body at attention than when leaning back--lax, open to new and awesome things. and as though she must come back where she felt acquainted with herself, she suddenly began to whistle. katie found whistling a convenient and pleasant recepticle for excess emotion. she had enjoyed it when a little girl because she had been told it was unladylike; kept it up to find out if it were really true that it would spoil her mouth, and now liked doing it because she could do it so successfully. she was still whistling herself back to familiar things as she ran lightly up the stairs; had warmed to a long final trill as she stood in the doorway. the girl looked up in amazement. she had been sitting there, elbows on her knees, face in her hands. it was hard to see what might have been seen in her face because at that moment the chief thing seen was astonishment. katie slipped down among the pillows of the couch, an arm curled about her head. "didn't know i could do that, did you?" she laughed. "oh yes, i have several accomplishments. whistling is perhaps the chiefest thereof. then next i think would come golf. my game's not bad. then there are a few wizardy things i do with a chafing dish, and lastly, and after all lastly should be firstly, is my genius for getting everything and everybody into a most hopeless mess." the girl moved impatiently at first, as if determined not to be evaded by that light mood, but sight of katie, lying there so much as a child would lie, seemed to suggest how truly katie might have spoken and she was betrayed into the shadow of a smile. "i suppose there has never been a human being as gifted in balling things up as i am," meditatively boasted kate. "now here you are," she continued plaintively. "you want to go away. well, of course, that's your affair. why should you have to stay here--if you don't want to? but in the twenty-four hours you've been here i presume i've told twenty-four unnecessary lies to my brother. and if you do go away--as i admit you have a perfect right to do--it will put me in such a compromising position, because of those deathless lies that will trail me round through life that--oh, well," she concluded petulantly, "i suppose i'll just have to go away too." but the girl put it resolutely from her. a wave of sternness swept her face as she said, with a certain dignity that made katie draw herself to a position more adapted to the contemplation of serious things: "that's all very well. your pretending--trying to pretend--that i would be doing you a favor in staying. it is so--so clever. i mean so cleverly kind. but i can't help seeing through it, and i'm not going to accept hospitality i've no right to--stay here under false pretenses--pretend to be what i'm not--why what i couldn't even pretend to be!" she concluded with bitterness. katie was leaning forward, all keen interest. "but do you know, i think you could. i honestly believe we could put it through! and don't you see that it would be the most fascinating--altogether jolliest sort of thing for us to try? it would be a game--a lark--the very best kind of sport!" she saw in an instant that she had wounded her. "i'm sorry; i would like very much to do something for you after all this. but i am afraid this is sport i cannot furnish you. i am not--i'm not feeling just like--a lark." "now do you _see_?" kate demanded with turbulent gesture. "talk about balling things _up_! i like you; i want you to stay; and when i come in here and try and induce you to stay what do i do but muddle things so that you'll probably walk right out of the house! why was i born like that?" she demanded in righteous resentment. "'katherine,' a worldly-wise aunt of mine said to me once, 'you have two grave faults. one is telling the truth. the other is telling lies. i have never known you to fail in telling the one when it was a time to tell the other.' can't you see what a curse it is to mix times that way?" as one too tired to resist the tide, not accepting, but going with it for the minute because the tide was kindly and the force to withstand it small, the girl, her arm upon the table, her head leaning wearily upon her hand, sat there looking at katie, that combination of the non-accepting and the unresisting which weariness can breed. kate seemed in profound thought. "of course, you would naturally be suspicious of me," she broke in as if merely continuing the thinking aloud; katie's fashion of doing that often made commonplace things seem very intimate--a statement to which considerable masculine testimony could be affixed. "i don't blame you in the least. i'd be suspicious, too, in your place. it's not unnatural that, not knowing me well, you should think i had some designs about 'doing good,' or helping you, and of course nothing makes self-respecting persons so furious as the thought that some one may be trying to do them good. now if i could only prove to you, as could be proved, that i never did any good in my life, then perhaps you'd have more belief in me, or less suspicion of me. i wonder if you would do this? could you bring yourself to stay just long enough to see that i am not trying to do you good? fancy how i should feel to have you go away looking upon me as an officious philanthropist! isn't it only square to give me a chance to demonstrate the honor of my worthlessness?" still the girl just drifted, her eyes now revealing a certain half-amused, half-affectionate tenderness for the tide which would bear her so craftily. "and speaking of honor, moves me to my usual truth-telling blunder, and i can't resist telling you that in one respect i really have designs on you. but be at peace--it has nothing to do with your soul. never having so much as discovered my own soul, i should scarcely presume to undertake the management of yours, but what i do want to do is to feed you eggs! "no--now don't take it that way. you're thinking of eggs one orders at a hotel, or--or a boarding-house, maybe. but did you ever eat the eggs that were triumphantly announced by the darlingest bantam--?" she paused--beaten back by the things gathering in the girl's face. "tell me the truth!" it broke. "what are you doing this for? what have you to _gain_ by it?" "i hadn't thought just what i had to--gain by it," katie stammered, at a loss before so fierce an intensity. "does--must one always 'gain' something?" "if you knew the world," the girl threw out at her, "you'd know well enough one always expects to gain something! but you don't know the world--that's plain." katie was humbly silent. she had thought she knew the world. she had lived in the philippines and japan and all over europe and america. she would have said that the difference between her and this other girl was in just that thing of her knowing the world--being of it. but there seemed nothing to say when ann told her so emphatically that she did not know the world. the girl seemed on fire. "no, of course not; you don't know the world--you don't know life--that's why you don't know what an unheard-of thing you're doing! what do you know about _me_?" she thrust at her fiercely. "what do you _think_ about me?" "i think you have had a hard time," katie murmured, thinking to herself that one must have had hard time-- "and what's that to you? why's that your affair?" "it's not exactly my affair, to be sure," katie admitted; "except that we seem to have been--thrown together, and, as i said, there's something about you that i've--taken a fancy to." it drew her, but she beat it back. resistance made her face the more stern as she went on: "do you think i'm going to impose on you--just because you know so little? why with all your cleverness, you're just a baby--when it comes to life! shall i tell you what life is like?" her gaze narrowed and grew hard. "life is everybody fighting for something--and knocking down everybody in their way. life is people who are strong kicking people who are weak out of their road--then going on with a laugh--a laugh loud enough to drown the groans. life is lying and scheming to get what you want. life is not caring--giving up--getting hardened--i know it. i _loathe_ it." katie sat there quite still. she was frightened. "and you! here in a place like this--what do you know about it? why you're nothing but an--outsider!" an outsider, was she?--and she had thought that ann-- the girl's passion seemed suddenly to flow into one long, cunning look. "what are you doing it for?" she asked quietly with a sort of insolently indifferent suspicion. "i don't know," katie replied simply. "at least until a minute ago i didn't know, and now i wonder if perhaps, without knowing it, i was not trying to make up for some of those people--for i fear some of them were friends of mine--who have gone ahead by kicking other people out of their way. perhaps their kicks provided my laughs. perhaps, unconsciously, it--bothered me." passion had burned to helplessness, the appealing helplessness of the weary child. she sat there, hands loosely clasped in her lap, looking at katie with great solemn eyes, tired wistful mouth. and it seemed to kate that she was looking, not at her, but at life, that life which had cast her out, looking, not with rage now, but with a hurt reproachfulness in which there was a heartbreaking longing. it drew katie over to the table. she stretched her hand out across it, as if seeking to bridge something, and spoke with an earnest dignity. "you say i'm an outsider. then won't you take me in? i don't want to be an outsider. you mustn't think too badly of me for it because you see i have just stayed where i was put. but i want to know life. i love it now, and yet, easy and pleasant though it is, i can't say that i find it very satisfying. i have more than once felt it was cheating me. i'm not getting enough--just because i don't know. loving a thing because you don't know it isn't a very high way of loving it, is it? i believe i could know it and still love it--love it, indeed, the more truly. no, you don't think so; but i want to try." she paused, thinking; then saw it and spoke it strongly. "i've never done anything real. i've never done anything that counted. that's why i'm an outsider. if making a place for you here is going to make one for me there--on the inside, i mean--you're not going to refuse to take me in, are you?" something seemed to leap up in the girl's eyes, but to crouch back, afraid. "what do you know about me?" she whispered. "not much. only that you've met things i never had to meet, met them much better, doubtless, than i should have met them. only that you've fought in the real, while i've flitted around here on the playground." katie's eyes contracted to keenness. "and i wonder if there isn't more dignity in fighting--yes, and losing--in the real, than just sitting around where you get nothing more unpleasant than the faint roar of the guns. to lose fighting--or not to fight! why certainly there can be no question about it. what do i know about you?" she came back to it. "only that you seemed just shot into my life, strangely disturbing it, ruffling it so queerly. it's too ruffled now to settle down without--more ruffling. so you're not going away leaving it in any such distressing state, are you?" she concluded with a smile which lighted her face with a fine seriousness. she made a last stand. "but you don't know. you don't understand." "no, i don't know. and don't think i ever need know, as a matter of obligation. but should there ever come a time when you feel i would understand, understand enough to help, then i should be glad and proud to know, for it would make me feel i was no longer an outsider. and let me tell you something. in whatever school you learned about life, there's one thing they taught you wrong. they've developed you too much in suspicion. they didn't give you a big enough course in trust. all the people in this world aren't designing and cruel. why the old globe is just covered with beautiful people who are made happy in doing things for the people about them." "i haven't met them," were the words which came from the sob. "i see you haven't; that's why i want you to. your education has been one-sided. so has mine. perhaps we can strike a balance. what would you think of our trying to do that?" the wonder of it seemed stealing up upon the girl, growing upon her. "you mean," she asked, in slow, hushed voice, "that i should stay here--here?--as a friend of yours?" "stay here as a friend--and become a friend," came the answer, quick and true. so true that it went straight to the girl's heart. tears came, different tears, tears which were melting something. and yet, once again she whispered: "but i don't understand." "try to understand. stay here with me and learn to laugh and be foolish, that'll help you understand. and if you're ever in the least oppressed with a sense of obligation--horrid thing, isn't it?--just put it down with, 'but she likes it. it's fun for her.' for really now, ann, i hope this is not going to hurt you, but i simply can't help getting fun out of things. i get fun out of everything. it's my great failing. not a particularly unkind sort of fun, though. i don't believe you'll mind it as you get used to it. my friends all seem to accept the fact that i--enjoy them. and then my curiosity. well, like the eggs. it's not entirely to make you stronger. it's to see whether the things i've always heard about milk and eggs are really so. see how it works--not altogether for the good of the works, you see? oh, i don't know. motives are slippery things, don't you think so? mine seem particularly athletic. they hop from their pigeon holes and turn hand-springs and do all sorts of stunts the minute i turn my back. so i never know for sure why i want to do a thing. for that matter, i don't know why i named you ann. i had to give you a name--i thought you might prefer my not using yours--so all in a flash i had to make one up--and ann was what came. i love that name. it never would have come if something in you hadn't called it. the ann in you has had a hard time." she was speaking uncertainly, timidly, as if on ground where words had broken no paths. "oh, i'm not so much the outsider i can't see that. but the ann in you has never died. that i see, too. maybe it was to save ann you were going to--give up verna. and because i see ann--like her--because i called her back, won't you let her stay here and--" katie's voice broke, so to offset that she cocked her head and made a wry little face as she concluded, not succeeding in concealing the deep tenderness in her eyes, "just try--the eggs?" chapter viii katie was writing to her uncle the bishop. at least that was what she would have said she was doing. to be literal, she was nibbling at the end of her pen. writing to her uncle had never been a solemn affair with kate. she gossiped and jested with him quite as she would with a playfellow; it was playfellow, rather than spiritual adviser, he had always been to her, kate's need seeming rather more for playfellows than for spiritual advisers. but the trouble that morning was that the things of which she was wont to gossip and jest seemed remote and uninteresting things. finally she wrote: "my friend ann forrest is with us now. i am hoping to be able to keep her for some time. poor dear, she has not been well and has had much sorrow--such a story!--and i think the peace of things here--peace you know, uncle, being poetic rendition of stupidity--is just what ann needs." a robin on a lilac bush entered passionate protest against the word stupidity. "what will you have? what will you _have_?" trilled the robin in joyous frenzy. wise robin! after all, what would one have? and when within the world of may that robins love one was finding a whole undiscovered country to explore? "no, i don't mean that about stupidity," she wrote after a wide look and a deep breath. "it does seem peace. peace that makes some other things seem stupidity. i must be tired, for you will be saying, dear uncle, that a yearning for peace has never been one of the most conspicuous of my attributes." there she fell to nibbling again, looking over at the girl in the deep garden chair in the choice corner of the big porch. "my friend ann forrest!" katie murmured, smiling strangely. her friend ann forrest was turning the leaves of a book, "days in florence," which kate had left carelessly upon the arm of the chair she commended to ann. it was after watching her covertly for sometime that katie set down, a little elf dancing in her eye, yet something of the seer in that very eye in which the elf danced: "of course you have heard me tell of ann, the girl to whom i was so devoted in italy. i should think, uncle, that you of the cloth would find ann a most interesting subject. not that she's of your flock. her mother was a passionate catholic. her father a relentless atheist. he wrote a famous attack on the church which ann tells me hastened her mother's death. the conflict shows curiously in ann. when we were together in florence a restlessness would many times come upon her. she would say, 'you go on home, katie, without me. i have things to attend to.' i came to know what it meant. once i followed her and saw her go to the church and literally fling herself into its arms in a passion of surrender. and that night she sat up until daybreak reading her father's books. you see what i mean? a wealth of feeling--but always pulled two ways. it has left its mark upon her." she read it over, gloated over it, and destroyed it. "uncle would be coming on the next train," she saw. "he'd hold ann up for a copy of the attack! and why this mad passion of mine for destruction? should a man walking on a tight-rope yield to every playful little desire to chase butterflies?" but as she looked again--ann was deep in the illustrations of "days in florence" and could be surveyed with impunity--she wondered if she might not have written better than she knew. her choice of facts doubtless was preposterous enough; what had been the conflicting elements--her fancy might wander far afield in finding that. but she was sure she saw truly in seeing marks of conflict. life had pulled her now this way, now that, as if playing some sort of cruel game with her. and that game had left her very tired. tired as some lovely creature of the woods is tired after pursuit, and fearful with that fear of the hunted from which safety cannot rescue. it was in ann's eyes--that looking out from shadowy retreat, that pain of pain remembered, that fear which fear has left. katie had seen it once in the eyes of an exhausted fawn, who, fleeing from the searchers for the stag, had come full upon the waiting hunt--in face of the frantic hounds in leash. the terror in those eyes that should have been so soft and gentle, the sick certitude of doom where there should have been the glad joy of life struck the death blow to katie's ambitions to become the mighty huntress. she had never joined another hunt or wished to hear another story of the hunt, saying she flattered herself she could be resourceful enough to gain her pleasures in some other way than crazing gentle creatures with terror. ann made her think of that quivering fawn, suggesting, as the fawn had suggested, what life might have been in a woods uninvaded. she had a vision of ann as the creature of pure delight she had been fashioned to be, loving life and not knowing fear. from which musings she broke off with a hearty: "good drive!" and ann looked up inquiringly. she pointed to the teeing ground some men were just leaving--caddies straggling on behind, two girls driving in a runabout along the river road calling gaily over to the men. it all seemed sunny and unfettered as the morning. "i'll wager he feels good," she laughed. "i know no more exhilarating feeling than that thing of having just made a good drive. it makes life seem at your feet. you must play, ann. i'm going to teach you." "do all those people belong here?" ann asked, still looking at the girls who were calling laughingly back and forth to the men. "on the island? oh, no; they belong over there." she nodded to the city which rose upon the hills across the river. "but they use these links." "don't they--don't they have to--work?" ann asked timidly. "oh, yes," laughed katie; "i fancy most of them work some. though what's the good working a morning like this? i think they're very wise. but look now at the hope of the future! he's certainly working." the hope of the future was ascending the steps, heavily burdened. so heavily was he burdened that for the moment ascent looked impossible. each arm was filled with a shapeless bundle of white and yellow fur which closer inspection revealed as the collie pups. with each step the hind legs of a wriggling puppy slipped a little farther through worth's arms. when finally he stood before them only a big puppy head was visible underneath each shoulder. approaching ann, then backing around, he let one squirming pair of legs rest on her lap, freed his arm, and ann had the puppy. "you can play with him a little while," he remarked graciously. "worth," said katie, "it is unto my friend miss forrest, known in the intimacies of the household as miss ann, that you have just made this tender offering." worth took firm hold on his remaining puppy and stood there surveying ann. "i came last night," he volunteered, after what seemed satisfactory inspection. ann just smiled at him, rumpling the puppy's soft woolly coat. "how long you been here?" he asked cordially. "just two days," she told him. "i'm going to stay all summer," he announced, hoisting his puppy a little higher. "that's nice," said ann; her puppy was climbing too. "how long you goin' to stay?" he wanted to know. "miss ann is going to stay just as long as we are real nice to her, worthie," said katie, looking up from the magazine she was cutting. "she can play with the puppies every morning, aunt kate," he cried in a fervent burst of hospitality. "you got a dog at home?" he asked of ann. at the silence, katie looked up. the puppy was now cuddled upon ann's breast, her two arms about it. as she shook her head her chin brushed the soft puppy fur--then buried itself in it. her eyes deepened. "it must be just the dreadfulest thing there is not to have a dog," worth condoled. there was no response. the puppy's head was on ann's shoulder. he was ambitious to mount to her face. "didn't you _never_ have a dog?" worth asked, drawling it out tragically. the head nodded yes, but the eyes did not grow any more glad at thought of once having had a dog. worth took a step nearer and lay an awed hand upon her arm. "did he--_die_?" she nodded. her face had grown less sorrowful than hard. it was the look of that first day. worth shook his head slowly to express deep melancholy. "it's awful--to have 'em die. mine died once. i cried and cried and cried. then papa got me a bigger one." he waited for confidences which did not come. ann was holding the puppy tight. "didn't your papa get you 'nother one?" he asked, as one searching for the best. "worth dear," called katie, "let's talk about the live puppies. there are so many live puppies in the world. and just see how the puppy loves miss ann." "and miss ann loves the puppy. mustn't squeeze him too tight," he admonished. "watts says it's bad for 'em to squeeze 'em. watts knows just everything 'bout puppies. he knows when they have got to eat and when they have got to sleep, and when they ought to have a bath. do you suppose, aunt kate, we'll ever know as much as watts?" "probably not. don't hitch your wagon to too far a star, worthie. no use smashing the wagon." suddenly ann had squeezed her puppy very tight. "o--h," cried worth, "_you mustn't_! i like to do it, too, but watts says it squeezes the grows out of 'em. it's hard not to squeeze 'em though, ain't it?" he concluded with tolerance. again katie looked up. the girl, holding the puppy close, was looking at the little boy. something long beaten back seemed rushing on; and in her eyes was the consciousness of its having been long beaten back. something of which did not escape the astute wayne the worthy. "aunt kate," he called excitedly, "aunt kate--miss ann's eyes go such a long way down!" "worth, i'm not at all sure that it is the best of form for a grown-up young gentleman of six summers to be audibly estimating the fathomless depths of a young woman's eyes. note well the word audibly, worthie." "they go farther down than yours, aunt kate." "'um--yes; another remark better left with the inaudible." "it looks--it looks as if there was such a lot of cries in them! o--h--one's coming now!" "worth," she called sharply, "come here. you mustn't talk to miss ann about cries, dear. when you talk about cries it brings the cries, and when you talk about laughs the laughs come, and miss ann is so pretty when she laughs." "miss ann is pretty all the time," announced gallant worth. "she has a mouth like--a mouth like--she has a mouth like--" "yes dear, i understand. when they say 'she has a mouth like--a mouth like--' i know just what kind of mouth they mean." "but how do you know, aunt kate? i didn't say what kind, did i?" "no; but as years and wisdom and guile descend upon you, you will learn that sometimes the surest way of making one's self clear is not to say what one means." "but i don't see--" "no, one doesn't--at six. wait till you've added twenty thereto." "aunt kate?" "yes?" "how old is miss ann?" "worth, when this twenty i'm talking about has been added on, you will know that never, never, _never_ must one speak or think or dream of a lady's age." "why not?" "oh, because it brings the cries--lots of times." he had seated himself on the floor. the puppy was in spasms of excitement over the discovery of a considerable expanse of bare legs. "are they sorry they're not as old as somebody else?" he asked, trying to get his legs out of the puppy's lurching reach. "no, they're usually able to endure the grief brought them by that thought." "aunt kate?" "oh--_yes_?" it was a good story. "would miss ann be sorry she's not as old as you?" "hateful, ungrateful little wretch!" "aunt kate?" "i am all attention, wayneworth," she said, with inflection which should not have been wasted on ears too young. "do you know, aunt kate, sometimes i don't know just what you're talking about." "no? really? and this from your sex to mine!" "do you always say what you mean, aunt kate?" "very seldom." "why not?" "somebody might find out what i thought." "don't you want them to know what you think, aunt kate?" he pursued, making a complete revolution and for the instant evading the frisking puppy. "certainly not." "but why not, aunt kate?"--squirming as the puppy placed a long warm lick right below the knee. "oh, i don't know." the story was getting better. then, looking up with kate's queer smile: "it might hurt their feelings." "why would it--?" "oh, wayneworth jones! why were you born with your brain cells screwed into question marks?--and _why_ do i have to go through life getting them unscrewed?" she actually read a paragraph; and as there she had to turn a page she looked over at ann. ann's puppy had joined worth's on the floor and together they were indulging in bites of puppyish delight at the little boy's legs, at each other's tails, at so much of the earth's atmosphere as came within range of their newly created jaws craving the exercise of their function. mad with the joy of living were those two collie pups on that essentially live and joyous morning. and ann, if not mad with the joy of living, seemed sensible of the wonder of it. "days in florence" open on her lap, hands loose upon it, she was looking off at the river. from hard thoughts of other days kate could see her drawn to that day--its softness and sunshine, its breath of the river and breath of the trees. folded in the arms of that day was ann just then. the breeze stirred a little wisp of hair on her temple--gently swayed the knot of ribbon at her throat. the spring was wooing ann; her face softened as she listened. was it something of that same force which bounded boisterously up in boy and dogs which was stealing over ann--softening, healing, claiming? the next paragraph of the story on the printed page was less interesting. "aunt kate," said worth, gathering both puppies into his arms as they were succeeding all too well in demonstrating that they were going to grow up and be real dogs, "watts says it is the ungodliest thing he knows of that these puppies haven't got any names." "i am glad to learn," murmured kate, "that watts is a true son of the church. he yearns for a christening?" "he says that being as nobody else has thought up names for them, he calls the one that is most yellow, mike; and the one that is most white, pat. do you think mike and pat are pretty names, aunt kate?" "well, i can't say that my esthetic sense fairly swoons with delight at sound of mike and pat," she laughed. "i'll tell you, worthie," she suggested, looking up with twinkling eye after her young nephew had been experimenting with various intonations of mike--pat, pat--mike, "why don't you call one of them _pourquoi_?" he walked right into it with the never-failing "why?" "just so. call one _pourquoi_ and the other _n'est-ce-pas_. they do good team work in both the spirit and the letter. _pourquoi_, worth, is your favorite word in french. need i add that it means 'why'? and _n'est-ce-pas_--well, watts would say _n'est-ce-pas_ meant 'ain't it'? and more flexible translators find it to mean anything they are seeking to persuade you is true. pourquoi is the inquirer and n'est-ce-pas the universalist. i trust watts will give this his endorsement." "i'll ask him," gravely replied worth, and sought to accustom the puppies to their new names with chanting--poor qua--nessa pa. the chant grew so melancholy that the puppies subsided; oppressed, overpowered, perhaps, with the sense of being anything as large and terrible as inquirer and universalist. but worth was too true a son of the army to leave a brooding damsel long alone in the corner. "you seen the new cow?" was his friendly approach. "why, i don't believe i have," she confessed. "i s'pose you've seen the chickens?" he asked, a trifle condescendingly. ann shamefacedly confessed that she had not as yet seen the chickens. he took a step backward for the weighty, crushing: "well, you've seen the _horses_, haven't you?" "aunt kate--aunt kate!" he called peremptorily, as ann humbly shook her head, "miss ann's not seen the cow--or the, chickens--nor the horses!" "isn't it scandalous?" agreed kate. "it shows what sort of hostess i am, doesn't it? but you see, worth, i thought as long as you were coming so soon you could do the honors of the stables. i think it's always a little more satisfactory to have a man do those things." "i'll take you now," announced worth, in manner which brooked neither delay nor gratitude. and so the girl and the little boy and the two puppies, the joy of motion freeing them from the sad weight of inquirer and universalist, started across the lawn for the stables. pourquoi caught at ann's dress and she had to be manfully rescued by worth. and no sooner had the inquirer been loosened from one side than the universalist was firmly fastened to the other and the rescue must be enacted all over again, amid considerable confusion and laughter. ann's laugh was borne to katie on a wave of the spring--just the laugh of a girl playing with a boy and his dogs. it was a whole hour later, and as kate was starting out for golf she saw ann and worth sitting on the sandpile, a tired inquirer and very weary universalist asleep at their feet. ann was picking sand up in her hands and letting it sift through. worth was digging with masculine vigor. kate passed close enough to hear ann's, "well, once upon a time--" ann!--opening to a little child the door of that wondrous country of once upon a time! no mother had ever done it more sweetly, with more tender zeal, more loving understanding of the joys and necessities of once upon a time. some once upon a time notions of kate's were quite overturned by that "once upon a time" voice of ann's. then the once upon a time of the sandpile did not shut them out--they who had known another once upon a time? did it perhaps love to take them in, knowing that upon the sands of this once upon a time the other could keep no foothold? "once upon a time--once upon a time"--it kept singing itself in her ears. for her, too, it opened a door. chapter ix having conquered the son, katie that evening set vigorously about for the conquest of the father. "the trouble is," she turned it over in giving a few minutes to her own toilet for dinner, after having given many minutes to ann's, "that there's simply no telling about wayne. he is just the most provokingly uncertain man now living." and yet it was not a formidable looking man she found in the library a few minutes before the dinner hour. he was poring over some pictures of panama in one of the weeklies, sufficiently deep in them to permit katie to sit there for the moment pondering methods of attack. but instead of outlining her campaign she found herself concluding, what she had concluded many times before, that wayne was very good-looking. "not handsome, like harry prescott," she granted, "but wayne seems the product of something--the result of things to be desired. he hasn't a new look." "katherine is going to give us more trouble than wayne ever will," their mother had sighed after one of those escapades which made life more colorful than restful during katie's childhood. to which major jones replied that while kate might give them more trouble, he thought it probable wayne would give himself the more. certain it had been from the first that if wayne could help it no one would know what trouble he might be giving himself. old-fashioned folk who expected brothers and sisters to be alike had, on the surface at least, a sorry time with wayneworth and katherine jones. katie was sunny. katie had a genius for play. she laughed and danced up and down the highways and the byways of life and she had such a joyous time about it that it had not yet occurred to any one to expect her to help pay the fiddler. just watching katie dance would seem pay enough for any reasonable fiddler. katie laughed a great deal, and was smiling most of the time; she seemed always to have things in her thoughts to make smiles. wayne laughed little and some of his smiles made one understand how the cat felt about having its fur rubbed the wrong way. their friend major darrett once said: "when i meet katie i have a fancy she has just come from a jolly dip in the ocean; that she lay on the sands in the sun and kicked up her heels longer than she had any business to, and now she's flying along to keep the most enchanting engagement she ever had in all her life. she's smiling to herself to think how bad she was to lie in the sand so long, and she's not at all concerned, because she knows her friends will be so happy to see her that they'll forget to scold her for being late. katie's spoiled," the major concluded, "but we like her that way." of wayne this same friend remarked: "wayne's a hard nut to crack." many army people felt that way. in fact, wayne was a nut the army itself had not quite cracked. some army people maintained that wayne was disagreeable. but that may have been because he was not just like all other army people. he did not seem to have grasped the idea that being "army" set him apart. sometimes he made the mistake of judging army affairs by ordinary standards. that was when they got some idea of how the cat felt. and of all cats an army cat would most resent having its fur rubbed in any but the prescribed direction. katie, continuing her ruminations about wayne as the product of things, had come to see that with it all he was detached from those desirable things which had produced him. one knew that wayne had traditions, yet he was not tradition fettered; he suggested ancestors without being ancestor conscious. was it the gun--as wayne the worthy persisted in calling it--and the gun's predecessors--for wayne always had something--made him so distinctly more than the mere result of things which had formed him? "it is the gun," katie decided, taking him in with half shut eyes as a portrait painter might. "had the same ancestors myself, and yet i'm both less and more of them than he is. what i need's a gun! then i'd stand out of the background better, too." then with one of katie's queer twists of fancy--ann! might not ann be her gun? perhaps she had been wanting a gun for a long time without knowing what it was she was wanting when surely wanting something. perhaps every one felt the gun need to make them less the product and more the person. then there was another thing. the thing that had traced those lines about wayne's mouth, and had whitened, a little, the brown hair of his temples. wayne had cared for clara. heaven only knew how he could--katie's thoughts ran on. perhaps heaven did understand those things--certainly it was too much for mere earth. why wayne, about whom there had always seemed a certain brooding bigness, certainly a certain rare indifference, should have fallen so absurdly in love with the most vain and selfish and vapid girl that ever wrecked a post was more than katie could make out. and it had been her painful experience to watch wayne's disappointment develop, watch that happiness which had so mellowed him recede as day by day clara fretted and pouted and showed plainly enough that to her love was just a convenient thing which might impel one's husband to get one a new set of furs. she remembered so well one evening she had been in clara's room when wayne came in after having been away since early morning. so eager and tender was wayne's face as he approached clara, who was looking over an advertising circular. there was a light in his eyes which it would seem would have made clara forget all about advertising circulars. but before he had said a word, but stood there, loving her with that look--and it would have to be admitted clara did look lovely, in one of the _neglige_ affairs she affected so much--she said, with a babyish little whine she evidently thought alluring: "i just don't see, wayne, why we can't have a new rug for the reception room. we can certainly afford things as well as the mitchells." and wayne had just stood there, with a smile which closed the gates and said, with an irony not lost upon katie, at least: "why i fancy we can have a new rug, if that is the thing most essential to our happiness." clara had cried: "oh wayne--you _dear_!" and twittered and fluttered around, but the twittering and fluttering did not bring that light back to wayne's face. he went over to the far side of the room and began reading the paper, and that grim little understanding smile--a smile at himself--made katie yearn to go over and wind her arms about his neck--dear strange wayne who had believed there was so much, and found so little, and who was so alive to the bitter humor of being drawn to the heart of things only to be pushed back to the outer rim. but katie knew it was not her arms could do any good, and so she had left the room, not clear-eyed, clara still twittering about the kind of rug she would have. and day by day she had watched wayne go back to the outer circle, that grim little smile as mile-stones in his progress. but he was folding his paper; it was growing too near the hour to speculate longer on wayne and his past. "wayne?" she began. he looked up, smiling at the beseeching tone. "yes? what is it, katie? just what brand of boredom are you planning to inflict?" "you can be _so_ nice, wayne--when you want to be." "'um--hum. a none too subtle way of calling a man a brute." "i presume there are times when you can't help being a brute, wayne; but i do hope to-night will not be one of them." "why it must be something very horrible indeed, that you must approach with all this flaunting of diplomacy." "it is something a long way from horrible, i assure you," she replied with dignity. "ann will be down for dinner to-night, wayne." he leaned back and devoted himself to his cigarette with maddening deliberation. then he smiled. "through sleeping?" "wayne--i'm in earnest. please don't get yourself into a hateful mood!" he laughed in real amusement at sight of katie's puckered face. "i am conscious that feminine wiles are being exercised upon me. i wonder--why?" "because i am so anxious you should like ann, wayne, and--be nice to her." "why?" again it was that probing, provoking why. "because of what she means to me, i suppose." something in her voice made him look at her differently. "and what does she mean to you, katie?" "ann is different from all the other girls i've known. she means--something different." "strange i've never heard you speak of her." "i think you have, and have forgotten. though possibly not--just because of the way i feel about her." she paused, seeking to express how she felt about her. unable to do so, she concluded simply: "i have a very tender feeling for ann." "i see you have," he replied quietly. he looked at her meditatively, and then asked, humorously but gently: "well katie, what were you expecting me to do? order her out of the house?" "but i want you to be more than civil, wayne; i want you to be sympathetic." "i'll be civil and you can bring prescott on for the sympathetic," he laughed. "you know i haven't great founts of sympathy gushing up in my heart for the _jeune fille_." "ann's not the _jeune fille_, wayne. she's something far more interesting and worth while than that." she paused, again trying to get it, but could do no better than: "i sometimes think of ann as sitting a little apart, listening to beautiful music." he smiled. "i can only reply to that, katie, that i trust she is more inviting than your pictures of her. a young woman who looked as though sitting apart listening to beautiful music should certainly be left sitting apart." "i'll bring her down," laughed kate, rising; "then you can get your own picture." "i'll be decent, katie," he called after her in laughing but reassuring voice. the meeting had been accomplished. dinner had reached the salad, and all was well. yes, and a little more than well. from the moment she stood in the doorway of ann's room and the girl rose at her suggestion of dinner, katie's courage had gone up. ann's whole bearing told that she was on her mettle. and what katie found most reassuring was less the results of the effort ann was making than her unmistakable sense of the necessity for making it. there was hope in that. not that she suggested anything so hopeless as effort. she suggested reserve feeling, and she was so beautiful--so rare--that the suggestion was of feeling more beautiful and rare than a determination to live up to the way she was gowned. her timidity was of a quality which seemed related to things of the spirit rather than to social embarrassment. jubilantly kate saw that ann meant to "put it over," and her depth of feeling on the subject suggested a depth which in itself dismissed the subject. she saw at a glance that wayne related ann to the things her appearance suggested rather than to the suggestions causing that appearance. as katie said, "ann, i am so glad that at last my brother is to know you," she was thinking that it seemed a friend to whom one might indeed be proud to present one's brother. she never lost the picture of the ann whom wayne advanced to meet. she loved her in that rose pink muslin, the skirt cascaded in old-fashioned way, an old-fashioned looking surplice about the shoulders, and on her long slim throat a lovely florentine cameo swinging on the thinnest of old silver chains. she might have been a cameo herself. and she never forgot the way ann said her first words to wayne. they were two most commonplace words, merely the "thank you" with which she responded to his hospitable greeting, but that "thank you" seemed let out of a whole under sea of feeling for which it would try to speak. before wayne could carry out his unmistakable intention of saying more, katie was airily off into a story about the cook, dragging it in with a thin hook about the late dinner, and the cook in the present case suggested a former cook in washington whom katie held, and sought to prove, nature had ordained for a great humorist. the ever faithful subject of cooks served stanchly until they had reached the safety of soup. katie was in story-telling mood. she seemed to have an inexhaustible fund of them in reserve which she could deftly strap on as life-preserver at the first far sign of danger. and she would flash into her stories an "as you said, ann," or "as you would put it, ann," whenever she found anything to fit the ann she would create. several times, however, the rescuing party had to knock down good form and trample gentle breeding under foot to reach the spot in time. wayne spoke of a friend in vienna from whom he had heard that day and turned to ann with an interrogation about the viennese. katie, contemplating the suppleness of ann's neck, momentarily asleep at her post, missed the "come over and help us" look, and ann had begun upon a fatal, "i have never been in--" when katie, with ringing laugh broke in: "isn't it odd, ann, that you should never have been in vienna, when you lived all those years right there in florence? i _do_ think it the oddest thing!" ann agreed that it _was_ odd--wayne concurring. but driven from vienna, he sought florence. "and italy? i presume i go on record as the worst sort of bounder in asking if you really care greatly about living there?" katie thought it time ann try a stroke for herself. one would never develop strength on a life-preserver. seeing that she had it to make, she paused before it an instant. fear seemed to be feeling, and a possible sense of the absurdity of her situation made for a slightly tremulous dignity as she said: "i do love it. love it so much it is hard to tell just how much--or why." and then it was as if she shrank back, having uncovered too much. she looked as though she might be dreaming of the court of the uffizi, or santa maria novella, but katie surmised that that dreamy look was not failing to find out what wayne was going to do with his lettuce. but one who suggested dreams of tuscany when taking observations on the use of the salad fork--was there not hope unbounded for such a one? wayne was silent for the moment, as though getting the fact that the love of italy, or perhaps its associations, was to this girl not a thing to be compressed within the thin vein of dinner talk. "well," he laughed understanding, "to be sure i don't know it from the inside. i never was of it; i merely looked at it. and i thought the plumbing was abominable." "wayne," scoffed kate, "plumbing indeed! have you no soul?" "yes, i have; and bad plumbing is bad for it." ann laughed quite blithely at that, and as though finding confidence in the sound of her own laugh, she boldly volunteered a stroke. "i don't know much about plumbing," katie heard ann saying. "i suppose perhaps it is bad. but do you care much about plumbing when looking at"--her pause before it might have been one of reverence--"the madonna of the chair?" katie treated herself to a particularly tender bit of lettuce and secretly hugged herself, ann, and "days in florence." the madonna of the chair furnished the frontispiece for that valuable work. ann had receded, flushed, her lip trembling a little; wayne was looking at her thoughtfully--and a little as one might look at the madonna of the chair. katie heard the trump of duty call her to another story. chapter x feeling that first efforts, even on life-preservers, should not be long ones, it was soon after they returned to the library that katie threw out: "well, ann, if that letter must be written--" ann rose. "yes, and it must." "but morning is the time for letter writing," urged wayne. "morning in this instance is the time for shopping," said kate. she had left ann at the foot of the stairs, murmuring something about having to see nora. it was a half hour later that she looked in upon her. what she saw was too much for katie. had the whole of creation been wrecked by her laughing, katie must needs have laughed just then. for ann's two hands gripped "days in florence" with fierce resolution. ann's head was bent over the book in a sort of stern frenzy. ann, not even having waited to disrobe, was attacking florence as the good old city had never been attacked before. she seemed to get the significance of katie's laugh, however, for it was as to a confederate she whispered: "i'll get caught!" "trust me," said kate, and laughed from a new angle. ann could laugh, too, and when katie sat down to "talk it over" they were that most intimate of all things in the world, two girls with a secret, two girls set apart from all the world by that secret they held from all the world, hugging between them a beautiful, brilliant secret and laughing at the rest of the world because it couldn't get in. that secret, shared and recognized and laughed over and loved, did what no amount of sympathy or gratitude could have done. it was as if the whole situation heaved a sigh of relief and settled itself in more comfortable position. "why no," sparkled kate, in response to ann's protestation, "the only thing you have to do is not to try. lovers of italy must take their italy with a superior calm. and when you don't know what to say--just seem too full for utterance. that being too full for utterance throws such a safe and lovely cover over the lack of utterance. and if you fear you're mixed up just look as though you were going to cry. wayne will be so terrified at that prospect that he'll turn the conversation to air-ships, and you'll always be safe with wayne in an air-ship because he'll do all the talking himself." ann grew thoughtful. she seemed to have turned back to something. katie would have given much to know what it was ann's deep brown eyes were surveying so somberly. "the strange part of it is," she said, "i used to dream of some such place." "of course you did. that's why you belong there. a great deal more than some of us who've tramped miles through galleries." then swiftly katie changed her position, her expression and the conversation. "elizabeth barrett browning is your favorite poet, isn't she, ann?" "why--why no," stammered ann. "i'm afraid i haven't any favorite. you see--" "so much the better. then you can take elizabeth without being untrue to any one else. she loved florence. you know she's buried there. i think you used to make pilgrimages to her tomb." again ann turned back, and at what she saw smiled a little, half bitterly, half wistfully. "i'd like to have made pilgrimages somewhere." "to be sure you would. that's why you did. the things we would like to have done, and would have done if we could, are lots more part of us than just the things we did do because we had to do them. just consider that all those things you'd like to have done are things you did. it will make you feel at home with yourself. and to-morrow we'll go over the river and order elizabeth barrett browning and a tailored suit." but with that the girl who would like to have done things receded, leaving baldly exposed the girl who had done the things she had had to do. "no," said ann stubbornly and sullenly. "but blue gingham morning dress and rose-colored evening dress are scarcely sufficient unto one's needs," murmured kate. ann turned away her head. "i can't take things--not things like that." "but why not?" pursued kate. "why can't you take as well as i can take?" she turned upon her hotly, as if resentful of being toyed with. "how silly! it is yours." katie had said it at random, but once expressed it interested her. "why i don't know whether it is or not," she said, suddenly more interested in the idea itself than in its effect upon ann. "why is it? i didn't earn it." "there's no use talking _that_ way. it's yours because you've got it." that not seeming to bring ethical satisfaction she added: "it's yours because your family earned it." katie was unfastening the muslin gown. "but as a matter of fact,"--getting more and more interested--"they didn't. they didn't earn it. they just got it. what they earned they had to use to live on. this that is left over is just something my grandfather fell upon through luck. then why should it be mine now--any more than yours?" ann deemed her intelligence insulted. "that's ridiculous." "well now i don't know whether it is or not." she was silent for a moment, considering it. "but anyhow," she came back to the issue, "we have our hands on this money, so we'll get the suit. you're in the army now, ann. you're enlisted under me, and i'll have no insubordination. you know--into the jaws of death!--even so into the jaws of elizabeth barrett browning--and a tailor-made suit!" so katie laughed herself out of the room. and softly she whistled herself back into the library. the whistling did not seem to break through the smoke which surrounded wayne. after several moments of ostentatious indifference, she threw out at him, with a conspicuous yawn: "well, wayne, what did you think of the terrifying jeune fille?" wayne's reply was long in coming, simple, quiet, and queer: "she's a lady." startled, peculiarly gratified, impishly delighted, she yet replied lightly: "a lady, is she? um. once at school one of the girls said she had a 'trade-last' for me, and after i had searched the closets of memory and dragged out that some one had said she had pretty eyes, dressed it up until this some one had called her ravishingly beautiful--after all that conscientious dishonesty what does she tell me but that some one had said i was so 'clean-looking.' one rather takes 'clean-looking' for granted! even so with our friends being ladies. quaint old word for you to resurrect, wayne." "yes," he laughed, "quite quaint. but she seems to me just that old-fashioned thing our forefathers called a lady. now we have good fellows, and thoroughbreds, and belongers. not many of this girl's type." katie wanted to chuckle. but suddenly the unborn chuckle dissolved into a sea of awe. thoughts and smoke seemed circling around wayne together; and perhaps the blue rim of it all was dreams. his face was not what one would expect the face of a man engaged in making warfare more deadly to be as he murmured, not to katie but to the thin outer rim, softly, as to rims barely material: "and more than that--a woman." he puzzled her. "well, wayne," she laughed, "aren't you getting a little--cryptic? i certainly told you--by implication--that she was both a lady and a woman. then why this air of discovery?" but it did not get katie into the smoke. he made no effort to get her in, but after a moment came back to her with a kindly: "i am glad you have such a friend, katie. it will do you good." that inward chuckle showed no disposition to dissolve into anything; it fought hard to be just a live, healthy chuckle. moved by an impulse half serious, half mischievous she asked: "you would say then, wayne, that ann seems to you more of a lady than zelda fraser?" wayne's real answer lay in his look of disgust. he did condescend to put into words: "oh, don't be absurd, katie." "but zelda has a splendid ancestry," she pressed. "and suggests a chorus girl." that stilled her. it left her things to think about. at last she asked: "and wayne, which would you say i was?" he came back from a considerable distance. "which of what?" "lady or chorus girl?" he looked at her and smiled. katie was all aglow with the daring of her adventure. "i should say, katie dear, that you were a half-breed." "what a sounding thing to be! but major darrett in his last letter tells me i am his idea of a thoroughbred. how can i be a half-breed if i'm a thoroughbred?" "true, it makes you a biological freak. but you should be too original to complain of that." "but i do complain. it sounds like something with three legs. not but what i'd rather be a biological freak than a grind--or a prude." "be at peace," drily advised wayne. "ann was quiet to-night," mused katie, feeling an irresistible desire to get back to her post of duty, not because there was any need for her being there, but merely because she liked the post. "she felt a little strange, i think. she has been much alone and with people of a different sort." "and i presume it never occurred to you, katie, that neither ann nor i was fairly surfeited with opportunities for conversational initiative? just drop me a hint sometime when you are not going to be at home, will you? i should like a chance to get acquainted with your friend." katie was straightway the hen with feathers ruffled over her brood. "you must be careful, wayne," she clucked at him. "when you are alone with ann please try to avoid all unpleasant subjects, or anything you see she would rather not talk about." "thanks awfully for the hint," returned wayne quietly. "i had been meaning to speak first of her father's funeral. i thought i would follow that with a searching inquiry into her mother's last illness. but of course if you think this not wise i am glad to be guided by your judgment, katie." "wayne!" she reproached laughingly. "now you know well enough! i simply meant if you saw ann wished to avoid a subject, not to pursue it." "thanks again, dear sister kate, for these easy lessons in behavior. rule --" but she waved it laughingly aside, rising to leave him. "just the same," she maintained, from the doorway, "experience may make the familiar things--and dear things--the very things of which one wishes least to speak. talk to ann about the army, wayne; talk about--" but as he was holding out note-book and pencil she beat grimacing retreat. that night miss jones dreamed. the world had been all shaken up and everything was confused and no one could put it to rights. all those dames whose ancestors had sailed unknown waters were in the front row of the chorus, and all the chorus girls were dancing a stately minuet at old point comfort. elizabeth barrett browning was trying to commit suicide by becoming a biological freak, and the madonna of the chair was wearing a smartly tailored brown rajah suit. chapter xi peacefully and pleasantly one day slipped after another. some thirty of them had joined their unnumbered fellows and to-morrow bade fair to pass serenely as yesterday. "this, dear queen," katie confided to the dog stretched at her feet, "is what in vulgar parlance is known as 'nothing doing,' and in poetic language is termed the 'simple life.'" thirty days of "nothing doing"--and yet there had been more "doing" in those days than in all the thousands of their predecessors gaily crowded to the brim. those crowded days seemed days of a long sleep; these quiet ones, days of waking. ann was out on the links that afternoon with captain prescott. from her place on the porch katie had a glimpse of them at that moment. ann's white dress with its big knot of red ribbon was a vivid and a pleasing spot. the olive of the captain's uniform seemed part of the background of turf and trees--all of it for ann, so live and so pretty in white and red. he was seeking to correct her stroke. both were much in earnest about it. it would seem that the whole of ann's life hung upon that thing of better form in her golf. finally she made a fair drive and turned to him jubilantly. he was commending enthusiastically and ann quite pranced under his enthusiasm. seeing katie, she waved her hand and pointed off to her ball that katie, too, might mark the triumph. then they came along, laughing and chatting. when the ball was reached they were in about the spot where katie had first seen ann, thirty days before. she knew how ann felt. there was joy in the good stroke. in this other game she had been playing in the last thirty days--this more difficult and more alluring game--she had come to know anew the exhilaration of bunker cleared, the satisfaction of the long drive and the sure putt. and katie had played a good game. it was not strange she should have convinced others, for there were times when her game was so good as to convince even herself. though it had ever been so with kate. the things in the world of "let's play like" had always been persuasive things. curious she was to know how often or how completely ann was able to forget they were playing a game. she had come to think of ann, not as a hard-and-fast, all-finished product, but as something fluid, certainly plastic. it was as if anything could be poured into ann, making her. a dream could be woven round her, and ann could grow into that dream. that was a new fancy to kate; she had always thought of people more as made than as constantly in the making. it opened up long paths of wondering. to all sides those paths were opening in those days--it was that that made them such eventful days. down this path strayed the fancy how much people were made by the things which surrounded them--the things expected of them. that path led to the vista that amazing responsibility might lie with the things surrounding--the things expected. it even made her wonder in what measure she would have been katie jones, differently surrounded, differently called upon. her little trip down that path jostled both her approval of herself and her disapproval of others. it was only once or twice that the real girl had stirred in the dream. for the most part she had remained in the shadow of katie's fancyings. she was as an actor on the stage, inarticulate save as regards her part. katie had grown so absorbed in that part that there were times of forgetting there was a real girl behind it. often she believed in her friend ann forrest, the dear girl she had known in florence, the poor child who had gone through so many hard things and was so different from the zelda frasers of the world. she rejoiced with wayne and captain prescott in seeing dear ann grow a little more plump, a little rosier, a little more smiling. she could understand perfectly, as she had made them understand, why ann did not talk more of italy and the things of her own life. life had crowded in too hard upon her, that setting of the other days made other days live again too acutely. ann was taking a vacation from her life, she had laughingly put it to wayne. that was why she played so much with worth and the dogs and talked so little of grown-up things. though one could never completely take a vacation from one's life; that was why ann looked that way when she was sometimes sitting very still and did not know that any one was looking at her. persuasion was the easier as fabrication was but a fanciful dress for truth. imagination did not have it all to do; it only followed where ann called--blazing its own trail. yet there were times when the country of make-believe was swept down by a whirlwind, a whirlwind of realization which crashed through katie's consciousness and knocked over the fancyings. those whirlwinds would come all unannounced; when ann seemed most ann, playing with worth, perhaps wearing one of the prettiest dresses and smilingly listening to something wayne was telling her had happened over at the shops. and on the heels of the whirlwind knocking down the country of make-believe would come the girl from a vast unknown rushing wildly from--what? what had become of that girl? would she hear from _her_ again? it was almost as if the girl made by reality had indeed gone down under the waters that day, and the things the years had made her had abdicated in favor of the things katie would make her. and yet did the things the years had made one ever really abdicate? was it because the girl of the years was too worn for assertiveness that the girl of fancy could seem the all? was it only that she slumbered--and sometimes stirred a little in her sleep?--and when _she_ awoke? even to each other they did not speak of that other girl, as if fearing a word might wake her. sometimes they heard her stir; as one day soon after ann's coming katie had said: "ann, just what is it is the matter with your vocal chords?" "why i didn't know anything was," stammered ann. "but you seem unable to pronounce my name." ann colored. "it is spelled k-a-t-i-e," kate went on, "and is pronounced k--t. try it, ann. see if you can say it." ann looked at her. the look itself crossed the border country. "katie--" she choked--and the country of make-believe fell palely away. but they did not speak of the things they had stirred. that thing of not saying it had been established the day ann's bank account was opened. katie had been "over the river," as she called going over to the city. upon returning she found ann up in her room. she stood there unpinning her hat, telling of an automobile accident on the bridge--katie seldom came in without some stirring tale. as she was leaving she rummaged in her bag. "and oh yes, ann," she said, carelessly, "here's your bank book. i presumed to draw twenty dollars for you, thinking you might need it before you could get over. oh dear--that telephone! and i know it's wayne for me." but she did not escape. ann was waiting for her when she came back up stairs. she held out the book, shaking her head. her face told that she had been pulled back. "not money," she said unsteadily. "all the rest of it is bad enough--but not money. i'd have no--self-respect." "self-respect!" jeered kate. "i'd have no self-respect if i didn't take money. nobody can be self-respecting when broke. none of the rest of us seem to be inquiring into our sources of revenue, so why should you?" as had happened that other time, in relation to the suit, the thing shot out at ann turned back to her. it had more than once occurred that the thing thrown out sparingly persisted as thing to be considered genuinely. her browbeating of ann--for it was a sort of tender, protective browbeating--led her to reach out blindly for weapons, and once in her hand many of those weapons proved ideas. "we take everything we can get," she followed it up, forcing herself from interest in the weapon to the use of it, "from everybody we can get it from. we take this house from the government--and heaven only knows how many sons of toil the government takes it from. i take this money we're so stupidly quibbling about now from a company the papers say takes it from everybody in reach. take or you will be taken from is the basis of modern finance. please don't be fanatical, ann." "i can't take it," repeated ann. katie looked worried. then she took new ground. "well, ann, if you won't take the sane financial outlook, at least be a good sport. we're in this game; the money has got to be part of making it go. we'll never get anywhere at all if we're going to balk and fuss at every turn. there now, honey,"--as if to worth--"put your book away. don't lose it; it makes them cross to have you lose them. and another principle of modern finance with which i am heartily in sympathy is that money should be kept in circulation. it encourages embezzlement to leave it in banks too long." then, seeing what was gathering, she said quietly but authoritatively: "leave it unsaid, ann. can't we always just leave it unsaid? nothing makes me so uncomfortable as to feel i'm constantly in danger of having something nice said to me." perhaps katie knew that countries of make-believe are sensitive things, that it does not do to admit you know them for that. there had been that one time when the hand of reality reached savagely into the dream, as if the things the girl had run away from had come to claim her. it seemed through that long night that they had claimed her, that ann's "vacation" was over. captain prescott had been dining with them that night and after dinner they were sitting out on the porch. he was humming a snatch of something. katie heard a chair scrape and saw that ann had moved farther into the shadow. she was all in shadow save her hand; that katie could see was gripping the arm of her chair. he turned to ann. "did you see 'daisey-maisey'?" "ann wasn't here then," said kate. "did you see it, katie?" "no." "it was a jolly, joyous sort of thing," he laughed. "sort of thing to make you feel nothing matters. that was the name of that thing i was humming. no, not 'nothing matters,' but 'don't you care.' and there were the 'don't you care' girls--pink dresses and big black hats. they seemed to mean what they sang. they didn't care, certainly." it was wayne who spoke. "think not?" ann came a little way out of the shadow. she had leaned toward wayne. "well you'd never know it if they did," laughed prescott. he turned to wayne. "what's your theory?" "oh i have no theory. just a wondering. can't see how girls who have their living to earn could sing 'don't you care' with complete abandon." ann leaned forward, looking at him tensely. then, as if afraid, she sank back into shadow. katie could still see her hand gripping the arm of her chair. "but they're not the caring sort," prescott was holding. "think not?" said wayne again, in wayne's queer way. there was a silence, and then ann had murmured something and slipped away. katie followed her; for hours she sat by her bed, holding her hand, trying to soothe her. it was almost morning before that other girl, that girl they were trying to get away from, would let ann go to sleep. sitting beside the tortured girl that night, hearing the heart-breaking little moans which as sleep finally drew near replaced the sobs, katie jones wondered whether many of the things people so serenely took for granted were as absurd--and perhaps as tragically absurd--as captain prescott's complacent conclusion that the "don't you care" girls were girls who didn't care. how she would love--turning it all over in her mind that afternoon--to talk some of those things over with "the man who mends the boats"! chapter xii she had only known him for about twenty days--"the man who mends the boats"--but she had fallen into the way of referring all interesting questions to him. that was perhaps the more remarkable as her eyes had never rested upon him. one morning worth had looked up from some comparative measurements of the tails of pourquoi and n'est-ce-pas to demand: "why, aunt kate, what do you think?" "there are times," replied aunt kate, looking over at the girl swaying in the hammock, humming gently to herself, "when i don't know just what to think." "well sir, what do you think? the man that mends the boats knows more 'an watts!" "worthie," she admonished, "it's bad business for an army man to turn traitor." "but yes, he does. 'cause i asked watts why pourquoi had more yellow than white, and why n'est-ce-pas was more white 'an yellow, and he said i sure had him there. he'd be blowed if he knew, and he guessed nobody did, 'less maybe the almighty had some ideas about it; but yesterday i asked the man that mends the boats, and he explained it--oh a whole lot of long words, aunt kate. more long words 'an i ever heard before." "and the explanation? i trust it was satisfactory?" "i guess it was," replied worth uncertainly. "'twas an awful lot of long words." "my experience, too," laughed aunt kate. "with the man that mends the boats?" "no, with other sages. you see when they're afraid to stay down here on the ground with us any longer, afraid they'll be hit with a question that will knock them over, they get into little air-ships they have and hurl the long words down at our heads until we're too stunned to ask any more questions, and in such wise is learning disseminated." "i'll ask the man that mends the boats if he's got any air-ships. he's got most everything up there." "up where?" "oh, up there,"--with vague nod toward the head of the island. "he says he'd like to get acquainted with you, aunt kate. he says he really believes you might be worth knowing." thereupon aunt kate's book fell to the floor with a thud of amazement that reverberated indignation. "well upon my word!" gasped she. then, recovering her book--and more--"why what a kindly gentleman he must be," she drawled. "oh yes, he's kind. he's awful kind, i guess. he'll talk to you any time you want him to, aunt kate. he'll tell you just anything you want to know. he said you must be a--i forgot the word." "oh no, you haven't," wheedled aunt kate. "try to think of it, dearie." "can't think of it now. shall i ask him again?" "certainly not! how preposterous! as if it made the slightest difference in the world!" but it made difference enough for aunt kate to ask a moment later: "and how did it happen, worthie, that this kindly philosopher should have deemed me worth knowing?" "oh, i don't know. 'cause he liked the puppies' names, i guess. i told him how their mother was just queen, but how they was pourquoi and n'est-ce-pas--a 'quirer and 'versalist and so then he said: 'and which is aunt kate?'" "which is aunt _kate? what_ did he mean?" "'is she content to be just queen,' he said, 'or is she'--there was a lot of long words, you wouldn't understand them, aunt kate--i didn't either--'does she show a puppyish tendon'--tendon something--'to butt into the universe?'" suddenly aunt kate's face grew pink and she sat straight. "worth, was this one of the men?" "oh no, aunt kate. he's not one of the men. he's just a man. he's the man that mends the boats." "'the man that mends the boats!' he sounds like a creature in flowing robes out of a mythology book, or the being expressing the high and noble sentiments calling everybody down in a new-thoughtish play." from time to time worth would bring word of him. what boats does he mend, aunt kate wanted to know, and what business has he landing them on our island? to which came the answer that he mended boats sick unto death with speed mania and other social disease, and that he didn't land them on the island, but on an island off the tip of the island, a tiny island which the lord had thoughtlessly left lying disrespectfully close to the isle of dignity. katie was too true a romancer to inquire closely about the man who mended the boats, for she liked to think of him as an unreal being who only touched the earth off the tip of the island, and only touched humanity through worth. that wove something alluringly mysterious--and mysteriously alluring--about the man who made sick boats well, whereas had she given rein to the possibility of his belonging to the motorboat factory across the river, and scientifically testing gasoline engines it would be neither proper nor interesting that her young nephew should run back and forth with pearls of wit and wisdom. it developed that worth visited this tip of the island with the ever faithful watts, and that one day the boat mender and watts had--oh just the awfulest fight with words worth had ever heard. it was about the government, which the man who mended the boats said was running on one cylinder, drawing from patriotic watts the profane defense that it had all the power it needed for blowing up just such fools as that! he further held that soldiers were first-class dishwashers and should be brave enough to demand first-class dishwashing pay. katie had chuckled over that. but she had puzzled rather than chuckled over the statement that the first war the saddles manufactured on that island would see would be the war over the manufacturing of them. now what in the world had he meant by that? she had asked wayne, but wayne had seemed so seriously interested in the remark, and asked such direct questions as to who made it, that she had tried to cover her tracks, thinking perhaps the man who mended the boats could be thrown into the guard-house for saying such dark things about army saddles. on the way home from that talk watts had branded the man who mended the boats as one of them low-down anarchists that ought to be shot at sunrise. things was as they _was_, held watts, and how could anybody but a fool expect them to be any way but the way they _was_? it showed what _he_ was--and after that worth had had no more fireworks of thought for a week, watts standing guard over the world as it was. but he slipped into an odd place in katie's life of wonderings and fancyings, and that life of musing and questioning was so big and so real a life in those days. he was something to shoot things out at, to hang things to. she held imaginary conversations with him, demolished him in imaginary arguments only to stand him up and demolish him again. sometimes she quite winked with him at the world as it was, and at other times she withdrew to lofty heights and said cutting things. in more friendly mood she asked him questions, sometimes questions he could not answer, and she could not answer them either, and then their thoughts would hover around together, brooding over a world of unanswerable things. all her life she had held those imaginary conversations, but heretofore it had been with her horse, her dog, the trees, a white cloud against the blue, something somewhere. none of the hundreds of nice people she knew had ever moved her to imaginary conversations. and so now it was stimulating--energizing--not to have to diffuse her thought into the unknown, but to direct it at, and through, the man who mended the boats and said strange things to worth up at the tip of the island. and he came at a time when she had great need of him. never before had there been so many things to start one on imaginary conversations, conversations which ended usually in a limitless wondering. since ann had come the simplest thought had a way of opening a door into a vast country. too many doors were opening that afternoon. she was making no headway with the letters she had told herself she would dispose of while ann and captain prescott were out on the links. the letter from harry prescott's mother was the most imperative. she was returning from california and sent some inquiries as to the habitability of her son's house. katie was thinking, as she re-read it, that it was a letter with a background. it expressed one whom dead days loved well. the writer of the letter seemed to be holding in life all those gentlewomen who had formed her. in a short time mrs. prescott would be at the arsenal. that meant a more difficult game. did it also mean an impossible one? yet katie would prefer showing her ann to mrs. prescott than to zelda fraser. zelda, the fashionable young woman, would pounce upon the absence of certain little tricks and get no glimmer of what katie vaguely called the essence. might not mrs. prescott find the reality in the possibilities? "it comes to this," katie suddenly saw, "i'm not shamming, i'm revealing. i'm not vulgarly imitating; i'm restoring. the connoisseur should be the first to appreciate that." it turned her off into one of those long paths of wondering, paths which sometimes seemed to circle the whole of the globe. it was on those paths she frequently found the man who mended the boats waiting for her. sometimes he was irritating, turning off into little by-paths, by-paths leading off to the dim source of things. katie could not follow him there; she did not know her way; and often, as to-day, he turned off there just when she was most eager to ask him something. she would ask him what he thought about backgrounds. how much there was in that thing of having the background all prepared for one, in simply fitting into the place one was expected to fit into. how many people would create for themselves the background it was assumed they belonged in just because they had been put in it? suddenly she laughed. she had a most absurd vision of jove--katie believed it would be jove--standing over humanity with some kind of heroic feather duster and mightily calling "shoo!--shoo!--move on!--every fellow find his place for himself!" such a scampering as there would be! and how many would be let stay in the places where they had been put? who would get the nice corners it had been taken for granted certain people should have just because they had been fixed up for them in advance? how about the case of miss katherine wayneworth jones? would she be ranked out of quarters? certain it was that a very choice corner had been fitted up for said katherine wayneworth jones. people said that she belonged in her corner; that no one else could fit it, that she could not as well fit anywhere else. but she was not at all sure that under the feather duster act that would give her the right of possession. people were so stupid. just because they saw a person sitting in a place they held that was the place for that person to be sitting. katie almost wished that mighty "shoo!" would indeed reverberate 'round the world. it would be such fun to see them scamper and squirm. and would there not be the keenest of satisfaction in finding out what sort of place one would fit up for one's self if none had been fitted up for one in advance? few people were called upon to prove themselves. most people judged people as they judged pictures at an exhibition. they went around with a catalogue and when they saw a good name they held that they saw a good picture. and when they did not know the name, even though the picture pleased them, they waited around until they heard someone else saying good things, then they stood before it murmuring, "how lovely." she had put ann in the catalogue; she had seen to it that she was properly hung, and she herself had stood before her proclaiming something rare and fine. that meant that ann was taken for granted. and being taken for granted meant nine-tenths the battle. it would be fun to fool the catalogue folks. and she need have no compunctions about lowering the standard of art because the picture she had found out in the back room and surreptitiously hung in the night belonged in the gallery a great deal more than some of the pictures which had been solemnly carried in the front way. it was the catalogue folks, rather than the lovers of art, were being imposed upon. and mrs. prescott, though to be sure a maker of catalogues, was also a lover of art. there lay katie's hope for her, and apology to her. though she was apprehensive, a stronger light was to be turned on--that was indisputable. "you and i know, dear queen," katie confided to the member of her sex lying at her feet, "that men are not at all difficult. you can get them to swallow most anything--if the girl in the case is beautiful enough. and feminine enough! masculine dotes on discovering feminine--but have you ever noticed what the rest of the feminine dote on doing to that discovery? women can even look at wondrous soft brown eyes and lovely tender mouths through those 'who was your father?' 'specs' they keep so well dusted. the manner of holding a teacup is more important than the heart's deep dreams. when it comes to passing inspection, the soul's not in it with the fork. we know 'em--don't we, old queen?" queen wagged concurrence, and katie pulled herself sternly back to her letters. mrs. prescott spoke of the chance of her son's being ordered away. "i hope not," she wrote, "for i want the quiet summer for him. and for myself, too. the great trees and the river, and you there, dear katie, it seems the thing i most desire. but we of the army learn often to relinquish the things we most desire. we, the homeless, for in the abiding sense we are homeless, make homes possible. think of it with pride sometimes, katie. our girls think of it all too little now. i sometimes wonder how they can forego that just pride in their traditions. during this spring in the west my thoughts have many times turned to those other days, days when men like your father and my husband performed the frontier service which made the west of to-day possible. recently at a dinner i heard a young woman, one of the 'advanced' type, and i am sorry to say of army people, speak laughingly to one of our men of the uselessness of the army. she was worthy nothing but scorn, or i might have spoken of some of the things your mother and i endured in those days of frontier posts. and now we have a california--serene--fruitful--and can speak of the uselessness of the army! does the absurdity of it never strike them?" katie pondered that; wondered if mrs. prescott's attitude and spirit were not passing with the frontier. few of the army girls she knew thought of themselves as homeless, or gave much consideration to that thing of making other homes possible, save, to be sure, the homes they were hoping--and plotting--to make for themselves. and she could not see that the "young woman" was answered. the young woman had not been talking about traditions. probably the young woman would say that yesterday having made to-day possible it was quite time to be quit of yesterday. "though to be sure," katie now answered her, "while we may not seem to be doing anything, we're keeping something from being done, and that perhaps is the greatest service of all. were it not for us and our dear navy we should be sailed on from east and west, marched on from north and south. at least that's what we're told by our superiors, and are you the kind of young woman to question what you're told by your superiors? because if you are!--i'd like to meet you." her letter continued: "harry writes glowingly of your charming friend. strange that i am not able to recall her, though to be sure i knew little of you in those years abroad. was she a school friend? i presume so. harry speaks of her as 'the dear sort of girl,' not leaving a clear image in my mind. but soon my vision will be cleared." "oh, will it?" mumbled kate. "i don't know whether it will or not. 'the dear sort of girl!' and i presume the young goose thought he had given a vivid picture." she turned to major darrett's note: a charming note it was to turn to. he had the gift of making himself very real--and correspondingly attractive--in those notes. a few days before she had been telling ann about major darrett. "he's a bachelor," she had said, "and a joy." ann had looked vague, and katie laughed now in seeing that her characterization was broad as "the dear sort of girl." it was probable major darrett would relieve one of the officers at the arsenal. he touched it lightly. "should fate--that part of it dwelling in washington--waft me to your island, katie jones, i foresee a summer to compensate me for all the hard, cruel, lonely years." kate smiled knowingly; not that she actually knew much to be knowing about. she wondered why she did not disapprove of major darrett. certain she was that some of the things which had kept his years from being hard, cruel, and lonely were in the category for disapproval. but he managed them so well; one could not but admire his deftness, and admiration was weakening to disapproval. one disapproved of things which offended one, and in this instance the results of the things one knew one should disapprove were so far from offensive that one let it go at smiling knowingly, mildly disapproving of one's self for not disapproving. ann had not responded enthusiastically to katie's drawing of major darrett. she had not seemed to grasp the idea that much was forgiven the very charming; that ordinary standards were not rigidly applied to the extraordinarily fascinating. when katie was laughingly telling of one of the major's most interesting flirtations ann's eyes had seemed to crouch back in that queer way they had. katie had had an odd sense of ann's disapproving of her--disapproving of her for her not disapproving of him. more than once ann had given her that sense of being disapproved of. as with all things in the universe just then, he was a new angle back to ann. if he were to come there--? for major darrett would not at all disapprove of those eyes of ann's. and yet his own eyes would see more than wayne and harry prescott had seen. major darrett had been little on the frontier, but much in the drawing-room; he had never led up san juan hill, but he had led many a cotillion. he had had that form of military training which makes society favorites. as to ann, he would have the feminine "specs" and the masculine delight at one and the same time. what of that union? katie's eyes began to dance. she hoped he would come. he would be a foe worthy her steel. she would have to fix up all her fortifications--look well to her ammunition. whatever might be held against major darrett it could not be said he was not worthy one's cleverest fabrications. but the triumph of holding one's own with a veteran! then of a sudden she wondered what the man who mended the boats would think of the major. chapter xiii before she had finished her writing wayne and worth came up on the porch. the little boy had been over at the shops with his father. "father," he was saying, imagination under the stimulus of things he had been seeing, "i suppose our gun will kill 'bout forty thousand million folks--won't it, father?" "why no, son, i hope it's not going to be such a beastly gun as that," laughed captain jones. "yes, but, father, isn't a good gun a gun that kills folks? what's the use making a gun at all if it isn't going to kill folks?" his father looked at him strangely. "sonny," he said, "you're hitting home rather hard." "your reasoning is poor, worth," said katie; "fact is we make guns to keep folks from getting killed. if we didn't have the guns everybody would get killed. now don't say 'why.'" "'cause you don't know why," calmly remarked worth, adding: "i'll ask watts, and if he don't know i'll ask the man that mends the boats." "do," said katie. having, to his own satisfaction, exterminated some forty thousand million members of the human family, worth opened attack on the puppies. he was an indian and they were poor white settlers and he was going to kill them. no poor white settlers had ever received an indian so joyously. but he seemed to have left those forty thousand million souls on his father's hands. wayne was looking very serious. he did not respond to--did not appear to have heard--katie's remark about worth needing some new clothes. katie wondered what he was thinking about; she supposed some new kind of barrel steel. she took it for granted that nothing short of steel could produce _that_ look. she was proud of the things that look had done, proud of the distinction her brother had already won in the army, proud, in advance, of the things she was confident he would do. captain jones was at the arsenal on special detail. an invention of his pertaining to the rifle was being manufactured for tests. there was keen interest in it and its final adoption seemed assured. it was of sufficient importance to make his name one of those conspicuous in army affairs. he had already several lesser things--devices pertaining to equipment--to his credit and was looked upon as one of the most promising of the army's men of invention. and aside from her pride in him, katie's affection for her brother was deep, intensified because of their being alone. their father had died when katie was sixteen, died as a result of wounds received long before in frontier skirmishes, where he had been one of those many brave men to serve fearlessly and faithfully, men who gave more to their country than their country perhaps understood. their mother survived him only two years. katie sometimes said that her mother, too, gave her life to her country. her health had been undermined by hard living on the frontier--she who had been so tenderly reared in her southern home--and in the end she also died from a wound, that wound dealt the heart in the death of her husband. katie revered her father's memory and adored her mother's, and while youth and katie's indomitable spirit made it hard for one to think of her as sad, the memory of those two was the deepest, biggest thing in the girl's life. "oh katie," wayne suddenly roused himself to say, "your cousin fred wayneworth is in town. i had luncheon with him over the river. he sent all sorts of messages to you." "well--really! messages! why this haughty aloofness? doesn't he mean to come over?" "oh yes, of course; to-morrow--perhaps to-night. he's fearfully busy--stopped off on his way east. there's a row on in the forest service about some of osborne's timber claims--mining claims, too, i believe--in colorado. those years in the west have developed fred splendidly. he's gone from boy to man, and a fine specimen of man, at that." "he likes his work?" "full of it." wayne was silent for a moment, then added: "i envied him." it startled katie. "envied him? why--why, wayne? surely you're lucky." he laughed: not the laugh of a man too pleased with his luck. "oh, am i? perhaps i am, but just the same i envy a fellow who can look that way when talking about his work." "but you have a work, wayne." "no, i have a place." she grew more and more puzzled. "why, wayne, you've been all wrapped up in this thing you were doing." he threw his cigarette away impatiently. "oh yes, just for the sake of doing it. i get a certain satisfaction in scheming things out. i must say, however, i'd like to scheme out something i'd get some satisfaction in having schemed out. a morsel of truth dropped from the mouth of a babe a minute ago. you may have observed, katie, that his inquiry was more direct and reasonable than your reply. an improvement on a rifle. not such a satisfying thing to leave to a rifle eliminating future." "but i didn't know the army admitted it was to be a rifle eliminating future." "i'm not saying that the army does," he laughed. he passed again to that look of almost passionate concentration which katie had always supposed meant metallic fouling or some--to her--equally incomprehensible thing. he emerged from it to exclaim tensely: "oh i get so sick of the spirit of the army!" instinctively katie looked around. he saw it, and laughed. "there you go! we've made a perfect fetich of loyalty. it's a different sort of loyalty those forestry fellows have--a more live, more constructive loyalty. the loyalty that comes, not through form, but through devotion to the work--a common interest in a common cause. ours is built on dead things. custom, and the caste--i know no other word--just the bull-headed, asinine, undemocratic caste that custom has built up." "and yet--there must be discipline," katie murmured: it seemed dreadful wayne should be tearing down their house in that rude fashion, house in which they had dwelt so long, and so comfortably. "discipline is one thing. bullying's another. i've never been satisfied discipline couldn't be enforced without snobbery. to-day solesby--one year out of west point!--walked through a shop i was in. he passed men working at their machines--skilled mechanics, many of them men of intelligence, ideas, character--as though he were passing so much cattle. i wanted to take him by the neck and throw him out!" "oh well," protested katie, "one year out of the point! he's yet to learn men are not cattle." "well, leonard never learned it. his back gets some black looks, let me tell you." "wayne dear," she laughed, "i'm afraid you're not talking like an officer and a gentleman." "i get tired talking like an officer and a gentleman. sometimes i feel like talking like a man." "but couldn't you be court-martialed for doing that?" she laughed. "i think leonard thinks i should be." "why--why, wayne?" "because i talk to the men. there's a young mechanic who has been detailed to me, and he and i get on famously. all too famously, i take it leonard thinks. he came in to-day when this young ferguson was telling me some things about his union. he treated ferguson like a dog and me like a suspicious character." "dear me, wayne," she murmured, "don't get in trouble." "trouble!" he scoffed. "well if i can get in trouble for talking with an intelligent man i'm working with about the things that man knows--then let me get in trouble! i'd rather talk to ferguson than solesby--we've more in common. oh i'll get in no trouble," he added grimly. "leonard knows it wouldn't sound well to say it. but he feels it, just the same. right there's the difference between our service and this forest service. that's where they're democrats and we're fossils. look at the difference in the spirit of the ranger and the spirit of the soldier! and it's not because they're whipped into line and bullied and snarled at. it's because they're treated like men--and made to feel they're a needed part of a big whole. you should hear fred tell of the way men meet in this forest service--superintendent meeting ranger on a common ground. and why? because they're doing something constructive. because the work's the thing that counts. you'll see what it's done for fred. the boy has a real dignity; not the stiff-necked kind he'd acquire around an army post, but the dignity that comes with the consciousness of being, not in the service, but of service." he fell silent there, and katie watched him. he had never spoken to her that way before--she had not dreamed he felt like that; heretofore it had been only through laughing little jibes at the army she had had any inkling of his feeling toward it. that she had not taken seriously; half the people she knew in the service jibed at it to others in the service. this depth of feeling disturbed her, moved her to defense. after a moment's consideration she emerged triumphant with the panama canal. he shook his head. "when you consider the percentage of the army so engaged, you can't feel as happy about it as you'd like to. we ought all to be digging panama canals!" "heavens, wayne--we don't need them." "plenty of things we do need." "well i don't think you're fair to the army, wayne. you're not looking into it--deeply enough. you're doing just as much as fred, for in safeguarding the country you permit this constructive work to go on. as to our formalities--they have run off into absurdity at some points, but it was a real spirit created those very forms." "true. and now the spirit's dead and the form's left--and what's so absurd as a form that rattles dead bones?" "father didn't feel as you do, wayne." "he had no cause to. he was needed. but we don't need the army on the frontier now. that's _done_. and we do need the forest service--the thing to build up. there's no use harking back to traditions. the world moves on too fast for that. question is--not what did you do yesterday--but what good are you to-day--what are you worth to-morrow? oh, i'm not condemning the army half so much as i'm sympathizing with it," he laughed. "it's full of live men who want to be doing something--instead of being compelled to argue that they're some good. they get very tired saying they're useful. they'd like to make it self-evident." "well, perhaps we'll have a war with japan," said katie consolingly. "perhaps we will. having an army that's spoiling for it, i don't see how we can very well miss it." "but if we had no army we certainly should have a war." his silence led katie to gasp: "wayne, are you becoming--anti-militarist?" he laughed. "oh, i don't know what i'm becoming. but as to myself--i do know this. there would be more satisfaction in constructive work than in work that constructs only that it may be ready to destroy. i would find it more satisfying to help give my country itself--through natural and legitimate means--than stand ready to give it some corner of some other country." "but to keep the other country from getting a corner of it?" "doesn't it occur to you, katie, that as a matter of fact the other country might like a chance to develop its resources? we're like a crowd of boys with rocks in their hands and all afraid to throw down the rocks. if one did, the others might be immensely relieved. it seems rather absurd, standing there with rocks nobody wants to throw--especially when there are so many other things to be doing--and everybody saying, 'i've got to keep mine because he's got his.' would you call that a very intelligent gang of kids? ferguson says it's the workingmen of the world will bring about disarmament. that they're coming to feel their common cause as workers too keenly to be forced into war with each other." "that's what the man that mends the boats says," piped up worth. "he says that when they're all socialists there won't be any wars--'cause nobody'll go. but watts says that day'll never come, thank god." "are you thanking god for yourself or for watts, sonny?" laughed his father. "and who, pray, is the man that mends the boats?" "the man that mends the boats, father, is a man that's 'most as smart as you are." "it has been a long time," gravely remarked wayne, "since any man has been brought to my attention so highly commended as that." but their talk had been sobering to them both, for they spoke seriously then of various things. it was probable that before long wayne would be ordered to washington. he wanted to know what katie would do then. why not spend next season in washington with him? just what were her plans? but katie had no plans. and suddenly she realized how completely all things had been changed by the coming of ann. she had spent much of her life in washington. she loved it; loved its official life, in particular its army and diplomatic life; and loved, too, that rigidly guarded old washington to which, as her mother's daughter, the door stood open to her. her uncle, the bishop, lived in a city close by. his home was the fixed spot which katie called home. in washington--and near it--she would find friends on all sides. just thirty days before she would have gloated over that prospect of next season there. but she was not prepared to bombard washington with ann. the mere suggestion carried realization of how propitious things had been, how simple she had found it. the little game they were playing seemed to cut katie off from her life, too, and without leaving the luxury of feeling sorry for herself. with it all, washington did not greatly allure. washington, as she knew it, was distinctly things as they were; just now nothing allured half so much as those long dim paths of wondering leading off into the unknown. suddenly she had an odd sense of washington--all that it represented to her--being the play, the game, the thing made to order and seeming very tame to her because she was dwelling with real things. it was as if her craft of make-believe was the thing which had been able to carry her toward the shore of reality. and so she told wayne that she had no plans. perhaps she would go back to europe with ann. he turned quickly at that. "she goes back?" "oh yes--i suppose so." "but why? where? to whom?" "why? why, why not? why does one go anywhere? florence is to ann what washington is to me--a sort of center." "katie," he asked abruptly, "has she no people? no ties? isn't she--moored any place?" "am i 'moored' any place?" returned kate. "why, yes; to the things that have made you--to the things you're part of. by moored i don't mean necessarily a fixed spot. but i have a feeling--" he seemed either unable or unwilling to express it, and instead laughed: "i'd like to know how much her father made a month, and whether her mother was a good cook--a few little things like that to make her less a shadow. do you really get _at_ her, katie?" "why--why, yes," stammered katie; "though i told you, wayne, that ann was different. quiet--and just now, sad." "i don't think of her as particularly quiet," he replied; "and sad isn't it, either. i think of her"--he paused and concluded uncertainly--"as a girl in a dream." "her dream or your dream, wayne?" laughed katie, just to turn it. she was throwing sticks for the puppies and missed his startled look. but it was katie who was startled when he said, still uncertainly, and more to himself than to katie: "though she's so real." ann and captain prescott were coming toward them. she had never looked less like a girl in a dream. laughing and jesting with her companion, she looked simply like an exceedingly pretty girl having a very good time. "but you like ann, don't you, wayne?" katie asked anxiously. "yes," said wayne, "i like her." she came running up the steps to them, flushed, happy, as free from self-consciousness as worth would have been. "katie," she cried, "i played the last one in four. didn't i?" turning proudly to the captain for endorsement. both men were looking at her with pleasure: cheeks flushed, eyes glowing, hair a little disheveled and a little damp about the forehead, panting a little, her lithe, beautiful body swaying gently, hands outstretched to show wayne how she had hardened her palms, ann had never seemed so lovely and so live. in that moment it mattered not whether one knew anything about the earning capacity of her father or the culinary abilities of her mother. _she_ was real. real as sunshine and breezes and birds are real, as worth and the puppies tumbling over each other on the grass were real, as all that is life-loving is real. and not detached, not mistily floating, but moored to that very love of life, capacity for life, to that look she had awakened in the faces of the men to whom she was talking. it seemed a paltry thing just then to wonder whether ann was child of farmer, or clothing merchant, or great artist. she was life's child. love's child. love's child--only she had not dwelt all her days in her father's house. but it was her father's house; that was why, once warmed and comforted, she could radiantly take her place. watching her as she was going over her game for wayne, demonstrating some of her strokes, and her slim, beautiful body made even the poor strokes wonderful things, katie was not speculating on whether ann had come from chicago, or florence, or big creek. she was thinking that ann was product, expression, of the love of the world, that love which had brought the laughter and the tears, brought the hope and the radiance and the tragedy of life. and then, suddenly and inexplicably, katie was afraid. of just what, she did not know; of things--big, tempestuous things--which katie did not very well understand, and which ann--perhaps not understanding either--seemed to embody. "come, ann," she said, "we must make ready for dinner." captain prescott called after them that next he was going to teach ann to ride. "oh, we'll make an army girl of her yet," he laughed. ann turned back. "do you know," she said, "i don't understand the army very well. just what is it the army does?" they laughed. "ask the peace society in boston," suggested prescott. but wayne said: "some day soon you and i'll take a ride on the river and i'll deliver a little lecture on the army." "oh, that will be nice," said ann radiantly. chapter xiv it was astonishing how ann seemed to find herself in just that thing of being able to learn to play golf. they were gay at dinner that night, and ann was as gay as any one. she continued to talk about her game, which they jestingly permitted her to do, and the men told some good golf stories which she entered into merrily. it was katie who was rather quiet. while they still lingered around the table fred wayneworth joined them, and katie, eager to talk with him of his people and his work, left ann alone with wayne and captain prescott, something which up to that time she had been reluctant to do. but to-night she did not feel ann clinging to her, calling out to her, as she had felt her before. she seemed on surer ground; it was as if golf had given her a passport. from her place in the garden with her cousin, ann's laugh came down to them from time to time--just a girl's happy laugh. "who is your stunning friend, katie?" fred asked. "no, stunning doesn't fit her, but lovely. she is lovely, isn't she?" "ann's very pretty," said kate shortly. "oh--pretty," he laughed, "that won't do at all. so many girls are pretty, and i never saw any girl just like her." again she was vaguely uneasy, and the uneasiness irritated her, and then she was ashamed of the irritation. didn't she want poor ann to have a good time--and feel at home--and be admired? did she care for her when she was somber and shy, and resent her when happy and confident? she told herself she was glad to hear ann laughing; and yet each time the happy little laugh stirred that elusive foreboding in the not usually apprehensive soul of katie jones. "i want to tell you about my girl, katie," her cousin was saying. "i've got the _only_ girl." he was off into the story of helen: helen, who was a clerk in the forest service and "put it all over" any girl he had ever known before, who was worth the whole bunch of girls he had known in the east--girls who had been brought up like doll-babies and had doll-baby brains. didn't katie agree that a girl who could make her own way distanced the girls who could do nothing but spend their fathers' money? in her heart, katie did; had she been defending fred to his father, the bishop, or to his bostonian mother, she would have grown eloquent for helen. but listening to fred, it seemed something was being attacked, and she, unreasonably enough, instead of throwing herself with the aggressor was in the stormed citadel with her aunt and uncle and the girls with the doll-baby brains. and she had been within the citadel that afternoon when wayne was attacking the army. she gloried in attacks of her own, but let some one else begin one and she found herself running for cover--and to defense. she wondered if that were anything more meaningful than just natural perversity. the bishop had wanted his son for the church; but fred not taking amicably to the cloth, he had urged the navy. fred had settled that by failing to pass the examinations for annapolis. failing purposely, his father stormily held; a theory supported by the good work he did subsequently at yale. there he became interested in forestry, again to the disapproval of his parents, who looked upon forestry as an upstart institution, not hallowed by the mellowing traditions of church or navy. now they would hold that helen proved it. and helen did prove something. certain it was that from neither church nor navy would fred have seen his helen in just this way. perhaps it was that democracy wayne had been talking about. perhaps this democracy was a thing not contented with any one section of a man's life. perhaps once it _had_ him--it had its way with him. katie thought of the last thirty days--of paths leading out from other paths. once one started-- fred's father had never started. bishop wayneworth was only democratic when delivering addresses on the signers of the declaration of independence. the democracy of the past was sanctified; the democracy of the present, pernicious and uncouth. thought of her uncle put katie on the outside, eyes dancing with the fun of the attack. "who are her people, fred?" "oh, western people--ranchers; best sort of people. they raised the best crop of potatoes in the valley this year." katie yearned to commend the family of her daughter-in-law to her aunt elizabeth with the boast that they raised the best crop of potatoes in the valley! "they had hard sledding for a long time; but they're making a go of it now. they've worked--let me tell you. helen wouldn't have to work now--but don't you say that to helen! what do you think, katie? she even wants to keep on working after we're married!" that planted katie firmly within. "oh, she can't do that, fred." "well, i wish you'd tell her she can't. that's where we are now. we stick on that point. i try to assert my manly authority, but manly authority doesn't faze helen much. she has some kind of theory about the economic independence of woman. you know anything about it, katie?" "you forget that i'm one of the doll-baby girls," she replied in a light voice which trailed a little bitterness on behind. "not you! just before i left i said to helen: 'well there's at least one relative of mine who will have sense enough to appreciate you, and that's my corking cousin katie jones!'" that lured feminine kate outside again. "fred," she asked, moved by her never slumbering impulse to find out about things, "just what is it you care for in helen? is she pretty? funny? sympathetic? clever? what?" she watched his face as he tried to frame it. and watching, she decided that whatever kind of girl helen was, she was a girl to be envied. yes, and to be admired. "well i fear it doesn't sound sufficiently romantic," he laughed, "but helen's such a _sturdy_ little wretch. the first things i ever noticed about her was her horse sense. she's good on her job, too. she seems to me like the west. though that's rather amusing, for she's such a little bit of a thing. she's afraid she'll get fat. but she won't. she's not that kind." "why of course not," said katie stoutly, and they laughed and seemed very near to helen in thus scorning her fear of getting fat. he continued his confidences, laughter from the porch coming down to them all the while. helen was so real--she was so square--so independent--so dauntless--and yet she had such dear little ways. he couldn't make her sound as nice as she was; katie would have to come and see her. in fact they were counting on katie's coming. she was to come and stay a long time with them and really get acquainted with the west. "i'll tell you what helen's like," he summed it up. "she's very much what you would have been if you'd lived out there and had the advantages she has." katie stared. no, he was not trying to be funny. they started toward the house. "katie," he broke out, "if you have any cousinly love in your heart, and know anything about walt whitman, tell me something, so i can go back and spring it on helen. she's mad over him." "he was one of the 'advantages' i didn't have," said katie. "he didn't play a heavy part in the thing i had that passed for an education." "isn't it the limit the way they 'do you' at those girls' schools?" agreed fred sympathetically. "helen says that in religion and education the more you pay the less you get." "i should like her," laughed katie. but what would her aunt elizabeth think of a "sturdy little wretch," believing in the economic independence of woman--whatever that might be--with lots of horse sense, and good on her job! katie was on the outside now, and for good. if nothing else, the fun was out there. and there was something else. that light on fred's face when he was trying to tell about helen. captain prescott had come down the steps to meet them. "i was just coming for you. don't you think, katie, it would be fun to look in on the dance up here at the club house?" on the alert for shielding ann, katie demurred. it was late, and ann was tired from her golf. there was an eager little flutter, and ann had stepped forward. "oh, i'm not at all tired, katie," she said. "does she _look_ tired?" scoffed wayne. "she's only tired of being made to play the invalid. hurry along, katie. if you girls aren't sufficiently befrocked, frock up at once." katie hesitated, annoyed. she felt shorn of the function of her office. and she was dubious. the party was one which the younger set over the river were giving--at the golf club-house on the island--for the returned college boys. she did not know who might be there--she was always meeting friends of her friends. she felt a trifle injured in thinking that just for the sake of ann she had avoided the social life those people offered her, and now-- ann was speaking again, her voice stripped of the happy eagerness. "just as you say, katie. it is late, and perhaps i am--too tired." that moved katie. that a girl should not be privileged to be insistent about going to a dance--it seemed depriving her of her birthright. and more cruel than taking away a birthright was bringing the consciousness of having no birthright. katie entered gayly into the plans. they decided that ann was to wear the rose-colored muslin--the same gown she had worn that first night. as she was fastening it for her katie saw that ann was smiling at herself in the mirror, giving herself little pats of approval here and there. she had not done that the first time katie helped her into that dress. but it was the ann of the first days who turned strained face to her in the dressing-room at the club-house. all the girlish radiance--girlish vanity--was gone. "katie," she whispered, "i think i'd better go home. i--i didn't know it would be like this. so many people--so many lights--and things." gently katie reassured her. ann needing her was the ann she knew how to care for, and would care for in the face of all the people--all the "lights--and things." "you needn't dance if you don't want to," she told her. "i'll tell wayne to look out for you, that you're really not able to meet people. if i put him on guard he'll go through fire and water for you." "yes--i know that," said ann, and seemed to take heart. and for some time she did not dance. from the floor katie would get glimpses of ann and wayne sauntering on the veranda on which the ball-room opened. more than once she found ann's eyes following her--ann out in the shadow, looking in at the gay people in the light. but with the opening of a lively two-step captain prescott insisted ann dance with him. "oh come now," he urged. "life's too short to sit on the side lines. this is a ripping two-step." the music, too, was urgent--and persuasive. as if without volition she fell into gliding little steps, moving toward the dancing floor. it was katie who watched that time. she wanted to see ann dancing. at first it puzzled her; she was too graceful not to dance well, but she danced as if differently trained, as if unaccustomed to their way of dancing. but as the two-step progressed she fell into the swing of it and seemed no different from the rest of the pretty, happy girls all about her. she was radiant when she came back to them. like the golf, the dancing seemed to have given her confidence--and confidence, happiness. though she still shrank from meeting people. katie fell in with a whole troop of college boys who hovered around her, as both college boys and their elders were wont to hover around katie. she wanted to bring some of them to ann, but ann demurred. "oh no, katie. i don't want to dance with any strange men, please. just our own." why, katie wondered, should one not wish to dance with "strange men." it seemed so curious a thing to shrink from. katie herself had never felt at all strange with "strange men." nice fellows were nice fellows the world over, and she never felt farther from strange than when dancing with a nice man--strange or otherwise. even in the swing of her gayety katie wondered what it was could make one feel like that. and she wondered what wayne must think of that plaintive little "just our own" which she was sure he had overheard. katie had come out at last to say she thought they should go. ann must not get too tired. but just then the orchestra began dreaming out a waltz, one of those waltzes lovers love to remember having danced together. "now there," said wayne, "is a nice peaceful waltz. you'll have to wait, katie," and his arm was about ann and they had glided away together. katie told her cousin she would rather not dance. "let's stand here and watch," she said. couple after couple passed by, not the crowd of the gay two-step of a few moments before. few were talking; some were gently humming, many dreaming--with a veiled smile for the dream. it was one of those waltzes to find its way back to cherished moments, flood with lovely color the dear things held apart. fred was saying he wished helen were there. katie turned from the vivid picture out to the subtle night--warm summer's night. the dreaming music carried her back to vanished things--other waltzes, other warm summer's nights, to the times when she had been, in her light-hearted fashion, in love, to those various flirtations for which she had more tenderness than regret just for the glimpses they brought. and suddenly the heart of things gone seemed to flow into a great longing for that never known tenderness and wildness of feeling that sobbed in the music. she was being borne out to the heart of the night, and at the heart of the night some one waited for her with arms held out. but as she was swept nearer the some one was the man who mended the boats! with a little catch of her breath for that sorry twist of her consciousness that must make lovely moments ludicrous ones, she turned back to the bright room--crowded, colorful, moving room which seemed set in the vast, soft night. her brother was just passing--her brother and her friend ann forrest. they did not look out at her. they did not seem to know that katie was near. she had never seen ann's face so beautiful. it had that beauty she had all the while seen as possible for it, only more intense, more exalted than she had been able to foresee it. the music stopped on a sob. every one was still for an instant--then they were applauding for more. ann was not clapping. katie had never seen anything as beautiful as that look of rapt loveliness on ann's face as she stood there waiting. she might have been the very spirit of love waiting in the mists at the heart of the night. as softly the music began again and wayne once more guided her in and out among those boys and girls--boys and girls for whom life had meant little more than laughing and dancing--katie had a piercing vision of the girl with her hands over her face stumbling on toward the river. they were all very quiet on the way home. that night just as she was falling asleep katie was startled. it seemed at first she was being awakened by a sharp dart, one of those darts of apprehension seemed shot into her approaching slumber. but it was nothing more than wayne whistling out on the porch, whistling the dreaming waltz which would bear one to the love waiting at the heart of the night. but katie was sleepy now. how did wayne expect any one to go to sleep, she thought crossly, whistling at that time of night. but across the hall was another girl who listened. she had not been asleep. she had been lying there looking out into the night, very wide awake. and when she heard the whistling she too sat up in bed, swaying ever so gently to the rhythm of it, inarticulately following it under her breath and smiling a hushed, tender little smile. something lovely seemed stealing over her. but in the wake of it was something else--something cold, blighting. before he had finished she had covered her ears with her hands, and was sobbing. chapter xv as she looked back afterward upon that span of days, searching them, translating, katie saw that the day of the golf and the dancing marked the farthest advance. after that it was as if ann, frightened at finding herself so far out in the open, shrank back into the shadows. but having gone a little way into the open she was not again the same girl of the shadows. her response to life seeming thwarted, there came an incipient sullenness in her view of that life which she had reached over the bridge of make-believe. it did not show itself at once, but afterward it seemed to katie that the next day marked the beginning of ann's retreat on the bridge of make-believe. and she wondered whether the stray dog or the dangerous literature had most to do with that retreat. ann was pale and quiet the day after the dance, and it was not merely the languor of the girl who has fatigued herself in having a good time. at luncheon katie suddenly demanded: "wayne, where do you get dangerous literature?" "i don't know what form of danger you're courting, katie. i have a valuable work on high explosives, and i have a couple of volumes of de maupassant." "oh i weathered all that kind of danger long ago," said she airily. "i want the kind that is distressing editors of church papers. the man who edits this religious paper uncle sends me is a most unchristian gentleman. he devoted a whole page to talking about dangerous literature and then didn't tell you where to get it. well, i'll try walt whitman. he's very popular in the west, i'm told, and as the west likes danger perhaps he's dangerous enough to begin on." "and you feel, do you, katie, that the need of your life just now is for danger?" "yes, dear brother. danger i must have at any cost. what's the good living in a dangerous age if you don't get hold of any of the danger? this unchristian editor says that little do we realize what a dangerous age it is. and he says it's the literature that's making it so. then find the literature. only he--beast!--doesn't tell you where to." worth there requested the privilege of whispering in his aunt kate's ear. the ear being proffered, he poured into it: "i guess the man that mends the boats has got some dangerous literature, aunt kate." "tell him to endanger aunt kate," she whispered back. "do you suppose there is any way, wayne," she began, after a moment of seeming to have a very good time all to herself, "of getting back the money we spent for my so-called education?" "it would considerably enrich us," grimly observed wayne. "when doctors or lawyers don't do things right can't you sue them and get your money back? why can't you do the same thing with educators? i'm going to enter suit against miss sisson. this unchristian editor says modern education is dangerous; but there was no danger in the course at miss sisson's. i want my money back." "that you may invest it in dangerous literature?" laughed wayne. after he had gone ann was standing at the window, looking down toward the river. suddenly she turned passionately upon katie. "if you had ever had anything to _do_ with danger--you might not be so anxious to find it." she was trembling, and seemed close to tears. katie felt it no time to explain herself. and when she spoke again the tears were in her voice. "i can't tell you--when i begin to talk about it--" the tears were in her eyes, too, then, and upon her cheeks. "you see--i can't--but, katie--i want _you_ to be safe. i want you to be _safe_. you don't know what it means--to be safe." with that she passed swiftly from her room. katie sat brooding over it for some time. "if you've been in danger," she concluded, "you think it beautiful to be 'safe.' but if you've never been anything but 'safe'--" her smile finished that. but katie was more in earnest than her manner of treating herself might indicate. to be safe seemed to mean being shielded from life. she had always been shielded from life. and now she was beginning to feel that that same shielding had kept her from knowledge of life, understanding of it. katie was disturbingly conscious of a great deal going on around her that she knew nothing about. ann wished her to be 'safe'; yet it was ann who had brought a dissatisfaction with that very safety. it was ann had stirred the vague feeling that perhaps the greatest danger of all was in being too safe. katie felt an acute humiliation in the idea that she might be living in a dangerous age and knowing nothing of the danger. she would rather brave it than be ignorant of it. indeed braving it was just what she was keen for. but she could not brave it until she found it. she would find it. but the next afternoon she went over to the city with ann and found nothing more dangerous than a forlorn little stray dog. it was evident that he had never belonged to anybody. it was written all over his thin, squirming little yellow body that he was nobody's dog--written just as plainly as the name of somebody's dog would be written on a name-plate on a collar. and it was written in his wistful little watery eyes, told by his unconquerable tail, that with all his dog's heart he yearned to be somebody's dog. so he thought he would try miss katherine wayneworth jones. she had a number of errands to do, and he followed her from place to place. she saw him first when she came out from the hair-dresser's. he seemed to have been waiting for her. his heart was too experienced in being broken for him to dance around her with barks of joy, but he stood a little way off and wigglingly tried to ingratiate himself, his eyes looking love, and the longing for love. impulsively katie stooped down to him. "poor little doggie, does he want a pat?" he fairly crouched to the sidewalk in his thankfulness for the pat, his tail and eyes saying all they could. then she saw that he was following her. "don't come with me, doggie," she said; "please don't. you must go home. you'll get lost." but in her heart katie knew he would not get lost, for to be so unfortunate as to be lost presupposed being so fortunate as to have a home. and she knew that he was of the homeless. but because that was so terrible a thing to face, between him and her she kept up that pretense of a home. when she came out from the confectioner's he was waiting for her again, a little braver this time, until katie mildly stamped her foot and told him to "go back!" at the third place she expostulated with him. "please, doggie, you're making me feel so badly. won't you run along and play?" the hypocrisy of that left a lump in her throat as she turned from him. when she found him waiting again she said nothing at all, but began talking to ann about some flowers in a window across the street. ann had seemed to dislike the dog. she would step away when katie stopped to speak to him and be looking intently at something else, as if trying not to know that there were such things as homeless dogs. watts was waiting for them with the station wagon when they had finished their shopping. after they had gone a little way katie, in the manner of one doing what she was forced to do, turned around. he was coming after them. he had not yet fallen to the ranks of those human and other living creatures too drugged in wretchedness to make a fight for happiness. nor was he finding it a sympathetic world in which to fight for happiness. at that very moment a man crossing the street was giving him a kick. he yelped and crouched away for an instant, but his eyes told that the real hurt was in the thought of losing sight of the carriage that held katie jones. as he dodged in and out, crouching always before the possible kick, she could read all too clearly how harassed he was with that fear. they were approaching the bridge. the guard on the bridge would foil that quest. he would not permit a forlorn little yellow dog to seek happiness by following members of an officer's family across the government bridge. probably in the name of law and order he would kick him, as the other man had done; the dog's bleared little eyes, eyes through which the love longing must look, would cast one last look after the unattainable, and then, another hope gone, another promise unrealized, he would return miserably back to his loveless world, but always-- "watts," said katie sharply, "stop a moment, please. i want to get something." ann was sitting very straight, looking with great absorption up the river when katie got back in the carriage with her dog. her face was pale, and, it seemed to katie, hard. she moved as far away from the dog as she could--her mouth set. he sat just where katie put him on the floor, trembling, and looking up at her with those asking eyes. when they were almost home ann spoke. "you can't take in all the homeless dogs of the world, katie." "i don't know that that's any reason for not taking in this one," replied katie shortly. "i hate to have you make yourself feel badly," ann said tremulously. "why shouldn't i let myself feel badly?" demanded katie roughly. "in a world of homeless dogs, why shouldn't i feel badly?" they made a great deal of fun of katie's dog. they named him "pet." captain prescott wanted to know if she meant to exhibit him at a bench show and mention various points he was sure would excite attention. "what i hate, katie," said wayne, "is the way he cringes. none of that cringing about queen." "and why not?" she demanded hotly. "because queen was never kicked. because queen was never chased down alleys by boys with rocks and tin cans. because queen never asked for a pat and got a cuff. nor did queen's mother. queen hasn't a drop of kicked blood in her. this sorry little dog comes from a long line of the kicked and the cuffed. and then you blame _him_ for cringing. i'm ashamed of you, wayne!" he was about to make laughing retort, but katie's cheeks were so red, her eyes so bright, that he refrained and turned to ann with: "katie was always great for taking in all kinds of superfluous things." "yes," said ann, "i know." "and she always takes her outcasts so very seriously." "yes," agreed ann. "the trouble is, she can't hope to make them over." "no," admitted ann, "she can't do that." "and then she breaks her heart over their forlorn condition." "yes," said ann. "these wretched things exist in the world, but katie only makes her own life wretched in trying to do anything about them. she can't reach far enough to count, so why make herself unhappy?" "katie doesn't look at it that way," replied ann, and turned away. after the others had gone katie committed her new dog to worth. "honey, will you play with him sometimes? i know he's not as nice to play with as the puppies, but maybe that's because nobody ever did play with him. the things that aren't nice about him aren't his fault, worthie, so we mustn't be hard on him for them, must we? the reason he's so queer acting is just because he never had anybody to love him." worth was so impressed that he not only accepted the dog himself but volunteered to say a good word for him to watts. but a little later he brought back word that watts said the newcomer was an ornery cur--that he was born an ornery cur--that he was meant to be an ornery cur, and never would be anything but an ornery cur. "watts is what you might call a conservative," said katie. and not being sure how a conservative member of the united states army would treat a canine child of the alley, katie went herself to the stable that night to see that the newcomer was fed and made to feel at home. he did not appear to be feeling at all at home. he was crouching in his comfortable corner just as dejectedly as he would crouch in the most miserable alley his native city afforded. he came, thankfully but cringingly, out to see katie. "doggie," said she, "don't be so apologetic. i don't like the apologetic temperament. you were born into this world. you have a right to live in it. why don't you assert your right?" his answer was to look around for the possible tin can. watts had approached. "begging your pardon, miss jones, but he's the ungrateful kind. there's no use trying to do anything for that kind. he's deservin' no better than he gets. he snapped at one of our own pups to-night." "i suppose so," said kate. "i suppose when you spend your life asking for pats and getting kicks you do get suspicious and learn to snap. it seems too bad that little dogs that want to be loved should have to learn to snarl. you see, watts, he's had a hard life. he's wandered up and down a world where nobody wanted him. he's spent his days trying now this one, now that. 'maybe they'll take me,' he thinks; his poor little heart warms at the thought that maybe they will. he opens it up anew every day--opens it for a new wound. and now that he's found somebody to say the kind word he's still expecting the surly one. his life's shut him out from life--even though he wants it. it seems to me rather sad, watts." watts was surveying him dubiously. "that kind is deserving what they get. they couldn't have been no other way. and beggin' your pardon, miss jones, but it's not us that's responsible for his life." "isn't it?" said katie. "i wonder." watts not responding to the suggestion of the complexity of responsibility, she sought the personal. "as a favor to me, watts, will you be good to the little dog?" "as a favor to _you_, miss jones," said watts, making it clear that for his part-- "watts," she asked, "how long have you been in the service?" "'twill be five years in december, miss jones." "re-enlistment must mean that you like it." "i've no complaint to offer, miss jones. of course there are sometimes a few little things--" "why did you enter the army, watts?" "a man has to make a living some way, miss jones." katie was thinking that she had not asked for an apology. "and yet i presume you could make more in some other way. working in these shops, for instance." "there's nothin' sure about them," said watts. "the army's certain. and i like things to move on decent and orderly like. for one that's willing to recognize his betters, the service is a good place, miss jones." "but i suppose there are some not willing to recognize their betters," ventured kate. "there's all too many such," said watts. "all too many nowadays thinks they're just as good as them that's above them." "but you never feel that way, so you are contented and like the service, watts?" "yes, miss. it suits me well enough, miss jones. i'm not one to think i can make over the world. there's a fellow workin' up here at the point i sometimes have some conversation with. i was up there to-night at sundown--me and the little boy. now there's a man, miss, that don't know his place. he's a trouble-maker. he said to me tonight--" but as watts was there joined by a fellow-soldier katie said: "thank you for looking out for the poor little dog, watts," and turned reluctantly to the house. she would like to have remained; she would like to have talked with the other soldier and found out why he entered the service and what he thought of it. she was possessed of a great desire to ask people questions, find out why they had done what they did and what they thought about things other people were doing. her mind was sending out little shoots in all directions and those little shoots were begging for food and drink. she wished she might have a long talk with the "trouble-maker." she would like to talk about dogs who had lived in alleys and dogs that had been reared in kennels, about soldiers who were willing to recognize their betters and soldiers who thought they were as good as some above them. she would like to talk about watts. watts was the son of an old english servant. it was in watts' blood to "recognize his betters." was that why he could be moved to no sense of responsibility about stray dogs? was that why he was a good man for the service and had no ambitions as civilian? and ann--she would like to talk to the boat-mending trouble-maker about ann: why ann, whom one would expect to find sympathetic with the homeless, should be so hard and so queer about forlorn little stray dogs. oh the world was just full of things that katie jones wanted to talk about that night! when she reached the house she found that she had just received a package by special messenger. she tore off the outer wrapper and on the inner was written in red ink: "danger." murmuring some inane thing about its being her shoes, she ran with the package to her room. for a young woman who had all her life received packages of all kinds she was inordinately excited. it held three books. one of them was about women who worked. there were pictures of girls working in factories and in different places. one was something about evolution, and one was on socialism. and there was a pamphlet about the united states army, and another pamphlet about religion. she looked for a name in the books, but found none. the fly-leaves had been torn out. she was not sorry; she was just as glad to go on thinking of her trouble-maker as the man who mended the boats. there was something freeing about keeping him impersonal. but in the book about women she found an envelope addressed: "to one looking for trouble." this was what was type-written on the single sheet it contained: "here are a couple of books warranted to disturb one's peace of mind. they are marked danger as both warning and commendation. it is absolutely guaranteed that one will not be so pleased with the world--and with one's self--after reading them. there is more--both books and danger--where they came from." it was signed: "one who loves to lead adventurous souls into dangerous paths." it was two o'clock when katie turned off her light that night. chapter xvi perhaps after all it was neither the dog nor the literature, but the heat. for the heat of that next day was the kind to prey through countries of make-believe. it oppressed every one, but ann it seemed to excite, as if it stirred memories in their sleep. "don't fight heat, ann," katie finally admonished, puzzled and disturbed by the way ann kept moving about. "the only way to get ahead of the heat is to give up to it." "can you always do what you want to do?" ann demanded with a touch of petulance. "isn't there ever something makes you do things you know aren't the things to do?" "oh, dear me, yes," laughed kate. "but you're simply your own worst enemy when you try to get ahead of the heat." "i don't know how you're going to help being your own worst enemy," ann murmured. she picked some leaves from the vines and threw them away, purposelessly; she made the cat get out of a chair and sat down in it herself, only to get up again and pile all the magazines in a different way, not facilitating anything by the change. then, after walking the length of the veranda, she stood there looking at katie: katie in the coolest and coolest-looking of summer dresses, leaning back in a cool-looking chair--adjusting herself to things as they were, poised, victorious in her submission. then ann said a strange thing. "a hot day's just nothing but a hot day to you, is it?" the words themselves said less than the laugh which followed them--a laugh which carried both envy and resentment, which at once admired and accused, a laugh straight from the girl they were trying to ignore. and pray what was a hot day to her, katie wondered. what _was_ a hot day--save a hot day? but as she watched ann in the next few moments she seemed to be surveying a figure oppressed less by heat than by that to which the heat laid her open. it seemed that the hot day might stand for the friction and the fretting of the world, for things which closed in upon one as heat closed in, bore down as heat bore down. as ann pushed back the hair from her forehead it seemed she would push back the weight of the years. it was at that moment that caroline osborne, richest and most prominent girl of the vicinity, stepped from her motor car. katie had met her a few nights before at the dance. and wayne knew her father--a man of many interests. it was his quarrel with the forest service that had brought her cousin fred wayneworth there. fred was not one of his admirers. "isn't this heat distressing?" was her greeting, though she had succeeded in keeping herself very fresh and sweet looking under the distress. as katie turned to introduce the two girls she saw that ann was pulling at her handkerchief nervously. was it irritating to have people for whom hot days were but hot days call heat distressing? "though one always has a breeze motoring," she took it up. "there are so many ways in which automobiles make life more bearable, don't you find it so, miss jones?" katie replied, inanely--ann was still pulling at her handkerchief--that they were indispensable, of course, though personally she was so fond of horses--. yes, miss osborne loved horses too. indeed it was army people had taught her to ride; once when she visited at fort riley--she had spent a month there with mrs. baxter. katie knew her? oh, yes, katie knew her, and almost all the rest of the army people whom miss osborne told of adoring. of a common world, they were not long strangers. they came together through a whole network of associations. finally they reached south carolina and concluded they must be related--something about katie's grandmother and miss osborne's great-aunt--. katie, in the midst of her interest turning instinctively to include ann, was curiously arrested. ann was sitting a little apart. and there seemed so poignant a significance in her sitting apart. it was an order of things from which she sat apart. the network went too far back, too deep down; it was too intricate for either sympathy or ingenuity to shape it at will. though katie tried. for katie, enough that she was sitting apart, and consciously. leaving grandmothers and great-aunts in a sadly unfinished state she was lightly off into a story of something which had once happened to her and ann in rome. but ann was as an actor refusing to play her part. perhaps she was too resentfully conscious of its being but a part--of her having no approach save through a part. for the first time she failed in that adaptability which had always made the stories plausible. in the midst of her tale katie met ann's eyes, and faltered. they were mocking eyes. as best she could she turned the conversation to local affairs, for miss osborne was looking curiously at miss jones' unresponsive friend. and as ann for the first time seemed deliberately--yes, maliciously to fail--katie for the first time felt out of patience, and injured. perhaps the heat was enervating, but was that sufficient reason for embarrassing one's hostess? perhaps it did make her think of hard things, but was that any reason for failing in the things that made all this possible? it was not appreciative, it was not kind, it did not show the right spirit, katie told herself as she listened, with what she was pleased to consider both atoning and rebuking graciousness, to the plans for miss osborne's garden party. "it is for the working girls, especially the lower class of working girls, who are in the factories. for instance, the candy factory girls. i am especially interested in that as father owns the candy factory--it is a pet side issue of his. you can see it from here, across the river there on the little neck of land. you see? the girls are just beginning to come from work now." the three girls looked across the river, where groups of other girls were quitting a large building. they could be seen but dimly, but even at that distance something in the prevalent droop suggested that they, too, had found the day "distressingly warm." "i hadn't realized," said katie, "that making candy was such serious business." "it couldn't have been very pleasant today," their guest granted, "but i believe it is regarded a very good place to work." the book katie had been reading the night before had shown her the value of facts when it came to judging places where women worked, and she was moved to the blunt inquiry: "how much do those girls make?" "about six dollars a week, i believe," miss osborne replied. katie watched them: the long dim line of girls engaged in preparation of the sweets of life. she was wondering what she would have thought it worth to go over there and work all day. "then each of those girls made a dollar today?" she asked, and her inflection was curious. "well--no," miss osborne confessed. "the experienced and the skillful made a dollar." "and how much," pressed katie, "did the least experienced and skillful make?" "fifty cents, i believe," replied miss osborne, seeming to have less enthusiasm when the scientific method was employed. there was a jarring sound. the girl "sitting apart" had pushed her chair still farther back. "you call that a good place to work?" she addressed it to miss osborne in voice that scraped as the chair had scraped. "why yes, as places go, i believe so. though that is why i am giving the garden party. they do need more pleasure in their lives. it is one of the under-lying principles of life--is it not?--that all must have their pleasures." ann laughed recklessly. miss osborne looked puzzled; katie worried. "and we are organizing this working girl's club. we think we can do a great deal through that." "oh yes, help them get higher wages, i suppose?" katie asked innocently. "n--o; that would scarcely be possible. but help them to get on better with what they have. help them learn to manage better." again ann laughed, not only recklessly but rudely. "that is surely a splendid thing," she said, and the voice which said it was high-pitched and unsteady, "helping a girl to 'manage better' on fifty cents a day!" "you do not approve of these things?" miss osborne asked coldly. and with all the heat katie felt herself growing suddenly cold as she heard ann replying: "oh, if they help you--pass the time, i don't suppose they do any harm." "you see," katie hastened, "miss forrest and i were once associated with one of those things which wasn't very well conducted. i fear it--prejudiced us." "evidently," was miss osborne's reply. "though to be sure," kate further propitiated, resentment at having to do so growing with the propitiation, "that is very narrow of us. i am sure your club will be quite different. we may come to the garden party?" katie followed her guest to her car. "i am hoping it will be cooler soon," she said. "my friend is here to grow stronger, and this heat is quite unnerving her." miss osborne accepted it with polite, "i trust she will soon be much better. yes, the heat is trying." katie did not return to ann, but sat at the head of the steps, looking across the river. she was genuinely offended. she knew nothing more unpardonable than to embarrass one's hostess. she grew hard in contemplation of it. nothing justified it;--nothing. a few girls were still coming from the candy factory. miss osborne's car had crossed the bridge and was speeding toward her beautiful home up the river--just the home for a garden party. the last group of girls, going along very slowly, had to step back for the machine to rush by. katie forgot her own grievance in wondering about those girls who had waited for the osborne car to pass. she knew where miss osborne was going, where and how she lived; she was wondering where the girls not enjoying the breeze always to be found in motoring were going, what they would do when they got there, and what they thought of the efforts to help them "manage better" on their dollar or less a day. it made her rise and return to ann. ann, too, was looking across the river at the girls who had given miss osborne right of way. two very red spots burned in ann's cheeks and her eyes, also, were feverish. "i suppose i shouldn't have spoken that way to your friend," she began, but less contritely than defiantly. katie flushed. she had been prepared to understand and be kind. but she was not equal to being scoffed at, she who had been so embarrassed--and betrayed. "it was certainly not very good form," she said coolly. "and of course that's all that matters," said ann shrilly. "it's just good form that matters--not the truth." "oh i don't see that you achieved any great thing for the truth, ann. anyhow, rudeness is no less rude when called truth." "garden parties!" choked ann. "i am not giving the garden party, ann," said katie long-sufferingly. "i was doing nothing more than being civil to a guest--against rather heavy odds." "you were pretending to think it was lovely. but of course that's good form!" her perilously bright eyes had so much the look of an animal pushed into a corner that katie changed. "come, ann dear, let's not quarrel with each other just because it has been a disagreeable day, or because caroline osborne may have a mistaken idea of doing good--and i a mistaken idea of being pleasant. i promised worth a little spin on the river before dinner. you'll come? it will be cooling." "my head aches," said ann, but the tension of her voice broke on a sob. "if you don't mind--i'll stay here." she looked up at her in a way which remotely suggested the look of that little dog the day before, "katie, i don't mean you. when i say things like that--i don't mean _you_. i mean--i suppose i mean--the things back of you. all those things--" she stopped, but katie did not speak. "you see," said ann, "there are two worlds, and you and i are in different ones." "i don't believe in two worlds," said katie promptly. "it's not a democratic view of things. it's all one world." "your miss osborne and the fifty cents a day girls--all one world? i am afraid," laughed ann tremulously, "that even the 'underlying principles of life' would have a hard time making _them_ one." chapter xvii even on the river it was not yet cool. day had burned itself too deeply upon the earth for approaching night to hold messages for even its favorite messenger. katie was herself at the steering wheel, and alone with worth and queen. she had learned to manage the boat, and much to the disappointment of watts and the disapproval of wayne sometimes went about on the river unattended. katie contended that as a good swimmer and not a bad mechanic she was entitled to freedom in the matter. she held that to be taken about in a boat had no relation to taking a boat and going about in it; that when watts went her soul stayed home. tonight, especially, she would have the boat for what it meant to self; for to katie, too, the sultry day had become more than sultry day. the thing which pressed upon her seemed less humidity than the consciousness of a world she did not know. it was not the heat which was fretting her so much as that growing sense of limitations in her thought and experience. she wondered what the man who mended the boats would say about ann's two worlds. she suspected that he would agree with ann, and then proceeded to work herself into a fine passion at his agreeing with ann against her. "that silly thing of two worlds is fixed up by people who can't get along in the one world," said she. "and that childish idea of one world is clung to by people who don't know the real world," retorted the trouble-maker. to either side of the river were factories. katie had never given much thought to factories beyond the thought that they disfigured the landscape. now she wondered what the people who had spent that hot day in the unsightly buildings thought about the world in general--be it one world or two. worth had come up to the front of the boat. the day had weighed upon him too, for he seemed a wistful little boy just then. she smiled at him lovingly. "what thinking about, worthie dear?" "oh, i wasn't thinking, aunt kate," he replied soberly. "i was just wondering." "you too?" she laughed. "and what would you say, worthie," she asked after they had gone a little way in silence, "was the difference between thinking and wondering?" worth maturely crossed his knees as a sign of the maturity of the subject. "well, i don't know, 'cept when you think you know what you're thinking about, and when you wonder you just don't know anything." "maybe you wonder when you don't know what to think," katie suggested. "yes, maybe so. there's more to wonder about than there is to think about, don't you think so, aunt kate?" "i wonder," she laughed. "you do wonder, don't you, aunt kate? you wonder more than you think." she flashed him a keen, queer look. "worth," she asked, after another pause in which the mind of twenty-five and the mind of six were wondering in their respective fashions, "do you know anything about the underlying principles of life?" "the what, aunt kate?" "underlying principles of life," she repeated grimly. "why no," he acknowledged, "i guess i never heard of them." "i never did either, till just lately. i want to find out something about them. do you know, worthie dear, i'd go a long way to find out something about them." "where would you have to go, aunt kate? could you go in a boat?" "no, i fear you couldn't go in a boat. trouble is," she murmured, more to herself than to him, "i don't know where you _would_ go." "don't papa know 'bout them?" "i sometimes think he would like to learn." "papa knows all there is to know 'bout guns and powders," defended worth loyally. "yes, i know; but i don't believe guns and powders have any power to get you to these underlying principles of life." "well, what _does_ get you there?" demanded her companion of the practical sex. she laughed. "i don't know, dear. i honestly don't know. and i'd like to know. perhaps some time i will meet some one who is very wise, and then i'll ask whether it is experience, or wisdom, or sympathy. whether some people are born to get there and other people not, or just how it is." "watts says you have more sympathy than wisdom, aunt kate." "you mustn't talk about me to watts," she admonished spiritedly. then in the distance she heard a mocking voice insinuatingly inquiring: "but why not, if it's all one world?" "but he said," worth added, "that it shouldn't be held against you, 'cause of course you never had half a chance. no, it wasn't watts said that, either. it was the man that mends the boats. it was watts said you was a yard wide." katie's head had gone up; she was looking straight ahead, cheeks red. "indeed! so it's the man that mends the boats says these hateful things about me, is it?" "why no, aunt kate; not hateful things. he says he's sorry for you. why, he says he don't know anybody more to be pitied than you are." "well--_really!_ i must say that of all the insolent --impertinent--insufferable--" "he says you would have amounted to something if you'd had half a chance. but he's afraid you never will, aunt kate." "i do not wish to hear anything more about him," said aunt kate haughtily. "now, or at any future time." but it was not five minutes later she asked, with studied indifference: "pray what does this absurd being look like?" "what being, aunt kate?" innocently inquired the being who was very young. "why this sympathetic gentleman!" "oh, i don't know. he's just a man. sometimes he wears boots. he's real nice, aunt kate." "oh i'm sure he must be charming!" she turned toward home, more erect, attending to her duties with a dignified sense of responsibility. the glare of day had gone, but without bringing the cool of night. it made the world seem very worn. little by little resentment slipped away and she had joined the man who mended the boats in pitying herself. she was disposed to agree with him that she might have amounted to something had she had half a chance. no one else had ever thought of her amounting to anything--amounting, or not amounting. they had merely thought of her as katie jones. and certainly no one else had ever pitied her. it made the man who mended the boats seem a wise and tender being. as against the whole world she felt drawn to his large and kindly understanding. excitement had suddenly seized worth. "aunt kate--aunt kate!" he cried peremptorily, pointing to a cove in one of the islands they were passing, "please land there!" "why no, worth, we can't land. it's too hard. and why should we?" "oh aunt kate--please! oh please!" she was puzzled. "but why, worthie?" "cause i want you to. don't you love me 't all any more, aunt kate?" that was too much. he was suddenly just a baby who had been made to suffer for her grown-up disturbances. "but, dearie, what will you do when we land?" "i want to look for something. i've got to get something. i want to show you something. 'twon't take but a minute." "what do you want to show me, dear?" "why i can't tell you, aunt kate. it's a surprise. it's a beautifulest surprise. something i want to show you just because i love you, aunt kate." katie's eyes brooded over him. "dear little chappie, and aunt kate's a cross mean old thing, isn't she?" "not if she'll stop the boat," said crafty worth. she laughed and surveyed the shore. it looked feasible. "i'm very 'easy,' worth. just don't get it into your head all the world is as easy as i am." the little boy and the dog were out before she had made her landing. they were running through the brush. "worth," she called, "don't go far. don't go out of sound." "no," he called back excitedly, "'tain't far." she was anxious, reproaching herself as absurd and rash, and was just attempting to ground the boat and follow when queen came bounding back. then came worth's voice: "here 'tis! here's aunt kate--waiting for you!" next there emerged from the brush a flushed and triumphant little boy, and after him came a somewhat less flushed and less obviously triumphant man. chapter xviii her first emotion was fury at herself. she must be losing her mind not to have suspected! then the fury overflowed on worth and his companion. it reached high-water mark with the stranger's smile. and there dissolved; or rather, flowed into a savage interest, for the smile enticed her to mark what manner of man he was. and as she looked, the interest shed the savagery. his sleeves were rolled up; he had no hat, no coat. he had been working with something muddy. a young man, a large man, and strong. the first thing which she saw as distinctive was the way his smile lived on in his eyes after it had died on his lips, as if his thought was smiling at the smile. even in that first outraged, panic-stricken moment katie jones knew she had never known a man like that. "here he is, aunt kate!" cried her young nephew, dancing up and down. "this is him!" it was not a presentation calculated to set katie at ease. she sought refuge in a frigid: "i beg pardon?" but that was quite lost on worth. "why, aunt kate, don't you know him? you said you'd rather see him than anybody now living! don't you know, aunt kate--the man that mends the boats?" it seemed that in proclaiming their name for him worth was shamelessly proclaiming it all: her conversations, the intimacy to which she had admitted him, her delight in him--yes, _need_ of him. "but i thought," she murmured, as if in justification, "that you had a long white beard!" and so she had--at times; then there had been other times when he had no beard at all--but just such a chin. "i am sorry to be disappointing," the stranger replied--with his voice. with his eyes--it became clear even in that early moment that his eyes were insurgents--he said: "i don't take any stock in that long white beard!" then, as if fearing his eyes had overstepped: "perhaps you have visions of the future. a long white beard is a gift the years may bring me." "you can just ask him anything you want to, aunt kate," worth was brightly assuring her. "i told him you wanted to know about the under life--the under what it is of life. you needn't be 'fraid of him, aunt kate; you know he's the man's so sorry for you. he knows all about everything, and will tell you just everything he knows." "quite a sweeping commendation," katie found herself murmuring foolishly--and in the imaginary conversations she had talked so brilliantly! but when one could not be brilliant one could always find cover under dignity. "if you will get in the boat now, worth," she said, "we will go home." but worth, serene in the consciousness of having accomplished his mission, was sending queen out after sticks and did not appear to have heard. and suddenly, perhaps because the hot day had come to mean so much more than mere hot day, the feeling of being in a ridiculous position, together with that bristling sense of the need of a protective dignity, fell away. it became one of those rare moments when real things matter more than things which supposedly should matter. she looked at him to find him looking intently at her. he was not at all slipshod as inspector. "why are you sorry for me?" she asked. "what is there about me to pity?" he smiled as he surveyed her, considering it. even people for whom smiling was difficult must have smiled at the idea of pitying katie jones--katie, who looked so much as if the world existed that she might have the world. but he looked with a different premise and saw a deeper thing. the world might exist for her enjoyment, but it eluded her understanding. and that was beginning to encroach upon the enjoyment. she seemed to follow, and her divination stirred a singular emotion, possibly a more turbulent emotion than katie jones had ever known. "it's all very well to pity me, but it's not a genuine pity--it's a jeering one. if you're going to pity me, why don't you do it sincerely instead of scoffingly? is it my fault that i don't know anything about life? what chance did i ever have to know anything real? i wasn't educated. i was 'accomplished.' oh, of course, if i had been a big person, a person with a real mind--if i had had anything exceptional about me--i would have stepped out. but i'm nothing but the most ordinary sort of girl. i haven't any talents. nobody--myself included--can see any reason for my being any different from the people i'm associated with. i was brought up in the army. army life isn't real life. it's army life. to an army man a girl is a girl, and what they mean by a girl has nothing to do with being a thinking being. then what business has a man like you--i don't know who you are or what you're doing, but i believe you have some ideas about the real things of life--tell me, please--what business have you jeering at me?" "i have no business jeering at you," he said quickly, simply and strongly. but katie had changed. he had a fancy that she would always be changing; that she was not one to rest in outlived emotions, that one mood was always but the making and enriching of another mood, moment ever flowing into moment, taking with it the heart of the moment that had gone. "you are quite right to pity me," she said, and tears surged beneath both eyes and voice. "whether scoffingly or genuinely--you were quite right. feeling just enough to feel there _is_ something--but not a big enough feeling to go to that something, knowing just enough to know i'm being cheated, but without either the courage or the knowledge to do anything about it--i'm surely a pitiable and laughable object. come, worth," she said sharply, "we're going home." but worth had begun upon the construction of a raft, and was not in a home-going mood. thus encouraged by his young friend the man who mended the boats sat down on a log. "when did you begin to want to know about the 'underlying principles of life'?" his smile quoted it, though less mockingly than tenderly. katie was silent. "was it the day _she_ came?" he asked quietly. she gasped. was he--a wizard? but looking at him and seeing he looked very much more like a man than like anything else, she met him as man should be met. "the day who came? i don't know what you mean." "the girl. was it the day you took her in? saved her by making her save you?" she was too startled by that for pretense. she could only stare at him. "i saw her before you did," he said. she looked around apprehensively. the man who mended the boats knowing about ann? was the whole world losing its mind just because it had been such a hot day? but the world looking natural enough, she turned back to him. "i don't understand. tell me, please." as he summoned it, he changed. she had an impression of all but the central thing falling away, leaving his spirit exposed. and a thought or a vision gripped that spirit, and he tightened under it as a muscle would tighten. when he turned to her, taking her in, self-consciousness fell away. there was no place for it. "you want to hear about it?" he asked. she nodded. "as a matter of fact, it's nothing, as facts go. only an impression. yet an impression that swore to facts. perhaps you know that she came on the island from the south bridge?" katie shook her head. "i know nothing, save that suddenly she was there." that held him. "and knowing nothing, you took her in?" she kept silence, and he looked at her, dwelling upon it. "and you," he said softly, "don't know anything about the 'underlying principles of life'? perhaps you don't. but if we had more you we'd have no her." she disclaimed it. "it wasn't that way--an understanding way. i didn't do it because i thought it should be done; because i wanted to--do good. i--oh, i don't know. i did it because i wanted to do it. i did it because i couldn't help doing it." that called to him. he seemed one for whom ideas were as doors, ever opening into new places. and he did not shut those doors, or turn from them, until he had looked as far as he could see. "perhaps," he saw now, "that is the way it must come. doing it because you can't help doing it. it seems wonderful enough to work the wonder." "work what wonder?" katie asked timidly. "the wonder of saving the world." he spoke it quietly, but passion, the passion of the visioner, leaped to his eyes at sound of what he had said. katie looked about at so much of the world as her vision afforded: prosperous factories--beautiful homes--hundreds of other homes less beautiful, but comfortable looking--some other very humble homes which yet looked habitable, the beautifully kept government island in between the two cities, seeming to stand for something stable and unifying--far away hills and a distant sky line--a steamboat going through the splendid government bridge, automobiles and carriages and farm wagons passing over that bridge--this man who mended the boats, this young man so live that thoughts of life could change him as a sculptor can change his clay--dear little worth who was happily building a raft, the beautiful dog lying there drawing restoration from the breath of the water--"but it doesn't look as though it needed 'saving,'" said katie. he shook his head. "you're looking at the framework. her eyes that day brought word from the inside. to one knowing--" he broke off, looking at her as though seeing her from a new angle. he thought it aloud. "you've walked sunny paths, haven't you? you never had your soul twisted. life never tried to wring you out of shape. and yet--oh there's quite a yet," he finished more lightly. "but you were telling me of ann," katie felt she must say. "yes, and when i've finished telling you, you'll go back to your sunny paths, won't you? please don't hurry me. i can tell it better if i think i'm not being hurried." she smiled openly. "i am in no hurry." there was a sunny rim trying all the while to pierce the somber thing which drew them together. little rays from the sunny paths would dart daringly in to the dark place from which ann rose. it made him wonder how far she of the sunny paths could penetrate an unlighted country. he looked at her--peered at her, fairly--trying to decide. but he could not decide. katie baffled him on that. "i wonder," he voiced it, "where it's going to lead you? i wonder if you're prepared to go where it may lead you? have you thought of that? perhaps it's going to take you into a country too dark for you of the sunny paths. she may be called back. you know we are called back to countries where we have--established a residence. you might have to go with her to settle a claim, or break a tie, or pull some one else out that she might not be pulled back in. then what? perhaps you might feel you needed a guide. if so,"--he went boldly to the edge of it, then halted, and concluded with a boyishly bashful humor--"will you keep my application on file?" katie was not going to miss her chance of finding out something. "i should want a guide who knew the territory," she said. "i qualify," he replied shortly, with a short, unmirthful laugh. "that is one advantage of not having spent one's days on sunny paths." his voice on that was neither bashful nor boyish. "but you must have spent some of them on sunny paths," she urged, with more feeling than she would have been able to account for. "you don't look," katie added almost shyly, "as if you had grown in the dark." he did not reply. he looked so much older when sternness set his face, leaving no hint of that teasing gleam in his eyes, that pleasing little humorous twist of his mouth. gently her voice went into the dark country claiming him then. "but you were telling me of my friend." it brought him out, wondering anew. "your friend! there you go again! how can you expect me to stick to a subject when paths open out on all sides of you like that? but i'll try to quit straying. it happened that on that day, just at that time, i was going under the south bridge. i chanced to look up. a face was bending down. her face. our eyes met--square. i _got_ it--flung to me in that one look. what the world had done to her--what she thought of it for doing it--what she meant to do about it. "i wish," he went on, with a slow, heavy calm, "that the 'good' men and women of the world--those 'good' men and women who eat good dinners and sleep in good beds--some of the 'god's in heaven all's well with the world' people--could have that look wake them up in the middle of the night. i'd like to think of them turning to the wall and trying to shut it out--and the harder they tried the nearer and clearer it grew. i'd like to think of them sitting up in bed praying god--the god of 'good' folks--to please make it stop. i'd like to have it haunt them--dog them--finally pierce their brains or souls or whatever it is they have, and begin to burrow. i'd like to have it right there on the job every time they mentioned the goodness of god or the justice of man, till finally they threw up their hands in crazed despair with, 'for god's sake, what do you want _me_ to do about it!'" he had scarcely raised his voice. he was smiling at her. it was the smile led her to gasp: "why i believe you hate us!" "why i really believe i do," he replied quietly, still smiling. suddenly she flared. "that's not the thing! you're not going to set the world right by hating the world. you're not going to make it right for some people by hating other people. what good thing can come of hate?" "the greatest things have come of hate. of a divine hate that transcends love." "why no they haven't! the greatest things have come of love. what the world needs is more love. you can't bring love by hating." he seemed about to make heated reply, but smiled, or rather his smile became really a smile as he said: "what a lot of things you and i would find to talk about." "we must--" katie began impetuously, but halted and flushed. "we must go on with our story," was what it came to. "i haven't any story, except just the story of that look. though it holds the story of love and hate and a hundred other things you and i would disagree about. and i don't know that i can convey to you--you of the sunny paths--what the look conveyed to me. but imagine a crowd, a crazed crowd, all pushing to the center, and then in the center a face thrown back so you can see it for just an instant before it sinks to suffocation. if you can fancy that look--the last gasp for breath of one caught--squeezed--just going down--a hatred of the crowd that got her there, just to suffocate her--and perhaps one last wild look at the hills out beyond the crowd. if you can get _that_--that fear, suffocation, terror--and don't forget the hate--yet like the dog you've kicked that grieved--'how could you--when it was a pat i wanted!'--" "i know it in the dog language," said katie quiveringly. "then imagine the dog crazed with thirst tied just out of reach of a leaping, dancing brook--" "oh--please. that's too plain." "it hurts when applied to dogs, does it?" he asked roughly. "but they're so helpless--and they love us so!" "and _they're_ so helpless--and they hate because they weren't let love." "but surely there aren't many--such looks. not many who feel they're--going down. why such things couldn't _be_--in this beautiful world." "such," he said smilingly, "has ever been the philosophy of sunny paths." "you needn't talk to me like that!" she retorted angrily. "i guess i saw the look as well as you did--and did a little more to banish it than you did, too." "true. i was just coming to that thing of my not having done anything. perhaps it was a case of fools rushing in where angels feared to tread. you mustn't mind being called a fool in any sentence so preposterous as to call me an angel. you see one who had never been in the crowd would say--'why don't you get out?' it would be droll, wouldn't it, to have some one on a far hill call--'but why don't you come over here?' don't you see how that must appeal to the sense of humor of the one about to go down?" she made no reply. the thing that hurt her was that he seemed to enjoy hurting her. "you see i've been in the crowd," he said more simply and less bitterly. "i don't suppose men who have been most burned to death ever say--'the fire can't hurt you.'" "and do they never try to rescue others from fires?" asked katie scornfully. "do they let them burn--just because they know fire for a dangerous thing?" "rescue them for what? more fires? it's a question whether it's very sane, or so very humane, either, to rescue a man from one fire just to have him on hand for another." "i don't think i ever in my life heard anything more farfetched," pronounced katie. "how do you know there'll be another?" "because there are people for whom there's nothing else. if you can't offer a safe place, why rescue at all? though it's true," he laughed, "that i hadn't the courage of my convictions in the matter. after that look--oh i haven't been able to make it live--burn--as it did--she passed on the island, the guard evidently thinking she was with some people who had just got out of an automobile and gone on for a walk. and suddenly i was corrupted, driven by that impulse for saving life, that beautiful passion for keeping things alive to suffer which is so humorously grounded in the human race." he stopped with a little laugh. watching him, katie was thinking one need have small fear of his not always being "corrupted." there was a light in his eyes spoke for "corruption." "i saw her making straight across the island," he went back to his story. "i _knew_. and i knew that on the other side she might find things very conveniently arranged for her purpose. i turned the boat and went at its best speed around the head of the island. hugged the shore on your side. pulled into a little cove. waited." he looked at katie, comparing her with an _a priori_ idea of her. "i saw you sitting up there in the sun--on the bunker. just having received the last will and testament, as it were, of this other human soul, can't you fancy how i hated you--sitting there so serenely in the sun?" "but why hate me?" she demanded passionately. "that's where you're small and unjust! i don't make the crazed crowds, do i?" "yes; that's just what you do. there'd be no crowds if it weren't for you. you take up too much room." "i don't see why you want to--hurt me like that," she said unevenly. "don't you want me to enjoy my place any more? will it do any good for me to get in the crowd? what can i do about it?" looking into her passionately earnest face it was perhaps the gulf between the girl and his _a priori_ idea of her brought the smile--a smile no kin to that hard smile of his. and looking with a different slant across the gulf there was a sort of affectionate roguery in his eyes as he asked: "do you want to know what i honestly think about you?" she nodded. "i think you're in for it!" "in for what?" "i don't think you've the ghost of a chance to escape!" he gloated. "escape--what?" "seeing. and when you do--!" he laughed--that laugh one thinks of as the exclusive possession of an affectionate understanding. and when it died to a smile, something tenderly teasing flickered in that smile. she flushed under it. "you were telling me--we keep stopping." "yes, don't we? i wonder if we always would." "we keep stopping to quarrel." "yes--to quarrel. i wonder if we always would." "i haven't a doubt of it in the world," said katie feelingly, and they laughed together as friends laugh together. "well, where did i leave myself? oh yes--waiting. sitting there busily engaged in hating you. then she came across the grass--making straight for the river--running. i saw that you saw, and the thing that mattered to me then was what you would do about it. saved or not saved, she was gone--i thought. the crowd had squeezed it all out of her. the live thing to me was what you--the you of the world that you became to me--would do about her." he paused, smiling at that absurd and noble vision of katie tumbling down the bunker. "and when you did what you did do--it was so treacherously disarming, the quick-witted humanity, the clever tenderness of it--i loved you so for it that i just couldn't go on hating. there's where you're a dangerous person. how dare you--standing for the you of the world--dampen the splendid ardor of my hate?" katie did not let pass her chance. "perhaps if the me of the world were known a little more intimately it would be less hated." he shook his head. "they just happened to have you. they can't keep you." there was another one of those pauses which drew them so much closer than the words. she knew what he was wondering, and he knew that she knew. at length she colored a little and called him back to the greater reserve of words. "i saw how royally you put it through. i could see you standing there on the porch, looking back to the river. i've wanted several things rather badly in my life, but i doubt if i've ever wanted anything much worse than to know what you were saying. and then with my own two eyes i saw the miracle: saw her--the girl who had just had all the concentrated passion of the her of the world--turn and follow you into the house. it was a blow to me! oh 'twas an awful blow." "why a blow?" "in the first place that you should want to, and then that you should be able to. my philosophy gives you of the sunny paths no such desire nor power." "showing," she deduced quickly and firmly, "that your philosophy is all wrong." "oh no; showing that the much toasted miss katherine jones is too big for mere sunny paths. showing that she has a latent ambition to climb a mountain in a storm." fleetingly she wondered how he should know her for the much toasted miss katherine jones, but in the center of her consciousness rose that alluring picture of climbing a mountain in a storm. "tell me how you did it." "why--i don't know. i had no method. i told her i needed her." "_you_--needed _her_?" "and afterwards, in a different way, i told her that again. and i did. i do." "why do you need her? how do you need her?" he urged gently. she hesitated. her mouth--her splendid mouth shaped by stern or tender thinking to lines of exquisite fineness or firmness--trembled slightly, and the eyes which turned seriously upon him were wistful. "perhaps," said katie, "that even on sunny paths one guesses that there are such things as storms in the mountains." it was only his eyes which answered, but the fullness of the response ushered them into a silence in which they rested together understandingly. "i sat there watching the house," he went back to it after the moment. "i was sure the girl would come out again. 'she'll bungle it,' i said to myself. 'she'll never be able to put it through.' but time passed--and she did not come out!"--inconsistently enough that came with a ring of triumph. "and then the next day--after the wonder had grown and grown--i saw her driving with you. i was just off the head of the island. she was turned toward me, looking up the river. again i saw her eyes, and in them that time i read _you_. and i don't believe," he concluded with a little laugh, "that my stock of hate can ever be quite so secure again." they talked on, not conscious that it was growing late. time and place, and the conventions of time and place, seemed outside. she let him in quite freely: to that edge of fun and excitement as well as to the strange and somber places. it was fun sharing fun with him; and something in his way of receiving it suggested that he had been in need of sharing some one's fun. he had a way of looking at her when she laughed that had vague suggestion of something not far from gratitude. but the fun light, and that other light which seemed wanting to thank her for something, went from his eyes, leaving a glimmer of something deeper as he asked: "but you've never asked for her story? you've demanded nothing?" "why no," said katie; "only that i should be proud if she ever felt i could help." he turned his face a little away. one looking into it then would not have given much for his stock of hate. worth had approached. "ain't you getting awful hungry, aunt kate?" it recalled her, and to embarrassment. "we must go at once," she said, confused. "did you find out all you wanted to know from him, aunt kate?" he asked, getting in the boat. she transcended her embarrassment. "no, worth. only that there is a very great deal i would like to know." he was standing ready to push her boat away. she did not give the word. as she looked at him she had a fancy that she was leaving him in a lonely place--she who was going back to what he called the sunny paths. and not only did she feel that he was lonely, but she felt curiously lonely herself, sitting there waiting to tell him to push her away. she wanted to say, "come and see me," but she was too bound by the things to which she was returning to put it in the language of those things. and so she said, and the new shyness brought its own sweetness: "you tell me to come to you if i need a guide. thank you for that. i shall remember. and perhaps sunshine is a thing that soaks in and can be stored up, and given out again. if it ever seems i can be of any use--in any way--will you come where you know you can find me?" her eyes fell before the things which had leaped to his. chapter xix two hours later she found herself alone on the porch with captain prescott. a good deal had happened in the meantime. mrs. prescott had arrived during katie's absence, a stop-over of two weeks having been shortened to two hours because of the illness of her friend. her room at her son's quarters being uninhabitable because of fresh paint, wayne had insisted she come to them, and she was even then resting up in ann's room, or rather the room which had been put at her disposal, a bed having been arranged for ann in katie's room. had katie been at home she would have planned it some other way, for above all things she did not want it to occur to ann that she was in the way. but katie had been very busy talking to the man who mended the boats, and naturally it would not occur to wayne that ann would be at all sensitive about giving up her room for a few days to accommodate a dear old friend of theirs. and perhaps she was not sensitive about it, only this was no time, katie felt, to make ann feel she was crowding any one. and in katie's absence "pet" had been shot. pet had not seemed to realize that alley methods of defense were not in good repute in the army. he could not believe that pourquoi and n'est-ce-pas had no guile in their hearts when they pawed at him. furthermore, he seemed to have a prejudice against enlisted men and showed his teeth at several of them. katie began to explain that that was because--but wayne had curtly cut her short with saying that he didn't care why it was, the fact that it was had made it impossible to have the dog around. if one of the men had been bitten by the contemptible cur katie couldn't cauterize the wound with the story of the dog's hard life. the only bright spot she could find in it was that probably watts had taken a great deal of pleasure in executing wayne's orders--and caroline osborne said that all needed pleasure. she saw that ann's hands were clenched, and so had not pursued the discussion. katie was not in high favor with her brother that night. he said it was outrageous she should not have been there to receive mrs. prescott. when katie demurred that she would have been less outrageous had she had the slightest notion mrs. prescott would be there to be received, it developed that wayne was further irritated because he had come to take ann out for a boat ride--and katie had gone in the boat--heaven only knew where! then when katie sought to demolish that irritation with the suggestion that just then was the most beautiful time of day for the river--and she knew it would do ann good to go--wayne clung manfully to his grievance, this time labeling it worry. he forbade katie's going any more by herself. it was preposterous she should have stayed so long. he would have been out looking for her had it not been that watts had been able to get a glimpse of the boat pulled in on the upper island. katie wondered what else watts had been able to get a glimpse of. wayne was so bent on being abused (hot days affected people differently) that the only way she could get him to relinquish a grievance for a pleasure was to put it in the form of a duty. ann needed a ride on the river, katie affirmed, and so they had gone, wayne doing his best to cover his pleasure. "men never really grow up," she mused to wayne's back. "every so often they have to act just like little boys. only little boys aren't half so apt to do it." though perhaps wayne had been downright disappointed at not having the boat for ann when he came home. was he meaning to deliver that lecture on the army? she hoped that whatever he talked about it would bring ann home without that strained, harassed look. and now katie was talking to captain prescott and thinking of the man who mended the boats. captain prescott was a good one to be talking to when one wished to be thinking of some one else. he called one to no dim, receding distances. she was thinking that in everything save the things which counted most he was not unlike this other man--name unknown. both were well-built, young, vigorous, attractive. but life had dealt differently with them, and they were dealing differently with life. that made a difference big as life itself. from the far country in which she was dreaming she heard captain prescott talking about girls. he was talking sentimentally, but even his sentiment opened no vistas. and suddenly she remembered how she had at one time thought it possible she would marry him. the remembrance appalled her; less in the idea of marrying him than in the consciousness of how far she had gone from the place where marrying him suggested itself to her at all. life had become different. this showed her how vastly different. but as he talked on she began to feel that it had not become as different to him as to her. he had not been making little excursions up and down unknown paths. he had remained right in his place. that place seemed to him the place for katie jones. as he talked on--about what he called life--sublimely unconscious of the fences all around him shutting out all view of what was really life--it became unmistakable that captain prescott was getting ready to propose to her. she had had too much experience with the symptoms not to recognize them. katie did not want to be proposed to. she was in no mood for dealing with a proposal. she had too many other things to be thinking of, wondering about. but she reprimanded herself for selfishness. it meant something to him, whether it did to her or not. she must be kind--as kind as she could. the kindest thing she could think of was to keep him from proposing. to that end she answered every sentimental remark with a flippant one. it grieved, but did not restrain him. "i had thought you would understand better, katie," he said. something in his voice made her question the kindness of her method. better decline a love than laugh at it. he talked on of how he had, at various times, cared--in a way, he said--for various girls, but had never found the thing he knew was fated to mean the real thing to him; katie had heard it all before, and always told with that same freedom from suspicion of its ever having been said before. but perhaps it was the very fact that it was familiar made her listen with a certain tenderness. for she seemed to be listening, less to him than to the voice of by-gone days--all those merry, unthinking days which in truth had dealt very kindly and generously with her. she had a sense of leaving them behind. that alone was enough to make her feel tenderly toward them. even a place within a high-board fence, intolerable if one thought one were to remain in it, became a kindly and a pleasant spot from the top of the fence. once free to turn one's face to the wide sweep without, one was quite ready to cast loving looks back at the enclosure. and so she softened, prepared to deal tenderly with captain prescott, as he seemed then, less the individual than the incarnation of outlived days. it was into that mellowed, sweetly melancholy mood he sent the following: "and so, katie, i wanted to talk to you about it. you're such a good pal--such a bully sort--i wanted to tell you that i care for ann--and want to marry her." she dropped from the high-board fence with a jolt that well-nigh knocked her senseless. "i suppose," he said, "that you must have suspected." "well, not exactly suspected," said katie, feeling her bumps, as it were. her first emotion was that it was pretty shabby treatment to accord one who was at such pains to be kind. it gave one a distinctly injured feeling--getting all sweet and mellow only to be dashed to the ground and let lie there in that foolish looking--certainly foolish feeling heap! but as soon as she had picked herself up--and katie was too gamey to be long in picking herself up--she wondered what under heaven she was going to do about things! what had she let herself in for now! the pains of an injured dignity--throb of a pricked self love--were forgotten in this real problem, confronting her. she even grew too grave to think about how funny it was. for katie saw this as genuinely serious. "harry," she asked, "have you said anything to your mother?" "well, not _said_ anything," he laughed. "but she knows?" "mother's keen," he replied. "i once thought i was," was katie's unspoken comment. "and have you--you are so good as to confide in me, so i presume to ask questions--have you said anything to ann?" "no, not _said_ anything," he laughed again. "but _she_ knows?" "i don't know. i wondered if you did." "no," said katie, "i don't. truth is i've been so wrapped up in my own affairs--some things i've had on my mind--that i haven't been thinking about people around me falling in love." "people are always falling in love," he remarked sentimentally. "one should always be prepared for that." "so it seems," replied katie. "and yet one is not always--entirely prepared." she had picked herself up from her fall, but she was not yet able to walk very well. fortunately he was too absorbed in his own happy striding to mark her hobbling. a young man talking of his love does not need a brilliant conversationalist for companion. and he was a young man in love--that grew plain. had katie ever seen such eyes? and as for the mouth--though perhaps most remarkable of all was the voice. just what did it make katie think of? he enumerated various things it made him think of, only to express his dissatisfaction with them all as inadequate. had katie ever seen any one so beautiful? and with such an adorable shy little way? had katie ever heard her say anything about him? did she think he had any chance? was there any other fellow? of course there must have been lots of other fellows in love with her--a girl like that--but had she cared for any of them? would katie tell him something about her? she had been reserved about herself--the kind of reserve a fellow wouldn't try to break through. would katie tell him of her life and her people? not that it made any difference with him--oh, he wanted just her. but his mother would want to know--katie knew how mothers were about things like that. and he did want his mother to like her. surely she would. how could she help it? she wondered if ann knew him for a young man in love. katie's heart hardened against ann at the possibility. that would not be playing a fair game. ann was not in position to let katie's friends fall in love with her. katie had not counted on that. "have you any reason," she asked, "to think ann cares for you?" he laughed happily. "n--o; only i don't think it displeases her to have me say nice things to her." and again he laughed. then ann had encouraged him. a girl had no business to encourage a man to say nice things to her when she knew nothing could come of it. but katie's memory there nudged katie's primness; memory of all the men who had been encouraged to say nice things to katie jones, even when it was not desirable--or perhaps even possible--that anything could "come of it." but of course that was different. ann was in no position to permit nice things being said to her. "katie," he was asking, "where did you first meet her? how did you come to know her? can't you tell me all about it?" there came a mad impulse to do so. to say: "i first met her right down there at the edge of the water. she was about to commit suicide. i don't know why. i think she was one of those 'don't you care' girls you admired in 'daisey-maisey.' but i'm not sure of even that. i didn't want her to kill herself, so i took her in and pretended she was a friend of mine. i made the whole thing up. i even made up her name. she said her name was verna woods, but i think that's a made-up name, too. i haven't the glimmering of an idea what her real name is, who her people are, where she came from, or why she wanted to kill herself." then what? first, bitter reproaches for katie. she would be painted as having violated all the canons. for the first time, watching her friend's face softened by his dreams, seeing him as his mother's son, she questioned her right to violate them. she did not know why she had not thought more about it before. it had seemed such a _joke_ on the people in the enclosure. but it was not going to be a joke to hurt them. was that what came of violating the canons? was the hurt to one's friends the punishment one got for it? "you can't cauterize the wounds with the story of the dog's hard life," wayne had said of poor little unpetted--and because unpetted, unpettable--pet. was watts the real philosopher when he said "things was as they was"? she was bewildered. she was in a country where she could not find her way. she needed a guide. her throat grew tight, her eyes hot, at thought of how badly she needed her guide. then, perhaps in self-defense, she saw her friend captain prescott, not as a victim of the violation of canons, but as a violator of them himself. she turned from ann's past to his. "harry," she asked, in rather metallic voice, "how about that affair of yours down in cuba?" he flushed with surprise and resentment. "i must say, katie," he said stiffly, "i don't see what it has to do with this." "why, i should think it might have something to do with it. isn't there a popular notion that our pasts have something to do with our futures?" "it's all over," he said shortly. "then you would say, harry, that when things are over they're over. that they needn't tie up the future." "certainly not," said he, making it clear that he wanted that phase of the conversation "over." "it's my own theory," said katie. "but i didn't know whether or not it was yours. now if i had had a past, and it was, as you say yours is, all over, i shouldn't think it was any man's business to go poking around in it." "that," he said, "is a different matter." "what's a different matter?" she asked aggressively. "a woman's past. that would be a man's business." "though a man's past is not a woman's business?" "oh, we certainly needn't argue that old nonsense. you're too much the girl of the world to take any such absurd position, katie." "of course, being what you call a 'girl of the world' it's absurd i should question the man's point of view, but i can't quite get the logic of it. you wouldn't marry a woman with a past, and yet the woman who marries you is marrying a man with one." "i've lived a man's life," he said. and he said it with a certain pride. "and perhaps she's lived a woman's life," katie was thinking. only the woman was not entitled to the pride. for her it led toward self-destruction rather than self-approval. "it's this way, katie," he explained to her. "this is the difference. a woman's past doesn't stay in the past. it marks her. why i can tell a woman with a past every time," he concluded confidently. katie sat there smiling at him. the smile puzzled him. "now look here, katie, surely you--a girl of the world--the good sort--aren't going to be so melodramatic as to dig up a 'past' for me, are you?" "no," said katie, "i don't want to be melodramatic. i'll try to dig up no pasts." his talk ran on, and her thoughts. it seemed so cruel a thing that ann's past--whatever it might be, and surely nothing short of a "past" could make a girl want to kill herself--should rise up and damn her now. to him she was a dear lovely girl--the sort of a girl a man would want to marry. very well then, intrinsically, she _was_ that. why not let people _be_ what they were? why not let them be themselves, instead of what one thought they would be from what one knew of their lives? it was so easy to see marks when one knew of things which one's philosophy held would leave marks. it seemed a fairer and a saner thing to let human beings be what their experiences had actually made them rather than what one thought those experiences would make them. captain prescott had blighted a cuban woman's life--for his own pleasure and vanity. with ann it may have been the press of necessity, or it may have been--the call of life. either one, being driven by life, or drawn to it, seemed less ignominious than trifling with life. why would it be so much worse for captain prescott to marry ann than it would be for ann to marry captain prescott? the man who mended the boats would back her up in that! through her somber perplexity there suddenly darted the sportive idea of getting ann in the army! the audacious little imp of an idea peeped around corners in katie's consciousness and tried to coquet with her. banished, it came scampering back to whisper that ann would not bring the army its first "past"--either masculine or feminine. only in the army they managed things in such wise that there was no need of committing suicide. ann had been a bad manager. but at that moment they were joined by captain prescott's mother and he retired for a solitary smoke. chapter xx mrs. prescott made vivid and compelling those days, those things, which katie had a little while before had the fancy of so easily slipping away from. she made them things which wove themselves around one, or rather, things of which one seemed an organic part, from which one could no more pull away than the tree's branch could pull away from the tree's trunk. in her presence katie was claimed by those things out of which she had grown, claimed so subtly that it seemed a thing outside volition. mrs. prescott did not, in any form, say things were as they were; it was only that she breathed it. how could one combat with words, or in action, that rooted so much deeper than mere words or action? she was a slight and simple looking lady to be doing anything so large as stemming the tide of a revolutionary impulse. she had never lost the girlishness of her figure--or of her hands. so much had youth left her. her face was thin and pale, and of the contour vaguely called aristocratic. it was perhaps the iron gray hair rolling back from the pale face held the suggestion of austerity. but that which best expressed her was the poise of her head. she carried it as if she had a right to carry it that way. it was of small things she talked: the people she had met, people they knew whom katie knew. it was that net-work of small things she wove around katie. one might meet a large thing in a large way. but that subtle tissue of the little things! they talked of katie's mother, and as they talked it came to katie that perhaps the most live things of all might be the dead things. katie's mother had not been unlike mrs. prescott, save that to katie, at least, she seemed softer and sweeter. they had been girls together in charleston. they had lived on the same street, gone to the same school, come out at the same party, and katie's mother had met katie's father when he came to be best man at mrs. prescott's wedding. then they had been stationed together at a frontier post in a time of danger. wayne had been born at that post. they had been together in times of birth and times of death. mrs. prescott spoke of worth, and of how happy she knew katie was to have him with her. she talked of the responsibility it brought katie, and as they talked it did seem responsibility, and responsibility was another thing which stole subtly up around her, chaining her with intangible--and because intangible, unbreakable--chains. mrs. prescott wanted to know about wayne. was he happy, or had the unhappiness of his marriage gone too deep? "your dear mother grieved so about it, katie," she said. "she saw how it was going. it hurt her." "yes," said katie, "i know. it made mother very sad." "i am glad that her death came before the separation." "oh, i don't know," said katie; "i think mother would have been glad." "she did not believe in divorce; your mother and i, katie, were the old-fashioned kind of churchwomen." "neither did mother believe in unhappiness," said katie, and drew a longer breath for saying it, for it was as if the things claiming her had crowded up around her throat. mrs. prescott sighed. "we cannot understand those things. it is a strange age in which we are living, katie. i sometimes think that our only hope is to trust god a little more." "or help man a little more," said katie. "perhaps," said mrs. prescott gently, "that giving more trust to god would be giving more help to man." "i'm not sure i get the connecting link," said katie, more sure of herself now that it had become articulate. mrs. prescott put one of her fine hands over upon katie's. "why, child, you can't mean that. that would have hurt your mother." for the moment katie did not speak. "if mother had understood just what i meant--understood all about it--i don't believe it would." a second time she was silent, as it struggled. "and if it had"--she spoke it as a thing not to be lightly spoken--"i should be very deeply sorry, but i would not be able to help it." "why, child!" murmured her mother's friend. "you're talking strangely. you--the devoted daughter you always were--not able to 'help' hurting your mother?" katie's eyes filled. it had become so real: the things stealing around her, the thing in her which must push them back, that it was as if she were hurting her mother, and suffering in the consciousness of bringing suffering. memory, the tenderest of memories, was another thing weaving itself around her, clinging to her heart, claiming her. but suddenly she leaned forward. "would i be able to _help_ being myself?" she asked passionately. mrs. prescott seemed startled. "i fear," she said, perplexed by the tears in katie's eyes and the stern line of her mouth, "that we are speaking of things i do not understand." katie was silent, agreeing with her. mrs. prescott broke the silence. "the world is changing." and again agreeing, katie saw that in those changes friends bound together by dear ties might be driven far apart. "katie," she asked after a moment, "tell me of my boy and your friend." there was a wistful, almost tremulous note in her voice. "you have sympathy and intelligence, katie. you must know what a time like this means to a mother." katie could not speak. it seemed she could bear little more that night. and she longed for time to think it out, know where she stood, come to some terms with herself. but forced to face it, she tried to do so lightly. she thought it just a fancy of harry's. wasn't he quite given to falling in love with pretty girls? his mother shook her head. "he cares for her. i know. and do you not see, katie, that that makes her about the biggest thing in life to me?" katie's heart almost stood still. she was staggered. through her wretchedness surged a momentary yearning to be one of those people--oh, one of those _safe_ people--who never found the peep-holes in their enclosure! "tell me of her, katie," urged her mother's friend. "harry seems to think she means much to you. just what is it she means to you?" for the moment she was desperate in her wondering how to tell it. and then it happened that from her frenzied wondering what to say of it she sank into the deeper wondering what it _was_. what it was--what in truth it had been all the time--ann meant to her. why had she done it? what was that thing less fleeting than fancy, more imperative than sympathy, made ann mean more than things which had all her life meant most? watching katie, mrs. prescott wavered between gratification and apprehension: pleased that that light in katie's eyes, a finer light than she had ever known there before, should come through thought of this girl for whom harry cared; troubled by the strangeness and the sternness of katie's face. it was katie herself mrs. prescott wanted--had always wanted. she had always hoped it would be that way, not only because she loved katie, but because it seemed so as it should be. she believed that summer would have brought it about had it not been for this other girl--this stranger. katie's embarrassment had fallen from her, pushed away by feeling. she was scarcely conscious of mrs. prescott. she was thinking of those paths of wondering, every path leading into other paths--intricate, limitless. she had been asleep. now she was awake. it was through ann it had come. perhaps more had come through ann than was in ann, but beneath all else, deeper even than that warm tenderness flowering from ann's need of her, was that tenderness of the awakened spirit--a grateful song coming through an opening door. it had so claimed her that she was startled at sound of mrs. prescott's voice as she said, with a nervous little laugh: "why, katie, you alarm me. you make me feel she must be strange." "she is strange," said katie. "would you say, katie," she asked anxiously, "that she is the sort of girl to make my boy a good wife?" suddenly the idea of ann's making harry prescott any kind of wife came upon katie as preposterous. not because she would be bringing him a "past," but because she would bring gifts he would not know what to do with. "i don't think of ann as the making some man a good wife type. i think of ann," she tried to formulate it, "as having gone upon a quest, as being ever upon a quest." "a--quest?" faltered mrs. prescott. "for what?" "life," said katie, peering off into the darkness. mrs. prescott was manifestly disturbed at the prospect of a daughter-in-law upon a quest. "she sounds--temperamental," she said critically. "yes," said katie, laughing a little grimly, "she's temperamental all right." they could not say more, as ann and wayne were coming toward them across the grass. and almost immediately afterward the osborne car again stopped before the house. it was mr. osborne himself this time, bringing the leonards, who had been dining with him. they had stopped to see mrs. prescott. katie was not sorry, for it turned mrs. prescott from ann. like the football player who has lost his wind, she wanted a little time counted out. but she soon found that she was not playing anything so kindly as a game of hard and fast rules. it seemed at first that ann's ride had done her good. she seemed to have relaxed and did not give katie that sense of something smoldering within her. katie sat beside her, an arm thrown lightly about ann's shoulders--lightly but guardingly. neither of them talked much. mrs. prescott and mrs. leonard were "visiting"; the men talking of some affairs of mr. osborne's. he was commending the army for minding its own business--not "butting in" and trying to ruin business the way some other departments of the government did. the army seemed in high favor with mr. osborne. suddenly mrs. leonard turned to katie. she was a large woman, poised by the shallow serenity of self-approval. "i do feel so sorry for miss osborne," she said. "such a shocking thing has occurred. one of the girls at the candy factory--you know she's trying so hard to help them--has committed suicide!" mrs. prescott uttered an exclamation of horror. katie patted the shoulder beside her soothingly, understandingly, and as if begging for calm. even under her light touch she seemed to feel the nerves leap up. mr. osborne turned to them. "poor cal, she'd better let things alone. what's the use? she can't do anything with people like that." "it's the cause of the suicide that's the disgusting thing," said colonel leonard. "or rather," amended his wife, "the lack of cause." "but surely," protested mrs. prescott, "no girl would take her life without--what she thought was cause. surely all human beings hold life and death too sacred for that." "oh, do they?" scoffed mrs. leonard. "not that class. i scarcely expect you to believe me--i had a hard time believing it myself--but she says she committed suicide--she left a note for her room-mate--because she was 'tired of not having any fun!'" the hand upon ann's shoulder grew fairly eloquent. and ann seemed trying. her hands were tightly clasped in her lap. "why, i don't know," said wayne, "i think that's about one of the best reasons i can think of." "this is not a jesting matter, captain jones," said mrs. leonard severely. "far from it," said wayne. "think what it means to a girl like caroline osborne! a girl who is trying to do something for humanity--to find the people she wants to uplift so trivial--so without souls!" "it is hard on cal," agreed cal's father. "though perhaps just a trifle harder," ventured wayne, "on the girl who did." "well, what did she do it for?" he demanded. "come now, captain, you can't make out much of a case for her. mrs. leonard's word is just right--trivial. she said she was tired of things. tired--tired--tired of things, she put it. tired of walking down the same street. tired of hanging her hat on the same kind of a peg! now, captain--if you can put up any defense for a girl who kills herself because she's tired of hanging her hat on a certain kind of peg! well," he laughed, "if you can, all i've got to say is that you'd better leave the army and go in for criminal law." "why didn't she walk down some other street," he resumed, as no one broke the pause. "if it's a matter of life and death--a person might walk down some other street!" "and i've no doubt," said captain prescott, "that if it were known her life, as well as her hat, hung upon it--she might have had a different kind of peg." they laughed. "oh, of course, the secret of it is," pronounced the colonel, "she was a neurotic." for the first time katie spoke. "i think it's such a fine thing we got hold of that word. since we've known about neurotics we can just throw all the emotion and suffering and tragedy of the world in the one heap and leave it to the scientists. it lets _us_ out so beautifully, doesn't it?" "oh, but katie!" admonished mrs. prescott. "think of it! what is the world coming to? going forth to meet one's god because one doesn't like the peg for one's hat!" katie had a feeling of every nerve in ann's body leaping up in frenzy. "_god_?" she laughed wildly. "don't drag _him_ into it! do you think _he_ cares"--turning upon mrs. prescott as if she would spring at her--"do you think for a minute _he_ cares--_what kind of pegs our hats are on_!" chapter xxi katie's memory of what followed was blurred. she remembered how relieved she was when ann's laugh--oh the memory of that laugh was clear enough!--gave way to sobbing. sobbing was easier to deal with. she said something about her friend's being ill, and that they would have to excuse them. she almost wanted to laugh--or was it cry?--herself at the way harry prescott was looking from ann to his mother. after she got ann in the house she went back and begged somebody's pardon--she wasn't sure whose--and told colonel leonard that of course he could understand it on the score of ann's being a neurotic. she was afraid she might have said that rather disagreeably. and she believed she told mrs. prescott--she had to tell mrs. prescott something, she looked so frightened and hurt and outraged--that ann had a form of nervous trouble which made it impossible for her to hear the name of god. the hardest was wayne. she came to him on the porch after the others had gone--they were not long in dispersing. "wayne," she said, "i'm sorry to have embarrassed you." his short, curt laugh did not reveal his mood. it was scoffing--contemptuous--but she could not tell at what it scoffed. he had not turned toward her. "i'm sorry," she repeated. "ann will be sorry. she's so--" he turned upon her hotly. "katie, quit lying to _me_. i know there's something you're not telling. i've suspected it for some time. now don't get off any of that 'nervous trouble' talk to me!" she stood there dumbly. it seemed to enrage him. "why don't you go and look after her! what do you mean by leaving her all alone?" so she went to look after her. ann looked like one who needed looking after. her eyes were intolerably bright. it seemed the heat behind them must put them out. she was walking about the room, walking as if something were behind her with a lash. "you see, katie," she began, not pausing in the walking--her voice, too, as though a whip were behind it--"it was just as i told you. it was just as i tried to tell you. there are two worlds. there's no use trying to put me in yours. see what i bring you! see what you get for it! see what--" she stood still, rocking back and forth as she stood there. "it was too much for me to hear her talking about _god!_ that was a little too much! _my_ father was a minister!" and ann laughed. a minister was one thing katie had not thought of. even in that moment she was conscious of relief. certainly the ministry was respectable. but why should it be "too much" for the daughter of a minister to hear anything about god? "ann," she began quietly, "i don't want to force anything. if you want to be alone i'll even take my things and sleep somewhere else. but, ann, dear, if you could tell me a little i wouldn't be so much in the dark; i could do better for us both." ann did not seem to notice what she was saying. "she was tired of things! she was tired of things! tired of hanging her hat on the same kind of peg! why it's awful--it's awful, i tell you--to always be hanging your hat on the same kind of peg! "she was tired of not having any fun! oh so tired of not having any fun! why you don't care what you do when you get tired of not having any fun! "then people laugh--the people who have all the fun. oh they think it's so funny!--the people who don't have to hang their hats on any kind of peg. so trivial. so--what's that nervous word? katie--you're not like the rest of them! why, you seem to _know_--just know without knowing." "but it's hard for me," suggested katie. "trying to know--and not knowing." ann was still walking about the room. "i was brought up in a little town in indiana. you see i'm going to tell you. i've got to be doing something--and it may as well be talking. now how did i start? oh yes--i was brought up in a little town in indiana. until three years ago, that was where i lived. were you ever in a little town in indiana?" katie replied in the negative. "maybe there are little towns in indiana that are different. i don't know. maybe there are. but this one-in this one life was just one long stretch of hanging your hat on exactly the same kind of peg! "it was so square--so flat--so dingy--oh, so dreadful! it didn't have anything around it--as some towns do--a hill, or a river, or woods. around it was something that was just nothing. it was just walled in by the nothingness all around it. "and the people in it were flat, and square, and dingy. and the things around them were just nothing. they were walled in, too, by the nothingness all around them." then the most unexpected of all things happened. ann smiled. "katie, i'd like to have seen you in that town!" "i'm afraid," said katie, "that i would have invented a new kind of peg." the smile seemed to have done ann good. she sat down, grew more natural. "when i try to tell about my life in that town i suppose it sounds as though i were making a terrible fuss about things. when you think of children that haven't any homes-that are beaten by drunken fathers--starved--overworked-but it was the nothingness. if my father only had got drunk!" katie smiled understandingly. "katie, you've a lot of imagination. just try to think what it would mean never to have what you could really call fun!" katie took a sweep back over her own life--full to the brim of fun. her imagination did not go far enough to get a real picture of life with the fun left out. "oh, of course," said ann, "there were pleasures! my father and the people of his church were like miss osborne--they believed it was one of the underlying principles of life--only they would call it 'god's will'--that all must have pleasure. but such god-fearing pleasure! i think i could have stood it if it hadn't been for the pleasures." "pleasures with the fun left out," suggested kate. "yes, though fun isn't the word, for i don't mean just good times. i mean--i mean--" "you mean the joy of living," said katie. "you mean the loveliness of life." "yes; now your kind of religion--the kind of religion your kind of people have, doesn't seem to hurt them any." katie laughed oddly. "true; it doesn't hurt us much." "my father's kind is something so different. the love of god seems to have dried him up. he's not a human being. he's a christian." katie thought of her uncle--a bishop, and all too human a human being. she was about to protest, then considered that she had never known the kind of christian--or human being--ann was talking about. "everything at our church squeaked. the windows. the organ. the deacon's shoes. my father's voice. the religion squeaked. life squeaked. "i'll tell you a story, katie, that maybe will make you see how it was. it's about a dog, and it's easy for you to understand things about dogs. "some one gave him to me. i suppose he was not a fine dog--not full-blooded. but that didn't matter. _you_ know that we don't love dogs for their blood. we love them for the way they look out of their eyes, and the way they wag their tails. i can't tell you what this dog meant to me--something to love--something that loved me--some one to play with--a companion--a friend--something that didn't have anything to do with my father's church! "he used to feel so sorry when i had to sit learning bible verses. sometimes he would put his two paws up on my lap and try to push the bible away. i loved him for that. and when at last i could put it away he would dance round me with little yelps of joy. he warmed something in me. he kept something alive. "and then one day when i came home from a missionary meeting where i had read a paper telling how cruelly young girls were treated by their parents in india, and how there was no joy and love and beauty in their lives, i--" ann hid her face and it was a drawn, grayish face she raised after a minute--"tono was not there. i called and called him. my father was writing a sermon. he let me go on calling. i could not understand it. tono always came running down the walk, wagging his tail and giving his little barks of joy when i came. it had made coming home seem different from what it had ever seemed before. but that day he was not there watching for me. my father let me go on calling for a long time. at last he came to the door and said--'please stop that unseemly noise. the dog has been sent away.' 'sent _away_?' i whispered. 'what do you mean?' 'i mean that i have seen fit to dispose of him,' he answered. i was trembling all over. 'what right had you to dispose of him?' i wanted to know. 'he wasn't your dog--' the answer was that i was to go up to my room and learn bible verses until the lord chastened my spirit. then i said things. i would _not_ learn bible verses. i _would_ have my dog. it ended"--ann was trembling uncontrollably--"it ended with the rod being unspared. god's forgiveness was invoked with each stroke." she was digging her finger nails into her palms. katie put her arms around her. "i wouldn't, ann dear--it isn't worth while. it's all over now. wouldn't it be better to forget?" "no, i want to tell you. some day i may try to tell you other things. i want this to try to explain them. loving dogs, you will understand this--better than you could some other things. "the dog had been given away to some one who lived in the country. it was because i had played with him the sunday morning before and had been late to sunday-school." her voice was dry and hard; it was from katie there came the exclamation of protest and contempt. "no one except one who loves dogs as you do would know what it meant. even you can't quite know. for tono was all i had. he--" katie's arm about her tightened. "i could have stood it for myself. i could have stood my own lonesomeness. but what i couldn't stand was thinking about him. nights i would wake up and think of him--out in the cold--homesick--maybe hungry--not understanding--watching and waiting--wondering why i didn't come. i couldn't keep from thinking about things that tortured me. this man was a deacon in my father's church. from the way he prayed, i knew he was not one to be good to dogs. "and then one afternoon i heard the little familiar scratch at the door. i rushed to it, and there he was--shivering--but oh so, so glad! he sprang right into my arms--we cried and cried together--sitting there on the floor. his heart had been almost broken--he had grieved--_suffered_. he wasn't willing to leave my arms; just whimpering the way one does when a dreadful thing is over--licking my face--you know how they do--you know how dear they are. "now i will tell you what i did. holding him in my arms, my face buried in his fur--i made up my mind. the family would be away for at least an hour. i would give him the happiest hour i knew how to give him. one hour--it was all i had the power to give him. then--because i loved him so much--i would end his life." katie's face whitened. "i carried out the plan," ann went on. "i gave him the meat we were to have had for supper. i had him do all his little tricks. i loved him and loved him. i do not think any little dog ever had a happier hour. "and then--down at a house in the next block i saw my father--and the man he had given tono to. the man was coming to our house for supper. our time was up. "i can never explain to any one the way i did it--the way i felt as i did it. there was no crying. there was no faltering. it seemed that all at once i understood--understood the hardness of life--that things _are_ hard--that things have _got_ to be done. then was when it came to me that you've got to harden yourself--that it's the only way. "i filled a tub with water--i didn't know any other way to do it. tono stood there watching me. i took a bucket. i took up the dog. i hugged him. i let him lick my face. though i live to be very old, katie, and suffer very much, i can never forget the look in his eyes as i put him in the water and held him to put down the bucket. there are things a person goes through that make perfect happiness forever impossible. there are hours that stay." the face of the soldier's daughter was wet. "i love you for it, ann," she whispered. "i love you for it. it was strong, ann. it was fine." "i wasn't very strong and fine the minute it was over," sobbed ann. "i fainted. they found me there. and then i screamed and laughed and said i was going to kill all the dogs in the world. i said--oh, dreadful things." "they should have understood," murmured kate. "they didn't. they said i was wicked. they said the evil one had entered into me. they said i must pray god to forgive me for having killed one of his creatures! me--! "of course it ended in bible verses. is it so strange i _loathed_ the bible? and every morning i had to hear myself prayed for as a wicked girl who would harm one of god's creatures. the almighty was implored not to send me to hell. 'send me there if you want to,' i'd say to myself on my knees, 'tono's not in hell, anyway.'" ann laughed bitterly. "so that's why i'm a sacrilegious, blasphemous person who doesn't care much about hearing about god. i associate him with thin lips that shut together tight-and people who make long prayers and break little dogs' hearts--and with boots--and souls--that squeak. i can't think of one single thing i ever heard about him that made me like him." "oh, ann dear!" protested katie shudderingly. "try not to think such things. try not to feel that way. you haven't heard everything there is to hear about god. you haven't heard any of it in the right way." "perhaps not. i only know what i have heard." and ann's face was too white and hard for katie to say more. "and your mother, dear? where was she all this time? didn't she love you--and help?" "she died when i was twelve. she'd like to have loved me. she did some on the sly--in a scared kind of way." katie sat there contemplating the picture of ann's father and mother and ann--_ann_, as child of that union. "i think she died because life frightened her so. in a year my father married again. _she_ isn't afraid of anything. she's a god-fearing, exemplary woman. and she always looks to see if you have any mud on your shoes." after a moment ann said quietly: "i hate her." "so would i," said katie, and it brought the ghost of a smile to ann's lips, perhaps thinking of just how cordially katie would hate her. "and then after a while you left this town?" katie suggested as ann seemed held there by something. "yes, after a while i left." and that held her again. "i was fifteen when i--freed tono from life," she emerged from it. "it was five years later that you--stopped me from freeing myself. lots of things were crowded into those five years, katie--or rather into the last three of them. i had to be treated worse than tono was treated before it came to me that i had better be as kind to myself as i had been to my dog. only i," ann laughed, "didn't have anybody to give me a last hour!" "but you see it wasn't a last hour, after all," soothed katie. "only the last hour of the old hard things. things that can never come back." "can't they come back, katie? can't they?" katie shook her head with decision. "do you think i'd let them come back? why i'd shut the door in their face!" "sometimes," said ann, "it seems to me they're lying in wait for me. that they're going to spring out. that this is a dream. that there isn't any katie jones. some nights i've been afraid to go to sleep. afraid of waking to find it a dream. there's an awful dream i dream sometimes! the dream is that this is a dream." "poor dear," murmured katie. "it will be more real now that we've talked." "i used to dream a dream, katie, and i think it was about you. only you weren't any one thing. you were all kinds of different things. lovely things. you were something somewhere. you were the something that was way off beyond the nothingness of centralia." "the something that didn't squeak," suggested katie tremulously. "something somewhere. you were both a waking and a sleeping dream. i knew you were there. isn't it queer how we do--know without knowing? my father used to talk about people being 'called.' called to the ministry--called to the missionary field--called to heaven. well maybe you're called to other things, too. maybe," said ann with a laugh which sobbed, "you're even 'called' to chicago." the laugh died and the sob lingered. "only when you get there--chicago doesn't seem to know that it had called you. "my something somewhere was always something i never could catch up with. sometimes it was a beautiful country--where a river wound through a woods. sometimes it was beautiful people laughing and dancing. sometimes it was a star. sometimes it was a field of flowers--all blowing back and forth. sometimes it was a voice--a wonderful far-away voice. sometimes it was a lovely dress--oh a wonderful gauzy dress--or a hat that was like the blowing field of flowers. sometimes--this was the loveliest of all--it was somebody who loved me. but whatever it was, it was something i couldn't overtake. "and you mustn't laugh, katie, when i tell you that the thing that made me think i could catch up with it was a moving-picture show! "it came to centralia--the first one that had ever been there. i heard the people next door talking about it. they said there were pictures of things that really happened in the great cities--oh of kings and queens and the president and millionaires and automobile races and grand weddings; that the pictures went on just like the happenings went on; that it was just as if the pictures were alive; that it was just like being there. "oh, i was so excited about it! i was so excited i could hardly get ready. "you see ever since tono had died--two years before, i had kept that idea that things were hard. that the thing to do was to be hard. i dreamed about things that were lovely--the something somewhere things--but as far as the real things went i never changed my mind about them. you mustn't let them into your heart. they just wanted to get in there to hurt you. "now i forgot all about that. these pictures were dreams made real. they had caught up with the something somewhere. and i was going to see them. "but i didn't--not that day. i was so happy that my father suspected something. and he got it out of me and said i couldn't go. he said that the things that would be pictured would be the wickedness of the world. that i was not to see it. "but i made up my mind that i would see the wickedness of the world." ann paused, and then said in lower voice: "and i have--and not just in pictures." she seemed to be meeting something, and she answered it. "but just the same," she made answer defiantly, "i'd rather see the wickedness of the world than stay in the nothingness of the world! "the pictures were to be there a week. i thought of nothing else but how i could see them. the last day there was a thimble-bee. i went to the thimble-bee--said i couldn't stay--and went to the pictures. "katie, that moving-picture show was proof. proof of the something somewhere. and in my heart i made a vow--it was a _solemn_ vow--that i would find the things that moved in the pictures. "and there was music--such music as i had never heard before, even though it came out of a box. they had the songs of the grand opera singers. and as i listened--i tell you i was called!--i don't care how silly it sounds--i was called by the voices that had sung into that box. for this was real--if the life hadn't been there it couldn't have been caught into the pictures and the box. it proved--i thought--that all the lovely things i had dreamed were true. i had only to go and find them. people were walking upon those streets. then i could walk on those streets. and those people were laughing--and talking to each other. everybody seemed to have friends. everybody was happy! and all of that really _was_. the pictures were alive. alive with the things that there were out beyond the nothingness of centralia. "the man played something from an opera and showed pictures of beautiful people going into a beautiful place to listen to that very music. he said that the very next night in chicago those people would be going into that place to listen to those very voices. "katie, i don't believe you'll laugh at me when i tell you that my teeth fairly chattered when first it came to me that i must be one of those people! it was something all different from the longing for fun--oh it was something big--terrible--it _had_ to be. it was the same feeling of its having to be that i had about tono. "though probably that feeling would have passed away if it hadn't been for my father. he came there and found me, and--humiliated me. and after we got home--" ann was holding herself tight, but after a moment she relaxed to say with an attempted laugh: "it wasn't all being 'called.' part of it was being driven. "then there was another thing. the treasurer of the missionary society came that night with some money--eighteen dollars--i was to send off the next day. it was that money started me out to find my something somewhere." "oh _ann_!" whispered katie, drawing back. "but of course," she added, "you paid it back just as soon as you could?" "i _never_ paid it back! if i had eighteen _million_ dollars, i'd _never_ pay it back! i _like_ to think of not paying it back!" katie's face hardened. "i can't understand that." "no," sobbed ann, "you'd have to have lived a long time in nothingness to understand that--and some other things, too." she looked at her strangely. "there's more coming, katie, that you won't be able to understand." katie's face was averted, but something in ann's voice made her turn to her. "i think it was wrong, ann. there's no use in my pretending i don't. i _can't_ understand this. but maybe i can understand some of the other things better than you think." "i left at six o'clock the next morning," ann went back to it when she was calmer. "and at the last minute i don't think i would have had the courage to go if my father hadn't been snoring so. how silly it all sounds! "and the only reason i got on the train was that it would have taken more courage to go back than to go on. "katie, some time i'll tell you all about it. how i felt when i got to chicago. how it seemed to shriek and roar. how i seemed just buried under the noise. how i walked around the streets that day--frightened almost to death--and yet, inside the fright, just crazy about it. and how green i was! "nothing seemed to matter except going to grand opera. i didn't even have sense enough to find a place to stay. i thought about it, but didn't know how, and anyhow the most important thing was finding the things that moved in the pictures--and sang in the box. "i saw a woman go up to a policeman and ask him where something was and he told her, so i did that, too. asked him where you went to hear grand opera. and he pointed. i was right there by it. "i heard some people talking about going in to get tickets. so i thought i had better get a ticket. "but they didn't have any. they were all gone. "when i came out i was almost crying. then a smiling man outside stepped up to me and said he had tickets and he'd let me have one for ten dollars. i was so glad he had them! ten dollars seemed a good deal--but i didn't think much about it. "then i had my ticket and just two dollars left. "but that night at the opera i didn't know whether i had two dollars, or no dollars, or a thousand dollars. at first i was frightened because everybody but me had on such beautiful clothes. but soon i was too crazy about their clothes to care--and then after the music began-- "oh, katie! suppose you'd always dreamed of something and never been able to catch up with it. suppose you'd not even been able to really dream it, but just dream that it was, and then suppose it all came--no, i can't tell you. you'd have to have lived in centralia--and been a minister's daughter. "my heart sang more beautifully than the singers sang. 'now you have found it! now you have found it!' my heart kept singing. "when all the other people left i left too--in a dream. for it had passed into a dream--into a beautiful dream that was going to shelter it for me forever. "i stood around watching the beautiful people getting into their carriages. and i couldn't make myself believe that it was in the same world with centralia. "then after a while it occurred to me that all those people were going home. everybody was going home. "at first i wasn't frightened. something inside me was singing over and over the songs of the opera. i was too far in my dream to be much frightened. "then all at once i got--oh, so tired. and cold. and so frightened i did not know what to do. my dream seemed to have taken wings and flown away. all the beautiful laughing people had gone. it was just as if i woke up. and i was on the strange streets all alone. only some noisy men who frightened me. "i hid in a doorway till those men got by. and then i saw a woman coming. she was all alone, too. she had on a dress that rustled and lovely white furs, and did not seem at all frightened. "i stepped out and asked her to please tell me where to go for the night. "some time i'll tell you about her, too. now i'll just tell you that it ended with her taking me home with her to stay all night. she made a lot of fun of me--and said things to me i didn't understand--and swore at me--and told me to 'cut it' and go back to the cornfields--but i was crying then, and she took me with her. "she kept up her queer kind of talk, but i was so tired that the minute i was in bed i went to sleep. "the next morning she told me i had got to go back to the woods. i said i would if there were any woods. but there weren't. she laughed and said more queer things. she asked me why i had come, and i told her. first she laughed. then she sat there staring at me--blinking. and what she said was: 'poor little fool. poor little greenhorn.' "she asked me what i was going to do, and i said work, so i could stay there and go to the opera and see beautiful things. she asked me what kind of a job i was figuring on and told me there was only one kind would let me in for that. i asked her what it was and she said it was _her_ line. i asked her if she thought i was fitted for it, and she looked at me--a look i didn't understand at all--and said she guessed the men she worked for would think so. i asked her if she'd say a good word to them for me, and then she turned on me like a tiger and swore and said--no, she hadn't come to that! "it was a case of knowing without knowing. i was so green that i didn't know. and yet after a while i did. as i look back on it i appreciate things i couldn't appreciate then, thank her for things i didn't know enough to thank her for at the time. "she was leaving that day for san francisco. she gave me ten dollars, and told me if i had any sense i'd take it and go back to prayer-meeting. she said i might do worse. but if i didn't have any sense--and she said of course i wouldn't--i was to be careful of it until i got a job. she told me how to manage. and i was to read 'ads' in the newspaper. she told me how to try and get in at the telephone office. she had been there once, she said, but it 'got on her nerves.' "she told me things about girls who worked in chicago--awful things. but i supposed she was prejudiced. the last things she said to me was--'the opera! oh you poor little green kid--i'm afraid i see your finish.' "but i thought she was queer acting because she led that queer kind of a life." ann had paused. and suddenly she hid her face in her hands, as if it was more than she could face. katie was smoothing her hair. "katie, as the days went on it was just as hard to believe that the world of the opera was the same world i was working in--right there in the same city--as it had been the first night to believe it was the same world as centralia. i learned two things. one was that the something somewhere was there. the other that it was not there for me. "the world was full of things i couldn't understand, but i could understand--a little better--the woman who wore the white furs. "oh katie, you get so tired--you get so dead--all day long putting suspenders in a box--or making daisies--or addressing envelopes--or trying to remember whether it was apple or custard pie-- "and you don't get tired just because your back aches--and your head aches--and your hands ache--and your feet ache--you get tired--that kind of tired--because the city doesn't care how tired you get! "i often wondered why i went on, why any of them went on. i used to think we must be crazy to be going on." she was pondering it--somberly wistful. "though perhaps we're not crazy. perhaps it's the--call. katie, what is it? that call? that thing that makes us keep on even when our something somewhere won't have anything to do with us?" katie did not reply. she had no reply. "at last i got in the telephone office. that's considered a fine place to work. they're like miss osborne; they believe it is one of the fundamental principles of life that all must have pleasures. but they were like the pleasures of centralia--not god-fearing, exactly, but so dutiful. they didn't have anything to do with 'calls.' "the real pleasures were going over the wire. it was my business to make the connections that arrange those pleasures. a little red light would flash--sometimes it would flash straight into my brain--and i'd say 'number, please?'--always with the rising inflection. then i'd get the connection and life would pass through the cords. that was the closest i came to it--operating the cords that it went through. there was a whole city full of it--beautiful, laughing, loving life. but it was on the wire--just as in centralia it had been in the pictures--and in the box. and oh i used to get so tired--so tight--operating the cords for life. sometimes when i left my chair the whole world was one big red light. and at night they danced dances for me--those little red lights." she brushed her hand before her eyes as if they were there again and she would push them away. "katie," she suddenly burst forth, "if you ever do pray--if you believe in praying--pray sometimes for the girl who goes to chicago to find what you call the 'joy of living.' pray for the pilgrims who go to the cities to find their something somewhere. and whatever you do, katie--whatever you do--don't ever laugh at the people who kill themselves because they're tired of not having any fun!" "but wasn't there _any_ fun, dear?" katie asked after a moment. ann did not speak, but looked at katie strangely. "yes," she said. "afterwards. differently." they were silent. something seemed to be outlining itself between them. something which was meaning to grow there between them. "there came a time," said ann, "when all of life was not going over the wire." and still katie did not speak, as if pushed back by that thing shaping itself between them. "your something somewhere," said ann, very low, "doesn't always come in just the way you were looking for it. but, katie, if you get _very_ tired waiting for it--don't you believe you might take it--most any way it came?" it was a worn and wistful face she turned to katie. suddenly katie brushed away the thing that would grow up between them and laid her cheek upon ann's hair. "poor child," she murmured, and the tears were upon ann's soft brown hair. "poor weary little pilgrim." chapter xxii ann remained in her room all of the next day. katie encouraged her to do so, wishing to foster the idea of illness. it did not need much fostering. she had not gone back to those old days without leaving with them most of her newly accumulated vitality. but it was weakness rather than nervousness. talking to katie seemed to have relieved a pressure. it was katie who was nervous. it was as if a battery within her had been charged to its uttermost. she was in some kind of electric communication with life. she was tingling with the things coming to her. so charged was she with new big things that it was hard to manage the affairs of her household as old things demanded they be managed that day. she told mrs. prescott again how sorry she and ann were that ann had given way. mrs. prescott received it with self-contained graciousness. her one comment was that she trusted when her son decided to marry he would content himself with a wife who had not gone upon a quest. katie smiled and agreed that it might get him a more comfortable wife. the son himself she tried to avoid. that thing which had tried to shape itself between her and ann still remained there, a thing without body but vaguely outlined between ann and all other things. they had not drawn any nearer to it. they let the story rest at the place where all of life had not been going over the wire. and katie told herself that she understood. that ann was to be judged by the something somewhere she had formed in her heart rather than by whatever it was life had tardily and ungenerously and unwisely brought her. that ann might still cling to a something somewhere--a thing for which even yet she would keep the heart right--was suggested that afternoon when katie told her of captain prescott. she had not meant to tell her. she tried to think she was doing it in order to know how to meet harry, but had to admit finally that she did it for no nobler reason than to see how ann would take it. she took it most unexpectedly. "i am sorry," she said simply, "but i do not care at all for captain prescott. i--" she paused, coloring slightly as she said with a little laugh: "we all like to be liked, don't we, katie? and with me--well it meant something just to know i could be liked--in that nice kind of way. it helped. but that's all--so i hope he doesn't care very much for me. though if he does," concluded ann sagely, "he'll get over it. he's not the caring sort." the words had a familiar sound; after a moment she remembered them as what he had said that night of the "don't you care" girls. while she would have been panic-stricken at finding ann interested, she was more discomfited than relieved at not finding her more impressed. "to marry into the army, ann," she said, "is considered very advantageous." ann was lying there with her face pillowed upon her hand. she turned her large eyes, about which just then there were large circles, seriously, it would even seem rebukingly, upon katie. "if i ever should marry," she said, "it will be for some other reason than because it is 'advantageous.'" katie felt both rebuked and startled. most of the girls she knew--girls who had never worked in factories or restaurants or telephone offices, or had never thought of taking their own lives, had not scorned to look upon marriages as advantageous. nor, for that matter, had katie herself. ann's superior attitude toward marriage turned katie to religion. as the niece of a bishop she was moved to set ann right on things within a bishop's domain. and underlying that was an impulse to set her right with herself. "ann," she said, "if somebody said to you, 'i starve you in the name of katie jones,' wouldn't you say, 'oh no you don't. starve me if you want to, but don't tell me you do it in the name of katie jones. she doesn't want people starved!'" "i could say that," said ann, "because i know you, and know you don't want people starved. but if i'd never heard anything about you except that i was to be starved in your name--" "i should think even so you might question. didn't it ever occur to you that god had more to do with your something somewhere than he did with things done in his name in centralia?" "why, katie, how strange you should think of that. for i thought of it--but i supposed it was the most wicked thought of all." "how strange it would be," said katie, "if he had more to do with the 'call' than with the god-fearing things you were called from." for an instant ann's face lighted up. but it hardened. "well, if he had," she said, "it seems he might have stood by me a little better after i was 'called.'" katie had no reply for that, so she turned to her uncle, the bishop. "well there's one place where you're wrong, ann; and that is that religion is incompatible with the love of dogs. you know my uncle--my mother's brother--is a bishop. i don't know just how well uncle understands god, but if he understands him as well as he does dogs then he must be well fitted for his office. i don't think in his heart uncle would have any respect for any person--no matter how religious--or even how much they subscribed--who wouldn't appreciate the tragedy of losing one's dog. uncle has a splendid dog--a great dane; they're real chums. he often reads his sermons to caesar. he says caesar can stay awake under them longer than some of the congregation. i once shocked, but i think secretly delighted uncle, by saying that he rendered to caesar the things that were caesar's and to god what caesar left. well, one dreadful day someone stole caesar. they took him out of town, but caesar got away and made a return that has gone down into dog history. poor uncle had been all broken up about it for three days. he was to preach that morning. my heart ached for him as he stood there at his study window looking down the street when it was time to go. i knew what he was hoping for--the way you go on hoping against hope when your dog's lost. and then after uncle had gone, and just as i was ready to start myself, i heard the great deep bark of mighty caesar! you may know i was wild about it--and crazy to get the news to uncle. i hurried over to church, but service had begun. but because i was bursting to tell it, and because i appreciated something of what it would mean to talk about the goodness of god when you weren't feeling that way, i wrote a little note and sent it up. i suppose the people who saw it passed into the chancel in dignified fashion thought it was something of ecclesiastical weight. what it said was, 'hallelujah--he's back--safe and sound. k--.' "it was great fun to watch uncle--he's very dignified in his official capacity. he frowned as it was handed him, as if not liking the intrusion into holy routine. he did not open it at once but sat there holding it rebukingly--me chuckling down in the family pew. then he adjusted his glasses and opened it--ponderously. i wish you could have seen his face! one of our friends said he supposed it read, 'will give fifty thousand.' he quickly recalled his robes and suppressed his grin, contenting himself with a beatific expression which must have been very uplifting to the congregation. i think i never saw uncle look so spiritual. and i know i never heard him preach as feelingly. when he came to the place about when sorrow has been upon the heart, and seemed more than the heart could bear, but when the weight is lifted, as the loving father so often does mercifully lift it--oh i tell you there were tears in more eyes than uncle's. i had my suspicions, and that night i asked, 'uncle, did you preach the sermon you meant to preach this morning?' and uncle--if he weren't a bishop i would say he winked at me--replied, 'no, dear little shark. i had meant to preach the one about man yearning for heaven because earth is a vale of tears.' i'm just telling you this yarn, ann, to make you see that religion doesn't necessarily rule out the love of dogs." "it's a nice story, and i'm glad you told me," replied ann. "only my father would say that your uncle had no religion." katie laughed. "a remark which has not gone unremarked. certainly he hasn't enough to let it harden his heart. as i am beginning to think about things now it seems to me uncle might stand for more vital things than he does, but for all that i believe he can love god the more for loving caesar so well." they were quiet for a time, thinking of ann's father and katie's uncle; the love of god and the love of dogs and the love of man. many things. then ann said: "naturally you and i don't look at it the same way. i see you were brought up on a pleasant kind of religion. the kind that doesn't matter." that phrase started the electric batteries within katie and the batteries got so active she had to go for a walk. in the course of the walk she stopped at the shops to see wayne. she wanted to know if he would let worth go into the country for a week with ann. an old servant of theirs--a woman who had been friend as well as servant to katie's mother--lived on a farm about ten miles up the river and it had been planned that worth--and katie, too, if she would--go up there for a week or more during the summer. it seemed just the thing for ann. it would get her away from captain prescott and his mother, and from major darrett, who was coming in a few days. katie believed ann would like to be away from them all for about a week, and get her bearings anew. and katie herself would like to be alone for a time and get her bearings, too, and make some plans. in one way or other she was going to help ann find her real something somewhere. perhaps she would take her to europe. but until things settled down, as katie vaguely put it, she thought it just the thing for ann to have the little trip with worth. wayne listened gravely, but did not object. he was quiet, and, katie thought, not well. she suggested that working so steadily during the hot weather was not good for him. he laughed shortly and pointed through the open door to the shops where long rows of men were working at forges--perspiration streaming down their faces. but instead of alluding to them he asked abruptly: "how is she today?" "tired," said katie. "she didn't sleep well last night." something in the way he was looking at her brought to katie acute realization of how much she cared for wayne. he was her big brother. she had always been his little sister. they were not giving to thinking of it that way--certainly not speaking of it--but the tenderness of the relationship was there. consciousness of it came now as she seemed to read in wayne's look that she hurt him in withholding her confidence, in not having felt it possible to trust even him. she broke under that look. "wayne dear," she said unevenly, "i don't deny there is something to tell. i'd like to tell you, if i could. if ever i can, i will." his reply was only to dismiss it with a curt little nod. but katie knew that did not necessarily mean that he was feeling curt. she was drawn back to the open door from which she could see the long double line of men working steadily at the forges. "what are those men doing?" she asked. "forging one of the parts of a rifle," he replied. it recalled what the man who mended the boats had said of the saddles: that the first war those saddles would see would be the war over the manufacture of them. would he go so far as to say the first use for the rifles--? surely not. he must have been speaking figuratively. but something in the might of the thing--the long lines of men at work on rifles to be used in a possible war--made the industrial side of it seem more vital and more interesting than the military phase. this was here. this was real. there was practically no military life at the arsenal--not military life in the sense one found it at the cavalry post. that had made it seem, from a military standpoint, uninteresting. but here was the real life--over in what the women of the quarter vaguely called "the shops," and dismissed as disposed of by the term. suddenly she wondered what all those men thought about god. whether either the hard blighting religion of ann's father, or the aesthetic comfortable religion of her uncle "mattered" much to them? were the things which "mattered" forging a religion of their own? but just what were those things that mattered? a young man had entered and was speaking to wayne. after a second's hesitation wayne introduced him to katie as mr. ferguson, who was helping him. he had an open, intelligent face--this young mechanic. he did not seem overwhelmed at being presented to captain jones' sister, but merely replied pleasantly to her greeting and was turning away. but katie was not going to let him get away. if she could help it, katie was not going to let any one get away who she thought could tell her anything about the things which were perplexing her--all those things pressing closer and closer upon her. "do many of these men go to church?" she asked. he appeared startled. katie's gown did not suggest a possible tract concealed about it. "why yes, some of them," he laughed. "i don't think the majority of them do." then she came right out with it. "what would you say they look upon as the most important thing in life?" he looked startled again, but in more interested way. "higher wages and shorter hours," he said. "are you a socialist?" she demanded. it came so unexpectedly and so bluntly that it confused him. "why, katie," laughed her brother, "what do you mean by coming over here and interviewing men on their politics?" "what made you think i was a socialist?" asked ferguson. "because you had such a quick answer to such a big question, and seemed so sure of yourself. i'm reading a book about socialists. they don't seem to think there is a particle of doubt they could put the world to rights, and things are so intricate--so confused--i don't see how they can be so sure they're saying the final word." "i don't know that they claim to be saying the final word, but they do know they could take away much of the confusion." katie was thinking of the story she had heard the night before. "do you think socialism's going to remove all the suffering from the world? reach all the aches and fill all the empty places? get right into the inner things that are the matter and bring peace and good will and loving kindness everywhere?" she had spoken impetuously, and paused with an embarrassed laugh. the young mechanic was looking at her gravely, but his look was less strange than wayne's. "i don't think they'd go that far, miss jones. but they do know that there's a lot of needless misery they could wipe out." "they're out and out materialists, aren't they? everything's economic--the economic basis for everything in creation. they seem very cocksure that getting that the way they want it would usher in the millennium. you said the most important thing in life to these men was higher wages and shorter hours. i don't blame them for wanting them--i hope they get them--but i don't know that i see it as very promising that they regard it as the most important thing in life. to do less and get more is not what you'd call a spiritual aspiration, is it?" she laughed. "this is what i mean--it's not the end, is it?" "socialists wouldn't call it the end. but it's got to be the end until it can become the means." "yes, but if you get in the habit of looking at it as an end, will there be anything left for it to be a means to?" "why yes, those spiritual aspirations you mention." "unless by that time the world's such an economic machine it doesn't want spiritual aspirations." "well heaven help the working man that's got them in the present economic machine," said ferguson a little impatiently. she, too, moved impatiently. "oh i don't know a thing about it. it's absurd for me to be talking about it." "why i don't think it's at all absurd, only i don't think you see the thing clear to the end, and i wish you could talk to somebody who sees farther than i do. i'm new to it myself. now there's a man doing a lot of boat repairing up here above the island. i wish you could talk to him. he'd know just what you mean, and just how to meet you." "oh, would he?" said katie. "what's his name?" "mann. alan mann." "why, katie," laughed wayne, "it must be that he's that same mythical creature known as the man who mends the boats." "yes," said katie, "i fancy he's the very same mythical creature." "my little boy talks about him," wayne explained. "yes, he's the same one. i've seen him talking to your little boy and one of the soldiers. he's a queer genius." "in what way is he a queer genius?" asked katie. "why--i don't know. he's always got a way of looking at a thing that you hadn't seen yourself." he looked up with a little smile from the tool he was trying to adjust. "i'd like to have you tell him you were worrying about socialism hurting spiritual aspirations." "would he annihilate me?" "no, he wouldn't want to annihilate you, if he thought you were trying to find out about things. he'd guide you." "oh--so he's a guide, is he? is he a spiritual or an economic guide?" she laughed. "i think he might combine them," he replied, laughing too. "he must be remarkable," said kate. "he is remarkable, miss jones," gravely replied the admirer of the man who mended the boats. "i wish you could have heard him talking to a crowd of men last sunday." "dear me--is he a public speaker?" "yes--in a way. and he writes things." katie wanted to ask what things, but they were cut short by the entrance of captain prescott. it was curious how his entrance did cut them short. she smiled to herself, wondering what he would have thought of the conversation. he followed her to the door and inquired for miss forrest. his manner was constrained, but his eyes were begging for an explanation. he looked unhappy, and katie hurried away from him. it seemed she could not bear to have any more unhappiness come pressing against her, even the unhappiness she was confident would pass away. in her mood of that day it seemed to katie that the affairs of the world were too involved for any one to have a solution for them. life surged in too fiercely--too uncontrollably--to be contained within a formula. as she continued her walk, winding in and out of the wooded paths, awe spread its great wings about her at thought of the complexity and the fathomlessness of the relationships of life. she had but a little peep into them, but that peep held the suggestion of limitlessness. because a lonely girl in a barren little town in indiana had dreamed dreams which life would not deliver to her, life now was beating in upon katie jones. because ann had been foiled in her quest for happiness, sobering shadows were falling across the sunny path along which katie had tripped. did life thwarted in one place take it out in another? because ann could not find joy was it to be that katie could not have peace? had ann's yearning for love been the breath blowing to flame katie's yearning for understanding? because ann could not dream her way to realities did it mean that katie must fight her way to them? they were such big things--such resistless things--these wild new things which were sweeping in upon her. with the emotion of the world surging in and out like that how could any one claim to have a solution for the whole question of living? she seemed passing into a country too big and too dark for her of the sunny paths. she needed a guide. she grew lonely at thought of how badly she needed her guide. she turned for comfort to thought of the things she would do for ann. she would pay it back in revealing to ann the beauty of the world. she would assume the responsibility of the something somewhere. perhaps in fulfilling a dream she would find a key to reality. she found pleasure in the vision of ann in the old world cathedrals. how wisely they had builded--builders of those old cathedrals--in expressing religion through beauty. at peace in the beauty of form, might ann not find an inner beauty? she believed ann's nature to be an intensely religious one. how might ann's soul not flower when she at last saw god as a god of beauty? thus she soothed herself in building a future for ann. sought to appease those surgings of life with promise that ann should at last find the loveliness of life. but in the end it led to a terrifying vision. a vision of thousands upon thousands of other dreamers of dreams whose soul stuff might be slowly ebbing away in long dreary days of putting suspenders in boxes. of thousands of other girls who might be growing faint in operating the wires for life. oh, she had power to fill ann's life--but would that have power to still for her the mocking whispers from the dreams which had died slow deaths in all the other barren lives? even though she took ann from the crowd to a far green hill of happiness, would not katie herself see from that far green hill all the other girls "called" to life, going forth as pilgrims with the lovely love-longing in their hearts only to find life waiting to seize them for the work of the woman who wore the white furs? a sob shook katie. the woe of the world seemed surging just beneath her--rising so high that it threatened to suck her in. but because she was a fighter she mastered the sob and vowed that rather than be sucked in to the woe of the world she would find out about the world. certainly she would sit apart no longer. she would study. she would see. she would live. life had become a sterner and a bigger thing. she would meet it in a sterner and bigger way. to understand! that was the greatest thing in life. that passion to understand grew big within her. how could she hope to go laughing through a world which sobbed? how turn from life when she saw life suffering? why she could not even turn from a little bird which she saw suffering! there was a noble wistfulness in her longing to talk again with the man who mended the boats. chapter xxiii in temporary relaxation from the stress of that mood she was glad to see her friend major darrett. he did not suggest the woe of the world. because the big new things had become--for the moment, at least--too much for her, there was rest in the shelter of the small familiar things. so much of the unknown had been beating against her that she was glad for a little laughing respite in the known. he stood for a world she knew how to deal with. in that he seemed to offer shelter; not that he would be able to do it for long. he always roused a particular imp in katie which wanted to be flirtatious. she found now, with a certain relief, that the grave things of life had not exterminated that imp. she would scarcely have felt acquainted with herself had it perished. and because she was so pleased to find it alive she let it grow very live indeed. ann and worth had been gone for five days. ann had seemed to like the idea of going. she said she would be glad to be alone for a time and "rest up," as she vaguely put it. katie told her that when she came back they would make some plans; and she told her she was not to worry about things; that everything was going to be all right. ann received it with childlike trust. she seemed to think that it was all in katie's hands, to accept with a child's literalness that katie would not let the old things come back, that she would "shut the door in their face." other things were in katie's hands that day: preparations for a big dinner they were giving that night. it was for some cavalry people who were stopping there. and in addition to the cavalry officers and their wives there was a staff officer from washington who was valuable to wayne just then. katie was anxious that the dinner be a success. she was glad major darrett was there. he went a long way toward assuring its success. and zelda fraser was with the party. katie had seen her for a moment that morning, and would see her again at night. she was stopping with caroline osborne, whom she had known at school. zelda did not suggest the woe of the world. neither did she suggest the dreams of the world. it was early in the afternoon and the major and katie were having a conference. he was acquainted with the palate of the visiting staff officer, and was assuring katie that she was on the way to his good graces. they had gone into the library, where katie was arranging flowers. he offered a suggestion there, too. he had an intuitive knowledge of such things, seemed to be guided by inner promptings as to which bowl should hold the lavender sweet peas and which the pink ones. though katie disputed his judgment, glad to be on ground where she could dispute with assurance. they argued it hotly, as if sweet peas were the most vital things in the world. it was good to be venting all one's feeling on things so tangible and knowable as sweet peas. her dinner safe in the hands of experts, katie made herself comfortable and told her friend the major that she wished now to be put in a brilliant mood. that a brilliant mood was the one thing the skilled laborers in possession of her house could not furnish. he gallantly defied any laborer in the world to be so skilled as to get katie out of a brilliant mood. she told him that was silly, that she had grown very stupid. he challenged her to prove it. katie felt very much at home with him; not merely at home with him the individual, but comfortably at home with the things he represented. it gave her a nice homelike feeling to be flirting with him. and flirting with him herself, she grew interested in all those others who had flirted with him--she knew they were legion. she seemed to see them off there in the background--a lovely group of spoiled darlings. she did not suppose many of them were much the worse for having flirted with major darrett. suddenly she laughed and told him she regarded him as one of the great educators of the age. he wanted to know in what way he was a great educator. katie would not tell him. there ensued a gay discussion from which she emerged feeling as if she had had a cocktail. and looking that way; looking, at least so he seemed to think, from the manner in which he leaned forward regarding her--most attractive, her cheeks so pink, her eyes dancing a little dance of defiance at him, and on her lips a mocking little smile, more sophisticated than any smile he had ever seen before on katie's lips. "katie of the laughing eyes"--he had once called her. she was leaning back lazily, a suggestion of insolence in her assurance. as she leaned back that way he marked the lines of her figure as he had never marked them before. he had previously thought of katie as a good build for golf. now that did not seem to express the whole of it--and katie seemed to know it would not express the whole of it. and in summarizing katie as having a good build for golf he had not properly appraised katie's foot. it was thrust out now from her very short skirt as if katie were quite willing he should know it for a lovely foot. and her arm, which was hanging down from the side of the chair, seemed conscious of being something more than a good arm for golf. she looked so like a child, and yet so lurkingly like a woman. it gave him a new sense of katie. it blew the warm breath of life over an idea he had had when he came there. he had just come from zelda fraser, having had luncheon at the osbornes'. he had once thought zelda stimulating. now she did not seem at all stimulating in comparison with katie. she was too obvious. that lurking something in katie's eyes, that mysterious smile she had, made katie seem subtle. if this were to be added to all her other charms-- katie had always seemed delightfully daring in an innocent sort of way. it seemed now she might be capable of being subtle in a sophisticated way. he had always thought of katie as romping. a distinguished and quite individual form of romping. she even had a romping imagination. he loved her for her merriness, for her open sunniness. that had been an impersonal love, not very different from the way he might have loved a sister. in fact he had more than once wished katie were his little sister instead of wayne's. he did not wish that now. she became too fascinating and too desirable in her mysterious new complexity. there was zest in discovering katie after he had known her so long. and her eyes and her smile seemed jeering at him for having been such a long while in discovering her. he wanted to kiss her. that mocking little smile seemed daring him to kiss her. and yet he did not dare to. it seemed part of katie's lovely new complexity that she could invite and forbid at one and the same time. now zelda could not have done more than the inviting--and so many could invite. he rose and stood near her. "katie, you don't mean to marry prescott, do you?" she clapped her hands above her head and laughed like a child immensely tickled about something. he laughed, too, and then asked to be informed what he was laughing at. "oh, you're just laughing because i am," laughed katie. "then may i ask, mysterious one, what you're laughing at?" "oh i'm laughing at a tumble i once took. 'twas such a tumble." "i'd like to tumble to the tumble." "you would like it. you'd love it." "i hadn't thought," said the major, "that when i asked if you meant to marry prescott i was classifying with the great humorists of all time." "and i hadn't thought," she returned, "that when i thought prescott meant to marry me i was classifying with the great tumblers of all time!" suddenly she stopped laughing. "no, i don't mean to marry harry, and i can further state with authority that harry doesn't mean to marry me." the laughter went from even her eyes--thinking, perhaps, of whom harry did mean to marry. but she was not going to let herself become grave. if she grew quiet she would know again about the woe of the world--surging right underneath. the only way not to know it was underneath was to keep merrily dancing away in one's place on top of it. she made a curious little gesture of flicking something from her hand and whistled a romping little tune. he stood there surveying her. "it wouldn't do at all for you to marry prescott, katie. he's a likeable enough fellow, but with it all something of a duffer." "just what kind of man," asked katie demurely, "would you say i had better marry?" he sat down in a chair nearer her. "just what kind of man would you like to marry?" "how do you know," she asked, still demurely, "that i would like to marry any?" "oh you must have a guide, katie. you must be guided through this wicked world." she bit her lip and turned away when he told her she must have a guide. but she turned back, and seriously. "is it a wicked world?" with that he ventured to pat the hand now lying on the arm of the chair so near him. "well you'll never know it, if it is. we'll keep it all from you, katie. you're safe." katie pulled her hand away petulantly. "if there's anything i don't want to be," she said, "it's safe." that seemed to amuse him. "i only meant," he laughed, "safe from the great outer world." "tell me," said katie, "what's in the great outer world?" he sat there smiling at her as one would smile at a dear inquisitive child. "have you made many excursions into the great outer world?" she asked boldly. "oh yes," he replied lightly, "i've been something of an explorer. all men, you know, katie, are born explorers. though for the most part i must say i find our own little world the more attractive." then he surprised her. "katie, would you think a man a brute to propose to a girl on the day she was giving an important dinner?" but right there she pulled herself in. "no more tumbles!" thought katie. "it would seem rather inconsiderate, wouldn't it? such a man wouldn't seem to have a true sense of values." "well, dinner or no dinner, the man i have in mind has a true sense of values. he has a true sense of values because he knows katherine wayneworth jones for the most desirable thing in all the world." it did surprise her, and the surprise grew. none of them had thought of major darrett as what they called a marrying man. and on the heels of the surprise came a certain sense of triumph. katie knew that any of the girls in what he called their little world would be looking upon it as a moment of triumph, and there was triumph in gaining what others would regard as triumph. "how old are you, katie?" he asked. she told him. "twenty-five. and i'm forty-one. is that prohibitive?" she looked at him, thinking how lightly the years had touched him--how lightly, in all probability, they would touch him. he had distinctly the military bearing. he would have that same bearing at sixty. and that same charm. he was one to whom experience gave the gift of charm more insidiously than youth could give it. life would be more possible with him than with any man she knew within the enclosure. if one were to go dancing and smiling and flirting through the world major darrett would be the best possible man to go with. as she looked at him, smiling at her half tenderly and half humorously, life with major darrett presented itself as such an attractive thing that there was almost pain in the thought of not being able to take it. for deep within her she never questioned not being able to take it. but for the moment-- "you see, katie," he was saying, "i would be the best possible one for you to be married to, because you could go right on having flirtations. of course i needn't tell you, katie dear, that you're a flirt. the trouble with your marrying most fellows would be that they wouldn't like it." "and of course," she replied, "i would be a good one for you to marry because having my own flirtations i wouldn't be in a position to be critical about yours." he laughed quite frankly. katie leaned back and sat there smiling at him, that new baffling smile he found so alluring. "but do you know, katie, i think, for a long time, anyway, we could keep busy flirting with each other." "and we would keep all the busier," she said, "knowing that the minute we stopped flirting with each other one of us would get busy flirting with somebody else." he laughed delightedly. "katie, where did you learn it was very fetching to say outrageous things so demurely?" "tell me," said katie, more seriously, "why do you want to marry?" "until about an hour ago i wanted to marry--oh for the most bromidic of reasons. just because, in the natural course of events, it seemed the next thing for me to do. i'll even be quite frank and confess i had thought of you in that bromidic version of it. had thought of it as 'eminently suitable'--also, eminently desirable. we'd like to do the same things. we'd get on--be good fellows together. but now i want to marry--and i want to marry _you_--because i think you're quite the most fascinating thing in all the world!" lightly and yet seriously he spoke of things--of his own prospects. she knew how good they were. of where and how they would probably live;--a pleasant picture it was he could draw. it would mean life along the sunny paths. and very sunny indeed it seemed they would be--if possible at all. certainly one would never have to explain any of one's jokes to major darrett. for just a moment she let herself drift into it. and knowing she was drifting, and not knowing it was for just the moment, he rose and bent over her chair. "katie," he whispered, and there was passion in his voice, "i think i can make you fall in love with me." the little imp in katie took possession. and something deeper than the little imp stirred vaguely at sound of that thing in his voice. she raised her face so that it was turned up to him. "you think you could? now i wonder." "oh you wonder, do you--you exasperating little wretch! well just give me a chance--" but suddenly he was standing at attention, his face colorless. katie jumped up guiltily, and there leaning against the door--all huddled down and terrible looking--was ann. "why, katie," she whispered thickly--"_katie_! but you told me--you _promised_ me--that you would _shut the door in his face_." chapter xxiv it took her a number of seconds to get the fact that they must know each other. and even then she could get no grip on the situation. she was too shaken by having jumped--as though she were some vulgar housemaid! and why was ann looking like that! she looked dreadful--huddled up that way as if some one was going to beat her! "why you can't know each other," said katie wildly. "how could you know each other? where would you know each other? and if you _do_ know each other,"--turning upon him furiously--"need we all act like thieves?" he tried to speak, but seemed unable to. he had lost command of himself, save in so far as standing very straight was concerned. she wished ann would stand up! it gave her such an awful sense of shame to see ann huddled like that. "katie," ann whispered, "you told me--" "i never told you i'd shut the door in major darrett's face!" said katie harshly. "and what are you talking about? what does this all mean?" he had recovered himself. "why it merely means, katie, that we--as you surmised--at one time--knew each other. the--the acquaintance terminated--not pleasantly. that's all. a slight surprise for the moment. no harm done." then ann did stand straight. "it means," she said shrilly, "that if i had never known him"--pointing at him--"you would never have found me there." she pointed down toward the river. "oh no, no harm done, of course--no harm done--" "please let us try and keep very quiet," said katie coldly. "it is--it is vulgar enough at best. let us be as quiet--as decent as we can." ann crouched down again as though struck. then katie laughed, bitterly. "why really, it's quite as good as a play, isn't it? it's quite a scene, i'm sure." "it needn't be," said he soothingly, and relaxing a little. "i own i was startled for the moment, and--discomfited. but you were quite right--we'll go into no hysterics. what i can't understand"--looking from one to the other--"is what she's doing _here_." katie's head went up. "she's here, i'll have you know, as my friend. just as you're here as my friend." she thought ann was going to fall, and her heart softened a little. "suppose you go up to my room, ann. lie down. just--just lie down. keep quiet. why did you come home? is something wrong?" ann whispered that worth had a sore throat. she had a chance to come down in an automobile. she thought she had better. she was sorry she had. "all right," said katie. "it's all right. just go lie down. i'll look after worth--and you--in a minute." ann left the room and katie turned to the major. "well?" "you're so sensible, katie," he said hurriedly, "in feeling the thing to do is make no fuss about things. nothing is to be gained--but for god's sake, katie, what is she doing here? where did _you_ know her?" "oh you tell first," said katie, smiling a hard smile. "you tell where you found her, then i'll tell where i found her." "really--really," he said stiffly, "i must refuse to discuss such a matter with _you_. i can only repeat--she has no business here." "then pray why have you any business here?" he flushed angrily. but restrained himself and said persuasively: "why, katie, she's not one of us." "she's one of _me_," said katie. "she's my friend." "i can only say again," he said shortly, "that she has no business to be." "as i am to be kept so safe from the wicked world," said katie stingingly, "i presume it is not proper you discuss the matter with me. i take it, however, that she was one of those 'excursions' into the great outer world?" "well," he said defiantly, "and what if she was? she was willing to be, i guess. she wasn't knocked down with a club." "oh, no! oh, my no! that wouldn't be your method. and when one is tired of exursions--i suppose one is at perfect liberty to abandon them--?" "nonsense! you can't trump up anything of that sort. she wasn't 'abandoned.' she left in the night." he colored. "i beg your pardon. but as long as we're speaking frankly--" "oh pray," said katie, "let's not be overly delicate in this delicate little matter!" "very well then. her coming was her own choice. her going away was her own choice. i can see that i have no great responsibility in the matter." "why how clever you must be," said katie, all the while smiling that hard smile, "to be able to argue it like that." he was standing there with folded arms. "i think i was very decent to her. all things considered--in view of the nature of the affair--i consider that i was very decent." katie laughed. "maybe you were. i found her in the very act of committing suicide." he paled, but quickly recovered himself. "that was not my affair. there must have been--something afterward." "maybe. i'm sure i don't know. but you were the beginning, weren't you?" suddenly she buried her face in her hands. "oh i didn't think--i didn't think it could get in here! it's everywhere! it's everywhere! it's _getting_ me!" "katie--dear katie," he murmured, "don't. we'll get you out of this. you wanted to be kind. it was just a mistake of yours. we'll fix it up. don't cry." and he put an arm about her. she stood before him with clenched hands, eyes blazing. "don't touch me! don't you touch me!" and she left him. in the hall nora stopped her to say there were not enough champagne glasses. she made no reply. champagne glasses--! she looked after worth. then she went to ann. "well, ann," she began, her voice high pitched and unsteady, "this is about the limit, isn't it?" "oh katie," moaned ann, "you told me--you told me--you understood. why, katie--you must have known there was some one." "oh i knew there was some one, all right," said katie, her voice getting higher and higher, her cheeks more and more red--"only i just hadn't figured, you see, on its being some one i knew! why how under the sun," she asked, laughing wildly, "did you ever meet major darrett?" "i--i'll try to tell you," faltered ann miserably. "i want to. i want to make you understand. katie!--i'll die if you don't understand!" she looked so utterly wretched that katie made heroic effort to get herself under control--curb that fearful desire to laugh. "i will try," she said quietly as she could. "i _will_ try." "why, katie," ann began, "does it make so much difference--just because you know him?" "it makes all the difference! can't you see--why it makes it so vulgar." ann threw back her head. "just the same--it wasn't vulgar. what i felt wasn't vulgar. why, katie," she cried appealingly, "it was my something somewhere! you didn't think that vulgar!" "oh no," laughed katie, "not before i knew it was major darrett! but tell me--i've got to know now. what is it? where did you meet him? just how bad is it, anyhow?" it must have been desperation led ann to spare neither katie nor herself. "i met him," she said baldly, "one night as i was standing on the corner waiting for a car. he had an automobile. he asked me to get in it--and i did. and that--began it." katie stepped back from her in horror, the outrage she felt stamped all too plainly on her face. "and you call _that_ not vulgar? why it was _common_. it was _low_." then ann turned. "was it? oh i don't know that you need talk. i wouldn't say much--if i were you. i guess i saw the look on his face when i came in. don't think for a minute i don't know that look. _you got it there_. and let me tell you another thing. just let me tell you another thing! whatever i did--whatever i did--i know i never had the look you did when i came in! i never had that look of fooling with things!" katie was white--powerless--with rage. "_you_ dare speak to _me_ like that!" she choked. "you--!" and all control gone she rushed blindly from the room. chapter xxv she had no idea how long she had been walking. she was conscious of being glad that there was so big a place for walking, that walking was not a preposterous thing to be doing. she passed several groups of soldiers. they were reassuring; they looked so much in the natural order of things and gave no sign of her being out of that order. though she knew she was out of it. it was dizzying--that feeling of having lost herself. she had never known it before. after she had walked very fast for what seemed a long time she seemed able to gather at least part of her forces back under control. that blinding sense of everything being scattered, of her being powerless, was passing. and the first thing sanity brought was the suggestion that ann, too, might be like that. once before ann had been "scattered" that way--oh she understood it now as she had not been able to do then. and perhaps ann would have less power to gather herself back-- she grew frightened. she turned toward home, walking fast as she could--worried to find herself so far away. major darrett stepped out from the library to speak to her, but she hurried past him up the stairs. ann was not in the room where she had left her. she looked through the other rooms. she called to her. then it must be--she told herself--all the while fear growing larger in her heart--that ann, too, had gone out for a walk. "worth," she asked, grotesquely overdoing unconcern, "where's miss ann? has she gone for a walk?" "why, aunt kate, she was called away." "called _away_?" whispered katie. "called where?" "she said she was called away. she's gone." "but she's coming back? when did she say, dear," she pleaded, "that she would be back?" "i don't know, aunt kate. she felt awful bad because she had to go. she came and kissed me--she kissed me and kissed me--and said she hated to leave me--but that she had to go. she kept saying she had to." in the hall was nora. "nora," asked katie, standing with her back to her, "what is it about miss forrest?" "she was called away, miss kate. a telegram. i didn't see no boy--" "they must have 'phoned it," said katie sharply. "yes'm. i didn't hear the 'phone. but i was busy. i'm so upset, miss kate, about them champagne glasses. we've telephoned over the river--" "never mind the champagne glasses! what about miss forrest? how did she go? when did she go?" "she went in mr. osborne's automobile. miss osborne sent you some beautiful flowers, miss kate. oh they're just lovely!" "oh, i don't care anything about flowers! you say ann went in the machine?" "yes'm. she told the chauffeur--he brought the flowers--that big colored man, you know, miss kate--that she was called away, and would he take her to the station. and he said sure he would--and so they went. but, miss kate--it's most five o'clock--what will we do about those two champagne glasses!" "merciful heavens, nora! stop talking about them! i don't care what you do about them!" she went down to the library. "look here," she said to the major, "what is this? what have you done? where's ann gone?" "i don't know a thing about it. i went over to the office--an appointment--and when i came back--hurried back because i was worried about you--i saw her going away in the osborne car." "and never tried to stop her?" "see here, katie. why should i stop her? best thing you can do is let her go." "do you know--do you know," choked katie--"that she may kill herself?" he laughed. "oh i guess not. calm down, katie. she had her wits about her, all right. i heard her tell the man to drive her to the station. she had sense enough to take advantage of the car, you see. i guess she knows the ropes. don't think she has much notion of killing herself." "oh you don't. much you know about it! you with your fine noble understanding of life!" she turned away, sobbing. "what shall i do? what _shall_ i do?" but in a moment she stopped. "the thing for me to do," she said, "is telephone the osbornes' chauffeur." which she did. yes, he had taken the young lady to the station. he didn't know where she was going. he just pulled in to the station and then pulled right out again--she told him there was nothing more to do. he didn't believe she bought a ticket. he saw her walking out to get a train. no, he didn't know what train. there were two or three trains standing there. "what can i do?" katie kept murmuring frantically. suddenly her face lighted. she sat there thinking for a moment, then called her brother's office. wayne, she was glad to find, was not there. she asked if she might speak to mr. ferguson. "mr. ferguson," she said, "this is--this is captain jones' sister. i want for a very particular--a very imperative reason--to speak at once to the--to your friend--that man--why the man that mends the boats, you know. could you get word for him to come here--here, to my house--right away? tell him it's very--oh _very_ important. tell him miss jones says she--needs him." ferguson said it was just quitting time. he'd go up there on his wheel. he thought he could find him. he would send him right down. she admired the way he controlled what must have been his astonishment. the man who mended the boats would come. he would know what to do. he would help her. she would keep as calm as she could until he got there. but surely--surely--ann wouldn't go away and leave her without a word! ann couldn't be so cruel as to let her worry like that. why of course--ann had left a note for her. so she looked for the note--tossed everything in the room topsy-turvey. even looked in the closet. again she heard nora in the hall. "nora," she said, and katie's face was white and pleading, "didn't miss ann say anything about leaving me a note?" "why yes, miss kate--yes--sure she did. i was so upset about them champagne glasses--" "well, where is it? oh, hurry, nora. tell me." "why it's in the desk, miss kate. she said you was to look in the desk." she ran to it with a sob. "nora, how could you let me--" nora was saying again that she was so worried about the champagne glasses-- the desk, of course, would be the last place one would think of looking for a note! she found, and with trembling fingers smoothed out the note; it had been crumpled rather than folded. it was brief, and so written she could scarcely read it. "you see, katie, you _can't_--you simply _can't_. so i'm going. when you come back, you won't want me to. that's why i've got to go now. i'd tell you--only i don't know. i'll get a train--just any train. i can't write. because for one thing i haven't time--and for another if i began to say things i'd begin to cry--and then i wouldn't go. i've got to keep just this feeling--the one i told you about its _having_ to be-- "katie, you're not like the rest of your world, but it is your world--and see what you get when you try to be any different from it! "oh katie--i didn't think i'd be leaving like _this_. i didn't think i'd ever say to you--" there it ended. "miss kate," nora said, "major darrett wants to know if he may speak to you in the library." she went down mechanically. "now, katie," he began quietly and authoritatively, "there are several orders you must give, several things you must attend to, in relation to your dinner. things seem a little disorganized, and it's getting late, and it won't do, you know, to get these people upset. now nora tells me that through some complication or other you're two champagne glasses short." katie was staring at him. "and is _that_ all that matters? two champagne glasses short! and here a life--why what kind of people are we?" "katie," he said, his voice well controlled, "we're just that kind of people. no matter what's at stake--no matter what we're thinking about things--or about each other--the thing we've got to do now--you know it--and you're going to do it--is go ahead with this affair." "i'm not going to have it! why what do you think i'm made of? i won't. telephone them. call it off. i tell you i can't." "katie, you think you can't, and yet you know you will. i know exactly what you're made of. i know what your father was made of. i know what your mother was made of. i know that no matter what it costs _you_--you'll go on as if nothing had occurred. now will you telephone prescott, or shall i? ask him about the glasses. and if he can't do anything for you you'll have to call up zelda at miss osborne's and tell the girls they can't come unless they each bring a glass. i'll do it if you want me to. they'll think it a great lark, you know, having to bring their own glasses or getting no champagne." "yes," whispered katie, "they'll think it a great lark. for that matter--everything's a great lark." she sank to a chair. her tears were falling as she said again that everything was a great lark. he paid no attention to her but went to the telephone. but the tears were interrupted. "miss kate," said nora, "can you come and look at the table a minute? they want to know--" she dried her eyes as best she could and went and looked at the table. she kept on looking at things--doing things--until she heard the bell. "if that's some one for me, nora," she said, "show him in here, and don't interrupt me while he's here." she passed into a small room they used as a den. he came to her there. and when she saw that it was indeed he she broke down. "something is the matter?" he asked gently. "you wanted me? you sent for me?" she raised her head. "yes. i sent for you. i need you." it was evident she needed some one. he would scarcely have known her for katie--so white, so shaken. "i'm glad you sent for me," he said simply. "now won't you tell me what i can do?" "she's gone," whispered katie. "where?" "i don't know--i don't know where. away. on a train. some train. any train. somewhere. i don't know where. i thought--oh you'll find her for me--won't you? you _will_ find her--won't you?" she had stretched out her hands, and he took them, holding them strongly in both of his. "don't you want to tell me what you know? i can't help you unless you tell me." briefly she told him--wrenched the heart out of it in a few words. "you see, i failed," she concluded, looking up at him with swimming eyes. "the very first thing--the very first test--i failed. i wanted to do so much--thought i understood so well--oh i was so proud of the way i understood! and then just the minute it came up against _my_ life--" her head went down to her hands, and because he was holding them it was upon his hands rather than hers it rested, katie's head with its gold brown hair all disorderly. "don't," he whispered, as she seemed breaking her heart with it. "why don't you know all the world's like that? don't you know we all can be fine and free until it comes up against _our_ lives?" "i was so _hard_!" she sobbed. "yes--i know. we are hard--when it's our lives are touched. don't cry, katie." he spoke her name timidly and lingeringly. "isn't that what life is? just one long thing of trying and failing? but going on trying again! that's what you'll do." "if you can find her for me! but i never can hold up my head again--never believe in myself--never do anything--why i never can laugh again--not really laugh--if you don't find her for me." a curious look passed over his face with those last words. "well if that's the case," he said, with a strange little laugh of his own, "i've got to find her." they talked of things. he would go to the station. he would do what he could. if he thought anything to be gained by it he would go on to chicago. he had to go in a few days anyhow, he explained, to see about some work, and if it didn't seem a mere wild goose chase he would go that night. the change in katie, the life which came back to her eyes, rewarded him. "i'd go with you to the station," she said, "only we're giving a big dinner to-night." she thought his face darkened. "oh yes, i know. but that's the kind of person i am. we go on with the dinner--no matter what's happening. it's--our way." he seemed to be considering it as a curious phenomenon. "yes, i know it is. and you can't help that either, can you? so you're going to be very festive in this house to-night?" "oh _very_ festive in this house to-night. some army people are here from washington. we're going to have a gorgeous dinner, and i'm going to wear a gorgeous gown and drink champagne and try and smile myself into the good graces of a man who can do things for my brother and be--oh _so_ clever and festive." he looked at her as if by different route he had come again to that thing of pitying her; only along this other route the quality of the pity had changed and there was in it now a tender sadness. "it's not so simple a matter for you, is it--this 'being free'? you're of the bound, too, aren't you? and you've become conscious of your chains. there's all the hope and all the tragedy of it in that." he took an impulsive step toward her and smiled at her appealingly, a little mistily, as he said: "only please don't tell me you're not going to laugh any more." chapter xxvi as a matter of fact katie did laugh a great deal that night. at least it passed for laughter, and the man who was worth cultivating for wayne seemed to find it most attractive. it was evident to them all that katie was getting on famously with him. it was well that she was, for wayne himself seemed making little headway. before dinner katie had told him briefly that ann had come down with worth (whose sore throat didn't seem serious, after all) and then had been called away. she said she couldn't talk about it then; she would tell him later. but though they had a quiet host they had a vivid and a brilliant hostess. those who knew katie best, mrs. prescott in particular, kept watching her in wonderment. she had never known katie to vie with zelda fraser in saying those daring things. katie, though so merry, had seemed a different type. but to-night katie and zelda and major darrett kept things very lively. katie was telling her distinguished guest the tale of the champagne glasses. "just fancy," she said, "here was i, giving a dinner for you--and it looked as if somebody would have to turn teetotaler or drink out of the bottle! after i finally got it straightened out i told zelda she must keep her hand as much as possible on the stem of her glass so it would not be noted she was drinking from gothic architecture and the rest of us from classic." "and you may have observed," blithely observed zelda, "that keeping my hand on the stem of my glass is an order i am not loathe to obey--be it any old architecture." they laughed. zelda was the daughter of a general, and could say very much what she pleased and be laughed at as amusing. it came to katie in what large measure they all could do very much as they pleased. it was a game they played, and great liberty was accorded them in that game so long as they took their liberty in accordance with the prescribed rules of that game. but they guarded their own privileges with an intolerance for all those outside their game who would take privileges of their own. that--labeled a respect for good form--was in reality their method of self-defense. she looked at zelda fraser--zelda with her bold black eyes, her red cheeks which she made still redder--and her _hair_--as long as people were "wearing" hair zelda wore a little more than any one else. nothing about her suggested anything so redeeming as a quest for something somewhere. no veiled splendor of a dream hovered tenderly over zelda. watching her as she bantered with major barrett it grew upon katie as one of the grotesque things of the world that zelda should be within and ann without. major barrett had remained. it was ann who had gone. yet it was ann had dreamed the dream. he who had made the "excursion" despoiling the dream. it was ann had been "called." he who had preyed upon--cheated--that call. yet she had not sent him away. she was too much in the game for that. she had not seemed to have the power. certainly she had not had the wit nor the courage. he had remained and taken command. she had done as he told her. he was smiling approvingly upon her now, manifestly proud of the way katie was playing the game. seeing it as a thing to win his approval she could with difficulty continue it. she was thankful that the dinner itself had drawn to a close. later, on the porch, caroline osborne asked for ann. zelda and major darrett and harry prescott were in the group at the time. "you mean she is not coming back?" she pursued in response to katie's statement that ann had been called away. "i don't know," said katie. "i'm afraid not." "who is she, katie?" zelda asked. "no one you know." zelda turned to prescott. "you know her?" "yes," he said. his voice told katie how hard he was finding it just then to play the game. "like her?" "yes," he replied. zelda threw back her head in an impertinent way of hers that was called engaging. "love her?" he stepped nearer katie, as if for protection. his smile was a dead smile. "really, zelda," said katie, in laughing protest. "i just wondered," said zelda, "if she was going to marry into the army." katie saw major darrett's smile. "if she did," she said, "the army would gain something that might do it good." major darrett was staring at her speechlessly. harry gratefully. "you're very fond of her?" said caroline osborne in her sweet-toned way. "very," said kate in way less sweet. "too bad we missed her," said zelda, "especially if she would do us good. now cal here's going in for doing good, too. only she's not trying to do it to the army. she's doing it to the working people." "get the distinction," laughed the major. "i must get hold of some stunt like that," said zelda. "the world's getting stuntier and stuntier." she turned to major darrett. "whom do you think i could do good to?" "me," he said, and they strolled laughingly away together. a few minutes later katie found herself alone with captain prescott. "katie," he asked pleadingly, "where has ann gone?" "she's been called away, harry. she's--gone away." "but won't she be back?" katie turned away. "i don't know. i'm afraid not." "katie," he besought, "won't you help me? won't you tell me where i can find her? i know--something's the matter. i know--something's strange. but i want to see her! i want to find her!" "i want to see her!--i want to find her!"--it invaded the chamber in katie's heart she would keep inexorably shut. she dared not speak. but he was waiting, and she was forced to speak. "harry, i'm afraid you'll have to forget ann," she said unsteadily. "i'm afraid you'll have to--" because she could not go on, sure if she did she would not be able to go on with the evening, she laughed. "i'll tell you what you do," she said briskly. "marry caroline osborne. she's going to have heaps of money and will go in for philanthropy. 'twill be quite stunty. don't you see, even zelda thinks it stunty?" he stepped back. "i had thought, katie,"--and his voice pierced her armor--"that you were kind." she dared not let in anything so human as a hurt. "well that's where you're wrong. i'm not kind," she said harshly. "so i see," he answered unsteadily. but of a sudden the fact that he had been drawn to ann drew her irresistibly to him. he had been part of all those wonderful days--days of dream and play, or waking and wondering. she remembered that other night they had stood on the porch speaking of ann--the very night she had become ann. that fact that he had accepted her as ann--cared for her--made it impossible to harden her heart against him. "oh harry," she said, voice shaking, "i'm sorry. so sorry. it's my fault--and i'm sorry. i didn't want you to be hurt. i didn't want--anybody to be hurt." some one called to him and he had to turn away. she stepped into the shadow and had a moment to herself. what did it _mean_--she wondered. that one was indeed bound hand and foot and brain and heart and spirit? what had she done save prove that she could do nothing? ann had been driven away. and in her house now were zelda fraser and caroline osborne and major darrett and all those others who were not dreamers of dreams. and the dream betrayed--she felt one with _them_. for she had turned the dream out of doors with ann: the wonderful dream which sheltered the heart of reality, dream through which waking had come, from which all the long dim paths of wondering had opened--dream through which self had called. and what was there left? a house of hollow laughter was left--of pretense--"stunts"--of prescribed rules and intolerance with all breakers of rules even though the breakers of rules were dreamers of dreams. with a barely repressed sob she remembered what ann had said in her story of her dog. "i could have stood my own lonesomeness. but what i couldn't stand was thinking about him.... i couldn't keep from thinking things that tortured me." it was that gnawed at the heart of it.... how go to bed that night without knowing that ann had a bed? she had loved ann because ann needed her, been tender to her because ann was her charge. she yearned for her now in fearing for her. more sickening than the pain of having failed was the pain of wondering where ann would get her breakfast. tears which she had been able to hold back even under the shame of her infidelity came uncontrollably with the simple thought that she might never do ann's hair for her again. it seemed to katie then that the one thing she could not do was go back to her guests. a boy was coming on a bicycle. he had a letter for katie. she excused herself and went to the little room to read it--the same little room where they had been that afternoon. it was but a hurried note. he had found nothing at the station except that the chicago train was probably there at the time. doubtless she had taken it. he had taken a chance and wired the train asking her to wire katie immediately. that was all he could think of to do. he was taking the night train for chicago--not that he knew of anything to do there, but perhaps she would like to feel there was some one there. he would have to go soon anyhow--might as well be that night. he would be there three or four days. he told katie where to address him. he would do anything she asked. he advised her, for the time, to remain where she was. probably word would come to her there. she might be able to do more from there than elsewhere. it was not even certain ann had gone to chicago--by no means certain. and even if she had--how find her there if she did not wish to be found? at the last: "i suppose you're very gay at your dinner just now. that must be tough business--being gay. don't let it harden your heart--as gayety like that could so easily do. and remember--you're _going on!_ you're not a quitter. and it's only the quitters stop when they fall down." below, shyly off in one corner, written very lightly as if he scarcely dared write it, she found: "you don't know what a wonderful thing it is to me just to know that you are in the world." katie went back to her guests with less gayety but more poise. major darrett had remained for a good-night drink with wayne. he came out to katie as she was going up stairs. "i was proud of you, katie," he said. "i take no pride in your approval!" "you made a great hit, katie." "not with myself." "katie," he suddenly demanded, "what were you up to? i can't get the run of it. for heaven's sake, what did you mean?" "you wouldn't understand," she murmured wearily, for she was indeed so very weary then. "well, i'm afraid i wouldn't. i don't want to be harsh--when you've had such a hard day, but it looks to me as if you broke the rules." "what rules?" "our rules. you didn't play the game fair, katie--presenting her here. i never would have done that." "no," she said, "i know. you put what you call the rules of life so far above life itself." "and look here, katie, what's this about prescott? i'm not going to have him hurt. if he doesn't know the situation, and has any thought of marrying her--why i'm in honor bound to tell him." that fired her. "oh you are, are you? well if your honor moves you to that i'll have a few things to say about that same 'honor' of yours! to our distinguished guest of this evening, for instance," she laughed. he lost color, but quickly recovered himself. "oh come now, katie, you and i are not going to quarrel." "no, not if you can help it. that wouldn't be your way. but do you know what i think of the 'game' you play?" she had gone a little way up the stairs, and was standing looking back at him. her eyes were shining feverishly. "i think it's a game for cheats." he did go colorless at that. "that's not the sort of thing you can say to a man, katie," he said in shaking voice. "a game for cheats," she repeated. "the cheats who cheat with life--and then make rules around their cheating and boast about the 'honor' of keeping those rules. you'd scorn a man who cheated at cards. oh you're very virtuous--all of you--in your scorn of lesser cheats. what's cards compared with the divinest thing in life!" "i tell you, i played fair," he insisted, his voice still unsteady. "why to be sure you did--according to the rules laid down by the cheats!" wayne came upon her upstairs a little later, sobbing. and sobbingly she told the story--her face buried too much of the time for her to see her brother's face, too shaken by her own sobs to mark how strange was his breathing. wayne did not accuse her of not having played a fair game. he said almost nothing at all, save at the last, and that under his breath: "we'll move heaven and earth to get her back!" his one reproach was--"oh katie--you might have told _me_!" chapter xxvii but they did not get her back. july had passed, and august, and most of september, and they had not found ann. heaven and earth were not so easily moved. katie had tried, and the man who mended the boats had tried, and wayne, but to no avail. there had come the one letter from her--letter seeking to save "ann" for katie. it was a key to ann, but no key to her whereabouts save that it was postmarked chicago. those last three months had impressed katie with the tragic indefiniteness of the chicago postmark. she had spent the greater part of the summer there, at a quiet little hotel on the north side, where she was nominally one of a party of army women. that was the olive branch to her aunt elizabeth on the chaperone question. for her own part, she had seen too many unchaperoned girls in chicago that summer to care whether she was chaperoned or not. her army friends thought katie interested in some work which she did not care to talk about. they thought it interesting, though foolhardy to let it bring those lines. katie was not a beauty, they said among themselves, and could not afford lines. her charm had always been her freshness, her buoyancy and her blitheness. now if she lost that-- wayne had been there from time to time. it was but a few hours' ride from the arsenal, and his detail to his individual work gave him considerable liberty. he, too, had more "lines" in september than he had had in june. that they attributed to his "strenuousness" in his work, and thought it to be deplored. after all, the department might throw him down--who knew what it might not do?--and then what would have been the use? for a man who did not have to live on his pay, captain jones was looked upon as unnecessarily serious. but katie suspected that it was not alone devotion to military science had traced those lines. it surprised her a little that they should have come, but to katie herself it was so vital and so tragic a thing that it was not difficult to accept the fact of its marking any one who came close to it. after that night at the dance there had several times stirred a vague uneasiness, calling out the thought that it was a good thing wayne was, as she loosely thought it, immune. but even that uneasiness was lost now in sterner things. she had never gone into her reasons for looking upon her brother as "immune." it was an idea fixed in her mind by her association with his unhappiness with clara. knowing how much he had given, she thought of him as having given all. her sense of the depth of his hurt had unanalyzed associations with finality, associations intrenched by wayne's growing "queerness." it could not be said, however, that that queerness had stood in the way of his doing all he could. some of the best suggestions had come from him. and katie had reasons for suspecting he had done some searching of his own which he did not report to her. she knew that he was worried about her, though he understood too well to ask her to give up and turn back to her own life. her gratitude to wayne for that very understanding made her regret the more her inability to be frank with him about the man who mended the boats. she had had to tell him at first that he was helping, but wayne had seemed to think it so strange, had appeared so little pleased with the idea, that she had not seen it as possible to make a clean breast of it. she told him that she had talked with him about ann--that was because he had seen her, knew more about it than she did. and that she had talked with him again the day ann left, thinking he might have seen her. that wayne had not liked. "you should have sent for me," he said. "never take outsiders into your confidence in intimate matters like that." and what she had not found it possible to try to make clear to him was that the man who mended the boats seemed to her anything but an outsider. and if he had not seemed so in those days of early summer, he seemed infinitely less so now. she talked with him of things of which she could not talk with anyone else. in those talks it was all the rest of the people of the world who were the outsiders. he had been there several times during the summer. katie knew now that he did not mean to spend all his life mending boats. he was writing a play; it was things in relation to that brought him to chicago. katie wanted to know about the play, but when she asked he told her, rather shortly, that he did not believe she would like it. he qualified it with saying he did not know that anyone would like it. when he was there he went about with her as she looked for ann. every day she pursued her search, now in this way, now in that. that search brought her a vision of the city she would have had in no other way. it was that vision, revealed, interpreted, by her anxiety for ann brought the sleepless nights and the ceaseless imagery and imaginings which caused her army friends to wish that dear katie would marry before she, as they more feelingly than lucidly put it, lost out that way. she thought sometimes of ann's moving picture show, showing her the things of which she had dreamed. all this, things seen in her search, had become to katie as a moving picture show. it moved before her awake and asleep; "called" to her. she would stand outside the stores as the girls were coming out at night. stores, factories, all places where girls worked she watched that way. by the hundreds, thousands, she saw them filling the city's streets as through the long summer one hot day after another drew to a close. often she would crowd into the street cars they were crowding into, rush with them for the elevated trains, or follow them across the river and see them disappear into boarding-house and rooming-house, those hot, crowded places waiting to receive them after the hot, crowded day. sometimes she would go for lunch to the places she saw them going to--always searching, and as she searched, wondering, and as she wondered, sorrowing. she came to know of many things: of "dates"--vulgar enough affairs many of them appeared to be. but she no longer dismissed them with that. she always wondered now if the sordid-looking adventure might not be at heart the divine adventure. things which she would at one time have called "common" and turned from as such she brooded over now as sorry expression of a noble thing. and then she would go home to her friends at night and sometimes they would seem the moving-picture show--their pleasures and standards--the whole of their lives. and she sorrowed that where there was setting for loveliness the setting itself should so many times absorb it all, and that out on the city's streets that tender fluttering of life for life, divine yearning for joy that joy might give again to life, should find so many paths to that abyss where joy could be not and where the life of life must go. there were days which showed all too brutally that many were "called" and few were saved. thus had she passed the summer, and thus it happened that she did not have in september all the freshness and the gladness that had been her charm in may. though to the man waiting for her that afternoon she had another and a finer charm. life had taken something from her, but she had wrested something from life. "i could have had a job," she said, and smiled. but the smile was soon engulfed. "and there was a girl who needed it, she told me how she was 'up against it,' and through some caprice she didn't get it. needing it doesn't seem to make a bit of difference. if anything, it works the other way." she had read in the paper that morning that the chorus was to be "tried out" for a new musical comedy. thinking that ann, too, might have read that in the paper, she went. she had been seeing something of chorus girls as well as shop girls. she went to all the musical comedies and sat far front and kept her glasses on the chorus. more than once she had stood near stage doors as they were coming out. seeing them so, they were not a group of chorus girls; they were a number of individuals, any one of whom might be ann, more than one of whom might be fighting the things ann had fought, seeking the things ann had sought. it was that about the city that _got_ her. it was a city full of individuals, none of whom were to be dismissed as just this, or exactly that. she challenged all groupings, those groupings which seemed formed by the accidents of life and so often made for the tragedy of life. she was talking to him about chorus girls; announcing her discovery that they were just girls in the chorus. "i was once asked to define army people," she laughed, "and said that they were people who entered the army--either martially or maritally. now i find that chorus girls are girls who enter the chorus. even their vocabularies can't disguise them, and if that can't--what could? "though there are different kinds of chorus girls," she reflected. "some wanted to be somewhere else. some hope to be somewhere else. and some swaggeringly make it plain that they wouldn't be anywhere else if they could. i'd hate to have to say which kind is the most sad." "katie," he said--he never spoke her name save in that timid, lingering way--"don't you think you're rather over-emphasizing the sadness?" two girls passed them, laughing boisterously. "perhaps so. i suppose i am. and yet nothing seems to me sadder than some of the people who would be astonished at suggesting sadness." that afternoon they were going to the telephone office. katie had been there early in the summer, to the central office and all the exchanges, but wanted to go again. and mann said he would like to go with her and see what the thing looked like. the officials were cordial to them at the telephone office, seeming pleased to exhibit and explain. and it seemed that with their rest rooms and recreation rooms, their various things to contribute to comfort and pleasure, their pride was justified. but when they were in the immense room where several hundred girls were sitting before the boards, rest rooms and recreation rooms did not seem to _reach_. they walked behind a long row, their guide proudly calling attention to the fact that not one of those girls turned her head to look at them. he called it discipline--concentration. katie, looking at the tense faces, was thinking of the price paid for that discipline. many of the girls were very young, some not more than sixteen. they preferred taking them young, said the guide; they were easier to break in if they had never done anything else. there was not the shadow of a doubt that they were being "broken in." so clearly was that demonstrated that katie wondered what there would be left for them to be broken in to after they had been thoroughly broken in to that. walking slowly behind them, looking at every girl as a possible ann, she wondered what they would have left for a something somewhere. she remembered the woman who wore the white furs saying it "got on her nerves" and wondered what kind of nerves they would be it wouldn't "get on." the thing itself seemed a mammoth nervous system, feeding on other nervous systems, lesser sacrificed to greater. her fancy reached out to all the things that at that instant were going through those cords. plans were being made for dinner, for motoring that evening, for many pleasant, restful things. many little red lights, with many possible invitations, were insistently dancing before tired eyes just then. they seemed endless--those demands of life--demands of life before which other demands of life were slowly going down. she and mann were alone for the minute. "and yet," she turned to him, after following his glance to a girl's tense, white face, "what can they do? the company, i mean. one must be fair. they pay better than most things pay, seem more interested in the girls. what more can we ask?" "well, what would you think," he suggested, "of 'asking' for a system more interested in conserving nervous systems than in producing millionaires? "why, yes," he added, "in view of the fact that it has to make a few men rich, perhaps they are doing all they can. i don't doubt that they think they are. but if this were a thing that didn't have to produce wealth--then it wouldn't need to endanger health. don't you think that in this nerve-blighting work four or five hours, instead of eight, would be a pretty good day's work for girls just out of short clothes?" "it would seem so," sighed katie, as she left the room filled with girls answering calls--girls looking too worn to respond to any "call" life might have for them. though when, a little later, they stood in the doorway watching a long line of them passing out into the street it was amazing how ready and how eager they seemed for what life had to offer them. they all looked tired, but many appeared happy--determined that all of life should not be going over the wire. it seemed to katie the most wonderful thing she knew of that girls from whom life exacted so much could remain so ready--so happily eager--for life. there was one thing to which she had made up her mind. amid the confusion of her thinking and the sadness of her spirit one thing she saw as clear. there was something wrong with an arrangement of life which struck that hard at life. the very fact that the capacity for life persisted through so much was the more reason for its being a thing to be cherished rather than sacrificed. "let's walk up this way," she was saying; "walk over the river. the bridge is a good place just now." katie's face was white and tense as some of the faces they had left behind "no," he said impetuously. "let's not. let's do something jolly!" she shook her head "i have a feeling we're going to find her to-night." katie was always having that feeling. but as she looked then he had not the heart to remind her of the many times it had played her false. many girls passed them on the bridge, but not ann. "i can never make up my mind to go," she said. "i always think i ought to wait till the next one comes round the corner." a girl who appeared to be thinking deeply passed them, turning weary eyes upon them in languid interest. "i wonder _what_," katie exclaimed. "what she's thinking about," she explained. "maybe she's come to the end of her string--and if she has, hundreds of thousands of people about her--oh i think it's terrible"--her voice broke--"the way people are crowded so close together--and held so far apart. everybody's _alone_. nobody _knows_." for a second his hand closed over hers as it rested on the railing of the bridge, as if he would bear some of the hurt for her, that hurt she was finding in everything. despite the extreme simplicity of her dress she looked out of place standing on that bridge at that hour; he was thinking that she had not lost her distinction with her buoyancy. her face was quivering. "katie," it made him ask, "don't you think you'd better--quit?" she turned wet eyes upon him reproachfully. "from _you_?" "but is any--individual--worth it?" "oh i suppose no 'individual' is worth much to you," she said a little bitterly. there was a touch of irony in the tender smile which was his only response. they stood there in silence watching men and women come and go--solitary and in groups--groups tired and groups laughing--groups respectable and groups questionable--humanity--worn humanity--as it crossed that bridge. she recalled that first night she had talked with him--that first time a hot day had seemed to her anything more than mere hot day, that night on the mississippi--where distant hills were to be seen. she remembered how she had looked around the world that night to see if it needed "saving." it seemed a long time ago since she had not been able to see that the world needed saving. that was the night the man who mended the boats told her she had walked sunny paths. she looked up at him with a faint smile, smiling at the fancy of his being an outsider. it seemed, on the other hand, that all the hopes and fears in all the hearts that were passing them were drawing them together. there had been times when she had had a wonderful sense of their silences holding the sum of man's experiences. "you must go home," he was saying decisively. "home? where? to my uncle's? that's where i keep the trunks i'm not using." she laughed and brushed away a tear. "you know in the army we don't have homes." "well you have temporary homes," he insisted, as each moment she seemed to become more worn. "you know what i mean. go back to your brother's." "he'll be ordered from there very soon. there'll not be a place there for me much longer." he did not seem to have reckoned with that. his face changed. "then where will you go, katie?" he asked, very low. "what will you do?" she shook her head. "i don't know. i don't know where i'll go--and i don't know what i'll do." they stood there in silence, drawn close by thought of separation. "shall we walk on?" she said at last. "i've lost the feeling that we're going to find ann to-night." and so, still silently, they walked on. but when, after a moment, he looked at her, it was to see that she was making heroic effort to control the tears. "katie!" he murmured, "what is it?" "we're giving up," she said, and could not say more. "why no we're not! it's only the method we're giving up. this way of doing it. you've tried this long enough." "but what else is there? just looking. just keeping on looking--and hoping. just the chance. what other method is there?" "we'll find some other," he insisted, not willing, when she looked like that, to speak his fears. "there'll be some other way. but you can't keep on this way--dear." there was another silence--a different one: silence which opened to receive them at the throb in his voice as he spoke that last word. he had to go back that night. "well?" he asked gently, as they neared her hotel. "i'll be down in a couple of days," replied katie, not steadily. "and you'll be there a little while, won't you," he asked wistfully, "before you go--you don't know where?" "yes," she said, turning her eyes upon him for just an instant, "a little while--before i go--i don't know where." but though she was going--she didn't know where--though she was giving up--seemed conquered--through all the uncertainty and the sadness there surged a strange new joy in their hearts as, very slowly, they walked that final block. at the door, after a moment's full silence, she held out her hand. "and you'll be down there--mending boats?" he nodded, his eyes going where words had not ventured. "and you'll--come and see me?" she asked shyly. "you don't mean, do you,"--looking away, as if with scarcely the courage to say it--"that i'm to 'stop'--everything?" "no, katie," he said, and his voice was shaking, "i think you must know i do not mean you are to--stop everything." as they lingered for a final moment, they were alone--far out in the sweet wild new places of the spirit; and all that man had ever yearned for, all joy that had been given and all joy denied seemed as a rich sea--fathomless sea--swelling just beneath that sweet wild new thing that had fluttered to consciousness in their hearts. chapter xxviii the new life in her heart gave her new courage that night to look out at life. she faced what before that she had evaded consciously facing. perhaps they would not find ann at all. perhaps ann had given up--as they were giving up. perhaps ann was not there to be found. it was her fight against that fear had kept her so much in the crowds. ann was there. she had only to find her. leaving the crowds seemed to be admitting that ann was not in them; for if she really felt she was in them, surely she would not consent to leaving them. that idea of ann's not being there was as a shadow which had from time to time crept beside her. in the crowds she lost it. there were so many in the crowds. ann, too, was in the crowds. she had only to stay in them and she must find her. now she was leaving them; and it was he who understood the crowds was telling her to leave them. did _he_ think she was not there? why had she not had the courage to press it? there was so much they should have been talking of in those last blocks--and they had talked of nothing. but the new warmth flooded katie's heart at thought of having talked of nothing. what was there to talk about so important as talking of nothing? in a new way it drew her back to the crowds; the crowds that talked so loudly of many unlovely things in order to still in their hearts that call for the loveliness of talking of nothing. it gave her new understanding of ann. ann was one who must rest in the wonder of talking of nothing. it was for that she had gone down. the world had destroyed her for the very thing for which life loved her--katie joining with the world. she would not have done that to-night. to-night, in the face of all the world, she must have joined with life. she wondered if all along it was not the thing for which she had most loved ann. this shy new thing in her own heart seemed revealing ann. it was kin to her, and to katie's feeling for her. many times she had wondered why she cared so terribly, would ask herself, as she could hear her friends asking if they knew: "but does it matter so much as all this?" she had never been able to make clear to herself why it mattered so much--mattered more than anything else mattered. none of the reasons presenting themselves on the surface were commensurate to the depth of the feeling. to-night she wondered if deep below all else might not lie that thing of ann's representing life, her failure with ann meaning infidelity to life. it turned her to ann's letter;--she had not had the courage to read it for a number of days. "katie," ann had written, "i'm writing to try and show you that you were not all wrong. that there was something there. and i'm not doing it for myself, katie. i'm doing it for you. "if i can just forget i'm writing about myself, feel instead that i'm writing about somebody you've cared for, believed in, somebody who has disappointed and hurt you, trying to show you--for _your_ sake--if i don't mind being either egotistical or terrible for the sake of showing you-- "it's not _me_ that matters, katie--it's what you thought of me. that's why i'm writing. "i never could talk to you right. for a long time i couldn't talk at all, and then that night i talked most of the night i didn't tell the real things, after all. and at the last i told you something i knew would hurt you without telling you the things that might keep it from hurting, without saving for you the things you had thought you saw. i don't know why i did that--desperate, i suppose, because it was all spoiled, frantic because i was helpless to keep it from being spoiled. and then i said things to _you_--that must show--and yet, katie, as long as i'm trying to be honest i've got to say again, though all differently, that i was surprised--shocked, i suppose, at something in the way you looked. it's just a part of your world that i don't understand. it's as i told you--we've lived in different worlds. things--some things--that seem all right in yours--well, it's just surprising that you should think them all right. in your world the way you do things seems to matter so much more than what you do. "i've gone, katie, and as far as i'm concerned it's what has to be. you see you couldn't fit me in. the only thing i can do for you now is to--stay gone. you'll feel badly--oh, i know that--but in the end it won't be as bad as trying to fit me in, trying to keep it up. and i can't have you doing things for me in another way--as you'd want to--because--it's hard to explain just what i mean, but after i've been ann i couldn't be just somebody you were helping. it meant too much to me to be ann to become just a girl you're good to. "what i'd rather do--want this letter to do--is keep for you that idea of ann--memory of her. "so that's why i want to tell you about some things that really were ann. i haven't any more right to you, but i want you to know you have some right to her. "i told you that i was standing on the corner, and that he asked me to get in the automobile, and that i did, and that that--began it. it was true. it was one way to put it. i'll try and put it another way. "it isn't even fair to him, putting it that way. you know, of course, that he's not in the habit of asking girls on corners to go with him. i think--there at the first--he was sorry for me. i think it was what you would call an impulse and that being sorry for me had more to do with it than anything else. "and i know i wasn't fair to myself when i put it that way; and you weren't fair to me when you called it common and low. that's what i want to try and show you--that it wasn't that. "it was in the warm weather. it had been a hot, hard day. oh they were all hot, hard days. i didn't feel well. i made mistakes. i was scolded for it. i quarreled with one of the girls about washing my hands! she said she was there before i was and that i took the bowl. we said hateful things to each other, grew furious about it. we were both so tired--the day had been so hot-- "out on the street i was so ashamed. it seemed _that_ was what life had come to. "that afternoon i got something that was going over the wire. you get so tired you don't care what's going over the wire--you aren't alive enough to care--but i just happened to be let in to this--a man's voice talking to the girl he loved. i don't remember what he was saying, but his voice told that there were such things in the world--and girls they were for. one glimpse of a beautiful country--to one in a desert. i don't know, perhaps that's why i talked that way to the other poor girl who was tired--perhaps that's why i went in the automobile. "i had to ride a long way on the street car to get where i boarded. i had to stand up--packed in among a lot of people who were hot and tired too--the smell so awful--everything so _ugly_. "i had to transfer. that's where i was when i first saw him--standing on the corner waiting for the other car. "something was the matter--it was a long time coming. i was so tired, katie, as i stood there waiting. tired of having it all going over the wire. "he was doing something to his automobile. i didn't pay any attention at first--then i realized he was just fooling with the automobile--and was looking at me. "and then he took my breath away by stepping up to me and raising his hat. i had never had a man raise his hat to me in that way-- "and then he said--and his voice was low--and like the voices in your world are--i hadn't heard them before, except on the wire--'i beg pardon--i trust i'm not offensive. but you seem so tired. you're waiting for a car? it doesn't appear to be coming. why not ride with me instead? i'll take you where you want to go. though i wish'--it was like the voice on the wire--and for _me_--'that you'd let me take you for a ride.' "katie, _you_ called him charming. you told about the women in your world being in love with him. if he's charming to them--to you--what do you suppose he seemed to me as he stood there smiling at me--looking so sorry for me--? "he went on talking. he drew a beautiful picture of what we would do. we would ride up along the lake. there would be a breeze from the lake, he said. and way up there he knew a place where we could sit out of doors under trees and eat our dinner and listen to beautiful music. didn't i think that might be nice? "didn't i think it might be--_nice?_ oh katie--you'd have to know what that day had been--what so many days--all days--had been. "i looked down the street. the car was coming at last--packed--men hanging on outside--everybody looking so hot--so dreadful. 'oh you mustn't get in that car,' he said. "beautiful things were beckoning to me--things i was to be taken to in an automobile--i had never been in an automobile. it seemed i was being rescued, carried away to a land of beautiful things, far away from crowded street cars, from the heat and the work that make you do things you hate yourself for doing. "_was_ it so common, katie? so low? what i felt wasn't--what i dreamed as we went along that beautiful drive beside the lake. "for i dreamed that the city of dreadful things was being left behind. the fairy prince had come for me. he was taking me to the things of dreams, things which lately had seemed to slip out beyond even dreams. "it was just as he had said--a little table under a tree--a breeze from the lake--music--the lovely things to eat and the beautiful happy people. of course i wasn't dressed as much as they were, so we sat at a little table half hidden in one corner--oh i thought it was so wonderful! "and he saw i thought it wonderful and that interested him, pleased him. maybe it was new to him. i think he likes things that are new to him. anyhow, he was very gentle and lovely to me that night. he told me i was beautiful--that nothing in the world had ever been so beautiful as my eyes. you know how he would say it, the different ways he would have of saying it beautifully. and i want to say again--if it seems beautiful to you--why, katie, i had never had anything. "going home he kissed me-- "when i went home that night the world was all different. the world was too wonderful for even thoughts. too beautiful to believe it could be the world. "i was in the arms of the wonderful new beauty of the world. something in my heart which had been crouching down afraid and cold and sad grew warm and live and glad. life grew so lovely; and as the days went on i think i grew lovely too. he said so; said love was making me radiant--that i was wonderful--that i was a child of love. "those days when i was in the dream, folded in the dream, days before any of it fell away, they were golden days, singing days--days there are no words for. "we saw each other often. he said business kept him away from chicago much of the time. i didn't know he was in the army; i suppose now he belonged in some place near there. and i think you told me he was not married. he said he was--but was going to be divorced some day. but i didn't seem to care--didn't think much about it. nothing really mattered except the love. "then there came a time when i knew i was trying to keep a door shut--keep the happiness in and the thoughts out. it wasn't that i came to think it was wrong. but the awful fear that wanted to get into my heart was that it was _not_ beautiful. "and it wasn't beautiful because to him it wasn't beautiful. it was only--what shall i say--would there be such a thing as usurping beauty? that was the thought--the fear--i tried and tried to push away. i see i can't tell it; no matter how much we may want to tell everything--no matter how willing we are--there are things can't be told, so i'll just have to say that things happened that forced the door open, and i had to know that what to me was--oh what shall i say, katie?--was like the prayer at the heart of a dream--didn't, to him, have anything to do with dreams, or prayers, or beautiful, far-away things that speak to you from the stars. "and having nothing to do with them, he seemed to be pushing them away, crowding them out, hurting them. "i haven't told it at all. i can't. but, katie, you're in the army, you must admire courage and i want you to take my word for it when i tell you i did what it took courage to do. i think you'd let me live on in your heart as ann if you knew what i gave up--and just for something all dim and distant i had no assurance i'd ever come near to. for oh, katie--when you love love--need it--it's not so easy to let go what's the closest you've come to it. not so easy to turn from the most beautiful thing you've known--just because something _very far away_ whispers to you that you're hurting beauty. "i didn't go back. one night my something somewhere called me away--and i left the only real thing i had--and i didn't go back. i don't know--maybe i'm overestimating myself--perhaps i'm just measuring it by the suffering--but it seems to me, katie, that you needn't despise yourself when loneliness can't take you back to the substitutes offered for your something somewhere. something in you had been brave; something in you has been faithful--and what you've actually _done_ doesn't matter much in comparison with that. "i've been writing most of the day. it's evening now, and i'm tired. i was going to tell more. tell you of things that happened afterward--tell you why you found me where you did find me. but now i don't believe i want to tell those things. they're too awful. they'd hurt you--haunt you. and that's not what i want to do. what i want is to make you understand, and if the part i've told hasn't done that-- "'i think it was to save ann you were going to give up verna,' you said. oh katie--how did you know? how _do_ you know? "and then you called to me. you weren't sick at all--were you, katie? oh i soon guessed that it was the wonderful goodness of your heart--not the disease of it--caused that 'attack.' "then those beautiful days began. i wanted to talk about what those days meant--what you meant--what our play--our dream meant. things i thought that i never said--how proud i was you should want to make up those stories about me--how i wanted to _be_ the things you said i was--and oh, katie dear, the trouble you got me into by loving to tell those stories--telling one to one man and another to another! i'd never known any one full of _play_ like you--yet play that is so much more than just play. sometimes a picture of centralia would come to me when i'd hear you telling about my having lived in florence. sometimes when i was listening to stories of things you and i had done in italy i'd see that old place where i used to put suspenders in boxes--! katie, how strange it all was. how did it happen that things you made up were things i had dreamed about without really knowing what i was dreaming? how wonderful you were, katie--how good--to put me in the things of my dreams rather than the things of my life. the world doesn't do that for us. "it seems a ridiculous thing to be mentioning, when i owe you so many things too wonderful to mention--but you know i do owe you some money. i took what was in my purse. i hope i can pay it back. i'm so tired just now it doesn't seem to me i ever can--but if i don't, don't associate it with my not paying back the missionary money! "katie, do you know how i'd like to pay you back? i'd like to give you the most beautiful things i've ever dreamed. and i hope that some of them, at least, are waiting somewhere--and not very far off--for you. how i used to love to hear you laugh--watch you play your tricks on people--so funny and so dear-- "now that's over. katie, i don't believe it's all my fault, and i know it's not yours. it's our two worlds. you see you _couldn't_ fit me in. "i used to be afraid it must end like that. yet most of the time i felt so secure--that was the wonder of you--that you could make me so beautifully secure. and your brother, katie, have you told him? i don't care if you do, only if you tell him anything, won't you try and make him understand everything? i couldn't bear it to think he might think me--oh those things i don't believe you really think me. "if you don't see me any more, you won't think those things. it's easier to understand when things are all over. it's easier to forgive people who are not around. after what's happened i couldn't be ann if i were with you. that's spoiled. but if _i_ go--i think maybe ann can stay. for both our sakes, that's what i want. "'twas a lovely dream, katie. the house by the river--the big trees--the big flag that waved over us--the pretty dresses--the lovely way of living--the dogs--the men who were always so nice to us--last night i dreamed you and worth and i were going to a wedding. that is, it started out to be a wedding--then it seemed it was a funeral. but you were saying such funny things about the funeral, katie. then i woke up--" the letter broke off there. chapter xxix the next morning katie did something which it had been in her mind to do for some time. she went to centralia. it was not that she expected centralia to furnish any information about ann. it was hard to say just why she was so certain ann had not gone back to centralia. the conviction had something to do with her belief in ann. centralia, however, might be an avenue to something. furthermore, she wanted to see centralia. that was part of her passion for seeing the thing as a whole, realizing it. and she had a suspicion that if anything remained to forgive ann it would be forgiven after seeing centralia. and back of all that lurked the longing to tell ann's father what she thought of him. katie was in a strange mood that day. she had read ann's letter many times, but had never finished it with that poignantly personal heartache of the night before. it was as if she were not worthy that new thing which kept warm in her own heart. for she had been hostile to the very thing from which the warmth in her own heart drew. the sadness deepened in the thought that the great hosts of the world's people sheltered joy in their own hearts and hardened those very hearts against all to whom love came less fortunately than it had come to them. how could there be 'hope for the world, no matter what it might do about its material affairs, while heart closed against heart like that, while men and women drew their own portions of joy and shut themselves in with them, refusing to see that they were one with all who drew, or would draw. it seemed the most cruel, the most wrong thing of all the world that men--and above all, women--should turn their most unloving face upon the face of love. of which things she thought again as she passed various centralias and wondered if there were anns longing for love in all those unlovely places. she came at last, after crossing a long stretch of nothingness, to the town where ann had lived, town from which she had gone forth to hear grand opera and find the loveliness of life. but as she stepped from the train and approached a group of men lounging at the station it came to her that "ann's father," particularly as ann had not been ann in centralia, was a somewhat indefinite person to be inquiring for. after a moment's consideration she approached the man who looked newest to his profession and asked how many churches there were in centralia. thereupon one man beat open retreat and all viewed her with suspicion. but the man of her choice was a brave man and ventured to guess that there were four. one of his comrades held that there were five. a discussion ensued closing with the consensus of opinion in favor of the greater number. then katie explained her predicament; she wanted to find a man who was a minister in centralia and she didn't know his name. reassured, they gathered round interestedly. was he young or old? katie cautiously placed him in the forties or fifties. then they guessed and reckoned that it couldn't be either the reverend lewis or that new fellow at the baptist. was he--would she say he was one to be kind of easy on a fellow, or did she think he took his religion pretty hard? katie was forced to admit that she feared he took it hard. with that they were agreed to a man that it must be the reverend saunders. she was thereupon directed to the residence of the reverend saunders. right down there was a restaurant with a sign in the window "don't pass by." but she was to pass by. then there was the church said "welcome." no, that was not the reverend saunders' church. it was the church where she turned to the right. she could turn to the left, but, on the whole, it would be better to turn to the right--it would all have been quite simple had it not been for the fullness of the directions. she took it that the fullness of their directions was in proportion to the emptiness of their lives. as she walked slowly along she appreciated what ann had said of the town's being walled in by nothingness--the people walled in by nothingness. her two blocks on "main street" showed her centralia as a place of petty righteousness and petty vice. there was nothing so large and flexible as the real joys of either righteousness or unrighteousness. nor was centralia picturesquely desolate. it had not that quality of hopelessness which lures to melancholy. new houses were going up. the last straw was that centralia was "growing." and it was on those streets that a lonely little girl with deep brown eyes and soft brown hair had dreamed of a something somewhere. as she turned in at the residence of the reverend saunders katie was newly certain that ann had not come back to centralia. it seemed the one disappointment in ann she was not prepared to bear would be to find that she had returned to the home of her youth. katie had been shown into the parlor. she was sitting in a rocking chair which "squeaked"--her smartly shod foot resting on a pale blue rose--the pale blue rose being in the carpet. the carpet also squeaked--or the papers underneath it did. on the table beside her was a large and ornate bible, an equally splendid album, and something called "stepping heavenward." oh no--ann had not come back. she knew that before she asked. ann's father was a tall, thin man with small gray eyes. "thin lips that shut together tight"--she recalled that. and the kind of beard that is unalterably associated with self-righteousness. it was clear he did not know what to make of katie. she was wearing a linen suit which had vague suggestions of the world, the flesh, and the devil. she had selected it that morning with considerable care. likewise the shoes! and the angle of the quill in katie's hat stirred in him the same suspicion and aggression which his beard stirred in her. thus viewing each other across seas of prejudice, separated, as it were, by all the experiences of the human race, they began to speak of ann and of life. "i am a friend of your daughter's," was katie's opening. it startled him, stirring something on the borderland of the human. then he surveyed katie anew and shut his lips together more tightly. it was evidently just what he had expected his daughter to come to. "and i came," said katie, "to ask if you had any idea where she was." that reached even farther into the border-country. he sat forward--his lips relaxed. "don't _you_ know?" "no--i don't know. she was living with me, and she went away." that recalled his own injury. he sat back and folded his arms. "she was living with _me_--and she went away. no, i know nothing of her whereabouts. my daughter saw fit to leave her father's house--under circumstances that bowed his head in shame. she has not seen fit to return, or to give information of her whereabouts. i have tried to serve my god all my days," said the reverend saunders; "i do not know why this should have been visited upon me. but his ways are inscrutable. his purpose is not revealed." "no," said katie crisply, "i should say not." he expressed his condemnation of the relation of manner to subject by a compression of both eyes and lips. that, katie supposed, was the way he had looked when he told ann her dog had been sent away. "did you ever wonder," she asked, with real curiosity, "how in the world you happened to have such a daughter?" "i have many times taken it up in prayer," was his response. katie sat there viewing him and looking above his head at the motto "god is love." she wondered if ann had had to work it. it was the suggestion in the motto led her to ask: "tell me, have you really no idea, have you never had so much as a suspicion of why ann went away?" "who?" he asked sharply. "your daughter. her friends call her ann." "her name," said he uncompromisingly, "is maria." katie smiled slightly. maria, as he uttered it, squeaked distressingly. "be that as it may. but have you really no notion of why she went away?" she was looking at him keenly. after a moment his eyes fell, or rather, lifted under the look. "she had a good home--a god-fearing home," he said. but katie did not let go her look. he had to come back to it, and he shifted. did he have it in him remotely, unavowedly, to suspect? it would seem so, for he continued his argument, as if meeting something. he repeated that she had a good home. he enumerated her blessings. but when he paused it was to find katie looking at him in just the same way. it forced him to an unwilling, uneasy: "what more could a girl want?" "what she wanted," said katie passionately, "was life." the word spoken as katie spoke it had suggestion of unholy things. "but god is life," he said. suddenly katie's eyes blazed. "god! well it's my opinion that you know just as little about _him_ as you do about 'life.'" it was doubtless the most dumbfounded moment of the reverend saunders' life. his jaw dropped. but only to come together the tighter. "young woman," said he, "i am a servant of god. i have served him all my days." "heaven pity him!" said katie, and rocked and her chair squeaked savagely. he rose. "i cannot permit such language to be used in my house." katie gave no heed. "i'll tell you why your daughter left. she left because you _starved_ her. "above your head is a motto. the motto says, 'god is love.' i could almost fancy somebody hung that in this house as a _joke_! "you see you don't know anything about love. that's why you don't know anything about god--or life--or ann. "in this universe of mysterious things," katie went on, "it so happened--as you have remarked, god's ways are indeed inscrutable--that unto you was born a child ordained for love." she paused, held herself by the mystery of that. and as she contemplated the mystery of it her wrath against him fell strangely away. telling him what she thought of him suddenly ceased to be the satisfying thing she had anticipated. it was all too mysterious. it grew so large and so strange that it did not seem a matter the reverend saunders had much to do with it. telling him what she thought of him was not the thing interesting her then. what interested her was wondering why he was as he was. how it had all happened. what it all meant. her wondering almost drew her to him; certainly it gave her a new approach. "oh isn't it a pity!" was what katie said next. and there was pain and feeling and almost sympathy in her voice as she repeated, "isn't it a pity!" he, too, spoke differently--more humanly. "isn't--what a pity?" "that we bungle it so! that we don't seem to know anything about each other. "why i suppose you _didn't_ know--you simply didn't have it _in_ you to know--that the way she needed to serve god was by laughing and dancing!" he was both outraged and drawn. he neither rebuked nor agreed. he waited. "you see it was this way. you were one thing; she was another thing. and neither of you had any way of getting at the thing that the other was. so you just grew more intolerant in the things _you_ were, and that, i suppose, is the way hearts are broken and lives are spoiled." her eyes had filled. it had drawn her back to her mood of the morning. "doesn't it seem to you," she asked gently of the reverend saunders, "that it's just an awful pity?" the reverend saunders did not reply. but he was not looking at katie's quill or katie's shoes. he was looking at katie's wet eyes. and katie, as they sat there for a moment in silence, was not seeing him alone as the reverend saunders. she was seeing him as product of something which had begun way back across the centuries, seeing far back of the reverend saunders that spirit of intolerance which had shaped him--wrung him dry--spirit which in the very beginning had lost the meaning of those words which hung above the reverend saunders' head. it seemed a childish thing to be blaming the reverend saunders for the things the centuries had made him. indeed, she no longer felt like "blaming" any one. sorrow which comes through seeing leaves small room for blame. katie did not know as much about the history of mankind as she now wished she did--as she meant to know!--but there did open to her a glimpse of the havoc wrought by the forerunners of the reverend saunders--of all the children of love blighted in the name of a god of love. she had risen. and as she looked at him again she was sorry for him. sterility of the heart seemed a thing for pity rather than scorn. "i'm sorry for you," she spoke it. "oh i'm sorry for us all! we all bungle it! we're all in the grip of dead things, aren't we? do you suppose it will ever be any different?" and still he looked, not at the quill or the shoes, but the eyes, eyes which seemed sorrowing with all the love sorrows of the centuries. "young woman," he said uncertainly, "you puzzle me." "i puzzle myself," said katie, and wiped her eyes and laughed a little, thinking of the scornful exit she had meant to make after telling him what she thought of him. she retraced her steps and waited for two hours at the station, reconstructing for herself ann's girlhood in centralia and thinking larger thoughts of the things which spoiled girlhoods, the pity of it all. and it seemed that even self-righteousness was not wholly to blame. katie felt a little lonely in losing her scorn of "goodness." she had so enjoyed hating the godly. if even they were to be gently grouped with the wicked as more to be pitied than hated, then whom would one hate? did knowing--seeing--spoil hating? and was all hating to go when all men saw? at the last minute she had a fight with herself to keep from going back and refunding the missionary money! the missionary money worried katie. she wanted it paid back. but she saw that it was not her paying it back would satisfy her. she even felt that she had no right to pay it back. chapter xxx she returned to chicago to find that her uncle was in town. he had left a message asking her to join him for dinner over at his hotel. it was pleasant to be dining with her uncle that night. the best possible antidote she could think of for ann's father was her dear uncle the bishop. as she watched him ordering their excellent dinner she wondered what he would think of ann's father. she could hear him calling centralia a god-forsaken spot and ann's father a benighted fossil. doubtless he would speak of the reverend saunders as a type fast becoming obsolete. "and the quicker the better," she could hear him add. but she fancied that the reverend saunderses of the world had yet a long course to run in the centralias of the world. she feared that many anns had yet to go down before them. at any rate, her uncle was not that. to-night katie loved him anew for his delightful worldliness. though he was not in his best form that night. he was on his way out to colorado for the marriage of his son. "there was no doing anything about it," he said with a sigh. "my office has made me enough the diplomat, katherine, to know when to quit trying. so i'm going out there--fearful trip--why it's miles from denver--to do all i can to respectablize the affair. it seemed to me a trifle inconsiderate--in view of the effort i'm making--that they could not have waited until next month; there are things calling me to denver then. now what shall i do there all that time?--though i may run on to california. but it seems my daughter-in-law would have her honeymoon in the mountains while the aspens are just a certain yellow she's fond of. so of course"--with his little shrug katie loved--"what's my having a month on my hands?" "well, uncle, dear uncle," she laughed, "hast forgotten the days when nothing mattered so much as having the leaves the right shade of yellow?" "i have not--and trust i never will," he replied, with a touch of asperity; "but i feel that fred has shown very little consideration for his parents." "but why, uncle? i'm strong for her! she sounds to me like just what our family needs." he gave her a glance over his glasses--that delighted katie, too; she had long ago learned that when her uncle felt occasion demand he look like a bishop he lowered his chin and looked over his glasses. "well our family may need something; it's the first intimation i've had, katherine, that it's in distress--but i don't see that a young woman who votes is the crying need of the family." "she's in great luck," returned katie, "to live in a state where she can vote." he held up his hands. "_katie? you_?" "oh i haven't prowled around this town all summer, uncle, without seeing things that women ought to be voting about." he stared at her. "well, katie, you--you don't mean to take it up, do you?" he looked so unhappy that she laughed. "oh i don't know, uncle, what i mean to 'take up,' but i herewith serve notice that i'm going to take something up--something besides bridge and army gossip." she looked at him reflectively. "uncle, does it ever come home to you that life's a pretty serious business?" "well i hadn't wanted it to come home to me tonight," he sighed plaintively. "i'm really most upset about this unfortunate affair. i had thought that you, katie, would be pleasant." "forgive me," she laughed. "i can see how it must disturb you, uncle, to hear me express a serious thought." he laughed at her delightedly. he loved katie. "you've got the fidgets, katie. just the fidgets. that's what's the matter with the whole lot of you youngsters. it's becoming an epidemic--a sort of spiritual measles. though i must say, i hadn't expected you to catch it. and just a word of warning, katie. you've always been so unique as a trifler that one rather hates to see you swallowed up in the troop of serious-minded young women. i was talking to darrett the other day--charming fellow, darrett--and he held that your charm was in your brilliant smile. i told him i hadn't thought so much about the brilliant smile, but that i knew a good deal about a certain impish grin. katie, you have a very disreputable grin. you have a way of directing it at me across ponderous drawing-rooms that i wish you'd stop. it gives me a sort of--'oh i am on to you, uncle old boy' feeling that is most--" "disconcerting?" "unreverential." he looked at her, humorously and yet meditatively--fondly. "katie, why do you think it's so funny? why does it make you want to grin?" "you know. else you wouldn't read the grin." "but i don't know. nobody else grins at me." "oh don't you think we're a good deal of a joke, uncle?" "joke? who?--why?" "us. the solemnity with which we take ourselves and the way the world lets us do it." he laughed. then, as one coming back to his lines: "you have no reverence." "no, neither have you. that's why we get on." he made an unsuccessful attempt at frowning upon her and surveyed her a little more seriously. "katie, do you know that the things you say sometimes puzzle me. they're queer. they burrow. they're so insultingly knowing, down at the root of their unknowingness. i'll think--'she didn't know how "pat" that was'--and then as i consider it i'll think--'yes, she did, only she didn't know that she knew.' i remember telling your mother once when you were a little girl that if you were going to sit through service with your head cocked in that knowing fashion i wished she'd leave you at home." katie laughed and cocked her head at him again, just to show she had not forgotten. then she fell serious. "uncle, for a long time i only smiled. i seemed to know enough to do that. do you think you could bear it with christian fortitude if i were to tell you i'm beginning now to try and figure out what i was smiling at?" he shook his head. "'twould spoil it." he looked at his niece and smiled as he asked: "katie dear, are you becoming world weary?" katie, very smart that night in white gown and black hat, appealed to him as distinctly humorous in the role of world weariness. "no," returned katie, "not world weary; just weary of not knowing the world." afterward in his room they chatted cheerfully of many things: family affairs, army and church affairs. katie strove to keep to them as merely personal matters. but there were no merely personal matters any more. all the little things were paths to the big things. there was no way of keeping herself detached. even the seemingly isolated topic of the recent illness of the bishop's wife led full upon the picture of other people she had been seeing that summer who looked ill. her uncle was telling of a case he had recently disposed of, a rector of his diocese who was guilty of an atheistic book. he spoke feelingly of what he called the shallowness of rationalism, of the dangers of the age, beautifully of that splendid past which the church must conserve. he told of some lectures he himself was to deliver on the fallacies of socialism. "it's honeycombing our churches, katherine--yes, and even the army. darrett tells me they've found it's spreading among the men. nice state of affairs were we to have any sort of industrial war!" it was hard for katie to keep silence, but she felt so sadly the lack of assurance arising from lack of knowledge. well, give her a little time, she would fix that! she contented herself with asking if he anticipated an industrial war. the bishop made a large gesture and said he hoped not, but he felt it a time for the church to throw all her forces to safeguarding the great heritage of the country's institutions. he especially deplored that the church itself did not see it more clearly, more unitedly. he mentioned fellow bishops who seemed to be actually encouraging inroads upon tradition. where did they expect it to lead?--he demanded. "perhaps," meekly suggested katie, "they expect it to lead to growth." "growth!" snorted the bishop. "destruction!" they passed to the sunnier subject of raising money. as regards the budget, bishop wayneworth was the church's most valued servant. his manner of good-humored tolerance gave mammon a soothing sense of being understood, moving the much maligned god to reach for its check book, just to bear the friendly bishop out in his lenient interpretation of a certain text about service rendered in two directions. he was telling of a fund he expected to raise at a given time. if he did, a certain capitalist would duplicate it. the bishop became jubilant at the prospect. and as they talked, there passed before katie, as in review, the things she had seen that summer--passed before her the worn faces of those girls who night after night during the hot summer had come from the stores and factories where the men of whom her uncle was so jubilantly speaking made the money which they were able to subscribe to the church. she thought of her uncle's church; she could not recall having seen many such faces in the pews of that church. she thought of ann--wondered where ann might be that night while she and her uncle chatted so cheerfully in his pleasant room at his luxurious hotel. she tried to think of anything for which her uncle stood which would give her confidence in saying to herself, "ann will be saved." the large sum of money over which he was gloating was to be used for a new cathedral. she wondered if the anns of her uncle's city would find the world a safer or a sweeter place after that cathedral had been erected. she thought of ann's world of the opera and world of work. was it true--as the man who mended the boats would hold--that the one made the other possible--only to be excluded from it? and all the while there swept before her faces--faces seen in the crowd, faces of those who were not finding what they wanted, faces of all those to whom life denied life. and then katie thought of a man who had lived & long time before, a man of whom her uncle spoke lovingly in his sermons as jesus the christ, the son of the living god. she thought of ann's father--how far he had gone from a religion of love. then came back to her lovable uncle. well, what of him? charm of personality, a sense of humor, a comfortable view of living (for himself and his kind) did not seem the final word. "uncle," katie asked quietly, "do you ever think much about christ?" in his astonishment the bishop dropped his cigar. "what a strange man he must have been," she murmured. "kindly explain yourself," said he curtly. "he seemed to think so much about people. just people. and chiefly people who were down on their luck. i don't believe he would have been much good at raising money. he had such a queer way of going around where people worked, talking with them about their work. if he were here now, and were to do that, i wonder if he'd help much in 'stemming the rising tide of socialism' what a blessing it is for our institutions," katie concluded, "that he's not anywhere around." the bishop's hand shook. "i had not expected," he said, "that my own niece, my favorite niece--indeed, the favorite member of my family--was here to--revile me." "uncle--forgive me! but isn't it bigger than that thing of being members of the same family--hurting each other's feelings? oh uncle!" she burst forth, no longer able to hold back, "as you stand sometimes at the altar don't you hear them moaning and sobbing down underneath?" he looked at her sharply, with some alarm. "oh no," she laughed, "not going crazy. just trying to think a little about things. but don't you ever hear them, uncle? i should think they might--bother you sometimes." "really, katherine," he said stiffly, "this is most--annoying. hear whom moaning and sobbing?" "those people! the worn out shop girls and broken down men and women and diseased children that your church is built right on top of!" not the words but the sob behind them moved him to ask gently: "katie dear, what is it? what's the trouble?" her eyes were swimming. "uncle--it's the misery of the world! it's the people who aren't where they belong! it's the lives ruined through blunders--it's the cruelty--the needless _cruelty_ of it all." she leaned forward, the tears upon her cheeks. "uncle, how can you? you have a mind--a kind heart. but what good are they? if you believe the things you say you believe--oh you think you believe them--but you don't seem to connect them. here to-night we've been talking about the forms of the church--finances of the church--and humanity is in _need_, uncle--bodily need--and oh the _heart_ need! why don't you go and see? why you've only to look! what are your puny little problems of the church compared with people's lives? and yet you--cut off--detached--save in so far as feeding on them goes--claim to be following in the footsteps of a man who followed in _their_ footsteps--a man who went about seeing how people lived--finding out what troubled them--trying--" she sank back with a sob. "i didn't mean to--but i simply _can't understand it._ can't understand how you _can_." she hid her face. _those faces_--they passed and passed. he had risen and was walking about the room. after a moment he stopped and cleared his throat. "if i didn't think, katherine, that something had happened to almost derange you, i should not have permitted you to continue these ravings." she raised her head defiantly. "truths people don't want to hear are usually disposed of as ravings!" "now if i may be permitted a word. your indictment is not at all new, though your heat in making it would indicate you believed yourself to be saying something never said before--" "i know it's been said before! i'm more interested in knowing how it's been answered." "you have never seemed sufficiently interested in the affairs of the church, katherine, for one to think of seriously discussing our charities with you--" "uncle, do you know what your charities make me think of?" he had resumed his chair--and cigar. "no," he said coldly, "i do not know what they make you 'think of.' i was attempting to tell you what they were." "i know what they are. the idea that comes to my mind has a rather vulgar--" "oh, pray do not hesitate, katherine. you have not been speaking what i would call delicately." "your charities are like waving a scented handkerchief over the stock-yards. or like handing out after-dinner mints to a mob of starving men." "you're quite the wrong end there--as is usual with you agitators," he replied comfortably. "we don't give them mints. we give them soup." "_giving_ them soup--even if you did--is the mint end. why don't you give them jobs?" he spread out his hands in gesture of despair. "what a bore a little learning can make of one! my dear niece, i deeply regret to be compelled to inform you that there aren't 'jobs' enough to go around." "why aren't there?" "why the obvious reason would seem, katie," he replied patiently, "that there are too many of them wanting them." "and as usual, the obvious reason is not it. there are too many of you and me--that's the trouble. they don't have the soup because they must furnish us the mints." it was katie who had risen now and was walking about the room. her cheeks were blazing. "i tell you, uncle, i feel it's a disgrace the way we live--taking everything and doing nothing. i feel positively cheap about it. the army and the church and all the other useless things--" "i do not agree with you that the army is useless and i certainly cannot permit you to say the church is." "you'll not be able to stop other people from saying it!" he seemed about to make heated reply, but instead sank back with an amused smile. "katie, your learning sounds very suspiciously as though it were put on last night. i feel like putting up a sign--'fresh paint--keep off.'" "well at any rate it's not mouldy!" "at college i roomed with a chap who had a way of discovering things, getting in a fine glow of discovery over things everybody else had known. he would wake me out of a sound sleep to tell me something i had heard the week before." "and it's trying to be waked out of a sound sleep, isn't it, uncle?" she flashed back at him. it ended with his kindly assuring her that he was glad she had begun to think about the problems of the world; that no one knew better than he that there was a social problem--and a grave one; that men of the church had written some excellent things on the subject--he would send her some of them. indeed, he would be glad to do all in his power to help her to a better understanding of things. he was convinced, he said soothingly, that when she had gone a little farther into them she would see them more sanely. chapter xxxi katie was back home; or, more accurately, she was back at wayne's quarters, where they could perhaps remain for a month or two longer. and craving some simple, natural thing, something that could not make the heart ache, she went out that afternoon to play golf. the physical kate, katie of the sound body, was delighted to be back playing golf. every little cell sang its song of rejoicing--rejoicing in emancipation from the ill-smelling crowds, return to the open air and the good green earth. it seemed a saving thing that they could so rejoice. katie was reading the little book on man's evolution which the man who was having much to do with her evolution had--it seemed long ago--sent her in the package marked "danger." she had finished the book about women and was just looking through the one on evolution on the day caroline osborne's car had stopped at her door. that began a swift series of events leaving small place for reading. but when, that last day they were together in chicago, she asked him about something to read, he suggested a return to that book. there seemed wisdom and kindness in the suggestion. the story of evolution was to the mind what the game of golf was to the body. with the life about her pressing in too close there was something freeing and saving in that glimpse of herself as part of all the life there had ever been. because the crowds had seemed the all--were suffocating her--something in that vastness of vision was as fresh air after a stifling room. it was not that it did away with the crowds--made her think they did not matter; they were, after all, the more vital--imperative--but she had more space in which to see them, was given a chance to understand them rather than be blindly smothered by them. for a number of years katie had known that there was such a thing as evolution. it had something to do with an important man named darwin. he got it up. it was the idea that we came from monkeys. the monkey was not katie's favorite animal and she would have been none too pleased with the idea had it not been that there was something so delicious about solemn people like her aunt elizabeth and proper people like clara having come from them. she was willing to stand it herself, just because if she came from them they did, too. she had assumed all along that she believed in darwin and that people who did not believe in him were benighted. but the chief reason she had for believing in him was that the church had not believed in him. that was through neither malice nor conviction as regards the church, but merely because it was exciting to have some one disagreeing with it. it had thrilled her as "fearless," she had always meant to find out more about evolution, she had a hazy idea that there was a great deal more to it than just the fact of having come from monkeys, but she led such a busy life--bridge and things--that there was never time and so it remained a thing she believed in and was some day going to find out about. now she was furious with herself and with everybody connected with her for having lived so much of her life shut out from the knowledge--vision--that made life so vast and so splendid. it was like having lived all one's life in sight of the sea and being so busy walking around a silly little lake in a park that there was no time to turn one's face seaward. she wondered what she would think of a person who said the little toy lake kept her so busy there was never a minute to turn around and take a good look at the sea! katie had always loved the great world of living things--the fishes and birds--all animals--all things that grew. they had always called to her imagination--she used to make up stories about them. she saw now that their real story was a thousand-fold more wonderful--more the story--than anything she had been able to invent. she would give much to have known it long before. she felt that she had missed much. there was something humiliating in the thought of having lived one's life without knowing what life was. it made one seem such a dead thing. now she was on fire to know all about it. she smiled as it suggested to her what her uncle had said a few days before of the fresh paint. she supposed there was some truth in it, that one who was conserving the past must find something raw and ludicrous in her state of mind. her passion to fairly devour knowledge would probably bring to many of them the same amused smile it had brought to her uncle. but it was surprising how little she minded the smile. she was too intent on the things she would devour. her glimpse into this actual story of life brought the first purely religious feeling she had ever known. it even brought the missionary fervor, which, as they sat down to rest, she exercised upon worth, who had been proudly filling the office of caddy. she told him that she was going to tell him the most wonderful fairy story there had ever been in the world. and the thing that made it most wonderful of all was that, while it was just like a fairy story in being wonderful, it was every bit true. and then she told him a little of the great story of how one thing became another thing, how everything grew out of something else, how it had been doing that for millions of years, how he was what he was then because through all those years one thing had changed, grown, into something else. as she told it it seemed so noble a thing to be telling a child, so much purer and more dignified--to say nothing of more stimulating--than the evasive tales of life employed in the attempt to thwart her childish mind. worth was upon her with a hundred questions. _how_ did a worm become something that wasn't a worm? did it know it was going to do it? and why did one worm go one way and in a lot of million years be a little boy and another worm go another way and just never be anything but a worm? did she think in another hundred million years that little bird up there would be something else? would _they_ be anything else? and why--? she saw that she had let herself in for a whole new world of whys. one thing was certain: if she were to remain with worth she would have to find out more about evolution. her knowledge was pitifully incommensurate to his whys. but it was beautiful to her the way his mind reached out to it. he was lying on his stomach, head propped up on hands, in an almost prayerful attitude before an ant hill. did she think those little ants knew that they were alive? would they ever be anything else? he wanted to be told more stories about things becoming other things, seemed intoxicated with that idea of the constant becoming. "but, aunt kate," he cried, "mama told me that god made me!" "why so he did, worthie--that is, i suppose he did--but he didn't just make you out of nothing." he lay there on the grass in silence for a long time, looking at the world about him--thinking. after a while he was singing a little song. this was the song: "once i was a little worm-- long--long--ago." katie smiled in thinking how scandalized clara would be to have heard the story just told her son, story moving him to sing a vulgar song about having been a horrid little worm. it would be clara's notion of propriety to tell worth that the doctor brought him in his motor car and expect his mind, that wonderful, plastic little mind of his, to be proper enough to rest content with that lucid exposition of the wonder of life. the time was near for clara's six months of worth to begin. katie had promised she would bring him to her wherever she was; and clara was in paris and meaning to remain there. it meant that worth would spend the winter in paris, away from them; from time to time--as the custom of the city dictated--he would be taken for perfunctory little walks in the _bois_ and would be told to "run and play" if he asked indelicate questions concerning the things of life. in the light of this story of the ways of growth the arrangement about worth seemed an unnatural and a brutal thing. she did not believe that, as a matter of fact, clara wanted worth. the maternal passion was less strong in clara than the passion for _lingerie_. but she wanted worth with her for six months because that kept him from wayne and katie for six months and she knew that they did want him. the poor little fellow's summer had not been what katie had planned. part of the time he had been with his father and part of the time with her--that thing of division again, and as neither of them had been happy any of the time worth had had to suffer for it. he seemed to have to suffer so much through the fact that grown-up people did not know how to manage their lives. suddenly he sat up. "aunt kate," he asked, "when's miss ann coming back?" "i don't know, dear." "well where _is_ she?" "she's been--called away." "well i wish she'd come back. i like miss ann, aunt kate." "yes, dear; we all do." "she tells nice stories, too. only they're about fairies that are just fairies--not worms and things that are really so. do you suppose miss ann knows, aunt kate, that she used to be a frog?" katie laughed and tried to elucidate her point about the frog. but she wondered what difference it might not have made had ann known that, as worth put it, she used to be a frog. with ann, fairy stories would have to be about things not real. all ann's life it had been so. it suddenly seemed that it might have made all the difference in the world had ann known that the things most wonderful were the things that were. or rather, had the world in which ann lived cared to know real things for precious things, the desire for life as the most radiant thing that had ever been upon the earth. ann would have found the world a different place had men known life for the majestic thing it was, seen that back of what her uncle called the "splendid heritage of the country's institutions" was the vastly more splendid heritage of the institution of life. letting the former shut them from the latter was being too busy with the toy lake to look out at the sea. seeing ann as part of all the life that had ever been upon the earth she became, not infinitesimal, but newly significant. widened outlook brought deepened feeling. newly understanding, she sat there brooding over ann anew, pain in the perfection of her understanding. but new courage. life had persisted through so much, was so triumphant. the larger conception lent its glow to the paling belief that ann would persist, triumph. "aunt kate," worth burst forth, "let's take the boat and go up and find the man that mends the boats." aunt kate blushed. "oh no, dearie, we couldn't do that." "why we did do it once," argued worth. "i know, but we can't do it now." "i don't see why not." no, worth didn't see. "i just want to ask him, aunt kate, if he knows that he used to live in a tree." "oh, he knows it," she laughed. "he knows everything," said worth. "worthie, is that why you like him? 'cause he knows everything? or do you like him--just because you like him?" "i like him because he knows everything--but mostly i like him just because i like him." "same here," breathed aunt kate. the man who mended the boats was coming to see her that night. perhaps golf and evolution should not grow arrogant, after all. he had been strange about coming; when she talked with him over the 'phone he had hesitated at the suggestion and finally said, with a defiance she could not see the situation called for, that he would like to come. in chicago he had once said to her: "there's too much gloom around you now for me to contribute the story of my life. but please remember that that was why i didn't tell it." she wondered if the "story of his life" had anything to do with his hesitancy in coming to see her. surely he would have no commonplace notions about "different spheres," though he had mentioned them, and with bitterness. he was especially hostile to the army, had more than once hurt her in his hostility. she would not have resented his attacking it as an institution, that she would expect from his philosophy, but it was a sort of personal contempt for the army and its people she had resented, almost as she would a contemptuous attitude toward her own family. she had contended that he was unjust; that a lack of sympathy with the ends of the army--basis of it--should not bring him to a prejudiced attitude toward its people. she maintained that officers of the army were a higher type than civilians of the same class. he had told her, almost roughly, that he didn't think she knew anything about it, and she had replied, heatedly, that she would like to know why she wouldn't know more about it than he! in the end he said he was sorry to have hurt her when there was so much else to hurt her, but had not retracted what he had said, or even admitted the possibility of mistake. it seemed that one of the worst things about "classes" was that they inevitably meant misunderstanding. they bred antagonism, and that prejudice. people didn't know each other. considering it now, she wondered, though feeling traitorous to him in the wondering, if the man who mended the boats might shrink from anything so distinctly social as calling upon her. their meetings theretofore had been on a bigger and a sterner basis; she had missed a few of the little niceties of consideration, a few of those perfunctory and yet curiously vital courtesies to which she had all her life been accustomed as a matter of course from her army men; but it had been as if they were merely leaving them behind for things larger and deeper, as if their background was the real world rather than world of perfunctory things. from him she had a consideration, not perfunctory, but in the mood of the things they were sharing. that sense of sharing big things, things real and rude, had swept them out of the world of artificial things. now did he perhaps hold back in timidity from that world of the trivial things? she put it from her, disliking herself as of the trivial things in letting it suggest itself at all. expecting him to be just like the men she had known would be expecting the sea to behave like that lake in the park. that night she put on her most attractive gown, a dress sometimes gray and sometimes cloudy blues and greens, itself like the sea, and finding in katie a more mysterious quality than her openness would usually suggest. feeling called upon to make some account to herself for dressing more than occasion would seem to demand, she told herself that she must get the poor old thing worn out and get something new. but it was not a poor old thing, and the last thing katie really wanted was to succeed in getting it worn out. as she dressed she was thinking of ann's pleasure in clothes. there were times when it had seemed a not altogether likeable vanity. it was understandable--lovable--after having been to centralia, after knowing. so many things were understandable and lovable after knowing. she wished she might call across the hall and ask ann to come in and fasten her dress. she would like to chat with her about the way she had done her hair--all those intimate little things they had countless times talked about so gayly. she walked over into ann's room--room in which ann had taken such pride and pleasure. ann had loved the things on the dressing-table, she had more than once seen her fairly caressing those pretty ivory things. she wondered if ann had anything resembling a dressing-table--what she wore--how she managed. those were the little worries about ann forever haunting her, as they would a mother who had a child away from home. new vision of the immensity of life could save her from giving destroying place to that sense of the woe of the world, but a conception of the wonders of the centuries could not keep out the gnawing fear that ann might not be getting enough to eat. there was a complexity in her mood of that night--happiness and sadness so close as at times to be indistinguishable--the whole of it making for a sense of the depth of life. but their evening was constrained. katie blamed the dress for part of it, vexed with herself for having put it on. she had wanted to be attractive--not suggest the unattainable. and that was what something seemed suggesting. he appeared less ill at ease than morose. katie herself, after having been so happy in his coming, was, now that he was there, uncontrollably depressed. they talked of a variety of things--in the main, the things she had been reading--but something had happened to that wonderful thing which had grown warm in their hearts as they walked those last two blocks. even the things of which they talked had lost their radiance. what did it matter whether the universe was wonderful or not if the wonderful thing in one's own heart was to be denied life? from the first, it had been as if the things of which they talked were things sweeping them together, they were in the grip of the power and the wonder of those things, wrung by the tragedy of them, exalted by the hope--in it all, by it all, united. it was as if the whole sea of experience and emotion, suffering and aspiration, was driving, holding, them together. so it had been all along. but not tonight. it was now--or at least so it seemed to katie--as if those forces had let them go. what had been as a great sea surging around their hearts was now just things to talk about. it left her desolate. and as she grew unhappy, she forced her gaiety and that seemed to put him the farther away. the two different worlds had sent ann away; was it, in a way she was unable to cope with, likewise to send him away? watts passed through the hall. she saw him glance out at the soldier loweringly and after that he grew more morose, almost sullenly so. it seemed foolish to talk of one's being free when held by things one could not even see. it was just when she was feeling so lonely and miserable she wished he would go that the telephone rang and central told her that chicago was trying to get her. it was in the manner of the old days that she turned to him and asked what he thought it could be. the suggestion--possibility--swept them back to the old basis, the old relationship. katie grew excited, unnerved, and he talked to her soothingly while she waited for central to call again. they spoke of what it probably was; her brother was in chicago, katie told him, and of course it was he, and something about his own affairs. perhaps he had news of when he would be ordered away. yes, without doubt that was it. but there was a consciousness of dissembling. they were drawn together by the possibility they did not mention, drawn together in the very thing of not mentioning it. as in those tense moments they tried to talk of other things, they were keyed high in the consciousness of not talking of the real thing. and in that there was suggestion of the other thing of which they were not talking. it was all inexplicably related: the excitement, the tenseness, the waiting, the dissembling. katie had never been more lovely than as she sat there with her hand on the telephone: flushed, stirred, expectant--something stealing back to her eyes, something both pleading and triumphant in katie's eyes just then. the man sitting close beside her at the telephone desk scarcely took his eyes from her face. when the bell rang again and her hand shook as it took down the receiver he lay a steadying hand upon her arm. at first there was nothing more than a controversy as to who had the line. in her impatience, she rose; he rose, too, standing beside her. "here's your party," said central at last. her "party" was wayne. but something was still the matter on the line; she could not get what wayne was trying to tell her. as her excitement became more difficult to control the man at her side kept speaking to her--touching her--soothingly. at last she could hear wayne. "you hear me, katie?" "oh yes--_yes_--what is it?" "i want to tell you--" it was swallowed up in a buzzing on the line. then central's voice came clear and crisp. "your party is trying to tell you that _ann_ is found." "oh--" gasped katie, and lost all color--"oh--" "katie--?" that was wayne again. "oh _yes_, wayne?" "i have found her. she is well--that is, will be well. she is all right--going to be all right. i'll write it all to-morrow. it's all over, katie. you don't have to worry any more." the next instant the telephone was upside down on the table and katie, sobbing, was in his arms. he was holding her close; and as her sobs grew more violent he kissed her hair, murmured loving things. suddenly she raised her head--lifting her face to his. he kissed her; and all the splendor of those eons of life was katie's then. chapter xxxii captain jones had come down from fort sheridan late that afternoon. he had been in chicago for several days, as a member of a board assembled up at fort sheridan. the work was over and he would return to the arsenal that night. but he was not to go until midnight. he would have dinner and go to the theater with some of the friends with whom he had been in those last few days. he wished it were otherwise. he was in no mood for them. he would far rather have been alone. he had a little time alone in his room before dinner and sat there smoking, thinking, looking at the specks of men and women moving about in the streets way down there below. he was in no humor that night to keep to the everlasting talk about army affairs, army grievances and schemes, all those things of a world within a world treated as if larger than the whole of the world. the last few days had shown him anew how their hold on him was loosening. there seemed such a thing as the army habit of mind. within their own domain was orderliness, discipline, efficiency, subservience to the collectivity, pride in it, devotion to it--many things of mind and character sadly needed in the chaotic world without. but army men lacked perspective; in isolation they had lost their sense of proportion, of relationships. they had not a true vision of themselves as part of a whole. they had, on the other hand, unconsciously fallen into the way of assuming the whole existed for the part, that they were larger than the thing they were meant to serve. their whole scale was so proportioned; their whole sense of adjustment so perverted. they lacked flexibility--openness--all-sides-aroundness. life in the army disciplined one in many things valuable in life. it failed in giving a true sense of the values of life. he could not have said why it was those inflated proportions irritated him so. they lent an unreality to everything. they made for false standards. and more and more the thing which mattered to him was reality. he tried to pull away from the things that thought would lure him into. he had not the courage to let himself think of her tonight. he feared he had not increased his popularity in the last few days. at a dinner the night before a colonel had put an end to a discussion on war, in which several of the younger officers showed dangerous symptoms of hospitality to the civilian point of view, with the pious pronouncement: "war was ordained by god." "but man pays the war tax," he had not been able to resist adding, and the colonel had not joined in the laugh. he found it wearisome the way the army remained so smug in its assumption that god stood right behind it. when worsted on economic grounds--and perhaps driven also from "survival of the fittest" shelter--a pompous retreat could always be effected to divinity. it was that same colonel who, earlier in the evening, had thus ended a discussion on the unemployed. "the poor ye have always with you," said the colonel, delicately smacking his lips over his champagne and gently turning the conversation to the safer topic of high explosives. he turned impatiently from thought of it to the men and women far down below. he was always looking now at crowds of men and women, always hoping for a familiar figure in those crowds. with all the baffling unreality there had been around her, she seemed to express reality. she made him want it. she made him want life. made him feel what he was missing--realize what he had never had. it seemed that if he did not find her he would not find life. she, too, had wanted life. her quest had been for life--that he knew. and he wanted to find her that he might tell her he understood, tell her--what he had never told any one--that all his life he, too, had dreamed of a something somewhere. and he was growing the farther apart from his army friends because he had come to think of them as standing between. during the summer he had seen. in the mornings when they were going to work, in the evenings when they were going home, he had many times been upon the streets with the people who worked. he could not any longer regard the enlargement of the army, its organization and problems as the most vital thing in the world. it did not seem to him that what the world wanted was a more deadly rifle. his lip curled a little as he looked down at the men and women below and considered how little difference it made to them whether rifles were improved or not. and so many things did make difference with them--they needed improvements on so many things--that to be giving one's life to perfecting instruments of destruction struck him as a sorry vocation. it made him feel very distinctly apart. he knew of no class of men more isolated from the real war of the world than were the men of the army. they were tied up in their own war of competition--competition in preparedness for war. they were frantically occupied in the creation of a frankenstein. they would so perfect destruction as to destroy themselves. meanwhile their blood had grown so hot in their war of competition that they were in prime condition for persuading themselves a real war awaited them. this hot blood found its way into much talk of hardihood and strenuousness, vigor, martial virtues, "the steeps of life," "the romance of history"--all calculated to raise the temperature of tax-paying blood. so successful was the self-delusion of the militarist that sanity appeared mollycoddelism. their greatest fear was fear of the loss of fear. and now they were threatened by colorless economists who were mollycoddelistically making clear that the "stern reality" was the giant hallucination. it seemed rather close to farce. that night he was going back. katie, too, had gone. for the first time that summer neither of them would be there. it seemed giving up. loneliness reached out into places vast and barren in the thought that both in the things of the heart and the affairs of men he seemed destined to remain apart. he looked far more the dreamer than the man of warfare as he sat there, his face, which was so finely sensitive as sometimes to be called cold, saddened with the light of dreams which know themselves for dreams alone. that very first night, night when she had been so shy, he had felt in her that which he called the real thing, which he knew for the great thing, which had been, for him, the thing unattainable. and with all her timidity, aloofness, elusiveness, he had felt an inexplicable nearness to her. he had found out something about the conditions girls had to meet. his face hardened, then tightened with pain in the thought of those being the conditions ann was meeting. he did not believe those conditions would go on many days longer if every man had to see them in relation to some one he cared for. "the poor ye have always with you" might then prove less authoritative--less satisfying--as the final word. and the other conditions--things his sort stood for--darrett--the whole story--he had come to loathe the words chivalry and honor and all the rest of the empty terms that resounded so glibly against false standards. something was wrong with the world and he could not see that improving a rifle was going to go very far toward setting it right. and there was springing up within him, even in his loneliness and gloom, a passion to be doing something that would help set it right. an older officer with whom he had been talking that day had spoken lovingly of his father, under whom he had served; spoken of his hardihood and integrity, his manliness and soldierliness. as he thought of it now it seemed to him that just because he _was_ his father's son--had in him the blood of the soldier--he should help fight the real battles of the day--the long stern battles of peace. his father had served, faithfully and well. he, too, would like to serve. but yesterday's needs were not to-day's needs, nor were the methods of yesterday desirable, even possible, for to-day. what could be farther from serving one's own day than rendering to it the dead forms of what had been the real service to a day gone by? there came a curious thought that to give up the things of war might be the only way to save the things that war had left him. that perhaps he could only transmit his heritage by recasting the form of giving. looking out across the miles of the city's roofs, hearing the rumble of the city as it came faintly up to him, watching the people hurrying to and fro, there was something puerile in the argument that men any longer needed war to fill their lives, must have the war fear to keep them from softness and degeneration. thinking of the problems of that very city, it seemed men need not worry greatly about having nothing to fight for, no stimulus to manhood. men and women! those men and women passing back and forth and all the millions of their kind, they were what counted. the things that mattered to them were the things that mattered. their needs the things to fight for. so he reflected and drifted, brushing now this, now that, in thought and fancy. weary--lonely--he dreamed a dream, dream such as the weary and the lonely have dreamed before, will dream again. too utterly alone, he dreamed he was not alone. heart-hungry, he dreamed of love. he dreamed of ann. he had dreamed of her before, would dream of her again. dream of her, if for nothing else, because he knew she had dreamed of love; because she made him know that it was there, because, unreasoningly, she made him hope. her face that night at the dance--that night in the boat, when they had talked almost not at all, had seemed to feel no need for talking--things remembered blended with things desired until it seemed he could feel her hair brush his face, feel her breath upon his cheek, her arms about his neck--vivid as if given by memories instead of wooed from dreams. but the benign dream became torturing vision--vision of ann with hands held out to him--going down--her wonderful eyes fearful with terror. it was that which dreaming held for him. and it seemed that he--he and his kind--all of those who stood for the things not real were the thing beating ann down. dreams gone and vision mercifully falling away there came a yearning, just a simple human yearning, to know where she was. he felt he could bear anything if only he knew that she was safe. the telephone rang. he supposed it was some of his friends--something about the hour for dining. he would not answer. could not. too sick of it all--too sore. but it kept ringing, and, habit in the ascendency, he took down the receiver. it was not a man's voice. it was a woman's. a faint voice--he could scarcely catch it. and could with difficulty reply. he did not know the voice, it was too faint, too far-away, but a suggestion in it made his own voice and hand unsteady as he said: "yes? what is it?" "is this--captain jones?" the voice was stronger, clearer. his hand grew more unsteady. "yes," he replied in the best voice he could muster. "yes--this is captain jones. who is it, please?" there was a silence. "tell me, please," he managed to say. "is it--?" the voice came faintly back, "why it's--ann." the keenest joy he had ever known swept through him. to be followed by the most piercing fear. the voice was so faint--so unreal--what if it were to die away and he would have no way to get it back! it seemed he could not hold it. for an instant he was crazed with the sense of powerlessness. he felt it must even then be slipping back into the abyss from which it had emerged. then he fought. got himself under command; sent his own voice full and strong over the wire as if to give life to the voice it seemed must fade away. "ann," he said firmly, authoritatively, "listen to me. no matter what happens--no matter what's the matter--i've got something you must hear. if we're cut off, call up again. will you do that? are you listening?" "yes," came ann's voice, more sure. "i've got to see you. you hear what i say? it's about katie. you care a little something for katie, don't you, ann?" it was a sob rather than a voice came back to him. "then tell me where i can find you." she hesitated. "tell me where you're living--or where i can find you. now tell me the truth, ann. if you knew the condition katie was in--" she gave him an address on a street he did not know. "would you rather i came there? or rather i meet you down town? just as you say. only i _must_ see you tonight." "i--i can't come down town. i'm sick." his hand on the receiver tightened. his voice, which had been almost harsh in its dominance, was different as he said: "then i'll come there--right away." there was no reply, but he felt she was still there. "and, ann," he said, very low, and far from harshly, "i want to see you, too." there was a little sob in which he faintly got "good-bye." he sank to a chair. his face was buried in his hands. it was several minutes before he moved. chapter xxxiii children seemed to spring up from the sidewalk and descend from the roofs as his cab, after a long trip through crowded streets with which three months before he would have been totally unfamiliar, stopped at the number ann had given. all the way over he had been seeing children: dirty children, pale-faced children, children munching at things and children looking as though they had never had anything to munch at--children playing and children crying--it seemed the children's part of town. the men and women of tomorrow were growing up in a part of the city too loathsome for the civilized man and woman of today to set foot in. he was too filled with thought of ann--the horror of its being where she lived--to let the bigger thought of it brush him more than fleetingly, but it did occur to him that there was still a frontier--and that the men who could bring about smokeless cities--and odorless ones--would be greater public servants than the men who had achieved smokeless powder. riding through that part of town it would scarcely suggest itself to any one that what the country needed was more battleships. the children still waited as he rang an inhospitable doorbell, as interested in life as if life had been treating them well. he had to ring again before a woman came to the door with a cup in her hand which she was wiping on a greasy towel. she looked very much as the bell had sounded. she let him in to a place which it seemed might not be a bad field for some of the army's boasted experts on sanitation. it was a place to make one define civilization as a thing that reduces smell. several heads were stuck out of opening doors and with each opening door a wave stole out from an unlovely life. captain wayneworth jones, u. s. army, dressed for dining at a place where lives are better protected against lives, was a strange center for those waves from lives of struggle. "she the girl that's sick?" the woman demanded in response to his inquiry for miss forrest. he replied that he feared she was ill and was told to go to the third floor and turn to the right. it was the second door. he hesitated, coloring. "would you be so kind as to tell her i am here? i think perhaps she may prefer to see me--down here." the woman stared, then laughed. she looked like an evil woman as she laughed, but perhaps a laughing saint would look evil with two front teeth gone. "well we ain't got no _parlor_ for the young ladies to see their young men in," she said mockingly. "and if you climbed as many stairs as i did--" "i beg your pardon," said he, and started up the stairway. on the second floor were more waves from lives of struggle. the matter would be solemnly taken up in congress if it were soldiers who were housed in the ill-smelling place. evidently congress did not take women and children and disabled civilians under the protecting wing of its indignation. wet clothes were hanging down from the third floor. they fanned back and forth the fumes of cabbage and grease. he grew sick, not at the thing itself, but at thought of its being where he was to find ann. though the fact that he was to find her made all the rest of it--the fact that people lived that way--even the fact of her living that way--things that mattered but dimly. as he looked at the woman in greasy wrapper who was shaking out the wet clothes he had a sudden mocking picture of ann as she had been that night at the dance. the woman's manner in staring at him as he knocked at ann's door infuriated him. but when the door was opened--by ann--he instantly forgot all outside. he closed the door and stood leaning against it, looking at her. for the moment that was all that mattered. and in that moment he knew how much it mattered--had mattered all along. even how ann looked was for the moment of small consequence in comparison with the fact that ann was there. but he saw that she was indeed ill--worn--feverish. "you are not well," were his first words, gently spoken. she shook her head, her eyes brimming over. he looked about the room. it was evident she had been lying on the bed. "i want you to lie down," he said, his voice gentle as a woman's to a child. "you know you don't mind me. i come as one of the family." he helped her back to the bed; smoothed her pillow; covered her with the miserable spread. ann hid her face in the pillow, sobbing. he pulled up the one chair the room afforded, laid his hand upon her hair, and waited. his face was white, his lips trembling. "it's all over now," he murmured at last. "it's all over now." she shook her head and sobbed afresh. his heart grew cold. what did she mean? a fear more awful than any which had ever presented itself shot through him. but she raised her head and as she looked at him he knew that whatever she meant it was not that. "what is it about katie?" she whispered. "why, ann, can't you guess what it is about katie? didn't you know what katie must suffer in your leaving like that?" "i left so she wouldn't have to suffer." "well you were all wrong, ann. you have caused us--" but as, looking into her face, he saw what she had suffered, he was silenced. she was feverish; her eyes were large and deep and perilously bright, her temples and cheeks cruelly thin. but what hurt him most were not the marks of illness and weakness. it was the harassed look. fear. _fear_--that thing so invaluable in building character. thought of the needlessness of it wrung from him: "ann--how could you!" "why i thought i was doing right," she murmured. "i thought i was being kind." he smiled faintly, sadly, at the irony and the bitter pity of that. "but how could you think that?" he pressed. "not that it matters now--but i don't see how you could." she looked at him strangely. "do you--know?" he nodded. "then don't you see? i left to make it easy for katie." he thought of katie's summer. "well your success in that direction was not brilliant," he said with his old dryness. her eyes looked so hurt that he stroked her hand reassuringly, as he would have stroked worth's had he hurt him. and as he touched her--it was a hot hand he touched--it struck him as absurd to be quibbling about why she had gone. she was there. he had found her. that was all that mattered. he became more and more conscious of how much it mattered. he wanted to draw her to him and tell her how much it mattered. but he did not--dared not. "and how did you happen to be so unkind as to call me up, ann?" he asked with a faint smile. "i wanted--i wanted to hear about katie. and i wanted"--her eyes had filled, her chin was trembling--"i was lonesome. i wanted to hear your voice." his heart leaped. for the moment he was not able to keep the tenderness from his look. "and i knew you were there because i saw it in the paper. a woman brought back some false hair to be exchanged--i sell false hair," said ann, with a wan little smile and unconsciously touching her own hair--"and what she wanted exchanged--though we don't exchange it--was wrapped up in a newspaper, and as i looked down at it i happened to see your name. wasn't that funny?" "very humorous," he replied, almost curtly. "i had been sick all day--oh, for lots of days. but i was trying to keep on. i had lost two other places by staying away for being sick--and i didn't dare--just didn't dare--lose this one. you don't know how _afraid_ you get--how frightened you are--when you're afraid you're going to be sick." the fear--sick fear that fear of sickness can bring--that was in her eyes as she talked of it suddenly infuriated him. he did not know what or whom he i was furious at--but it was on ann it broke. he rose, overturning his unsteady chair as he did so, and, seeking command, looked from the window which looked down into a squalid court. the wretchedness of the court whipped his rage. "well for god's sake," he burst forth, "what did you _do_ it for! of all the unheard of--outrageous--unpardonable--what did you _mean_"--turning savagely upon her--"by selling false hair?" "why i sold false hair," said ann, a little sullenly, "so i could live." "well, didn't you know," he demanded passionately, "that you could _live_ with _us_?" she shook her head. "i didn't think i had any right to--after--what happened." he came back to her. "ann," he asked gently, "haven't you a 'right to'--if we want you to?" she looked at him again in that strange way. "are you sure--you know?" "very sure," he answered briefly. "and do you mean to say you would want me--anyhow?" she whispered. he turned away that she might not see how badly and in what sense he wanted her. his whole sense of fitness--his training--was against her seeing it then. the pause, the way she was looking at him when he turned back to her, made restraint more and more difficult. but suddenly she changed, her face darkening as she said, smolderingly: "no--i'm not _that_ weak. if i can't live--i'll _die_. other people make a living! other girls get along! katie would. katie could do it." she sat up; he could see the blood throbbing in her neck and at her temples. she was gripping her hands. she looked so frail--so helpless. "but katie is strong, ann," he said soothingly. "yes--in every way. and i'm not." she turned away, her face twitching. "why i seem to be just the kind of a person that has to be taken care of!" he did not deny it, filled with the longing to do it. "it's--it's humiliating." he would at one time have supposed that it would be, should be; would have held to the idea that every man and woman ought be able to make a living, that there was something wrong with them if they couldn't. but not after the things he had seen that summer. the something wrong was somewhere else. "and yet you don't know," ann was saying brokenly, "how hard it is. you don't know--how many things there are." she turned to him impetuously. "i want to tell you! then maybe it will go. i couldn't tell katie. but i don't know--i don't know why--but i could tell you anything." he nodded, not clear-eyed, and took one of her hands and stroked it. her cheeks grew more red; her eyes glitteringly bright. "you see--it's _men_--things like--that's what makes it hard for girls." he pressed her hand more firmly, though his own was shaking. "katie told you--katie must have told you about--the first of it--" she faltered. he drew in his breath sharply and held it for an instant. "and after that--" she turned upon him passionately. "_do_ they know? _does_ it make a difference?" he did not get her meaning for an instant and when he did it brought the color to his face; he had always been a man of great reserve. but ann seemed unconscious. this was the reality that realities make. he shook his head. "no. you only imagine." "no, i don't imagine. they pretend. pretend they know." he gritted his teeth. so those were the things she had had to meet! "they lie," he said briefly. "bluff." and for an instant he covered his eyes with her hand. "you see after--after that," she went on, "i couldn't go back to the telephone office. i don't know that i can explain why--but it seemed the one thing i couldn't do, so--oh i did several things--was in a store--and then a girl got me on the stage--in the chorus of 'daisey-maisey.' i thought perhaps i could be an actress, and that being in the chorus would give me a chance." she laughed bitterly. "there are lots of silly people in the world, aren't there?" was her one comment on her mistake. "that night--the last night--" she told it in convulsive little jerks--"the manager said something to me. _he_ pretended. and when he saw how frightened i was--and how i loathed him--it made him furious--and he said things--vowed things--and he kissed me--and oh he was so _terrible_--his face--his lips--" she hid her face, rocking back and forth. he sat on the bed beside her, put his arm around her as he would around katie or worth, holding her tenderly, protectingly, soothingly, his own face white, biting his lips. "he vowed things--he claimed--i knew i couldn't stay with the company. i was even afraid to stay until it was over that night. i had a chance to run away--oh i was so _frightened_." she kept repeating--"i was so _frightened_. "i can't explain it--you'd have to see him--his _lips_--his thick, loose awful lips!" "ann," he whispered. "please, dear--don't talk about it--don't think about it!" "but i want it to go away! i don't want to be alone with it. i want somebody to know. i want _you_ to know." "all right," he murmured. "all right. i want to hear." his whole body was set for pain he knew must come. ann's eyes were full of terror, that terror that lives after terror, the anguish of terror remembered. "it's awful to be alone with awful thoughts," she whispered. "to be shut in with something you're afraid of." "i know--i know," he soothed her. "but you're going to tell me. tell _me_. and then you'll never be alone with it again." "i've been afraid so much," she went on sobbingly. "alone so much--with things that frightened me. that night i was alone. all alone. and afraid. you see i went and went and went. just to be getting _away_. and at last i was out in the country. and then i was afraid of _that_. i went in something that seemed to be a barn. hid in some hay--" he gripped her arm as if it were more than he could stand. his face was colorless. "i almost went crazy. why i think i _did_ go crazy--with fear. being alone. being afraid." he looked away from her. it seemed unfair to her to let himself see her like that--her face distorted--unlovely--in the memory of it. "when it came daylight i went to sleep. and when i woke up--when i woke up--" she was laughing and sobbing together and it was some time before he could quiet her. "when i woke up another man was bending over me--an old man--so _old_--so-- "oh, i suppose it was just that he was surprised at finding me there. but i thought--i hadn't got over the night before-- "so again i went. just went. just to get away. and that was when i saw it was life i'd have to get away from. that there wasn't any place in it for me. that it meant being alone. afraid. that it was just _that_--those thick awful lips--that old man's eyes--oh no--no--not that!" she was fighting it with her hands--trying to push it away. it took both tenderness and sternness to quiet her. "so i hurried on,"--she told it in hurried, desperate way, as if fearful she would not get it all told and would be left alone with it. "to find a way. a place. i just wanted to find the way--the place--before anything else could happen. i thought all the people who looked at me _knew_. i thought there was nothing else for me--i thought there was something wrong with me--and when i remembered what i had wanted--i hated--hated them. "i saw water--a bridge. on the bridge i looked down. i was going to--but i couldn't, because a man was looking up at me. i hated him, too." she paused. "though i've thought of it since. it was a queer look. i believe that man _knew_. and wanted to help me. "but i didn't want to be helped. nothing could help. i just wanted to get away--have it over. so i hurried on--across your island--though i didn't know--just looking for a place--a way. just to have it all over." she changed on that, relaxed. her eyes closed. "to have it all over," she repeated in a whisper. she opened her eyes and looked up at him. "doesn't that ever seem to you a beautiful thing?" his eyes were wet. "not any more," he whispered. "not now." "then again i saw water--the other side of the island." she went back to it with an effort, exhausted. "i ran. i wanted to get there. have it all over--before anything else could happen. i couldn't _look_--but i kept saying to myself it would only be a minute--only a minute--then it would be all over--not so bad as having things happen--being alone--afraid--" she shuddered--drew back--living it--realizing it. her visioning--realizing--had gone on beyond her words, beyond the events. she was shuddering as if the water were actually closing over her. but again she was called back by katie's voice and that look he felt he should not be seeing went as a faint smile formed on her lips. "then katie. katie calling to me. dear katie--pretending. "i didn't want to go. i thought it was just something else. and oh how i wanted to get it all over!" she sobbed. "but i saw it was a girl. sick. i wasn't able to help going--and then--well, you know. katie. how she fooled me. and saved me." she looked up at him, again the suggestion of a smile on her colorless lips. "was there ever anybody in the world so wonderful--so funny--as katie? "but at first i couldn't believe in her. i thought it must be just something else." she stopped, looking at him. "why i think it wasn't till after i met _you_ i felt sure it couldn't be--" his arm about her tightened. he drew her closer to him. he was shaken by a deep sob. and so she rested, lax, murmuring about things that had happened, sometimes smiling faintly as she recalled them. the terror had gone, as if, as she had known, telling it to him had freed her. that twisted, unlovely look which he had tried not to see, loving her too well to wish to see it, had gone. she was worn, but lovely. she was resting. at peace. and so many minutes passed when she would not speak--resting, rescued. and then she would whisper of little things that had happened and smile a little and seem to drift the farther into the harbor of security into which she had come. he saw that--exhausted, protected, comforted--she was going to fall asleep. his heart was all tenderness for her as he held her, adoring her, sorrowing over her, guarding her. "i haven't really slept all summer," she murmured at last, and after a few minutes her breathing told that sleep had come. but when, in trying to unfasten her collar--he longed to be doing some little thing for her comfort--he took his hand from hers, she started up in alarm and he had to put it back, reassuring her, telling her that she was not alone, that nothing could ever harm her again. an hour passed. and in that hour things which he would have believed fixed loosened and fell. it was all shaken--the whole of his thinking. it could never be the same again. old things must go. new things come. watching ann, yearning over her, sorrowing, adoring, he saw life as what life had done to her. saw it as the thing she had found. he watched the curve of her mouth. her beautiful bosom rising and falling as she slept. the lovely line of her throat, the blood throbbing in her throat, her long lashes upon her cheek, that loveliness--beauty--that sweetness and tenderness--and _what it had met_. she, so exquisitely fashioned for love--needful of it--so perfect--so infinitely to be desired and cherished--and _what she had found_. he writhed under a picture of that old man bending over her--of that other man--bully, brute--thick awful lips snatching at her as a dog at meat. and then still another man. that first man. darrett. _his_ friend. _his_ sort. the man who could so skillfully use the lure of love to rob life-- as he thought of him--his charm, cleverness--how that, too, had been pitted against her--starved, then offered what she would have no way of judging--close to her loveliness, conscious of her warmth, her breath, the superb curves of her lovely body--thinking of what darrett had found--taken--what he had left her _to_--there were several minutes when his brain was unpiloted, a creaking ship churning a screaming sea. and now? had it killed it in her? taken it? if he were to kiss her in the way he hungered to kiss her would it wake nothing more than that sick terror in her wonderful eyes? that thought became as a band of hot steel round his throat. was it _gone_? how could she be sleeping that way with her hand in his--his face so close to her--if there remained any of that life-longing that had been there for darrett to find? life grew too cold, too gray and misshapen in that thought to see it as life. it could not be. it was only that she was exhausted. and her trust in him. at least there was that. then he would make her care for him by caring for her--caring for her protectingly, tenderly, surrounding her with that sea of tenderness that was in his heart for her. life would come back. he would woo it back. and no matter how the flame in his own heart might rage he would wait upon the day when he could bring the love light to her eyes without even the shadow of remembering of fear. so he yearned over her--sorrowing, hoping. and life was to him two things. what life had done to ann. what life would be with ann. he wanted to let himself touch his lips lightly to her temple--so close to him. but he would not--fearing to wake the fear in her, vowing to wait till love could come through a trust that must cast fear forever from the heart. passion melted to tenderness; the tenderness flooding him in thought of the love he would give her. that same night he had her taken to a hospital. it was the only way he could think of for caring for her, and she was far enough from well to permit it. he left her there, again asleep, and cared for. then returned to his hotel and telephoned katie. it was past daylight before sleep came to him. chapter xxxiv once again katie was donning the dress which had the colors of the sea. she was wearing it this time, not because she must get the poor old thing worn out, but because she had been asked to wear it. "by request" she was saying to herself, with a warm smile, as she shook out its folds. as nora was fastening it for her she saw her own face in the mirror and tried to twist it about in some way. it seemed she would have to make some explanation to nora for looking like that. it had been a day of golden october sunshine without, and within katie's heart a day of such sunshine as all her years of sunshine had never brought. she had not felt like playing golf, or like reading about evolution; body and mind were filled with a gladness all their own and she had taken a long walk in and out among the wooded paths of her beautiful island and had been filled with thoughts of many beautiful and wonderful things. of the past she had thought, and of the future, and most of all of the living present: the night before, and that evening, when he was coming to see her again and would have things to tell her. he had wanted to tell them then--some of the things about himself which he said she must know and which he gave fair warning would hurt her, "then not to-night," she had said. and now the happiness was too great, filled her too completely and radiantly for her to fear the pain of which she had been warned. she was fortified against all pain. wayne's finding ann seemed to throw the gate to happiness wide open to her, giving her, not only happiness, but the right to it. she smiled in thinking how, again, it was ann who opened a door. if ann had never come she would not--in this way which had made it all possible--have known her man who mended the boats. the experience with ann was as a bridge upon which they met. it was because of ann they could walk so far along that bridge. the adventure, and what had come to seem the tragedy of the adventure, was over. it turned her back to those first days of play--the pretending which had led to realizing, the fancies which had been paths to realities. they would not go on in just that way; some other way would shape itself; she and wayne would talk of it, make some plan for ann. she could plan it better after the letter she would have from wayne the next day telling of finding ann. it was a new adventure now. the great adventure. but it was because she had ventured at all that the great adventure was offered her. her venturing had led her to the crowds. she was not forgetting the crowds. she would go back to them. it could not be otherwise. there was much she wanted to do, and so much she wanted to know. but she would go back to them happy, and because happy, wiser and stronger. in myriad ways life had beckoned to her, promised her, as with buoyant step and singing heart she walked sunny paths that golden october afternoon. later she had stopped to see mrs. prescott, and she, as she so often did, talked of katie's mother. katie was glad to be talking of her mother, and, as they also did, of her father. it brought them very near, so close it was as if they could know of the beautiful happiness in their child's heart. they talked of things which had happened when katie was a little girl, making herself as the little girl so real, visualizing her whole life, making real and dear those things in which her life had been lived. as she thought of it again that night, after she was dressed and was waiting, hurt did come in the thought of his feeling for the army. she must talk to him again about the army, make him see that thing in it which was dear to her. though could she? she did not seem able to tell even herself just what there was in her feeling for the army. instead of arguments, came pictures--pictures and sounds known from babyhood: men in uniform--her father in uniform, upon his horse--dress parade--the flag--the band--from reveille to taps things familiar and dear swept before her. it would seem to be the picturesque in it which wove the spell; but would her throat have tightened, those tears be springing to her eyes at a thing no deeper than the picturesque? no, in what seemed that fantastic setting were things genuine and fine: simplicity, hospitality, friendship, comradeship, loyalty, courage in danger and good humor in petty annoyances. those things--oh yes, together with things less admirable--she knew to be there. she got out her pictures of her father and mother; her father in uniform--that gentle little smile on her mother's face. she thought of what her mother had endured, of what hosts of army women had endured, going to outlandish spots of the earth, braving danger and doing without cooks! she was proud of them, proud to be of them. she lingered over her father's picture. a soldier. perhaps he was of a vanishing order, but she hoped it would be long--very long--before the things to be read in his face vanished from the earth. through memories of her father there many times sounded the notes of the bugle--now this call, now that, piercing, compelling, sounding as _motif_ of his life, thing before which all other things must fall away. she seemed to hear now the notes of retreat--to see the motionless regiment--then the evening gun and the band playing the star spangled banner and the flag--never touching the ground--coming down for the night. she answered it in the things it woke in her heart: those ideals of service, courage, fidelity which it had left her. she would talk to him--to alan (absurd she should think it so timidly--so close in the big things--so strange in some of the little ones)--about her father and mother. to make them real to him would make him see the army differently. it hurt her to think of his seeing it as he did, hurt her because she knew how it would have hurt them. to them, it had been the whole of their lives. they had not questioned; they had served. they had given it all they had. and that other thing there was to tell her--? was that, too, something that would have hurt them? she hoped not. it seemed she could bear the actual hurt to herself better than thought of the hurt it would have been to them. but when the bell rang and she heard his voice asking for her a tumult of happiness crowded all else out. she was shyly radiant as she came to him. as he looked at her, it seemed to pass belief. but when he dared, and was newly convinced, as, his arms about her he looked down into her kindling face, his own grew purposeful as well as happy, more resolute than radiant. "we will make a life together," he said, as if answering something that had been in his thoughts. "we will beat it all down." an hour went by and he had not told the story of his life, life itself too mysterious, too luring, too beautiful. whenever they came near to it they seemed to hold back, as if they would remain as they were then. instead, they told each other little things about themselves, absurd little things, drawing near to each other by all those tender little paths of suddenly remembered things. and they lingered so, as if loving it so. it was when katie spoke of her brother that he was swept again into the larger seriousness. looking into her tender face, his own grew grave. "you know, katie--what i told you--what i must tell you--" "oh yes," said katie, "there was something, wasn't there?" but she put out her hand as if to show there was nothing that could matter. he took the hand and held it; but he did not grow less grave. "katie," he asked, "how much do you really care for the army?" it startled her, stirring a vague fear in her happy heart. "why--i don't know; more than i realize, i presume." she was silent, then asked: "why?" he did not reply; his face had become sober. "you are thinking," she ventured, "that your feeling for it is going to be--hard for me?" he nodded; he was still holding her hand tightly, as if to make sure of keeping it. "you see, katie," he went on, with difficulty, "i have reason for that feeling." "what do you mean?" she asked sharply. "i have tried not to show you that i knew anything--in a personal way--about the army." her breath was coming quickly; her face was strained. but after a moment she exclaimed: "why--to be sure--you were in the spanish war!" "no," said he with a hard laugh, "i am nothing so glorious as a veteran." he felt the hand in his grow cold. she drew it away and rose; turned away and was picking the leaves from a plant. but she found another thing to reach out to. "well i suppose"--this she ventured tremulously, imploringly--"you went to west point--and were-- didn't finish?" "no, katie," he said, "i never went to west point." "well then what did you do?" she demanded sharply. he laughed harshly. "oh i was just one of those fools roped in by a recruiting officer in a gallant-looking white suit!" "you were--?" she faltered. "in the ranks. one of the men." the fact that she should be looking like that drove him to add bitterly: "like watts, you know." she stood there in silence, held. the radiance had all fallen from her. she was looking at him with something of the woe and reproach of a child for a cherished thing hurt. "why, katie," he cried, "_does_ it matter so? i thought it was only when we were _in_ that we were so--impossible." but she did not take the hands he stretched out. she was held. it drove him desperate. "well if _that's_ so--if to have been in the army at all is a thing to make you look like _that_--heaven knows," he threw in, "i don't blame you for despising us for fools!--but i don't know what you'll say when i tell you--" "when you tell me--what?" she whispered. "that i have no honorable discharge to lay at your feet. that i left your precious army through the noble gates of a military prison!" she took a step backward, swaying. the anguish which mingled with the horror in her face made him cry: "katie, let me tell you! let me show you--" but katie, white-faced, was standing erect, braced for facing it. "what for? what did you do?" her voice was quick, sharp; tenseness made her seem arrogant. it roused something ugly in him. "i knocked down a cur of a lieutenant," he said, and laughed defiantly. "you _struck_--an officer?" "i knocked down a man who ought to have been knocked down!" "_struck_--your superior officer?" "katie," he cried, "that's your way of looking at it! but let me tell you--let me show you--" but she had turned from him, covered her face; and before katie there swept again those pictures, sounds: her father's voice ringing out over parade ground--silent, motionless regiment; the notes of retreat--those bugle notes, piercing, compelling, thing before which all other things must fall away--evening gun and lowered flag-- she lifted colorless face, shaking her head. "_katie_!" he cried. "our life--_our_ love--_our_ life--" she raised her hand for silence, still shaking her head. "won't you--_fight_ for it?" he whispered. "_try_?" she kept shaking her head. "anything else," she managed to articulate. "anything else. not this. you don't understand. can't. never would." suddenly she cried: "oh--_go away!_" for a moment he stood there. but her face was locked against appeal. colorless, unsteady, he turned and left her. katie put out her hand. her father--her father in uniform, it had been so real, it seemed he must be there. but he was not there. nothing was there. nothing at all. as the front door closed she started forward, but there sounded for her again the notes of the bugle--piercing, compelling, thing before which all other things must fall away. "taps," this time, as blown over her father's grave, soldiers' heads bowed and tears falling for a fine soldier who would respond to bugle calls no more. chapter xxxv paris was in one of her gray moods that january afternoon. everything was gray except the humanity. emotion never seemed to grow gray in paris. from her place by the window in clara's apartment katie was looking down into the narrow street, the people passing to and fro. two men were shaking hands. they would stop, then begin again. they had been doing that for the last five minutes. they seemed to find life a very live thing. so did the _femme de menage_ and her soldier, who also had been standing over there for the last five minutes. katie did not want to look longer at the _femme de menage_ and her soldier, so she turned her chair a little about and looked more directly at clara. clara was in gray mood, too. only clara differed from the streets in that it was the emotion was gray; the _robe de chambre_ was red. so were clara's eyes. "it's not pleasant, katie," she was saying, "having to remain here in paris for these foggy months--with all one's friends down on the riviera." "no," said katie grimly, "life's hard." clara's tears flowed afresh. "i've often thought _you_ were hard, katie. it's because you've never--_cared._ you've never--suffered." katie smiled slightly, again looking out the window at the _femme_ and her soldier, who were as contented with the seclusion offered by a lamp-post as though it were seclusion indeed. as she watched them, "hard" did not seem the precise word for something in katie's eyes. "you see, katie," clara had resumed, as if her woe gave her the right to rebuke katie for the lack of woe, "you've always had everything just the way you wanted it." "just exactly," said katie, still looking at the _femme de menage._ "your grandfather left you all that money, and when you want to do a thing all you have to do is do it. what can you know of the real sorrows and hardships of life?" "what indeed?" responded katie briskly. "and your heart has never been touched--and i don't believe it ever will be," clara continued spitefully--katie seemed so complacent. "you have no real feeling. you're just like wayne." katie laughed at that and looked at clara; then laughed again, and clara flushed. "speaking of wayne," said katie in off-hand fashion, "he's been made a major." she watched clara as she said it. there were things katie could be rather brutal about. "i'm sure that's very nice," said the woman who had divorced wayne. "yes, isn't it? and other things are going swimmingly. one of those things he used to be always puttering over--you may remember, clara, mentioning, from time to time, those things he used to be puttering around with--has been adopted with a whoop. a great fuss is being made over it. it looks as though wayne was confronted with something that might be called a future." "i'm sure i'm very glad," said clara, "that somebody is to have something that might be called a future. certainly a woman with barely enough to live on isn't in much danger of being confronted with one." katie made no apology to herself for the pleasure she took in "rubbing it in." she remembered too many things too vividly. "it's pretty hard," said clara, "when one has a--duty to society, and nothing to go on." katie was thinking that society must be a very vigorous thing, persisting through all the "duties" people had to it. she smiled now in seeing that the thing which had brought her to clara that day was in the nature of a "duty to society" and that in her case, too, a duty to society and a personal inclination moved happily together. katie was there that afternoon to buy worth. so she put it to herself in what clara would have called her characteristically brutal fashion. she was sure worth could be had for a price. she had that price and she believed the psychological moment was at hand for offering it. the reason for its being the psychological moment was that clara wanted to join a party at nice and did not have money enough to buy the clothes which would make her going worth while. for there was a man there--an american, a rich westerner--whom clara's duty to society moved her to marry. that was katie's indelicate deduction from clara's delicate hints. and katie wanted worth. it wasn't wholly a matter of either affection or convenience. it had to do, and in almost passionate sense, with something which was at least in the category with such things as duties to society. worth seemed to her too fine, too real, to be reared by a "truly feminine woman," as clara had been known to call herself. clara's great idea for worth was that he be well brought up. that was clara's idea of her duty to society. and it was katie's notion of her duty to society to save him from being too well brought up. the things she had been seeing, and suffering, in the past year made her feel almost savagely on the subject. katie had been there since october. clara had magnanimously permitted worth to remain with his aunt kate most of the time, with the provision that katie bring him to her as often as she wanted him. this was unselfish of clara, and cheaper. clara's alimony was not small, but neither were her tastes. indeed the latter rose to the proportions of duties to society. katie knew it was as such she must treat them in the next half hour. she must save the "maternal instinct" clara was always talking about--usually adding that it was a thing which katie, of course, could not understand--by taking it under the sheltering wing of the "child's good." katie knew just how to reach the emotions which clara had, without outraging too much the emotions she persuaded herself she had. so she began speaking in a large way of life, how hard it was, how complicated. how they all loved worth and wished to do the best thing for him, how she feared it must hurt the child's personality, living in that unsettled fashion, now under one influence, now under another. she spoke of clara's own future, how she had _that_ to think of and how it was hard she be so--restricted. she drew a vivid picture of what life might be if clara didn't "provide for the future"--she was careful to use no phrase so raw to truly feminine ears as "make a good marriage." and then, rather curtly when it came to it, tired of the ingratiating preamble, she asked clara what she would think of relinquishing all claim on worth and taking twenty thousand dollars. clara tried to look more insulted by the proposition than invited by the sum. but katie got a glimmer of that look of greed known to her of old. she went on talking. she was sure every one would think it beautiful of clara to let worth go to them just because they had a better way of caring for him, just because it was for the child's good. every one would know how it must hurt her and admire her for the sacrifice. and then katie mentioned the fact that the matter could be closed immediately and clara start at once for nice and perhaps that itself would "mean something to the future." from behind clara's handkerchief--clara's tears were in close relation to clara's sense of the fitness of things--katie made out that life seemed driving her to this, but that it hurt her to think so tragic a thing should be associated with so paltry a sum. "it's my limit," said katie shortly. "take it or leave it." amid more sobs katie got that all the jones family were heartless, that life was cruel, but that she was willing to make any sacrifice for her child's good. "then i'll go down and get him," said katie, rising. clara's sobs ceased instantly. "get who?" "my lawyer. i left him down there talking to the _concierge_." "katie jones--how _could_ you!" "oh she looks like a decent enough woman," said katie. "i don't think it will hurt him any." "katie, you have grown absolutely--_vulgar_. and so _hard_. you have no fineness--no intuition--nothing feminine about you. and how dared you bring your lawyer here to me? what right had you to assume i'd do this?" "why i knew you well enough, clara, to believe you would be willing to do it--for your child's good." clara looked at her suspiciously and katie hastened to add that she brought him because she wanted to pay ten thousand francs on account and she thought clara might want to get the disagreeable business all settled up at once so she could hurry on to nice before those friends of hers got over to algiers, or some place where clara might not be able to go after them. clara again looked suspicious, but only said it was inconsiderate of katie to expect her to receive a lawyer with her poor eyes in that condition. but when katie returned with him clara's eyes were a softer red and she managed to extract from the interview the pleasure of showing him that she was suffering. as she watched the transaction, katie felt a little ashamed of herself. not because she was doing it, but because she had known so well how to do it. but with a grimace she banished her compunctions in the thought of its being for the child's good, and hence a duty to society. less easy to banish was the hideous thought that she might have been able to get him for less! by the time the attorney had gone clara seemed to be looking upon herself as one hallowed by grief; she was in the high mood of one set apart by suffering. in her eyes was something which she evidently felt to be a look of resignation. in her hand something which she certainly felt to be an order for ten thousand francs. the combination first amused and then irritated katie. it was exasperating to have clara giving herself airs about the grief which was to make such a sorry cut in katie's income. clara, in her mellowed mood, spoke of the past, why it had all been as it had. she was even so purged by suffering as to speak gently of wayne. "i hope, katie--yes, actually hope--that wayne will some time find it possible to care, and be happy." and when katie thought of how much wayne had cared, why he had not been happy, it grew more and more difficult to treat clara as one sanctified by sorrow. it gave her a fierce new longing for the real, the real at all costs, a contempt for all that artifice and self-delusion which made for the things at war with the real. she had enough malice to entertain an impulse to strip clara of her complacency, take away from her her pleasant cup of sorrow, make her take one good look at herself for the woman she was rather than the woman she was flaunting. but she had no zest for it. what would be the use? and, after all, self-deception seemed a thing one was entitled to practice, if one wished. what katie wanted most was to get out into the air. chapter xxxvi to get out into the air was the thing she was always wanting in those days, or at least for the last two months it had been so. at first she had been too wretched to be conscious of needing anything. but katie was not built for wretchedness; everything in her was fighting now for air, what air meant to spirit and body. it was in the sense of the spirit that she most of all wanted to get out into the air, out into a more spacious country than the world clara suggested, out where the air was clear and keen and where there were distances more vast than those which would shut her in. for she had looked into a larger country. allegiance to the smaller one could not be whole-hearted. she wondered if it were true she was getting hard. something in her did seem hardening. at any rate, something in her was wanting to fight, fight for air, fight, no matter who must be hurt in the struggle, for that bigger country into which she had looked, those greater distances, more spacious sweeps. sometimes she had a sense of being in a close room, and nothing in the world was so dreadful to katie as a close room, and felt that she had but to open a door and find herself out where the wind would blow upon her face. and the door was not bolted. it was hers to open, if she would. there were no real chains. there were only dead hands, hands which live hands had power to brush away. and the room was made close by all those things which they of the dead hands had loved, things which they had served, things which, for them, had been out in the open, not making the air unbearable in a close room. and when she wanted to tell them that she must get out of the room because it was too close for her, that she could no longer stay with things which shut out the air, it seemed they could not understand--for they were dead, but they could look at her with love and trust, those hands, which could have been so easily brushed away, as bolts on the door of the room holding the things they had left for her to guard. and they were proud, and their trusting eyes seemed to say they knew she would not make all their world sorry for them. she walked slowly across pont du carrousel, watching the people, the people going their many ways, meeting their many problems, wondering if many of them had well loved hands, either of life or death, as bolts upon the doors which held them from more spacious countries, holding them so securely because they could be so easily brushed away. it was people, people of the crowds, who saved her from a sense of isolation her own friends brought: for she was always certain that in the crowds was some one else who was wondering, longing, perhaps a courageous some one who was fighting. paris itself had fought, was fighting all the time. she loved it anew in the new sense of its hurts and its hopes. and always it had laughed. she felt kinship to it in that. seeming so little caring, yet so deeply understanding. the laughter-loving city had paid stern price that its children might laugh. it seemed to her sometimes that one could love and hate paris for every known reason, but in the end always love for the full measure it gave. she stood for a moment looking at the spire of sainte chapelle, slender as a fancy, yet standing out like a conviction; watching the people on the busses, the gesticulating crowds--blockades of emotion, the men on the quai rummaging among the book-stalls for possible treasures left by men who had loved it long before, looking at the thanks in stone for yesterday's vision of to-morrow, and everywhere cabs--as words carrying ideas--breathlessly bearing eager people from one vivid point to another in the hurrying, highly-pitched, articulate city. it interested her for a time, as things that were live always interested katie. the city's streets had always been for her as waves which bore her joyously along. but after a time, perhaps just because she was so live, it made her unbearably lonely. the things they might do together in paris! the things to see--to talk about. and still filled with her revolt against clara's self-delusions, she asked of herself how much the demand of her spirit to soar was prompted by the hunger of her heart to love. she could not say. she wondered how many of the world's people would be able to say. how many of the spacious countries would have been gained had men been fighting only for their philosophies, pushed only by the beating of wings that would soar. but did that make the distances less vast? less to be desired? though visioning be child of desiring--was the vision less splendid, and was not the desire ennobled? her speculations were of such nature as to make her hurry home to see whether there was american mail. a certain letter which sometimes came to her was called "american mail." all the rest of the american mail which reached paris was privileged to be classed with that letter. katie had come over in october with her aunt elizabeth, who felt the need of recuperation from the bitter blow of her son's marriage. katie, too, felt the need of recuperation--she did not say from what, but from something that made her intolerant of her aunt's form of distress. her aunt said that katie was changing: growing unsympathetic, hard, unfeminine. she thought it was because she did not marry. it would soften her to care for some one, was the theory of her aunt elizabeth. she had remained in order to be with worth; and, too, because there seemed nothing to go back to. mrs. prescott had come over to be for a time with a niece who was studying music, and she and katie were together. now the older woman was beginning to talk of wanting to go back; she was getting letters from harry which made her want to see him. the letters sounded as though he were in love again. and katie was getting letters herself, letters to make her want to see the writer thereof. they, too, sounded as if written by one in love. with things as regards worth adjusted, katie would be free to go with her friend, and she was homesick. at least that was the non-committal name she gave to something that was tugging at her heart. but--go home to what? for what? her vision had not grown any clearer. it was only that the "homesickness" was growing more acute. and that night's mail did not fill her with a yearning to become an expatriate. in addition to the "american mail" there was a letter from ann. that evening after worth was asleep and mrs. prescott had gone to her room, katie reread both letters, and a number of others, and thought about a number of things. wayne had undertaken the supervision of ann. in his first letter, that unsatisfactory letter in which he gave so few details about finding ann, he had said quite high-handedly that he was going to look after things himself. "i think, katie," he wrote, "that with the best of intentions, your method was at fault. i can see how it all came about, but it is not the way to go on. it was too unreal. the time of make-believe is over. ann is a real person and should work out her life in a real way, her own way, not following your fancyings. she must be helped until she gets stronger and more prepared. you've had the thing come too tragically to you to see it just right, so i'm going to step in and i want you to leave things to me." so wayne had "stepped in" and was lending ann the money to study stenography. katie had made a wry face over stenography, which did not have a dream-like or an ann-like sound--but a very wayne-like one!--but had entered no protest; at that time she had been too dumbly miserable to enter protest about anything. wayne seemed to her curt and rather unfeeling about the whole thing, insisting, somewhat indelicately, she thought, on the point that ann be prepared to earn her own living and that there be no more nonsense about her. she hoped he was kinder with ann than he sounded in his letters about her. ann was in new york. wayne had said, and katie agreed with him, that chicago was not the place for her to start in anew. she had gone through too many hard things there. and katie was glad for other reasons. with wayne in washington, she would have no more occasion to be in the middle-west and ann would be too far away in chicago. but katie was looking desperately homesick at that thought of having no more occasion to be in the middle-west. the man who mended the boats was still out there, mending boats and finishing his play, which she knew now was to be about the army. one reason he had wanted to mend boats there was that he might know some of the men who worked in the shops at the arsenal, interested in that relation of labor to militarism. for two months katie had heard nothing from him. in those first months he, too, seemed helpless before it, seemed to understand that katie's feeling was a thing he could not hope to understand--much less, change. then there rose in him the impulse to fight, for her, against it all, stir her to fight. "katie," he wrote in that first letter, letter she was re-reading that night, "we have seen two sides of the same thing. our two visions, experiences, have roused in us two very different emotions. does that mean it must kill for us what we have said is the biggest emotion--experience--the greatest joy and brightest hope life has brought us? "we're both bound by it. i by the hurt it's brought me, you by the happiness; i by the hate it roused, you by the love that lingers round it. are we going to make no efforts to set ourselves free? are we so much of the past that the institutions of the past and the experiences and prejudices of those institutions can shut us out from the future and from each other? "katie, you have the rich gift of the open mind. i don't believe that, lastingly, there's anything you'll shut out as impossible to consider. your eyes say it, katie--say they'll look at everything, and just as fairly as they can. oh they're such honest, fearless, just eyes--so wise and so tender. and it was i--i who love them so--brought that awful look of hurt to those wonderful eyes. katie--i want to spend all of my life keeping that hurt look from those dear eyes! "you're asked to do a hard thing, dear katie. it's cruel it should be _you_ so hard a thing is asked of. asked to look at a thing you see through the feeling of a lifetime as though seeing it for the first time. to look at all you've got to push aside things you regarded as fixed. i suppose every one has something that to him seems the things unshakable, something he finds it terrifying to think of moving. all your traditions, all your love and loyalty cling round this thing which it seems to you you can't have touched. but katie, as you read these pages won't you try to think of things, not as you've been told they were, but just as they seem to you from what you read? think of them, not in the old grooves, but just as it comes in to you as the story of a life? "you'll try to do that for me, won't you, dear fair-minded, loving-spirited katie? "i was a country boy; lived on a farm, got lonesome, thought about things i had nobody to talk to about, read things and wanted more things to read, part the dreamer and part the great husky fellow wanting life, adventure, wanting to see things and know things--most of all, experience things. i want to tell you a lot about it sometime. i can't let go the idea that there is going to be a sometime. just because there's so much to tell, if nothing else. and, katie, _isn't_ there something else? "no way to begin the story of one's life! "then i went away from home. to see the world. try my fortune. experience. adventure. that was the call. "and the very first thing i fell in with that recruiting officer in the white suit. i can see just how that fellow looked. get every intonation as he drew the glowing picture of life in the army. "the army sounded good. the army was experience, adventure, with a vengeance. a life among men. a chance. he told me that an intelligent fellow like me would soon be an officer. of course i agreed perfectly i was an intelligent fellow, impressed with army intelligence in picking me for one. why i could see myself as commander-in-chief in no time! "there's the cruelty of it, katie. the expectation they rouse to get you--the contemptuous treatment after they've got you. the difference between the army of the 'men wanted for the army' posters and the army those men find after those posters have done their work. "remember your telling me about visiting at fort riley when you were quite a youngster? the good time you had?--how gay it was? how charming your host was? as nearly as i can figure it out, i was there at the same time, filling the noble office of garbage man. now, far be it from me, believing in the dignity of all labor, to despise the office of garbage man. i can think of conditions under which i would be quite happy to serve my country in that capacity. but having enlisted because of the noble figure of a soldier carrying a flag, i grew pretty sore at the 'damn you, we've got you' manner in which i was ordered to carry things--well, not to be too indelicate let us merely say things less attractive than the flag. "it's not having to peel potatoes and wash dishes; it's seeming to be despised for doing it that stirs in men's hearts the awful soreness that makes them deserters. "in our regiment men were leaving right along. our company had a particularly bad record on desertions. our captain, a decent fellow, was away most of the time and the lieutenant in command was a cur. i'd find a more gentle word for him if i could, but i know none such. army men talk a great deal about discipline. but there's a difference between discipline and bullying. this fellow couldn't issue an order without making you feel that difference. "he had a laugh that was a sneer. it wasn't a laugh, just a smile; a smile that sneered. he couldn't pass a crowd of men cutting grass without making their hearts sore. "i don't say he's the typical army man. i don't doubt that there are men high in the army who, if all were known, would despise him as much as the men in his company did. but i do say that if there were not a good many a good deal like him more than fifty thousand young men of america would not have deserted from the united states army in the past twelve years. "there was a fellow in our company i had been particularly sorry for. he wasn't a bad sort at all; he was more dazed than anything else; didn't understand the army manner; the army snobbishness. this lieutenant couldn't look at him without making him sullen. "one day he told him to do a loathsome thing, then stood there with that sneering smile watching him do it. well, he did it, all right; that's what _gets_ you, that powerlessness under what you know for injustice. but that night he left. "i knew he was going. he wanted me to go with him. i don't know why i didn't. i don't blame men for deserting. but for my own part, it would only be two years more; i used to say to myself, 'you got into this. you'll see it through.' "they caught him, brought him back the next day. i happened to be there at the time. so did our spick and span lieutenant. the man who had been caught--or boy, rather, for he was but that--was anything but spick and span. his clothes were torn and muddy, his face dirty and bloody--it had been scratched by something. he knew what he was in for. court martial and imprisonment for desertion. we knew what _that_ meant. "he was a sorry, unsoldierly sight. gone to pieces. unnerved. all in. his chin was quivering. and then the little lieutenant came along, starting out for golf. he stood in front of him and looked him up and down--this boy who had been caught. boy who would be imprisoned. and as he looked at him he laughed; or smiled rather, that smile that was a sneer. "he stood there continuing to smile--torturing him with that smile he couldn't do a thing about--this boy who was down; this fellow who was all in. that was when i struck him in the face and knocked him down. "the penalty for that, as i presume i need not tell an army girl, is death. 'or such other punishment as a court martial may direct.' "the thing directed in my case was imprisonment at fort leavenworth for five years. most of the men in that prison would say, 'give me death.' "i'd better not say much about it. something gets hot in my head when i begin to talk about it. if you were with me--your cooling hand, your steadying eyes--i could tell you about it. 'if you were with me'! i find that a very arresting phrase, katie. "those were black years. cruel years. years to twist a man's soul. they took something from me that will not be mine again. i remember your telling how ann said there were things to make perfect happiness forever impossible. she was right. there _are_ hours that stay. "i went into the army just an adventurous boy. i came from it an embittered man. my experience with it made me suspect all of life. i was more than unhappy. i was sullen. i _hated_--and i wanted to get even. oh it was a lovely spirit in which i went forth a second time to meet the world. "i don't know what might not have happened, i think i was right in line to become a criminal, like so many of the rest of them who have served time at leavenworth--i don't suppose the united states has any finer school anywhere than its academy for criminals at fort leavenworth--had it not been for a man i met. "i got a job in a garage. i had always been pretty good at mechanical things and knew a little about it. and there i met this man--and through him came salvation. "i don't know, katie, maybe socialism will not save the world. i don't see how it can miss it--but be that as it may, i know it has saved many a man's soul. i know it saved mine. "this fellow--an older man with whom i worked--talked to me. he saw the state i was in, won my confidence and got my story. and then he began talking to me and gave me books. he got me to come to his house instead of the places i was going to, saying nothing against the other places, but just making his things so much more attractive. we used to talk and argue and gradually other things fell away just because there was no room for them. "you know i had loved books--read all i could get--but didn't seem to get the right ones. well, after i had served time breaking clay i didn't care anything about books--too sore, too dogged, too full of hate. but the love for the books came back, and through the books, and through this friend, came the splendid saving vision. "vision of what the world might be--world with the army left out, with all that the army represented to me vanished from the earth. with men not ruling and cursing other men; but working together--the world for all and all for the world. and the thing that saved me was that i saw there was something to work for--something to believe in--look at--think about--when old memories of the guard knocking me down with the butt of his gun would tear into my soul and bring me low with the hate they roused. "and so i began again, katie dear, that sense of things as they might be--that vision--taking some of the sting from what i had suffered from things as they were. i stopped hating and cursing; i began thinking and dreaming. there came the desire to _know_. i tore into books like a madman. i couldn't go on hating my fellow-men because i was too busy trying to find out about them. and so it happened that there were things more interesting to think about than the things i had suffered in the army; i was carried out of myself--and saved. "i wish i could talk to some of those other fellows! some of those boys who ran away from the army, not because they were criminals and cowards, but just because they didn't know what to make of things. i wish i could talk to some of those men who dug clay with me at fort leavenworth--men who went away cursing the government, loathing the flag, hating all men, and who have nothing to take them out of it. i wish i could take them up with me to the hill-top and say--'there! don't look at the little pit down below! look out! look wide!' "katie--you aren't going to save men by putting them at back-breaking work under brutalized guards. you aren't going to redeem men by belittling them. you're going to save them by making them _see_. and the crime of our whole system of punishments is that it does all in its power, not to make them see, but to shut them out from seeing...." in the letters which followed he told her other things, things he had done, the work he hoped to do, what he wanted to do with his life. told it with the simplicity of sincerity, the fine seriousness untainted with the self-consciousness called modesty. he believed he could work with men; things he had already done made him believe he could do more, bigger things. he wanted to help fight the battles of the people who worked; not with any soldier of fortune notion, but because he was one of those people, because he had suffered as one of those people, and believed he saw their way more clearly than the mass of them were seeing it. and he wanted to write about men; had some reason for believing he could. he was hoping that his play would open the way to many other things; it looked as though it were going to be put on. he told of his feeling for it. "more than a showing up and a getting even, though there _is_ that. it will be no prancing steed and clanking saber picture of the army. more digging of clay than waving of the flag. i see significant things arising from that survival of autocracy in a democracy, an interesting study in the bitter things coming out of the relation of the forms and habits of a vanishing order to the aspirations and tendencies of a forming one. and in that bending of spirit to form, the army codes and standards making for the army habit of mind, the army snobbishness and narrowness. the things that shape men, until a given body of men have particular characteristics, particular limitations. you said that if you loved them for nothing else you would love army people for their hospitality. but in the higher sense of that beautiful word they are the least hospitable of people. their latch string of the spirit is not out. their minds are tight--fixed. they have not that openness of spirit and flexibility of mind that make for wider visioning. "and it's not that they haven't, but why they haven't, brings one to the vein. "yes, i got the article you sent me, written by your army friend, eloquent over the splendid things war has done for the human race, the great things it has bred in us. well if the 'war virtues' aren't killed by an armed peace, then i don't think we need worry much about ever losing them. it's the people at war for peace who are going to conserve and utilize for the future the strong and shining things which days of war have left us. men who must base their great claim on what has been done in the past are not the men to shape the future--or even carry the heritage across the bridge. war is now a faithful servant of capitalism. its glorious days are over. it's even a question whether it's longer valuable as a servant. it may lose its job before its master loses his. in any case, it goes with capitalism; and if the good old war virtues are to be saved out of the wreck it's the wreckers will save them! "which is not what i started out to say. this play into which i'm seeking to get the heart of what i've lived and thought and dreamed is not the impersonal thing this harangue might make it sound. i trust it's nothing so bloodless as a study of economic forces or picture of the relationship of old things to new. it's that only as that touches a man's life, means something to that life. it's about the army because this man happens, for a time, to be in the army--it's what the army does to him that's the thing. "though it seems to me a pretty dead thing in these days. life itself is a dead thing with you gone from it." in the letter she received that night he wrote: "katie, is it going to spoil it for us? can it? _need_ it? we who have come so close? have so much? are outlived things to push us apart? that seems _too_ bitter! "oh don't think that i don't _see_. the things it would mean giving up. the wrench. and, for what?--your friends would say. at times i wonder how i _can_--ask it, hope for it. then there lives for me again your wonderful face as it was when you lifted it to me that first time. _you_--and i grow bold again. "i don't say you wouldn't suffer. i don't say there wouldn't be hurts, big hurts brought by the little things arising from lives differently lived. i know there would be times of longing for things gone. for the sunny paths. for it couldn't be all sunny paths with me, katie. those years in the dark will always throw their shadow. "then, how dare i? loving you--laughing, splendid you--how can i? "because i believe that you love me. remembering that light in your eyes, knowing _you_, i dare believe that the hurts would be less than the hurt of being spared those hurts. "i can hear your friends denouncing me. hear their withering arguments, and i'll own that at times they do wither. but, katie, i just can't seem to _stay_ withered! "you're such an upsetting person, dear katie. to both heart and philosophy. it's not possible to hate a world that katie's in. world that didn't spoil katie. and if there are many of the _you_--oh no other real you!--but many who, awakened, can fight as you can fight and love as you can love--wouldn't it be a joke on us revolutionists if we were cheated out of our revolution just by the love in the hearts of the katies? "well, nobody would be so happy in that joke as would the defrauded revolutionists! "you make me wonder, katie, if perhaps it isn't less the vision than the visioning. less the thing seen than that thing of striving to see. make me feel the narrowness in scorning the trying to see just because not agreeing with the thing seen. sometimes i have a new vision of the world. vision of a world visioning. of the vision counting less than the visioning. "those moments of glow bear me to you. persuade me that our visions must be visioned together. "life's all empty without you. the radiance is not there. in these days light comes only through dreams, and so i dream dreams and see visions. "dreams of _us_--visions of the years we'd meet together. and you are not bowed and broken in those visions, katie. you're very strong and buoyant--and always eager for life--and always tender. no, not _always_ tender. sometimes fighting! telling me i don't know what i'm talking about. it's a splendid picture of katie fighting--eyes shining, cheeks red. "and then at the very height of her scorn, katie happens to think of something funny. and she says the something funny in her inimitable way. then she laughs, and after her laugh she's tender again, and says she loves me, though still maintaining i didn't know what i was talking about! "and in the visions there are times when katie is very quiet. so still. hushed by the wonder of love. then katie's laughing eyes are deep with mystery, katie's face seems melted to pure love, and from it shines the light that makes life noble. "in these days of a fathomless loneliness i dare not look long upon that vision. "do you ever hear a call, dear heart? a call to a freer country than any country you have known? call to a country where the things which bind you could bind no more? and if in fancy you sometimes let yourself drift into that other country, am i with you there? do you ever have a picture of our venturing together into the unknown ways--daring--suffering--rejoicing--_growing_? sometimes sunshine and sometimes storm--but always open country and everwidening sky-line. oh katie--how splendid it might be!" she read and re-read it, dreaming and picturing. and at length there settled upon her that stillness, that pause before life's wonder and mystery. her eyes were deep. the light that makes life noble glorified her tender face. she broke from it at last to look for a card they had there giving dates of sailings. chapter xxxvii they would get in late that afternoon. off on the horizon was a hazy mass which held the united states of america, as sometimes the haze of a dream may hold a mighty truth. katie and mrs. prescott were having a brisk walk on deck. they paused and peered off at that mist out of which new york must soon shape itself. "just off yonder's your country, katie," the older woman was saying. "soon you'll see the flag flying over governor's island. will it make you thrill?" "it always has," replied katie. mrs. prescott stole a keen look at her, seeing that she was not answered. they had had some strange talks on that homeward trip, talks to stir in the older woman's mind vague apprehensions for the daughter of her old friend. it did not seem to mrs. prescott what she called "best" that a woman--and particularly an unmarried one--should be doing as much thinking as katie seemed to be doing. she wished katie would not read such strange books; she was sure walt whitman, for one, could not be a good influence. what would happen to the world if the women of katie's class were to--let down the bars, she vaguely and uneasily thought it. and she was too fond of katie to want her to venture out of shelter. "well it ought to, katie dear. i don't know who has the right to thrill to it, if you haven't. doesn't it make you think of those sturdy forefathers of yours who came to it long ago, when it was an unknown land, and braved dangers for it? your people have always fought for it, katie. there would be no country had not such lives as theirs been given to it." katie was peering off at the faint outlines which one moment seemed discernible in the mist and the next seemed but a phantom of the imagination, as the truth which is to stand out bold and incontestable may at first suggest itself so faintly through the dream as to be called a phantom of the imagination. "true," she said. "and fine. and equally true and fine that there's just as much to fight for now as there ever was." "oh yes," murmured mrs. prescott, "we must still have the army, of course." "the fighting's not in the army," said katie, to herself rather than to her friend. the older woman sighed. "i'm afraid i don't understand you, katie." after a pause she added, sadly: "something seems happening in the world that is driving older people and younger people apart." katie turned to her affectionately. "oh, no." but more affectionately than convincingly. mrs. prescott looked at her wistfully: so strong, so buoyant, so fearless and so fine; she felt an impulse to keep her, though for what--from what--she would not have been able to say. "katie dear," she said gently, "i get a glimpse of what you mean in there still being things to fight for. you mean new ideas; new things. i know you're stirred by something. i feel your enthusiasm; it shines from your face. enthusiasm is a splendid thing in the young, katie. in any of us. new things there always are to fight for, of course. but, dear katie--the old things? those beautiful _old_ things which the generations have left us? things fought for, tested, mellowed by our fathers and mothers, and their fathers and mothers? aren't they a little too precious, too hardly won, too freighted with memories to be lightly cast aside?" katie looked at her friend's face, itself so incontestably the gift of the generations. it made vivid her own mother's face, and that her own struggle. "i don't think," she said tremulously, "that you are justified in saying they are 'lightly' cast aside." they were silent, looking off at the land which was breaking through the mists, responding in their different ways to the different things it was saying to them. "it seems to me," mrs. prescott began uncertainly, "that it is not for women--particularly women to whom they have come as directly as to you and me--to cast them off at all. we seem to be in strange days. days of change. to me, katie, it seems that the work for the women--_our_ women--is in preserving those things, dear things left to us, holding them safe and unharmed through the destroying days of change." she had grown more sure of herself in speaking. the last came staunchly. "it seems," she added, "that it would be enough for us to do. and the thing for which we are best fitted." katie was silent; she could not bear to say to her friend--her mother's friend--that it did not seem to her enough to do, or the thing for which she was best fitted. she was the less drawn to the idea because of a face she could see down in the steerage: face of an immigrant girl who was also turning eager face, not to the land for which her forefathers had fought, but to that which would be the land of her descendants. she had seen her there before, face set toward the land into which she was venturing. she had become interested in her. she seemed so eager. and thinking back to the things seen in her search for ann, other things she had been reading of late, a fear for that girl--pity for her--more than that, sense of responsibility about her grew big in katie. it made it seem that there was bigger and more tender work for women than preserving inviolate those things women had left. as she drew near the harbor of new york she was more interested in the united states of america as related to that girl than as associated with her own forefathers who had fought for it long before. and as it had been for them to fight in the new land, it seemed that it was for her, not merely to cherish the fact of their having fought, not holding that as something apart--something setting her apart, but to fight herself; not under the old standards because they had been their standards, but under whatsoever standards best served the fight. it even seemed that the one way to keep alive those things they had left her was to let them shape themselves in whatever form the new spirit--new demands--would shape them. mrs. prescott was troubled by her silence. "katie dear," she said, "you come of a long line of fine and virtuous women. in these days when everything seems attacked--endangered--_that_, at least--that thing most dear to women--most indispensable--must be held inviolate. and by such as you. wherever your ideas may carry you, don't let _that_ be touched. remember that the safety of the world for women goes, if you do." it turned katie to ann. safety _she_ had found. then again she looked down at the immigrant girl--beautiful girl that she was. and wondered. and feared. she turned to mrs. prescott with a tear on her eyelashes and a smile a little hard about her lips. "would you say that 'fine and virtuous women' have succeeded in keeping the world a perfectly safe place for women?" mrs. prescott was repelled, but katie did not notice. she was looking with a passionate sternness off at new york. "let _anything_ be touched," she spoke it with deep feeling. "i say _nothing's_ too precious to be touched--if touching it can make things better!" mrs. prescott had gone below. katie feared that she had wounded her, and was sorry. she had not been able to help it. the face of that immigrant girl was too tragically eager. they were almost in now, close to governor's island, over which the flag was flying. it gripped her as it had never done before. "boy," she said to worth, perched on a coil of rope beside her, "there's your country. country your people came to a long time ago, and fought for, and some of them died for. and you'll grow up, worth, and _you'll_ fight for it. not the way they fought; it won't need you to fight for it that way; _they_ did that--and now that's done. but there will be lots for you to fight for, too; harder fights to fight, i think, than any they fought. you'll fight to make it a better place for men and women and little children to live in. not by firing guns at other men, worth, but by being as wise and kind and as honest and fair as you know how to be." it was her voice moved him; it had been vibrant with real passion. but after a moment the face of the child of many soldiers clouded. "but won't i have _any_ gun 'tall, aunt kate?" he asked wistfully. she smiled at the stubborn persistence of militarism. "i'm afraid not, dear. i hope we're not going to have so many guns when you're a man. but, worth, if you don't have the gun, other little boys will have more to eat. there are lots of little boys and girls in the world now haven't enough to eat just because there are so many guns. wouldn't you rather do without the gun and know that nobody was going hungry?" "i--guess so," faltered worth, striving to be magnanimous but looking wistful. "but, aunt kate," he pursued after another silence, "what's father making guns for--if there aren't going to be any?" katie's smile was not one worth would be likely to get much from. "ask father," she said rather grimly. "i think he might find the question interesting." worth continued solemn. "but, aunt kate--won't there be anybody 'tall to kill?" "why, honey," she laughed, "does it really seem to you such a gloomy world--world in which there will be nobody to kill? don't worry, dear. the world's getting so interesting we're going to find lots of things more fun than guns." "maybe," said worth, "if i don't have a gun you'll get me an air-ship, aunt kate." "maybe so," she laughed. "the man that mends the boats says i'll have an air-ship before i die, aunt kate." she gave worth a sudden little squeeze, curiously jubilant at the possibility of his having an air-ship before he died. and she viewed the city of sky-scrapers adoringly--tenderly--mistily. "oh worthie," she whispered, "isn't it _lovely_ to be getting home?" chapter xxxviii she found it difficult to adjust herself to the ann who had luncheon with her the next day. the basis of their association had shifted and it had been too unique for it to be a simple matter to appear unconscious of the shifting. she had not seen ann since the day they said the cruel things to each other. wayne had thought it best that way, saying that ann must have no more emotional excitement. she had acquiesced the more readily as at the time she was not courting emotional excitement for herself. and now the ann sitting across the table from her was not the logical sequence of things experienced in last summer's search for ann. she was not the sum of her thoughts about ann--visioning through her, not the expression of the things ann had opened up. it was hard, indeed, to think of her as in any sense related to them, at all suggestive of them. an ann radiating life rather than sorrowing for it was an ann she did not know just what to do with. and there was something disturbing in that rich glow of happiness. she did not believe that ann's something somewhere could be stenography. yet her radiance--the deep, warm quality of it--suggested nothing so much as a something somewhere attained. it seemed to katie rather remarkable if the prospect of soon being able to earn her own living could make a girl's eyes as wonderful as that. there was no mistaking her delight in seeing katie and worth. and a sense of the old relationship was there--deep and tender sense of it; but something had gone from it, or been added to it. it was not the all in all. truth was, ann was more at home with her than she was with ann. after luncheon they went up to katie's room for a little chat. katie talked about stenography and soon came to be conscious of that being a vapid thing to be talking about. "what pretty furs," she said, in the pause following the collapse of stenography. that seemed to mean more. "yes, aren't they lovely?" responded ann, with happy enthusiasm. "they were my christmas present--from wayne." the way ann said wayne--in the old days she had never said it at all--led instantly, though without her knowing by what path, to that strange fear of hers in finding ann so free from fear. ann was blushing a little: the "wayne" had slipped out so easily, and so prettily. "he thought i needed them. it's often so cold here, you know." "why certainly one needs furs," said katie firmly, as if there could be no question as to _that_. katie's great refuge was activity. she got up and began taking some dresses from her trunk. then, just to show herself that she was not afraid, that there was nothing to be afraid about, she asked lightly: "what in the world brings wayne up to new york so much?" ann was affectionately stroking her muff. she looked up at katie shyly, but with a warm little smile. there was a pause which seemed to hover over it before she said softly: "why, katie, i think perhaps i bring him up to new york." everything in katie seemed to tighten--close up. she gave her most cobwebby dress a perilous shake and said in flat voice: "wayne's very kind, i'm sure." ann did not reply; she was still stroking her muff; that smile which hovered tenderly over something had not died on her lips. it made her mouth, her whole face, softly lovely. it did something else. made it difficult for katie to go on pretending with herself. though she made a last stand. it was a dreadful state of affairs, she told herself, if ann had been so absurd as to fall in love with wayne--_wayne_--just because he had been kind in helping her get a start. she followed that desperately. "oh yes, wayne's really very kind at heart. and then of course he's always been especially interested in you, because of me." ann looked up at her. the look kept deepening, sank far down beneath katie's shallow pretense. "well, katie," ann began, with the gentle dignity of one whom life has taken into the fold, "as long as we seem into this, i'd rather go on. wayne said i was to do just as i liked about telling you. just as it happened to come up. but i think you ought to know he is not interested in just the way you think." she paused before it, then said softly, with a tremulous pride: "he cares for me, katie--and wants to marry me." "he can't do that! he _can't do that_!" it came quick and sharp. quick and sharp as fire answering attack. she sat down. the sharpness had gone and her voice was shaking as she said: "you certainly must know, ann, that he can't do that." so they faced each other--and the whole of it. it was all opened up now. "it's very strange to me," katie added hotly, "that you wouldn't know that." it seemed impossible for ann to speak; the attack had been too quick and too sharp; evidently, too unexpected. "i told him so," she finally whispered. "told and told him so. that you would feel--this way. that it--couldn't be. he said no. that you felt--all differently--after last summer. and i thought so, too. your letters sounded that way." katie covered her eyes for a second. it was too much as if the things she was feeling differently about were the things she was losing. "and when you want to be happy," ann went on, "it's not so hard to persuade yourself--be persuaded." she stopped with a sob. "i know that," was wrung wretchedly from katie. "and since--since i _have_ been happy--let myself think it could be--it just hasn't seemed it _could_ be any other way. so i stopped thinking--hadn't been thinking--took it for granted--" again it wrung from katie the this time unexpressed admission that there was nothing much easier than coming to look upon one's happiness as the inevitable. "and wayne kept saying," ann went on, sobs back of her words, "that all human beings are entitled to work out their lives in their own way. you believed that, he said. and i--i thought you did, too. your letters--" "no," said katie bitterly, "what i believed was that _i_ was entitled to work out _my_ life in my own way. wayne got his life mixed up with mine." the laugh which followed them was more bitter, more wretched than the words. she had persuaded herself the more easily that she was entitled to work out her life in her own way because she had assumed wayne would be there to stand guard over the things left from other days. he was to stay there, fixed, leaving her free to go. she could not have explained why it was that the things she had been thinking did not seem to apply to wayne. the thing grew to something monstrous. there whirled through her mind a frenzied idea as to what they would do about sending major barrett a wedding announcement. other things whirled through her mind--as jeers, jibes, they came, a laugh behind them. a something somewhere was very commendable while it remained abstract! having a fine large understanding about ann had nothing to do with having ann for a sister-in-law! "calls" were less beautiful when responded to by one's brother! _this_ (and this tore an ugly wound) was what came of helping people in their quests for happiness. it was followed by a frantic longing to be with mrs. prescott--in the shelter of her philosophy, hugging tight those things left by the women of other days. frightened, outraged, her impulse was to fly back to those well worn ways of yesterday. but that was running away. ann was there. ann with the radiance gone; though, for just that moment, less stricken than defiant. there was something of the cunning of the desperate thing cornered in the sullen flash with which she said: "you talked a good deal about wanting me to be happy. used to think i had a right to be. when it was captain prescott--" it was unanswerable. the only answer katie would be prepared to make to it was that she didn't believe, all things considered, it was a thing she would have said. but doubtless people lost nice shades of feeling when they became creatures at bay fighting for life. and seemingly one would leave nothing unused. "i want you to know, katie, that i paid back that money. the missionary money. you made me feel that it wasn't right. that i--that i ought to pay it back. i earned the money myself--some work there was for me to do at school. i wanted to--to buy a white dress with it." ann was sobbing. "but i didn't. i sent back the money." katie was wildly disposed to laugh. she did not know why, after having worried about it so much, ann's having paid back the missionary money should seem so irrelevant now. but she did not laugh, for ann was looking at her as pleadingly, as appealingly, as worth would have looked after he had been "bad" and was trying to redeem it by being "good." with a sob, ann hid her face against her muff. seeing her thus, katie made cumbersome effort to drag things to less delicate, less difficult, ground. "ann dear," she began, "i--oh i'm _so_ sorry about this. but truly, ann, you wouldn't be at all happy with wayne." ann raised her face and looked at her with something that had a dull semblance to amusement. "you see," katie staggered on, "wayne hasn't a happy temperament. he's morose. queer. it wouldn't do at all, ann, because it would make you both wretchedly unhappy." she found ann's faint smile irritating. "i ought to know," she added sharply, "for i've lived in the house with him most of my life." "you may have lived in the house with him, katie," gently came ann's overwhelming response. "you've never understood him." katie openly gasped. but some of her anger passed swiftly into a wondering how much truth there might be in the preposterous statement. wayne as "immune" was another idea jeering at her now. and that further assumption, which had been there all the while, though only now consciously recognized, that wayne's knowing ann's story, made ann, to wayne, impossible-- living in the same house with people did not seem to have a great deal to do with knowing their hearts. "wayne," ann had resumed, in voice low and shaken with feeling, "has the sweetest nature of any one in this world. he's been unhappy just because he hadn't found happiness. if you could see him with me, katie, i don't think you'd say he had an unhappy nature--or worry much about our not being happy." katie was silent, driven back; vanquished, less by the words than by the light they had brought to ann's face. and what she had been wanting--had thought she was ready to fight for--was happiness--for every one. "of course i know," ann said, "that that's not it." that light had all gone from her face. it was twisted, as by something cruel, blighting, as she said just above a whisper: "there's no use pretending we don't know what it is." she turned her face away, shielding it with her muff. it was all there--right there between them--opened, live, throbbing. all that it had always meant--all that generations of thinking and feeling had left around it. and to katie, held hard, it was true, all too bitterly true, that she came of what mrs. prescott called a long line of fine and virtuous women. in her misery it seemed that the one thing one need have no fear about was losing the things they had left one. but other things had been left her. the war virtues! the braving and the fighting and the bearing. hardihood. unflinchingness. unwhimperingness. those things fought within her as she watched ann shaken with the sobs she was trying to repress. well at least she would not play the coward's part with it! she brought herself to look it straight in the face. and what she saw was that if she could be brave enough to go herself into a more spacious country, leaving hurts behind, she must not be so cowardly, so ignobly inconsistent as to refuse the hurts coming to her through others who would dare. through the conflict of many emotions, out of much misery, she at last wrenched from a sore heart the admission that wayne had as much right to be "free" as she had. that if ann had a right to happiness at all--and she had always granted her that--she had a right to this. it was only that now it was she who must pay a price for it. and perhaps some one always paid a price. "ann?" ann looked up into katie's colorless, twitching face. "i hope you and wayne will be very happy." it came steadily, and with an attempted smile. the next instant she was sobbing, but trying at the same time to tell ann that sisters always acted that way when told of their brothers' engagements. chapter xxxix she did not see her brother until evening. "katie," he demanded sharply, "have you been disagreeable to ann?" she shook her head. "i haven't meant to be, wayne." her face was so wretched that he grew contrite. "you're not pleased?" "why, wayne, you can scarcely expect me to be--wholly pleased, can you?" "but you always seemed to understand so well. i"--he paused in that constraint there so often was between them in things delicately intimate--"i've never told you, katie, how fine i thought you were. so big about it." "it's not so difficult," said kate, with a touch of her old smile, "to be 'big' about people who aren't marrying into the family." it seemed that he, too, was not above cornering her. "you know, katie, it was your attitude in the beginning that--" "just don't bother calling my attention to that, wayne," she said sharply. "please credit me with the intelligence to see it for myself." then she went right to the heart of it. "oh wayne--think of major barrett's _knowing_." the dull red that came quickly to his face told how bitterly he had thought of it, though he only said quietly: "damn barrett." "but you can't damn him. suppose you were to be stationed at the same place!" he laughed shortly. "well that, at least, is something upon which i can set your fears at rest." she looked up quickly. "what do you mean?" "i mean, katie, that my army days are over." she stared at him. "i don't understand you." "it shouldn't be so difficult to comprehend. i have resigned my commission." "wayne," she asked slowly, "what do you mean?" "just what i say. that i have resigned my commission. that i am out of the army." it made it seem that the whole world was whirling round and round and that there was nothing to take hold of. "but you can't do that. why your whole life is there--friends--traditions--work--future." "not my future," he said briefly. his calm manner made it the more bewildering. "wayne, i don't see how you can--in such a light manner--give up such a big thing!" he turned upon her in manner less calm. "what right have you to say that it is done in a 'light manner'!" the words had a familiar sound and she recalled them as like something she had said to mrs. prescott the day before; just the day before, when she had been so sure of things, and of herself. "but where is your future then, wayne?" she asked appealingly. "we know, don't we, how hard it is for army men to find futures as civilians?" "i'm going into the forest service." katie never could tell why, for the moment, it should have antagonized, infuriated her that way. "so that's it. that's what got--a poetic notion! and i suppose," she laughed scornfully, "you're going into the ranks? what is it they call them? rangers? starting in at your age--with your training--to 'work from the bottom up'--is that it?" "no," he replied coldly, "that is not it. you have missed it about as far as you could. i have no such picturesque notion. i am doing no such quixotic thing. i value my training too highly for that. it should be worth too much to them. i don't even scorn personal ambition, or the use of personal pull, so you see i'm a long way from a heroic figure. i know i've a brain that can do a certain type of thing. i know i'm well equipped. well, so far as the equipment goes, my country did it for me and i mean to give it back; only i've got to do it in my own way." "why, katie," he resumed after a pause, "i never was more surprised in my life than to find you so out of sympathy with this. i knew what most people would think of it, but i quite took it for granted that you would understand." "it seems a little hard," replied katie with a tearful laugh, "to understand the fine things other people do. and, wayne, i'm so afraid it will lead to disappointment! aren't you idealizing this forest service? remember fred's tales of how it's almost strangled by politics. and you know what that means. let us not forget martha matthews!" it was a relief to be laughing together over a familiar thing. martha matthews was the daughter of a congressman from somewhere--katie never could remember whether it was texas or wyoming. she had been asked to "take her up" at one time when the army appropriation bill was pending and martha's father did not seem to realize that the country needed additional defense. but when martha discovered that army people were "perfectly fascinating--and _so_ hospitable" martha's parent suddenly awakened to the grave dangers confronting his land. katie had more than once observed a mysterious relationship between the fact of the army set being fashionable in washington and the fact that the country must be amply protected, further remarking that army people were just clever enough to know when to be fascinating. "no," he came back to it in seriousness, "i don't think i have many illusions. i know it's far from the perfect thing, but i see it as set in the right direction. it seems to me that that, in itself, ought to mean considerable. it's the best thing i know of--for what i have to offer. then i want to get out of cities for awhile--get ann away from them." he paused over that and fell silent. "osborne offered me a job," he came back to it with a laugh. "seemed to think i was worth a very neat sum a year to his company--but that was scarcely my notion. in fact i doubt if i would have so much confidence in the forest service if it weren't for his hatred of it. you can judge a thing pretty well by the character of its enemies. then i'm enough the creature of habit to want to go on in a service; i'm schooled to that thing of the collectivity. but i'll be happier in a service that--despite the weak spots in it--is in harmony with the big collectivity--rather than hopelessly discordant with it. and perhaps it needs some more or less disinterested fellows to help fight for it," he added with a touch of embarrassment, as if fearing to expose himself. he had come close enough to self-betrayal for katie, despite her fear and confusion, to feel proud of him as he looked then. "wayne," she asked, "have you felt this way a long time? out of sympathy with the army?" he did not at once reply, thinking of the night he had sat beside ann, night when the whole world was shaken and things he had regarded as fixed loosened and fell. just how much had been loosening before that--some, he knew--just how much would have more or less insecurely held its place had it not been for that night, he was not prepared to say--even to himself. "longer than i knew, i think," he came back to katie. "one night last fall i went to a dinner and they drank our toast." he repeated it, very slowly. "'my country--may she always be right--but right or wrong--my country.' "i used to have the real thrill for that toast. that night it almost choked me. that 'right or wrong' is a spirit i can thrill to no longer. i'm more interested in getting it right. "though i'll own it terrified me, just as it seems to you, to feel it slipping from me. recently i had occasion to go up to west point and i spent a whole day deliberately trying to get back my old feeling for things--the whole business that we know so well and that i used to love so much. "and, in a way, i could; but as for something gone. that day up at the point was one of the saddest of my life. i still loved the trappings. they still called to me. but i knew that, for me, the spirit was dead. "oh i have no sensational declarations to make about the army. i wouldn't even be prepared to say what i think about disarmament. it's more complex than most peace advocates seem to see. i only know that the army's not the thing for me. i can't go on in it, simply because my feeling for it is gone." he had been speaking slowly and seriously; his head was bent. now he looked up at her. "it was at the close of that day--day up at west point--that i resigned my commission. and if you had seen me that night, katie, i doubt if you would reproach me with 'doing it lightly.'" the marks of struggle had come back to his face with the story of it. they told more than the words. "forgive me," she said in her impetuous way. "no, i didn't know. how awful it is, wayne, that we _don't_ know--about each other." she was forced to turn away; but after a moment controlled herself and turned back to add: "wayne dear, i think you're right. i'm proud of you." "oh, i'm entitled to no halo," he hastened to say. "it's the fellow who would do it without an income might be candidate for that." "but you _would_ do it without an income, wayne," she insisted warmly. "i don't know. how can i tell whether i would or not? "and you'll be good to ann?" he took advantage of her mood to press, as though that were the one thing she could do for him. "you know, how much she needs you, katie." "i shall certainly want to be good to ann," she murmured. "though i don't think she needs me much--any more." something about her went to his heart. "why, katie--we all need you." she shook her head; there were tears, but a smile with them. "not much, wayne. not now. i'm not--indispensable. though pray why should one wish to be anything so terrifying as indispensable?" "will you take worth?" she asked after a little while. "he goes--with you and ann?" "we want him. and katie, we want you. we're to go to colorado and fight the water barons," he laughed. "aren't you coming with us?" she shook her head. "not just now. i want to flit round in the east a little first. be gay--renew my youth," she laughed, choking a little. she drew him to talk of his hopes. "i'll fess up, katie," he said, when warmed to it by her sympathy, "that i fear i do have rather a poetic notion about it. i want to _do_ something--something that will count, something set in the direction of the future. and i like the idea of going back to that old frontier--place where i was born--and where mother went through so much--and where father fought--and because of which he died. and serving out there now in a way that is just as live--just as vital--as the way he served then." he paused; they were both thinking of their father and mother, of how they might not have understood, of the sadness as well as the triumph there is in change, that tug at the heart that must so often come when the new generation sees a little farther down the road than older eyes can see, the ache in hearts left behind when children of a new day are called away from places endeared by habit into the incertitude and perhaps the danger of ways unworn. "life seems too fine a thing, katie, to spend it making instruments of destruction more deadly. it's not a very happy thought to think of their being used; and it's not a very stimulating one to think of their not being. in either case, it doesn't make one too pleased with one's vocation. and life seems a big enough thing," he added, a little diffidently, "to try pretty hard to get one's self right with it." he did not understand the way katie was looking at him as she replied: "yes, wayne; i know that. i've been thinking that myself." something moved her to ask: "wayne, do you think you would have done it, if it had not been for ann?" "i think," he replied quietly, "that possibly that is still another thing i have to thank her for." his face and voice gave katie a sharp sense of loneliness, that loneliness which came in seeing how poorly she had understood him, how little people knew each other. they talked of a number of things before he suddenly exclaimed: "oh katie, i must tell you. that fellow--what's his name? mann? the mythical being known as the man who mends the boats is a fellow you'll have to avoid, should you ever see him again--which of course is not likely." she had turned and was looking out at the lights in the street below. "yes?" "who do you suppose the scoundrel _is_?" "i'm sure i don't know," she faltered. "a military _convict_. attacked an officer. served time at leavenworth." katie was intent upon the lights down below. "and what do you suppose he was prying around the island for?" "i'm sure i have no idea," she managed to say. "going to write a _play_--a play about the _army_! now what do you think of that? darrett found out about it. oh just the man, you see, to write a play about the army! and some sensationalists here are going to put it on. it's the most damnable insolence i ever heard of! they ought to stop it." "oh, i don't know," said katie, still absorbed in the cabs down below; "a man has a right to use his experiences--in a play." "well a fine view he'll give of it! it's the most insufferable impertinence i ever knew of!" she turned around to ask oddly: "why, wayne, why all this heat? you're not in the army any more." "well, don't you think i'm not _of_ it, when an upstart like that turns up to rail at it!" "but how do you know he'll rail?" "oh he'll rail, all right. i know his type. but we'll see to it that it's pretty generally understood it's military life as presented by a military _convict_." "perhaps you can trust him to make that point clear himself," said katie rather dryly. "the _coward_. the _cur_." she turned upon him hotly. "look here, wayne, i don't know why you're so sure you have a right to say that!" "i'd like to know why i haven't! attacked an officer without the slightest provocation whatsoever! some kind of a hot-headed taking sides with a deserter, i believe it was. i suppose this remarkable play is to be a glorification of desertion," he laughed. "well," said katie with an unsteady laugh, "perhaps there are worse things to glorify than desertion." he stared at her. "come now, katie, you know better than that." but katie was looking at him strangely. "wayne," she said quietly, "you're a deserter, yourself." he flushed, but after an instant laughed. "really, katie, you have a positive genius for saying preposterous things." "in which there may occasionally lurk a little truth. you _are_ deserting. why aren't you?" "i call that about as close to rot as an intelligent person could come," he replied hotly. "i'm resigning my commission. it's perfectly regular." "yes; being an officer and a gentleman, you _can_ resign your commission, and have it perfectly regular. being that same officer and gentleman, you never were mugged--treated as a prospective criminal; no four thousand posters bearing your picture will now be sent broadcast over the country; no fifty dollars is offered lean detectives for your capture; you're in no chance of being thrown into prison and have your government do all in its power to wring the manhood out of you! oh no--an officer and a gentleman--you resign your commission and go ahead with your life. but you're leaving the army, aren't you? deserting it. and why? because you don't like the spirit of it. and yet--though you're too big for it--though it's _time_ for you to desert--you're enough bound by it not to let the light of your intelligence fall for one single second on the question of desertion!" she had held him. he made no reply, looking in bewilderment at her red cheeks and blazing eyes. suddenly her face quivered. "wayne," she said, "i don't use the term as a hard name. i'm not using it in just its technical sense, our army sense. but mayn't desertion be a brave thing? a fine thing? to desert a thing we've gone beyond--to have the courage to desert it and walk right off from the dead thing to the live thing--? oh, don't mind my calling you a deserter, wayne," she added, her eyes full of tears, "for the truth is i'd like to be a deserter myself. but perhaps one deserter is enough for a family--and you beat me to it." she laughed and turned back to the cabs. he wanted to go on with the argument; show her what it was in desertion that army men despised, make the distinction between deserting and resigning. but the truth was he was more interested in the things katie had said than in the things which could be called in refutation. and katie puzzled him; her heat, feeling, not only astonished but worried him a little. she was standing there now beating a tattoo on the window pane. he wondered what she was thinking about. the experience as to ann revealed katie to him as having thought about things he would not have dreamed she was thinking about. what in the world did she mean by saying she'd like to be a deserter herself? one of her preposterous sayings--but it was true that considerable truth had often lurked at the heart of katie's absurd way of talking. watching her, he was drawn to thought of her attractiveness and that made him wonder whom katie would marry. he had always been secretly proud of his sister's popularity; it seemed she should make a brilliant marriage. live brilliantly. it was the thing to which she was adapted. katie was unique. distinctive. secretly, unadmittedly, he was very ambitious for her. and with a little smile he considered that seemingly katie was just shrewd enough to be ambitious for herself. she had steered her little bark safely past the place where she would be likely to marry a lieutenant. was she heading for a general? so he reflected with humor and affection, watching katie beat the tattoo on the window. thought of what some one had said of her as the army girl suggested something that changed his mood, bringing him suddenly to his feet. "katie," he demanded, "how much did you ever talk to this fellow? you don't think, do you, that he was trying to get you for his 'army girl'--or some such rot? if i thought that--you don't think, do you, katie, that that was what he was trying to work you for?" katie suddenly raised her hands and pushed back her hair, for the minute covering her eyes. "no, wayne," she said, "i don't think that was what he was trying to 'work me' for." and unable to bear more, she told him that she was very tired and asked him to go. chapter xl katie jones was very gay that winter. she made her home at her uncle's, near washington, though most of the time she was in washington itself, with various cousins and friends; there were always people wanting katie, especially that winter, when she had such unfailing zest for gayety. they wondered that she should not be more broken up at her brother's absurd move in quitting the army--just at the time the army offered him so much. she seemed to take it very easily; though katie was not one to take things hard, too light of spirit for that. and they wondered about his marriage to a girl whom nobody but katie knew anything about. katie seemed devoted to her and happy in the marriage. "why, naturally i am pleased," she said to a group of army people who were inquiring about wayne's bride. "she is my best friend. the girl i care most about." major darrett was one of the group. some one turned to him and asked if he had met her when she visited katie at the arsenal the summer before. he replied that he had had that pleasure and that she was indeed beautiful and very charming. katie hated him the more for having to be grateful to him. she knew that he was sorry for her and grew more and more gay. she could not talk of it, so was left to disclaim tragedy in frivolity. it was royally disclaimed. there were a few serious talks with older army men, men who had known her father and who were outraged at wayne's leaving the army when he was worth so much to it and it to him. in her efforts to make them see, she was forced to remember what the man who mended the boats said of their lack of hospitality. they were unable to entertain the idea of there being any reason for a man's leaving the army when he was being as well treated in it as wayne was. katie's explanations only led them to shake their heads and say: "poor wayne." it was impossible to bury certain things in her, for those were the things she must use in defending wayne. and in defending him, especially to her uncle, she was forced to know how far those things were from being decently prepared for burial. she was never more gay than after one of her defenses of her brother. the winter had passed and it was late in april, not unlike that may day just the year before when she had first seen her sister-in-law. try as she would she could not keep her thoughts from that day and all that it had opened up. she had received a letter from her sister-in-law that morning. it was hard to realize that the writer of that letter was the ann of the year before. her thoughts of ann led seductively to the old wonderings which ann had in the beginning opened up. she wondered how many of the people with whom things were all wrong, people whom good people called bad people, were simply people who had been held from their own. she wondered how many of those good people would have remained good people had life baffled them, as it had some of the bad people. the people whom circumstances had made good people were so sure of themselves. she had observed that it was from those who had never sailed stormy waters came the quickest and harshest judgments on bad seamanship in heavy seas. ann had met helen and did not seem to know just what to think about her. "she's nice, katie," she wrote, "but i don't understand her very well. she has so many strange ideas about things. wayne thinks you and she would get on famously. she doesn't seem afraid of anything and wants to do such a lot of things to the world. i'm afraid i'm selfish; i'm so happy in my own life--it's all so wonderful--that i can't get as excited about the world as helen does." and yet ann would not have found the world the place she had found it were it the place helen would have it. but ann had found joy and peace--safety--and was too happy in her own life to get excited about the world--and thought helen a little queer! that was ann's type--and that was why there were anns. ann was radiant about the mountains and their life in them. "helen said it about right, katie. they're hard on the hair and the skin--but good for the soul!" they would be for the summer in one of the most beautiful mountain towns of colorado and wanted katie to come and bring worth. wayne had consented to leave him for a time with katie at their uncle's. that katie knew for a concession received for staying in new york with ann until after her marriage. she believed she would go. she was so tired of zelda fraser that she would like to meet helen. and she would like the mountains. perhaps they would do something for _her_ soul--if she had not danced it quite away. she was getting very wretched about having to be so happy all the time. she was on her way to zelda's that afternoon, zelda having asked her to come in for a cup of tea and a talk. a whiff of some new scandal, she supposed. that was the basis of most of zelda's "talks." though possibly she had some things to tell about harry prescott's approaching marriage to caroline osborne. katie had been asked to be a bridesmaid at that wedding. "while we have known each other but a short time," caroline had written in her too sweet way, "i feel close to you, katie, because it was through you harry and i came together. then whom would we want as much as you! and as it is to be something of an army wedding, may i not have you, whom harry calls the 'most bully army girl' he ever knew?" mrs. prescott had also written katie the glad news, saying she was happy, believing caroline would make harry a good wife. katie was disposed to believe that she would and was emphatically disposed to believe that mr. osborne would make harry a good father-in-law. katie's knowledge of army finances led her to appreciate the value of the right father-in-law for an officer and gentleman who must subsist upon his pay. but she had made an excuse about the wedding, in no mood to be a bridesmaid, especially to a bride who would enter the bonds of matrimony on the banks of the mississippi, just opposite a certain place where boats were mended. she walked on very fast toward zelda's, trying to occupy the whole of her mind with planning a new gown. but zelda had more tender news to break that day than that of a new scandal. "katie," she approached it, in zelda's own delicate fashion, "what would you think of major darrett and me joy-riding through life together?" "i approve of it," said katie, with curious heartiness. "some joy-ride, don't you think?" "i can fancy," laughed katie, "that it might be hard to beat. i think," she added, "that he's just the one for you to marry. and i further think, zelda, that you're just the one for him to marry." zelda looked at her keenly. "no slam on either party?" "on the contrary, a sort of double-acting approval," she turned it with a laugh. "then as long as your approval has a back action, so to speak, i cop you out right now, katie, for a bridesmaid." "don't," said katie quickly. "no, zelda, i'm not--suitable." "why not?" "oh, too old and worn," she laughed. "bridesmaids should be buds." "showing up the full-blowness of the bride? don't you think it!" "so you hastened to get me!" "come now, katie, you know very well why i want you. why wouldn't i want you? anyhow," she exposed it, "father wants you. father thinks you're so nice and respectable, katie." "and so, for that matter," she added, "does my chosen joy-rider." "i'm not so sure of his being particularly impressed with my respectability," replied katie. "he's always been quite dippy about you, katie. i don't know how _i_ ever got him." zelda spoke feelingly of the approaching nuptials of her old school friend. "cal's considerable of a prissy, but take it from me, harry prescott will see that all father's money doesn't pour into homes for the friendless--so there's something accomplished. heaven help the poor fellow who must live on his pay," sighed zelda piously. major darrett, too, was to be congratulated on his father-in-law. just the father-in-law for a man ambitious to become military attache. it was nice, katie told herself as she walked away, to know of so many weddings. she insisted upon asserting to herself that she was glad all her friends were getting on so famously. though if zelda persisted, she would have to go west earlier than she had planned. she could not regard ann's sister-in-law as suitable person for attendant at major darrett's wedding. that would be a little _too_ much like playing the clown at a masked ball. the image was suggested by seeing one of those grotesque figures across the street. he was advertising some approaching festivity. with the clown was a monkey. he put the monkey down on the sidewalk and it danced obediently in just the place where it was put down. suddenly it seemed to katie that she was for all the world like that monkey--dancing obediently in the place where she was put down, not asking about the before or after, just dutifully being gay. that monkey did not know the great story about monkeys; doubtless he was even too degraded by clowns to yearn for a tree. he only danced at the end of the string the clown held--all else shut out. she--shutting out the before and after--was that pathetically festive little monkey; and society was the clown holding the string--the whole of it advertising the tawdry thing the clown called life. only _she_ knew that there were trees. she had danced frantically in seeking to forget them, but the string pulled by the clown fretted her more and more. she could not make clear to herself why it had seemed that if wayne were to be "free," she could not be; it was as if all the things she had worked out for herself had been appropriated by her brother. everybody could not go into more spacious countries! there were some who must stay behind and make it right for the deserters. wayne's marrying ann had turned her back to familiar paths. it had terrified her. there seemed too much involved, too little certainty as to where one would find one's self if one left the well-known ways. she had been put in the position of the one hurt just when she had been steeled to bring the hurt. it gave her a new sense of the hurts--uncertainty as to the right to deal them. and probably no monkey would dance more obediently than the monkey who had run away and been frightened at a glimpse of the vastness of the forest. she would have to remain and explain wayne, because she felt responsible about wayne. it was her venturings had found what had led wayne to venture--and, in the end, go. how could she outrage the army as long as wayne had done so? so it had seemed to katie in her hurt and bewilderment. and the bewilderment came chiefly because of the hurt. it appalled her to find it did hurt like that. but it was spring--and she knew that there were trees! she paused and watched a gardener removing some debris that had covered a flower bed. it was spring, and there were new shoots and this gardener was wise and tender in taking the old things away, that the new shoots might have air. katie could see them there--and tender green of them, as he lifted the old things away that the growing things might come through. the gardener did not seem to feel he was cruel in taking the dead things away. as a good gardener, he would scout the idea of its being unkind to take them away just because they had been there so long. what did that matter, the wise gardener would scornfully demand, when there were growing things underneath pushing their way to the light? and if he were given to philosophizing he might say that the kindest thing even to the dead things was to let the new things come through. thus life would be kept, and all the life that had ever been upon the earth perpetuated, vindicated, glorified. it seemed to katie that what life needed was a saner gardener. not a gardener who would smother new shoots with a lot of dead things telling how shoots should go. she drew a deep breath, lifted her face to the sky, and _knew_. knew that she herself had power to push through the dead things seeking to smother her. knew that if she but pushed on they must fall away because it was life was pushing them away. she walked on slowly, breathing deep. and swinging along in the april twilight she had a sense of having already set her face toward a more spacious country. and of knowing that it had been inevitable all the time that she should go. the delay had been but the moment's panic. her life itself mattered more than what any group of people thought about her life. spring!--and new life upon the earth. it was that life itself, not the philosophy men had formulated for or against it, was pushing the dead things away. it was not even arrested by the fear of displacing something. she had held herself back for so long that in the very admission that she longed to see him there was joy approaching the sweetness of seeing him. a long time she walked in the april twilight--knowing that it was spring--and that there was new life upon the earth. harry prescott would be married within two weeks. it seemed nothing was so important as that she witness that ceremony. dear harry prescott, who would be married on the banks of the mississippi, close by a certain place where boats were mended. chapter xli it was hard for katie to contain her delight in wayne's generosity when she found he had left his launch with captain prescott. "now wasn't that just sweet of father?" she exulted to worth as they walked together down to the little boat house. worth was more dispassionate. "y--es; but why wouldn't he, aunt kate? where would he take it?" "well, but it's just so nice, dearie, that it's here." "you going out in it?" he demanded. katie looked around. some soldiers and some golfers in the distance, but like the day ann had come upon the island, no one within immediate range. "watts says she's running like a bird, aunt kate. somebody was out this morning and somebody's going again this afternoon." "maybe she won't be here for them to take!" "you going to take it, aunt kate?" he pressed excitedly. "well, i don't just _know_, worth." she looked up the river. she could see a part of the little island where she had once pulled in to ask about the underlying principles of life, but not being able to see the other side of it, how could she be sure whether a launch ride was what she wanted or not? "father says we mustn't go in it alone, aunt kate. shall i see if we can get watts?" "n--o; that's not exactly the idea," said aunt kate, stepping into the launch. "goin', aunt kate?" "why--i don't know. i thought i'd just _sit_ in it a little while." so worth joined her for the delightful pastime of just sitting in it for a little while. "i'd rather like to find out whether it's in good condition." she turned to worth appealing. "it seems we ought to be able to tell father whether they're taking good care of it, doesn't it, worth?" "i guess i'll go and get watts." "i don't know why, but i don't seem able to get up a great deal of enthusiasm for that idea." her fingers were upon the steering wheel, longingly. eyes, too, were longing. suddenly she started the engine. "we'll just run round the head of the island," she said. so they started up the river--the river as blue and lovely as it had been that day a year before when she had cheated it, and had begun to see that life was cheating her. "worth," she asked, "what is there on the _other_ side of that little island?" "why, aunt kate--why on the other side of it is the man that mends the boats." "oh, that so? funny i never thought of that. "but i suppose," she began again, "he wouldn't be very likely to be there mending boats now?" "why yes, aunt kate, he might be." "you heard anything about him, worth?" "yes sir; watts says he has cut him _out_. he says he's _on_ to him." "that must be a bitter blow," said aunt kate. "watts getting _on_ to one--and cutting one out. "watts say anything about whether he was still mending boats?" she asked in the off-hand manner people adopt for vital things. "why i guess he is, 'cause he made a speech last week--oh there was a whole _lot_ of men--and he just _sowed seeds of discontentment_." "such a busy little sower!" murmured aunt kate lovingly. she knew that he was there, or at least had been there the week before, for just as she was leaving her uncle's she had received a note from him. they had not been writing to each other since the brief letter she had sent him the day after receiving the announcement of her brother's engagement. this note had been written to tell her no special thing; simply because, he said, after trying his best for a number of weeks, he was not longer able to keep from writing. he wrote because he couldn't help it. he had determined to love her too well to urge her to do what, knowing it all, she evidently felt could not hold happiness for her. but the utter desolation of life without her had crumbled the foundation of that determination. in the note he said that his boat-mending days were about over. they would not have lasted that long only he had had no heart for other things. but the letter gave katie heart for other things! its unmistakable wretchedness made her superbly radiant. "why, worthie," she exclaimed, "just see here! here's the very place where we landed that other time." "oh yes, aunt kate--it's still here." she smiled; he could not have done better had he been trying. "now i wonder if i could make that landing again. i was proud of the way i did that before. i don't suppose i could do it again." that baited him. "oh yes, i guess you could, aunt kate. you just try it." she demonstrated her skill and then they once more enjoyed the delightful pastime of just sitting in the launch. katie's eyes were misty, her lips trembled to a tender smile as she finally turned to him. "worth dear, will you do something for your aunt kate?" "sure i will, aunt kate." suddenly he guessed it. "want me to get the man that mends the boats?" she nodded. "i'll _try_ and get him for you, aunt kate." "try pretty hard, worthie." he started, but turned back. "what'll i tell him, aunt kate?" the smile had lingered and the eyes were wonderfully soft just then. "tell him i'm here again and want to find out some more about the underlying principles of life." "the--now what is it, aunt kate?" "well just say life," she laughed tremulously. "life'll do." she found it hard to keep from crying. there had been too much. it had been too long. it was not with clear vision she looked over at the big house where harry prescott's wedding feast would be served on the morrow. it seemed that about half of her life had passed before worth came back--alone. pretense fell away. "didn't you get him?" "why, aunt kate, there's another man there. but don't you feel so bad, aunt kate," he hastened. "we will get him, 'cause that other man is going to tell him." "oh, he--then he is here?" "oh yes, he's here. he's just over at the shop." "i see," said aunt kate, very much engaged with something she appeared to think was trying to get in her eye. "but, worth," she asked, when she had blinked the gnat away, "what did you tell this other man?" "why, i just told him. told him you was here and wanted the _other_ man that mended the boats. the first man. the big man, i said. he knows who i mean." "i should hope so," she murmured. "but what did you tell him i wanted to see him _for_?" she asked, suddenly apprehensive. worth had sat down and begun upon a raft. "why, i just told him. told him you had come to find out some more about life." "_worth!_ told that to a _strange_ man!" "but i guess he didn't know what i meant, aunt kate. he's one of those awful dumb folks that talk mostly in foreign languages. i think he's some kind of a french pole--or _something_." she breathed deeper. "oh, well perhaps one's confidences would be safe--with a french pole." "so he knows you want him, aunt kate, but he don't know just what you want him for." "yes; that's quite as well, i think," said aunt kate. the other half of her life had almost passed when again there were footsteps--very hurried footsteps, these were. it was not the french pole, though some one who did not seem at home with the english tongue, some one who stood there looking at her as if he, too, wanted to cry. worth was the self-possessed member of the party. "hello there," he said; "it's been a long time since we saw you, ain't it?" "it seems to me to have been a--yes, a long time," replied the man who mended the boats, never taking his eyes from katie. saying nothing more, he pulled in her boat, secured it. held out his hand to help her out--forgot to let go the hand when her feet were upon firm earth. acted, worth thought, as though he thought somebody was going to _hurt_ her. a steamboat was coming down the river. and worth!--a much interested worth. the man who mended the boats did not seem to find his surroundings all he could ask. "i want to show you this island," he began. "it's really quite a remarkable island. you know, i've been _wanting_ to show it to you. there's a stone over here--quite--quite an astonishing stone. and a flower. queer. really an astounding flower. i don't believe you ever saw one like it." "pooh!" said worth, starting on ahead. "i bet _i've_ seen one like it." "say--i'll tell you what i'll bet _you_. i'll bet you two dollars and a quarter you can't get that raft done before we get back!" "well i'll just bet _you_ two dollars and a _half_ that i _can_!" "it's a go!"--and aunt kate and the man who mended the boats were off to find the astonishing stone and the astounding flower, worth calling after them: "now you try to keep him, aunt kate. keep him as long as you can." it was after she had succeeded in keeping him long enough for considerable headway to have been made in raft-construction that he exclaimed: "katie, will you do something for me?" her eyes were asking what there could be that she would not do for him. "then _laugh,_ katie. oh if you could know how i've longed to hear you _laugh_ again." she did laugh, but a sob overtook the laugh. then laughed again and ran away from the sob. but the laugh was sweeter for the sob. "you _will_ laugh, katie, won't you?" he asked with an anxiety that touched deep things. "why there'll be days and days when i shan't do anything else!" then her laughing eyes grew serious. "though just a little differently, i think. i've heard the world sobbing, you know." "but a world that is sobbing needs katie's laughing." he drew her to him with something not unlike a sob. "i need it, i know." there was a wonderful sense of saving herself in knowing again that the world was sobbing. what she could have borne no longer was drowning the world's sobs in the world's hollow laughter. "katie," he cried, after more time had elapsed without finding either the astonishing stone or the astounding flower, "here's a little sunny path! i want you to walk in it." laughingly he pushed her over into the narrow strip of sunshine, where there was just room for katie's feet. but katie shook her head. "what do i care about sunny paths, if i must walk them alone?" and laughing, too, but with a deepening light in her eyes, she held out her hand to him. but it was such a narrow sunny path; there was not room for two. so katie made room for him by stepping part way out of the sunshine herself. smiling, but eyes speaking for the depth of the meaning, she said: "i'd rather be only half in the sunshine than be--" "be what, katie?" he whispered. "be without you." "katie," he asked passionately, "you mean that if walking together we can't always be all in the sunshine--?" "the thing that matters," said katie, "is walking together." "over roads where there might be no sunshine? rough, steep roads, perhaps?" "whatever kind, of roads they may be," said katie, with the steadiness and the fervor of a devotee repeating a prayer. they stood there as shadows lengthened across sunny paths, thinking of the years behind and the years ahead, now speaking of what they would do, now folded in exquisite silences. and after the fashion of happy lovers who must hover around calamities averted, he exclaimed: "suppose ann had never come!" it sent her heart out in a great tenderness to ann: ann, out in her mountains, and happy. nor was the tenderness less warm in the thought that ann would join with wayne and the others in deploring. ann, who was within now, would, katie knew, grieve over her going without. but that was only because ann did not wholly understand. everything the matter with everybody was just that they did not wholly understand. she grew tender toward all the world. there rose before her vision of a possible day when all would understand; when none would wish another ill or work another harm; when war and oppression and greed must cease, not because the laws forbade them, but because men's hearts gave them no place. "i see it!" she whispered unconsciously. her face was touched with the fine light of visioning. "see what--dear katie? take _me_ in." "the world when love has saved it!" she remembered their old dispute and her arms went about his neck as she told him again: "why 'tis _love_ must save the world!" he held her face in his two hands as if he could not look deeply enough. and as he looked into her eyes a nobler light was in his own. "as it has saved us," he whispered. they grew very still, hushed by the wonder of it. in their two hearts there seemed love enough to redeem the world. distributed proofreaders miss lulu bett by zona gale contents chapter i. april ii. may iii. june iv. july v. august vi. september i april the deacons were at supper. in the middle of the table was a small, appealing tulip plant, looking as anything would look whose sun was a gas jet. this gas jet was high above the table and flared, with a sound. "better turn down the gas jest a little," mr. deacon said, and stretched up to do so. he made this joke almost every night. he seldom spoke as a man speaks who has something to say, but as a man who makes something to say. "well, what have we on the festive board to-night?" he questioned, eyeing it. "festive" was his favourite adjective. "beautiful," too. in october he might be heard asking: "where's my beautiful fall coat?" "we have creamed salmon," replied mrs. deacon gently. "on toast," she added, with a scrupulous regard for the whole truth. why she should say this so gently no one can tell. she says everything gently. her "could you leave me another bottle of milk this morning?" would wring a milkman's heart. "well, now, let us see," said mr. deacon, and attacked the principal dish benignly. "_let_ us see," he added, as he served. "i don't want any," said monona. the child monona was seated upon a book and a cushion, so that her little triangle of nose rose adultly above her plate. her remark produced precisely the effect for which she had passionately hoped. "_what's_ this?" cried mr. deacon. "_no_ salmon?" "no," said monona, inflected up, chin pertly pointed. she felt her power, discarded her "sir." "oh now, pet!" from mrs. deacon, on three notes. "you liked it before." "i don't want any," said monona, in precisely her original tone. "just a little? a very little?" mr. deacon persuaded, spoon dripping; the child monona made her lips thin and straight and shook her head until her straight hair flapped in her eyes on either side. mr. deacon's eyes anxiously consulted his wife's eyes. what is this? their progeny will not eat? what can be supplied? "some bread and milk!" cried mrs. deacon brightly, exploding on "bread." one wondered how she thought of it. "no," said monona, inflection up, chin the same. she was affecting indifference to this scene, in which her soul delighted. she twisted her head, bit her lips unconcernedly, and turned her eyes to the remote. there emerged from the fringe of things, where she perpetually hovered, mrs. deacon's older sister, lulu bett, who was "making her home with us." and that was precisely the case. _they_ were not making her a home, goodness knows. lulu was the family beast of burden. "can't i make her a little milk toast?" she asked mrs. deacon. mrs. deacon hesitated, not with compunction at accepting lulu's offer, not diplomatically to lure monona. but she hesitated habitually, by nature, as another is by nature vivacious or brunette. "yes!" shouted the child monona. the tension relaxed. mrs. deacon assented. lulu went to the kitchen. mr. deacon served on. something of this scene was enacted every day. for monona the drama never lost its zest. it never occurred to the others to let her sit without eating, once, as a cure-all. the deacons were devoted parents and the child monona was delicate. she had a white, grave face, white hair, white eyebrows, white lashes. she was sullen, anaemic. they let her wear rings. she "toed in." the poor child was the late birth of a late marriage and the principal joy which she had provided them thus far was the pleased reflection that they had produced her at all. "where's your mother, ina?" mr. deacon inquired. "isn't she coming to her supper?" "tantrim," said mrs. deacon, softly. "oh, ho," said he, and said no more. the temper of mrs. bett, who also lived with them, had days of high vibration when she absented herself from the table as a kind of self-indulgence, and no one could persuade her to food. "tantrims," they called these occasions. "baked potatoes," said mr. deacon. "that's good--that's good. the baked potato contains more nourishment than potatoes prepared in any other way. the nourishment is next to the skin. roasting retains it." "that's what i always think," said his wife pleasantly. for fifteen years they had agreed about this. they ate, in the indecent silence of first savouring food. a delicate crunching of crust, an odour of baked-potato shells, the slip and touch of the silver. "num, num, nummy-num!" sang the child monona loudly, and was hushed by both parents in simultaneous exclamation which rivalled this lyric outburst. they were alone at table. di, daughter of a wife early lost to mr. deacon, was not there. di was hardly ever there. she was at that age. that age, in warbleton. a clock struck the half hour. "it's curious," mr. deacon observed, "how that clock loses. it must be fully quarter to." he consulted his watch. "it is quarter to!" he exclaimed with satisfaction. "i'm pretty good at guessing time." "i've noticed that!" cried his ina. "last night, it was only twenty-three to, when the half hour struck," he reminded her. "twenty-one, i thought." she was tentative, regarded him with arched eyebrows, mastication suspended. this point was never to be settled. the colloquy was interrupted by the child monona, whining for her toast. and the doorbell rang. "dear me!" said mr. deacon. "what can anybody be thinking of to call just at meal-time?" he trod the hall, flung open the street door. mrs. deacon listened. lulu, coming in with the toast, was warned to silence by an uplifted finger. she deposited the toast, tiptoed to her chair. a withered baked potato and cold creamed salmon were on her plate. the child monona ate with shocking appreciation. nothing could be made of the voices in the hall. but mrs. bett's door was heard softly to unlatch. she, too, was listening. a ripple of excitement was caused in the dining-room when mr. deacon was divined to usher some one to the parlour. mr. deacon would speak with this visitor in a few moments, and now returned to his table. it was notable how slight a thing would give him a sense of self-importance. now he felt himself a man of affairs, could not even have a quiet supper with his family without the outside world demanding him. he waved his hand to indicate it was nothing which they would know anything about, resumed his seat, served himself to a second spoon of salmon and remarked, "more roast duck, anybody?" in a loud voice and with a slow wink at his wife. that lady at first looked blank, as she always did in the presence of any humour couched with the least indirection, and then drew back her chin and caught her lower lip in her gold-filled teeth. this was her conjugal rebuking. swedenborg always uses "conjugial." and really this sounds more married. it should be used with reference to the deacons. no one was ever more married than they--at least than mr. deacon. he made little conjugal jokes in the presence of lulu who, now completely unnerved by the habit, suspected them where they did not exist, feared lurking _entendre_ in the most innocent comments, and became more tense every hour of her life. and now the eye of the master of the house fell for the first time upon the yellow tulip in the centre of his table. "well, _well_!" he said. "what's this?" ina deacon produced, fleetly, an unlooked-for dimple. "have you been buying flowers?" the master inquired. "ask lulu," said mrs. deacon. he turned his attention full upon lulu. "suitors?" he inquired, and his lips left their places to form a sort of ruff about the word. lulu flushed, and her eyes and their very brows appealed. "it was a quarter," she said. "there'll be five flowers." "you _bought_ it?" "yes. there'll be five--that's a nickel apiece." his tone was as methodical as if he had been talking about the bread. "yet we give you a home on the supposition that you have no money to spend, even for the necessities." his voice, without resonance, cleft air, thought, spirit, and even flesh. mrs. deacon, indeterminately feeling her guilt in having let loose the dogs of her husband upon lulu, interposed: "well, but, herbert--lulu isn't strong enough to work. what's the use...." she dwindled. for years the fiction had been sustained that lulu, the family beast of burden, was not strong enough to work anywhere else. "the justice business--" said dwight herbert deacon--he was a justice of the peace--"and the dental profession--" he was also a dentist--"do not warrant the purchase of spring flowers in my home." "well, but, herbert--" it was his wife again. "no more," he cried briefly, with a slight bend of his head. "lulu meant no harm," he added, and smiled at lulu. there was a moment's silence into which monona injected a loud "num, num, num-my-num," as if she were the burden of an elizabethan lyric. she seemed to close the incident. but the burden was cut off untimely. there was, her father reminded her portentously, company in the parlour. "when the bell rang, i was so afraid something had happened to di," said ina sighing. "let's see," said di's father. "where is little daughter to-night?" he must have known that she was at jenny plow's at a tea party, for at noon they had talked of nothing else; but this was his way. and ina played his game, always. she informed him, dutifully. "oh, _ho_," said he, absently. how could he be expected to keep his mind on these domestic trifles. "we told you that this noon," said lulu. he frowned, disregarded her. lulu had no delicacy. "how much is salmon the can now?" he inquired abruptly--this was one of his forms of speech, the can, the pound, the cord. his partner supplied this information with admirable promptness. large size, small size, present price, former price--she had them all. "dear me," said mr. deacon. "that is very nearly salmoney, isn't it?" "herbert!" his ina admonished, in gentle, gentle reproach. mr. deacon punned, organically. in talk he often fell silent and then asked some question, schemed to permit his vice to flourish. mrs. deacon's return was always automatic: "_her_bert!" "whose bert?" he said to this. "i thought i was your bert." she shook her little head. "you are a case," she told him. he beamed upon her. it was his intention to be a case. lulu ventured in upon this pleasantry, and cleared her throat. she was not hoarse, but she was always clearing her throat. "the butter is about all gone," she observed. "shall i wait for the butter-woman or get some creamery?" mr. deacon now felt his little jocularities lost before a wall of the matter of fact. he was not pleased. he saw himself as the light of his home, bringer of brightness, lightener of dull hours. it was a pretty rôle. he insisted upon it. to maintain it intact, it was necessary to turn upon their sister with concentrated irritation. "kindly settle these matters without bringing them to my attention at meal-time," he said icily. lulu flushed and was silent. she was an olive woman, once handsome, now with flat, bluish shadows under her wistful eyes. and if only she would look at her brother herbert and say something. but she looked in her plate. "i want some honey," shouted the child, monona. "there isn't any, pet," said lulu. "i want some," said monona, eyeing her stonily. but she found that her hair-ribbon could be pulled forward to meet her lips, and she embarked on the biting of an end. lulu departed for some sauce and cake. it was apple sauce. mr. deacon remarked that the apples were almost as good as if he had stolen them. he was giving the impression that he was an irrepressible fellow. he was eating very slowly. it added pleasantly to his sense of importance to feel that some one, there in the parlour, was waiting his motion. at length they rose. monona flung herself upon her father. he put her aside firmly, every inch the father. no, no. father was occupied now. mrs. deacon coaxed her away. monona encircled her mother's waist, lifted her own feet from the floor and hung upon her. "she's such an active child," lulu ventured brightly. "not unduly active, i think," her brother-in-law observed. he turned upon lulu his bright smile, lifted his eyebrows, dropped his lids, stood for a moment contemplating the yellow tulip, and so left the room. lulu cleared the table. mrs. deacon essayed to wind the clock. well now. did herbert say it was twenty-three to-night when it struck the half hour and twenty-one last night, or twenty-one to-night and last night twenty-three? she talked of it as they cleared the table, but lulu did not talk. "can't you remember?" mrs. deacon said at last. "i should think you might be useful." lulu was lifting the yellow tulip to set it on the sill. she changed her mind. she took the plant to the wood-shed and tumbled it with force upon the chip-pile. the dining-room table was laid for breakfast. the two women brought their work and sat there. the child monona hung miserably about, watching the clock. right or wrong, she was put to bed by it. she had eight minutes more--seven--six--five-- lulu laid down her sewing and left the room. she went to the wood-shed, groped about in the dark, found the stalk of the one tulip flower in its heap on the chip-pile. the tulip she fastened in her gown on her flat chest. outside were to be seen the early stars. it is said that if our sun were as near to arcturus as we are near to our sun, the great arcturus would burn our sun to nothingness. * * * * * in the deacons' parlour sat bobby larkin, eighteen. he was in pain all over. he was come on an errand which civilisation has contrived to make an ordeal. before him on the table stood a photograph of diana deacon, also eighteen. he hated her with passion. at school she mocked him, aped him, whispered about him, tortured him. for two years he had hated her. nights he fell asleep planning to build a great house and engage her as its servant. yet, as he waited, he could not keep his eyes from this photograph. it was di at her curliest, at her fluffiest, di conscious of her bracelet, di smiling. bobby gazed, his basic aversion to her hard-pressed by a most reluctant pleasure. he hoped that he would not see her, and he listened for her voice. mr. deacon descended upon him with an air carried from his supper hour, bland, dispensing. well! let us have it. "what did you wish to see me about?"--with a use of the past tense as connoting something of indirection and hence of delicacy--a nicety customary, yet unconscious. bobby had arrived in his best clothes and with an air of such formality that mr. deacon had instinctively suspected him of wanting to join the church, and, to treat the time with due solemnity, had put him in the parlour until he could attend at leisure. confronted thus by di's father, the speech which bobby had planned deserted him. "i thought if you would give me a job," he said defencelessly. "so that's it!" mr. deacon, who always awaited but a touch to be either irritable or facetious, inclined now to be facetious. "filling teeth?" he would know. "marrying folks, then?" assistant justice or assistant dentist--which? bobby blushed. no, no, but in that big building of mr. deacon's where his office was, wasn't there something ... it faded from him, sounded ridiculous. of course there was nothing. he saw it now. there was nothing. mr. deacon confirmed him. but mr. deacon had an idea. hold on, he said--hold on. the grass. would bobby consider taking charge of the grass? though mr. deacon was of the type which cuts its own grass and glories in its vigour and its energy, yet in the time after that which he called "dental hours" mr. deacon wished to work in his garden. his grass, growing in late april rains, would need attention early next month ... he owned two lots--"of course property _is_ a burden." if bobby would care to keep the grass down and raked ... bobby would care, accepted this business opportunity, figures and all, thanked mr. deacon with earnestness. bobby's aversion to di, it seemed, should not stand in the way of his advancement. "then that is checked off," said mr. deacon heartily. bobby wavered toward the door, emerged on the porch, and ran almost upon di returning from her tea-party at jenny plow's. "oh, bobby! you came to see me?" she was as fluffy, as curly, as smiling as her picture. she was carrying pink, gauzy favours and a spear of flowers. undeniably in her voice there was pleasure. her glance was startled but already complacent. she paused on the steps, a lovely figure. but one would say that nothing but the truth dwelt in bobby. "oh, hullo," said he. "no. i came to see your father." he marched by her. his hair stuck up at the back. his coat was hunched about his shoulders. his insufficient nose, abundant, loose-lipped mouth and brown eyes were completely expressionless. he marched by her without a glance. she flushed with vexation. mr. deacon, as one would expect, laughed loudly, took the situation in his elephantine grasp and pawed at it. "mamma! mamma! what do you s'pose? di thought she had a beau----" "oh, papa!" said di. "why, i just hate bobby larkin and the whole _school_ knows it." mr. deacon returned to the dining-room, humming in his throat. he entered upon a pretty scene. his ina was darning. four minutes of grace remaining to the child monona, she was spinning on one toe with some bacchanalian idea of making the most of the present. di dominated, her ruffles, her blue hose, her bracelet, her ring. "oh, and mamma," she said, "the sweetest party and the dearest supper and the darlingest decorations and the gorgeousest----" "grammar, grammar," spoke dwight herbert deacon. he was not sure what he meant, but the good fellow felt some violence done somewhere or other. "well," said di positively, "they _were_. papa, see my favour." she showed him a sugar dove, and he clucked at it. ina glanced at them fondly, her face assuming its loveliest light. she was often ridiculous, but always she was the happy wife and mother, and her rôle reduced her individual absurdities at least to its own. the door to the bedroom now opened and mrs. bett appeared. "well, mother!" cried herbert, the "well" curving like an arm, the "mother" descending like a brisk slap. "hungry _now?_" mrs. bett was hungry now. she had emerged intending to pass through the room without speaking and find food in the pantry. by obscure processes her son-in-law's tone inhibited all this. "no," she said. "i'm not hungry." now that she was there, she seemed uncertain what to do. she looked from one to another a bit hopelessly, somehow foiled in her dignity. she brushed at her skirt, the veins of her long, wrinkled hands catching an intenser blue from the dark cloth. she put her hair behind her ears. "we put a potato in the oven for you," said ina. she had never learned quite how to treat these periodic refusals of her mother to eat, but she never had ceased to resent them. "no, thank you," said mrs. bett. evidently she rather enjoyed the situation, creating for herself a spot-light much in the manner of monona. "mother," said lulu, "let me make you some toast and tea." mrs. bett turned her gentle, bloodless face toward her daughter, and her eyes warmed. "after a little, maybe," she said. "i think i'll run over to see grandma gates now," she added, and went toward the door. "tell her," cried dwight, "tell her she's my best girl." grandma gates was a rheumatic cripple who lived next door, and whenever the deacons or mrs. bett were angry or hurt or wished to escape the house for some reason, they stalked over to grandma gates--in lieu of, say, slamming a door. these visits radiated an almost daily friendliness which lifted and tempered the old invalid's lot and life. di flashed out at the door again, on some trivial permission. "a good many of mamma's stitches in that dress to keep clean," ina called after. "early, darling, early!" her father reminded her. a faint regurgitation of his was somehow invested with the paternal. "what's this?" cried dwight herbert deacon abruptly. on the clock shelf lay a letter. "oh, dwight!" ina was all compunction. "it came this morning. i forgot." "i forgot it too! and i laid it up there." lulu was eager for her share of the blame. "isn't it understood that my mail can't wait like this?" dwight's sense of importance was now being fed in gulps. "i know. i'm awfully sorry," lulu said, "but you hardly ever get a letter----" this might have made things worse, but it provided dwight with a greater importance. "of course, pressing matter goes to my office," he admitted it. "still, my mail should have more careful----" he read, frowning. he replaced the letter, and they hung upon his motions as he tapped the envelope and regarded them. "now!" said he. "what do you think i have to tell you?" "something nice," ina was sure. "something surprising," dwight said portentously. "but, dwight--is it _nice?_" from his ina. "that depends. i like it. so'll lulu." he leered at her. "it's company." "oh, dwight," said ina. "who?" "from oregon," he said, toying with his suspense. "your brother!" cried ina. "is he coming?" "yes. ninian's coming, so he says." "ninian!" cried ina again. she was excited, round-eyed, her moist lips parted. dwight's brother ninian. how long was it? nineteen years. south america, central america, mexico, panama "and all." when was he coming and what was he coming for? "to see me," said dwight. "to meet you. some day next week. he don't know what a charmer lulu is, or he'd come quicker." lulu flushed terribly. not from the implication. but from the knowledge that she was not a charmer. the clock struck. the child monona uttered a cutting shriek. herbert's eyes flew not only to the child but to his wife. what was this, was their progeny hurt? "bedtime," his wife elucidated, and added: "lulu, will you take her to bed? i'm pretty tired." lulu rose and took monona by the hand, the child hanging back and shaking her straight hair in an unconvincing negative. as they crossed the room, dwight herbert deacon, strolling about and snapping his fingers, halted and cried out sharply: "lulu. one moment!" he approached her. a finger was extended, his lips were parted, on his forehead was a frown. "you _picked_ the flower on the plant?" he asked incredulously. lulu made no reply. but the child monona felt herself lifted and borne to the stairway and the door was shut with violence. on the dark stairway lulu's arms closed about her in an embrace which left her breathless and squeaking. and yet lulu was not really fond of the child monona, either. this was a discharge of emotion akin, say, to slamming the door. ii may lulu was dusting the parlour. the parlour was rarely used, but every morning it was dusted. by lulu. she dusted the black walnut centre table which was of ina's choosing, and looked like ina, shining, complacent, abundantly curved. the leather rocker, too, looked like ina, brown, plumply upholstered, tipping back a bit. really, the davenport looked like ina, for its chintz pattern seemed to bear a design of lifted eyebrows and arch, reproachful eyes. lulu dusted the upright piano, and that was like dwight--in a perpetual attitude of rearing back, with paws out, playful, but capable, too, of roaring a ready bass. and the black fireplace--there was mrs. bett to the life. colourless, fireless, and with a dust of ashes. in the midst of all was lulu herself reflected in the narrow pier glass, bodiless-looking in her blue gingham gown, but somehow alive. natural. this pier glass lulu approached with expectation, not because of herself but because of the photograph on its low marble shelf. a large photograph on a little shelf-easel. a photograph of a man with evident eyes, evident lips, evident cheeks--and each of the six were rounded and convex. you could construct the rest of him. down there under the glass you could imagine him extending, rounded and convex, with plump hands and curly thumbs and snug clothes. it was ninian deacon, dwight's brother. every day since his coming had been announced lulu, dusting the parlour, had seen the photograph looking at her with its eyes somehow new. or were her own eyes new? she dusted this photograph with a difference, lifted, dusted, set it back, less as a process than as an experience. as she dusted the mirror and saw his trim semblance over against her own bodiless reflection, she hurried away. but the eyes of the picture followed her, and she liked it. she dusted the south window-sill and saw bobby larkin come round the house and go to the wood-shed for the lawn mower. she heard the smooth blur of the cutter. not six times had bobby traversed the lawn when lulu saw di emerge from the house. di had been caring for her canary and she carried her bird-bath and went to the well, and lulu divined that di had deliberately disregarded the handy kitchen taps. lulu dusted the south window and watched, and in her watching was no quality of spying or of criticism. nor did she watch wistfully. rather, she looked out on something in which she had never shared, could not by any chance imagine herself sharing. the south windows were open. airs of may bore the soft talking. "oh, bobby, will you pump while i hold this?" and again: "now wait till i rinse." and again: "you needn't be so glum"--the village salutation signifying kindly attention. bobby now first spoke: "who's glum?" he countered gloomily. the iron of those days when she had laughed at him was deep within him, and this she now divined, and said absently: "i used to think you were pretty nice. but i don't like you any more." "yes, you used to!" bobby repeated derisively. "is that why you made fun of me all the time?" at this di coloured and tapped her foot on the well-curb. he seemed to have her now, and enjoyed his triumph. but di looked up at him shyly and looked down. "i had to," she admitted. "they were all teasing me about you." "they were?" this was a new thought to him. teasing her about him, were they? he straightened. "huh!" he said, in magnificent evasion. "i had to make them stop, so i teased you. i--i never wanted to." again the upward look. "well!" bobby stared at her. "i never thought it was anything like that." "of course you didn't." she tossed back her bright hair, met his eyes full. "and you never came where i could tell you. i wanted to tell you." she ran into the house. lulu lowered her eyes. it was as if she had witnessed the exercise of some secret gift, had seen a cocoon open or an egg hatch. she was thinking: "how easy she done it. got him right over. but _how_ did she do that?" dusting the dwight-like piano, lulu looked over-shoulder, with a manner of speculation, at the photograph of ninian. bobby mowed and pondered. the magnificent conceit of the male in his understanding of the female character was sufficiently developed to cause him to welcome the improvisation which he had just heard. perhaps that was the way it had been. of course that was the way it had been. what a fool he had been not to understand. he cast his eyes repeatedly toward the house. he managed to make the job last over so that he could return in the afternoon. he was not conscious of planning this, but it was in some manner contrived for him by forces of his own with which he seemed to be coöperating without his conscious will. continually he glanced toward the house. these glances lulu saw. she was a woman of thirty-four and di and bobby were eighteen, but lulu felt for them no adult indulgence. she felt that sweetness of attention which we bestow upon may robins. she felt more. she cut a fresh cake, filled a plate, called to di, saying: "take some out to that bobby larkin, why don't you?" it was lulu's way of participating. it was her vicarious thrill. after supper dwight and ina took their books and departed to the chautauqua circle. to these meetings lulu never went. the reason seemed to be that she never went anywhere. when they were gone lulu felt an instant liberation. she turned aimlessly to the garden and dug round things with her finger. and she thought about the brightness of that chautauqua scene to which ina and dwight had gone. lulu thought about such gatherings in somewhat the way that a futurist receives the subjects of his art--forms not vague, but heightened to intolerable definiteness, acute colour, and always motion--motion as an integral part of the desirable. but a factor of all was that lulu herself was the participant, not the onlooker. the perfection of her dream was not impaired by any longing. she had her dream as a saint her sense of heaven. "lulie!" her mother called. "you come out of that damp." she obeyed, as she had obeyed that voice all her life. but she took one last look down the dim street. she had not known it, but superimposed on her chautauqua thoughts had been her faint hope that it would be to-night, while she was in the garden alone, that ninian deacon would arrive. and she had on her wool chally, her coral beads, her cameo pin.... she went into the lighted dining-room. monona was in bed. di was not there. mrs. bett was in dwight herbert's leather chair and she lolled at her ease. it was strange to see this woman, usually so erect and tense, now actually lolling, as if lolling were the positive, the vital, and her ordinary rigidity a negation of her. in some corresponding orgy of leisure and liberation, lulu sat down with no needle. "inie ought to make over her delaine," mrs. bett comfortably began. they talked of this, devised a mode, recalled other delaines. "dear, dear," said mrs. bett, "i had on a delaine when i met your father." she described it. both women talked freely, with animation. they were individuals and alive. to the two pallid beings accessory to the deacons' presence, mrs. bett and her daughter lulu now bore no relationship. they emerged, had opinions, contradicted, their eyes were bright. toward nine o'clock mrs. bett announced that she thought she should have a lunch. this was debauchery. she brought in bread-and-butter, and a dish of cold canned peas. she was committing all the excesses that she knew--offering opinions, laughing, eating. it was to be seen that this woman had an immense store of vitality, perpetually submerged. when she had eaten she grew sleepy--rather cross at the last and inclined to hold up her sister's excellencies to lulu; and, at lulu's defence, lifted an ancient weapon. "what's the use of finding fault with inie? where'd you been if she hadn't married?" lulu said nothing. "what say?" mrs. bett demanded shrilly. she was enjoying it. lulu said no more. after a long time: "you always was jealous of inie," said mrs. bett, and went to her bed. as soon as her mother's door had closed, lulu took the lamp from its bracket, stretching up her long body and her long arms until her skirt lifted to show her really slim and pretty feet. lulu's feet gave news of some other lulu, but slightly incarnate. perhaps, so far, incarnate only in her feet and her long hair. she took the lamp to the parlour and stood before the photograph of ninian deacon, and looked her fill. she did not admire the photograph, but she wanted to look at it. the house was still, there was no possibility of interruption. the occasion became sensation, which she made no effort to quench. she held a rendezvous with she knew not what. in the early hours of the next afternoon with the sun shining across the threshold, lulu was paring something at the kitchen table. mrs. bett was asleep. ("i don't blame you a bit, mother," lulu had said, as her mother named the intention.) ina was asleep. (but ina always took off the curse by calling it her "si-esta," long _i_.) monona was playing with a neighbour's child--you heard their shrill yet lovely laughter as they obeyed the adult law that motion is pleasure. di was not there. a man came round the house and stood tying a puppy to the porch post. a long shadow fell through the west doorway, the puppy whined. "oh," said this man. "i didn't mean to arrive at the back door, but since i'm here--" he lifted a suitcase to the porch, entered, and filled the kitchen. "it's ina, isn't it?" he said. "i'm her sister," said lulu, and understood that he was here at last. "well, i'm bert's brother," said ninian. "so i can come in, can't i?" he did so, turned round like a dog before his chair and sat down heavily, forcing his fingers through heavy, upspringing brown hair. "oh, yes," said lulu. "i'll call ina. she's asleep." "don't call her, then," said ninian. "let's you and i get acquainted." he said it absently, hardly looking at her. "i'll get the pup a drink if you can spare me a basin," he added. lulu brought the basin, and while he went to the dog she ran tiptoeing to the dining-room china closet and brought a cut-glass tumbler, as heavy, as ungainly as a stone crock. this she filled with milk. "i thought maybe ..." said she, and offered it. "thank _you_!" said ninian, and drained it. "making pies, as i live," he observed, and brought his chair nearer to the table. "i didn't know ina had a sister," he went on. "i remember now bert said he had two of her relatives----" lulu flushed and glanced at him pitifully. "he has," she said. "it's my mother and me. but we do quite a good deal of the work." "i'll bet you do," said ninian, and did not perceive that anything had been violated. "what's your name?" he bethought. she was in an immense and obscure excitement. her manner was serene, her hands as they went on with the peeling did not tremble; her replies were given with sufficient quiet. but she told him her name as one tells something of another and more remote creature. she felt as one may feel in catastrophe--no sharp understanding but merely the sense that the thing cannot possibly be happening. "you folks expect me?" he went on. "oh, yes," she cried, almost with vehemence. "why, we've looked for you every day." "'see," he said, "how long have they been married?" lulu flushed as she answered: "fifteen years." "and a year before that the first one died--and two years they were married," he computed. "i never met that one. then it's close to twenty years since bert and i have seen each other." "how awful," lulu said, and flushed again. "why?" "to be that long away from your folks." suddenly she found herself facing this honestly, as if the immensity of her present experience were clarifying her understanding: would it be so awful to be away from bert and monona and di--yes, and ina, for twenty years? "you think that?" he laughed. "a man don't know what he's like till he's roamed around on his own." he liked the sound of it. "roamed around on his own," he repeated, and laughed again. "course a woman don't know that." "why don't she?" asked lulu. she balanced a pie on her hand and carved the crust. she was stupefied to hear her own question. "why don't she?" "maybe she does. do you?" "yes," said lulu. "good enough!" he applauded noiselessly, with fat hands. his diamond ring sparkled, his even white teeth flashed. "i've had twenty years of galloping about," he informed her, unable, after all, to transfer his interests from himself to her. "where?" she asked, although she knew. "south america. central america. mexico. panama." he searched his memory. "colombo," he superadded. "my!" said lulu. she had probably never in her life had the least desire to see any of these places. she did not want to see them now. but she wanted passionately to meet her companion's mind. "it's the life," he informed her. "must be," lulu breathed. "i----" she tried, and gave it up. "where you been mostly?" he asked at last. by this unprecedented interest in her doings she was thrown into a passion of excitement. "here," she said. "i've always been here. fifteen years with ina. before that we lived in the country." he listened sympathetically now, his head well on one side. he watched her veined hands pinch at the pies. "poor old girl," he was thinking. "is it miss lulu bett?" he abruptly inquired. "or mrs.?" lulu flushed in anguish. "miss," she said low, as one who confesses the extremity of failure. then from unplumbed depths another lulu abruptly spoke up. "from choice," she said. he shouted with laughter. "you bet! oh, you bet!" he cried. "never doubted it." he made his palms taut and drummed on the table. "say!" he said. lulu glowed, quickened, smiled. her face was another face. "which kind of a mr. are you?" she heard herself ask, and his shoutings redoubled. well! who would have thought it of her? "never give myself away," he assured her. "say, by george, i never thought of that before! there's no telling whether a man's married or not, by his name!" "it don't matter," said lulu. "why not?" "not so many people want to know." again he laughed. this laughter was intoxicating to lulu. no one ever laughed at what she said save herbert, who laughed at _her_. "go it, old girl!" ninian was thinking, but this did not appear. the child monona now arrived, banging the front gate and hurling herself round the house on the board walk, catching the toe of one foot in the heel of the other and blundering forward, head down, her short, straight hair flapping over her face. she landed flat-footed on the porch. she began to speak, using a ridiculous perversion of words, scarcely articulate, then in vogue in her group. and, "whose dog?" she shrieked. ninian looked over his shoulder, held out his hand, finished something that he was saying to lulu. monona came to him readily enough, staring, loose-lipped. "i'll bet i'm your uncle," said ninian. relationship being her highest known form of romance, monona was thrilled by this intelligence. "give us a kiss," said ninian, finding in the plural some vague mitigation for some vague offence. monona, looking silly, complied. and her uncle said my stars, such a great big tall girl--they would have to put a board on her head. "what's that?" inquired monona. she had spied his great diamond ring. "this," said her uncle, "was brought to me by santa claus, who keeps a jewellery shop in heaven." the precision and speed of his improvisation revealed him. he had twenty other diamonds like this one. he kept them for those sundays when the sun comes up in the west. of course--often! some day he was going to melt a diamond and eat it. then you sparkled all over in the dark, ever after. another diamond he was going to plant. they say----he did it all gravely, absorbedly. about it he was as conscienceless as a savage. this was no fancy spun to pleasure a child. this was like lying, for its own sake. he went on talking with lulu, and now again he was the tease, the braggart, the unbridled, unmodified male. monona stood in the circle of his arm. the little being was attentive, softened, subdued. some pretty, faint light visited her. in her listening look, she showed herself a charming child. "it strikes me," said ninian to lulu, "that you're going to do something mighty interesting before you die." it was the clear conversational impulse, born of the need to keep something going, but lulu was all faith. she closed the oven door on her pies and stood brushing flour from her fingers. he was looking away from her, and she looked at him. he was completely like his picture. she felt as if she were looking at his picture and she was abashed and turned away. "well, i hope so," she said, which had certainly never been true, for her old formless dreams were no intention--nothing but a mush of discontent. "i hope i can do something that's nice before i quit," she said. nor was this hope now independently true, but only this surprising longing to appear interesting in his eyes. to dance before him. "what would the folks think of me, going on so?" she suddenly said. her mild sense of disloyalty was delicious. so was his understanding glance. "you're the stuff," he remarked absently. she laughed happily. the door opened. ina appeared. "well!" said ina. it was her remotest tone. she took this man to be a pedlar, beheld her child in his clasp, made a quick, forward step, chin lifted. she had time for a very javelin of a look at lulu. "hello!" said ninian. he had the one formula. "i believe i'm your husband's brother. ain't this ina?" it had not crossed the mind of lulu to present him. beautiful it was to see ina relax, soften, warm, transform, humanise. it gave one hope for the whole species. "ninian!" she cried. she lent a faint impression of the double _e_ to the initial vowel. she slurred the rest, until the _y_ sound squinted in. not neenyun, but nearly neenyun. he kissed her. "since dwight isn't here!" she cried, and shook her finger at him. ina's conception of hostess-ship was definite: a volley of questions--was his train on time? he had found the house all right? of course! any one could direct him, she should hope. and he hadn't seen dwight? she must telephone him. but then she arrested herself with a sharp, curved fling of her starched skirts. no! they would surprise him at tea--she stood taut, lips compressed. oh, the plows were coming to tea. how unfortunate, she thought. how fortunate, she said. the child monona made her knees and elbows stiff and danced up and down. she must, she must participate. "aunt lulu made three pies!" she screamed, and shook her straight hair. "gracious sakes," said ninian. "i brought her a pup, and if i didn't forget to give it to her." they adjourned to the porch--ninian, ina, monona. the puppy was presented, and yawned. the party kept on about "the place." ina delightedly exhibited the tomatoes, the two apple trees, the new shed, the bird bath. ninian said the un-spellable "m--m," rising inflection, and the "i see," prolonging the verb as was expected of him. ina said that they meant to build a summer-house, only, dear me, when you have a family--but there, he didn't know anything about that. ina was using her eyes, she was arch, she was coquettish, she was flirtatious, and she believed herself to be merely matronly, sisterly, womanly ... she screamed. dwight was at the gate. now the meeting, exclamation, banality, guffaw ... good will. and lulu, peeping through the blind. when "tea" had been experienced that evening, it was found that a light rain was falling and the deacons and their guests, the plows, were constrained to remain in the parlour. the plows were gentle, faintly lustrous folk, sketched into life rather lightly, as if they were, say, looking in from some other level. "the only thing," said dwight herbert, "that reconciles me to rain is that i'm let off croquet." he rolled his r's, a favourite device of his to induce humour. he called it "croquette." he had never been more irrepressible. the advent of his brother was partly accountable, the need to show himself a fine family man and host in a prosperous little home--simple and pathetic desire. "tell you what we'll do!" said dwight. "nin and i'll reminisce a little." "do!" cried mr. plow. this gentle fellow was always excited by life, so faintly excited by him, and enjoyed its presentation in any real form. ninian had unerringly selected a dwarf rocker, and he was overflowing it and rocking. "take this chair, do!" ina begged. "a big chair for a big man." she spoke as if he were about the age of monona. ninian refused, insisted on his refusal. a few years more, and human relationships would have spread sanity even to ina's estate and she would have told him why he should exchange chairs. as it was she forbore, and kept glancing anxiously at the over-burdened little beast beneath him. the child monona entered the room. she had been driven down by di and jenny plow, who had vanished upstairs and, through the ventilator, might be heard in a lift and fall of giggling. monona had also been driven from the kitchen where lulu was, for some reason, hurrying through the dishes. monona now ran to mrs. bett, stood beside her and stared about resentfully. mrs. bett was in best black and ruches, and she seized upon monona and patted her, as her own form of social expression; and monona wriggled like a puppy, as hers. "quiet, pettie," said ina, eyebrows up. she caught her lower lip in her teeth. "well, sir," said dwight, "you wouldn't think it to look at us, but mother had her hands pretty full, bringing us up." into dwight's face came another look. it was always so, when he spoke of this foster-mother who had taken these two boys and seen them through the graded schools. this woman dwight adored, and when he spoke of her he became his inner self. "we must run up-state and see her while you're here, nin," he said. to this ninian gave a casual assent, lacking his brother's really tender ardour. "little," dwight pursued, "little did she think i'd settle down into a nice, quiet, married dentist and magistrate in my town. and nin into--say, nin, what are you, anyway?" they laughed. "that's the question," said ninian. they laughed. "maybe," ina ventured, "maybe ninian will tell us something about his travels. he is quite a traveller, you know," she said to the plows. "a regular gulliver." they laughed respectfully. "how we should love it, mr. deacon," mrs. plow said. "you know we've never seen _very_ much." goaded on, ninian launched upon his foreign countries as he had seen them: population, exports, imports, soil, irrigation, business. for the populations ninian had no respect. crops could not touch ours. soil mighty poor pickings. and the business--say! those fellows don't know--and, say, the hotels! don't say foreign hotel to ninian. he regarded all the alien earth as barbarian, and he stoned it. he was equipped for absolutely no intensive observation. his contacts were negligible. mrs. plow was more excited by the deacons' party than ninian had been wrought upon by all his voyaging. "tell you," said dwight. "when we ran away that time and went to the state fair, little did we think--" he told about running away to the state fair. "i thought," he wound up, irrelevantly, "ina and i might get over to the other side this year, but i guess not. i guess not." the words give no conception of their effect, spoken thus. for there in warbleton these words are not commonplace. in warbleton, europe is never so casually spoken. "take a trip abroad" is the phrase, or "go to europe" at the very least, and both with empressement. dwight had somewhere noted and deliberately picked up that "other side" effect, and his ina knew this, and was proud. her covert glance about pensively covered her soft triumph. mrs. bett, her arm still circling the child monona, now made her first observation. "pity not to have went while the going was good," she said, and said no more. nobody knew quite what she meant, and everybody hoped for the best. but ina frowned. mamma did these things occasionally when there was company, and she dared. she never sauced dwight in private. and it wasn't fair, it wasn't _fair_-- abruptly ninian rose and left the room. * * * * * the dishes were washed. lulu had washed them at break-neck speed--she could not, or would not, have told why. but no sooner were they finished and set away than lulu had been attacked by an unconquerable inhibition. and instead of going to the parlour, she sat down by the kitchen window. she was in her chally gown, with her cameo pin and her string of coral. laughter from the parlour mingled with the laughter of di and jenny upstairs. lulu was now rather shy of di. a night or two before, coming home with "extra" cream, she had gone round to the side-door and had come full upon di and bobby, seated on the steps. and di was saying: "well, if i marry you, you've simply got to be a great man. i could never marry just anybody. i'd _smother_." lulu had heard, stricken. she passed them by, responding only faintly to their greeting. di was far less taken aback than lulu. later di had said to lulu: "i s'pose you heard what we were saying." lulu, much shaken, had withdrawn from the whole matter by a flat "no." "because," she said to herself, "i couldn't have heard right." but since then she had looked at di as if di were some one else. had not lulu taught her to make buttonholes and to hem--oh, no! lulu could not have heard properly. "everybody's got somebody to be nice to them," she thought now, sitting by the kitchen window, adult yet cinderella. she thought that some one would come for her. her mother or even ina. perhaps they would send monona. she waited at first hopefully, then resentfully. the grey rain wrapped the air. "nobody cares what becomes of me after they're fed," she thought, and derived an obscure satisfaction from her phrasing, and thought it again. ninian deacon came into the kitchen. her first impression was that he had come to see whether the dog had been fed. "i fed him," she said, and wished that she had been busy when ninian entered. "who, me?" he asked. "you did that all right. say, why in time don't you come in the other room?" "oh, i don't know." "well, neither do i. i've kept thinking, 'why don't she come along.' then i remembered the dishes." he glanced about. "i come to help wipe dishes." "oh!" she laughed so delicately, so delightfully, one wondered where she got it. "they're washed----" she caught herself at "long ago." "well then, what are you doing here?" "resting." "rest in there." he bowed, crooked his arm. "señora," he said,--his spanish matched his other assimilations of travel-- "señora. allow me." lulu rose. on his arm she entered the parlour. dwight was narrating and did not observe that entrance. to the plows it was sufficiently normal. but ina looked up and said: "well!"--in two notes, descending, curving. lulu did not look at her. lulu sat in a low rocker. her starched white skirt, throwing her chally in ugly lines, revealed a peeping rim of white embroidery. her lace front wrinkled when she sat, and perpetually she adjusted it. she curled her feet sidewise beneath her chair, her long wrists and veined hands lay along her lap in no relation to her. she was tense. she rocked. when dwight had finished his narration, there was a pause, broken at last by mrs. bett: "you tell that better than you used to when you started in telling it," she observed. "you got in some things i guess you used to clean forget about. monona, get off my rocker." monona made a little whimpering sound, in pretence to tears. ina said "darling--quiet!"--chin a little lifted, lower lip revealing lower teeth for the word's completion; and she held it. the plows were asking something about mexico. dwight was wondering if it would let up raining _at all_. di and jenny came whispering into the room. but all these distractions ninian deacon swept aside. "miss lulu," he said, "i wanted you to hear about my trip up the amazon, because i knew how interested you are in travels." he talked, according to his lights, about the amazon. but the person who most enjoyed the recital could not afterward have told two words that he said. lulu kept the position which she had taken at first, and she dare not change. she saw the blood in the veins of her hands and wanted to hide them. she wondered if she might fold her arms, or have one hand to support her chin, gave it all up and sat motionless, save for the rocking. then she forgot everything. for the first time in years some one was talking and looking not only at ina and dwight and their guests, but at her. iii june on a june morning dwight herbert deacon looked at the sky, and said with his manner of originating it: "how about a picnic this afternoon?" ina, with her blank, upward look, exclaimed: "to-_day?_" "first class day, it looks like to me." come to think of it, ina didn't know that there was anything to prevent, but mercy, herbert was so sudden. lulu began to recite the resources of the house for a lunch. meanwhile, since the first mention of picnic, the child monona had been dancing stiffly about the room, knees stiff, elbows stiff, shoulders immovable, her straight hair flapping about her face. the sad dance of the child who cannot dance because she never has danced. di gave a conservative assent--she was at that age--and then took advantage of the family softness incident to a guest and demanded that bobby go too. ina hesitated, partly because she always hesitated, partly because she was tribal in the extreme. "just our little family and uncle ninian would have been so nice," she sighed, with her consent. when, at six o'clock, ina and dwight and ninian assembled on the porch and lulu came out with the basket, it was seen that she was in a blue-cotton house-gown. "look here," said ninian, "aren't you going?" "me?" said lulu. "oh, no." "why not?" "oh, i haven't been to a picnic since i can remember." "but why not?" "oh, i never think of such a thing." ninian waited for the family to speak. they did speak. dwight said: "lulu's a regular home body." and ina advanced kindly with: "come with us, lulu, if you like." "no," said lulu, and flushed. "thank you," she added, formally. mrs. bett's voice shrilled from within the house, startlingly close--just beyond the blind, in fact: "go on, lulie. it'll do you good. you mind me and go on." "well," said ninian, "that's what i say. you hustle for your hat and you come along." for the first time this course presented itself to lulu as a possibility. she stared up at ninian. "you can slip on my linen duster, over," ina said graciously. "your new one?" dwight incredulously wished to know. "oh, no!" ina laughed at the idea. "the old one." they were having to wait for di in any case--they always had to wait for di--and at last, hardly believing in her own motions, lulu was running to make ready. mrs. bett hurried to help her, but she took down the wrong things and they were both irritated. lulu reappeared in the linen duster and a wide hat. there had been no time to "tighten up" her hair; she was flushed at the adventure; she had never looked so well. they started. lulu, falling in with monona, heard for the first time in her life, the step of the pursuing male, choosing to walk beside her and the little girl. oh, would ina like that? and what did lulu care what ina liked? monona, making a silly, semi-articulate observation, was enchanted to have lulu burst into laughter and squeeze her hand. di contributed her bright presence, and bobby larkin appeared from nowhere, running, with a gigantic bag of fruit. "bullylujah!" he shouted, and lulu could have shouted with him. she sought for some utterance. she wanted to talk with ninian. "i do hope we've brought sandwiches enough," was all that she could get to say. they chose a spot, that is to say dwight herbert chose a spot, across the river and up the shore where there was at that season a strip of warm beach. dwight herbert declared himself the builder of incomparable fires, and made a bad smudge. ninian, who was a camper neither by birth nor by adoption, kept offering brightly to help, could think of nothing to do, and presently, bethinking himself of skipping stones, went and tried to skip them on the flowing river. ina cut her hand opening the condensed milk and was obliged to sit under a tree and nurse the wound. monona spilled all the salt and sought diligently to recover it. so lulu did all the work. as for di and bobby, they had taken the pail and gone for water, discouraging monona from accompanying them, discouraging her to the point of tears. but the two were gone for so long that on their return dwight was hungry and cross and majestic. "those who disregard the comfort of other people," he enunciated, "can not expect consideration for themselves in the future." he did not say on what ethical tenet this dictum was based, but he delivered it with extreme authority. ina caught her lower lip with her teeth, dipped her head, and looked at di. and monona laughed like a little demon. as soon as lulu had all in readiness, and cold corned beef and salad had begun their orderly progression, dwight became the immemorial dweller in green fastnesses. he began: "this is ideal. i tell you, people don't half know life if they don't get out and eat in the open. it's better than any tonic at a dollar the bottle. nature's tonic--eh? free as the air. look at that sky. see that water. could anything be more pleasant?" he smiled at his wife. this man's face was glowing with simple pleasure. he loved the out-of-doors with a love which could not explain itself. but he now lost a definite climax when his wife's comment was heard to be: "monona! now it's all over both ruffles. and mamma does try so hard...." after supper some boys arrived with a boat which they beached, and dwight, with enthusiasm, gave the boys ten cents for a half hour's use of that boat and invited to the waters his wife, his brother and his younger daughter. ina was timid----not because she was afraid but because she was congenitally timid--with her this was not a belief or an emotion, it was a disease. "dwight darling, are you sure there's no danger?" why, none. none in the world. whoever heard of drowning in a river. "but you're not so very used----" oh, wasn't he? who was it that had lived in a boat throughout youth if not he? ninian refused out-of-hand, lighted a cigar, and sat on a log in a permanent fashion. ina's plump figure was fitted in the stern, the child monona affixed, and the boat put off, bow well out of water. on this pleasure ride the face of the wife was as the face of the damned. it was true that she revered her husband's opinions above those of all other men. in politics, in science, in religion, in dentistry she looked up to his dicta as to revelation. and was he not a magistrate? but let him take oars in hand, or shake lines or a whip above the back of any horse, and this woman would trust any other woman's husband by preference. it was a phenomenon. lulu was making the work last, so that she should be out of everybody's way. when the boat put off without ninian, she felt a kind of terror and wished that he had gone. he had sat down near her, and she pretended not to see. at last lulu understood that ninian was deliberately choosing to remain with her. the languor of his bulk after the evening meal made no explanation for lulu. she asked for no explanation. he had stayed. and they were alone. for di, on a pretext of examining the flocks and herds, was leading bobby away to the pastures, a little at a time. the sun, now fallen, had left an even, waxen sky. leaves and ferns appeared drenched with the light just withdrawn. the hush, the warmth, the colour, were charged with some influence. the air of the time communicated itself to lulu as intense and quiet happiness. she had not yet felt quiet with ninian. for the first time her blind excitement in his presence ceased, and she felt curiously accustomed to him. to him the air of the time imparted itself in a deepening of his facile sympathy. "do you know something?" he began. "i think you have it pretty hard around here." "i?" lulu was genuinely astonished. "yes, sir. do you have to work like this all the time? i guess you won't mind my asking." "well, i ought to work. i have a home with them. mother too." "yes, but glory. you ought to have some kind of a life of your own. you want it, too. you told me you did--that first day." she was silent. again he was investing her with a longing which she had never really had, until he had planted that longing. she had wanted she knew not what. now she accepted the dim, the romantic interest of this rôle. "i guess you don't see how it seems," he said, "to me, coming along--a stranger so. i don't like it." he frowned, regarded the river, flicked away ashes, his diamond obediently shining. lulu's look, her head drooping, had the liquid air of the look of a young girl. for the first time in her life she was feeling her helplessness. it intoxicated her. "they're very good to me," she said. he turned. "do you know why you think that? because you've never had anybody really good to you. that's why." "but they treat me good." "they make a slave of you. regular slave." he puffed, frowning. "damned shame, _i_ call it," he said. her loyalty stirred lulu. "we have our whole living----" "and you earn it. i been watching you since i been here. don't you ever go anywheres?" she said: "this is the first place in--in years." "lord. don't you want to? of course you do!" "not so much places like this----" "i see. what you want is to get away--like you'd ought to." he regarded her. "you've been a blamed fine-looking woman," he said. she did not flush, but that faint, unsuspected lulu spoke for her: "you must have been a good-looking man once yourself." his laugh went ringing across the water. "you're pretty good," he said. he regarded her approvingly. "i don't see how you do it," he mused, "blamed if i do." "how i do what?" "why come back, quick like that, with what you say." lulu's heart was beating painfully. the effort to hold her own in talk like this was terrifying. she had never talked in this fashion to any one. it was as if some matter of life or death hung on her ability to speak an alien tongue. and yet, when she was most at loss, that other lulu, whom she had never known anything about, seemed suddenly to speak for her. as now: "it's my grand education," she said. she sat humped on the log, her beautiful hair shining in the light of the warm sky. she had thrown off her hat and the linen duster, and was in her blue gingham gown against the sky and leaves. but she sat stiffly, her feet carefully covered, her hands ill at ease, her eyes rather piteous in their hope somehow to hold her vague own. yet from her came these sufficient, insouciant replies. "education," he said laughing heartily. "that's mine, too." he spoke a creed. "i ain't never had it and i ain't never missed it." "most folks are happy without an education," said lulu. "you're not very happy, though." "oh, no," she said. "well, sir," said ninian, "i'll tell you what we'll do. while i'm here i'm going to take you and ina and dwight up to the city." "to the city?" "to a show. dinner and a show. i'll give you _one_ good time." "oh!" lulu leaned forward. "ina and dwight go sometimes. i never been." "well, just you come with me. i'll look up what's good. you tell me just what you like to eat, and we'll get it----" she said: "i haven't had anything to eat in years that i haven't cooked myself." he planned for that time to come, and lulu listened as one intensely experiencing every word that he uttered. yet it was not in that future merry-making that she found her joy, but in the consciousness that he--some one--any one--was planning like this for her. meanwhile di and bobby had rounded the corner by an old hop-house and kept on down the levee. now that the presence of the others was withdrawn, the two looked about them differently and began themselves to give off an influence instead of being pressed upon by overpowering personalities. frogs were chorusing in the near swamp, and bobby wanted one. he was off after it. but di eventually drew him back, reluctant, frogless. he entered upon an exhaustive account of the use of frogs for bait, and as he talked he constantly flung stones. di grew restless. there was, she had found, a certain amount of this to be gone through before bobby would focus on the personal. at length she was obliged to say, "like me to-day?" and then he entered upon personal talk with the same zest with which he had discussed bait. "bobby," said di, "sometimes i think we might be married, and not wait for any old money." they had now come that far. it was partly an authentic attraction, grown from out the old repulsion, and partly it was that they both--and especially di--so much wanted the experiences of attraction that they assumed its ways. and then each cared enough to assume the pretty rôle required by the other, and by the occasion, and by the air of the time. "would you?" asked bobby--but in the subjunctive. she said: "yes. i will." "it would mean running away, wouldn't it?" said bobby, still subjunctive. "i suppose so. mamma and papa are so unreasonable." "di," said bobby, "i don't believe you could ever be happy with me." "the idea! i can too. you're going to be a great man--you know you are." bobby was silent. of course he knew it--but he passed it over. "wouldn't it be fun to elope and surprise the whole school?" said di, sparkling. bobby grinned appreciatively. he was good to look at, with his big frame, his head of rough dark hair, the sky warm upon his clear skin and full mouth. di suddenly announced that she would be willing to elope _now_. "i've planned eloping lots of times," she said ambiguously. it flashed across the mind of bobby that in these plans of hers he may not always have been the principal, and he could not be sure ... but she talked in nothings, and he answered her so. soft cries sounded in the centre of the stream. the boat, well out of the strong current, was seen to have its oars shipped; and there sat dwight herbert gently rocking the boat. dwight herbert would. "bertie, bertie--please!" you heard his ina say. monona began to cry, and her father was irritated, felt that it would be ignominious to desist, and did not know that he felt this. but he knew that he was annoyed, and he took refuge in this, and picked up the oars with: "some folks never can enjoy anything without spoiling it." "that's what i was thinking," said ina, with a flash of anger. they glided toward the shore in a huff. monona found that she enjoyed crying across the water and kept it up. it was almost as good as an echo. ina, stepping safe to the sands, cried ungratefully that this was the last time that she would ever, ever go with her husband anywhere. ever. dwight herbert, recovering, gauged the moment to require of him humour, and observed that his wedded wife was as skittish as a colt. ina kept silence, head poised so that her full little chin showed double. monona, who had previously hidden a cooky in her frock, now remembered it and crunched sidewise, the eyes ruminant. moving toward them, with di, bobby was suddenly overtaken by the sense of disliking them all. he never had liked dwight herbert, his employer. mrs. deacon seemed to him so overwhelmingly mature that he had no idea how to treat her. and the child monona he would like to roll in the river. even di ... he fell silent, was silent on the walk home which was the signal for di to tease him steadily. the little being was afraid of silence. it was too vast for her. she was like a butterfly in a dome. but against that background of ruined occasion, lulu walked homeward beside ninian. and all that night, beside her mother who groaned in her sleep, lulu lay tense and awake. he had walked home with her. he had told ina and herbert about going to the city. what did it mean? suppose ... oh no; oh no! "either lay still or get up and set up," mrs. bett directed her at length. iv july when, on a warm evening a fortnight later, lulu descended the stairs dressed for her incredible trip to the city, she wore the white waist which she had often thought they would "use" for her if she died. and really, the waist looked as if it had been planned for the purpose, and its wide, upstanding plaited lace at throat and wrist made her neck look thinner, her forearm sharp and veined. her hair she had "crimped" and parted in the middle, puffed high--it was so that hair had been worn in lulu's girlhood. "_well_!" said ina, when she saw this coiffure, and frankly examined it, head well back, tongue meditatively teasing at her lower lip. for travel lulu was again wearing ina's linen duster--the old one. ninian appeared, in a sack coat--and his diamond. his distinctly convex face, its thick, rosy flesh, thick mouth and cleft chin gave lulu once more that bold sense of looking--not at him, for then she was shy and averted her eyes--but at his photograph at which she could gaze as much as she would. she looked up at him openly, fell in step beside him. was he not taking her to the city? ina and dwight themselves were going because she, lulu, had brought about this party. "act as good as you look, lulie," mrs. bett called after them. she gave no instructions to ina who was married and able to shine in her conduct, it seemed. dwight was cross. on the way to the station he might have been heard to take it up again, whatever it was, and his ina unmistakably said: "well, now don't keep it going all the way there"; and turned back to the others with some elaborate comment about the dust, thus cutting off her so-called lord from his legitimate retort. a mean advantage. the city was two hours' distant, and they were to spend the night. on the train, in the double seat, ninian beside her among the bags, lulu sat in the simple consciousness that the people all knew that she too had been chosen. a man and a woman were opposite, with their little boy between them. lulu felt this woman's superiority of experience over her own, and smiled at her from a world of fellowship. but the woman lifted her eyebrows and stared and turned away, with slow and insolent winking. ninian had a boyish pride in his knowledge of places to eat in many cities--as if he were leading certain of the tribe to a deer-run in a strange wood. ninian took his party to a downtown café, then popular among business and newspaper men. the place was below the sidewalk, was reached by a dozen marble steps, and the odour of its griddle-cakes took the air of the street. ninian made a great show of selecting a table, changed once, called the waiter "my man" and rubbed soft hands on "what do you say? shall it be lobster?" he ordered the dinner, instructing the waiter with painstaking gruffness. "not that they can touch _your_ cooking here, miss lulu," he said, settling himself to wait, and crumbling a crust. dwight, expanding a bit in the aura of the food, observed that lulu was a regular chef, that was what lulu was. he still would not look at his wife, who now remarked: "sheff, dwightie. not cheff." this was a mean advantage, which he pretended not to hear--another mean advantage. "ina," said lulu, "your hat's just a little mite--no, over the other way." "was there anything to prevent your speaking of that before?" ina inquired acidly. "i started to and then somebody always said something," said lulu humbly. nothing could so much as cloud lulu's hour. she was proof against any shadow. "say, but you look tremendous to-night," dwight observed to her. understanding perfectly that this was said to tease his wife, lulu yet flushed with pleasure. she saw two women watching, and she thought: "they're feeling sorry for ina--nobody talking to her." she laughed at everything that the men said. she passionately wanted to talk herself. "how many folks keep going past," she said, many times. at length, having noted the details of all the clothes in range, ina's isolation palled upon her and she set herself to take ninian's attention. she therefore talked with him about himself. "curious you've never married, nin," she said. "don't say it like that," he begged. "i might yet." ina laughed enjoyably. "yes, you might!" she met this. "she wants everybody to get married, but she wishes i hadn't," dwight threw in with exceeding rancour. they developed this theme exhaustively, dwight usually speaking in the third person and always with his shoulder turned a bit from his wife. it was inconceivable, the gusto with which they proceeded. ina had assumed for the purpose an air distrait, casual, attentive to the scene about them. but gradually her cheeks began to burn. "she'll cry," lulu thought in alarm, and said at random: "ina, that hat is so pretty--ever so much prettier than the old one." but ina said frostily that she never saw anything the matter with the old one. "let us talk," said ninian low, to lulu. "then they'll simmer down." he went on, in an undertone, about nothing in particular. lulu hardly heard what he said, it was so pleasant to have him talking to her in this confidential fashion; and she was pleasantly aware that his manner was open to misinterpretation. in the nick of time, the lobster was served. * * * * * dinner and the play--the show, as ninian called it. this show was "peter pan," chosen by ninian because the seats cost the most of those at any theatre. it was almost indecent to see how dwight herbert, the immortal soul, had warmed and melted at these contacts. by the time that all was over, and they were at the hotel for supper, such was his pleasurable excitation that he was once more playful, teasing, once more the irrepressible. but now his ina was to be won back, made it evident that she was not one lightly to overlook, and a fine firmness sat upon the little doubling chin. they discussed the play. not one of them had understood the story. the dog-kennel part--wasn't that the queerest thing? nothing to do with the rest of the play. "i was for the pirates. the one with the hook--he was my style," said dwight. "well, there it is again," ina cried. "they didn't belong to the real play, either." "oh, well," ninian said, "they have to put in parts, i suppose, to catch everybody. instead of a song and dance, they do that." "and i didn't understand," said ina, "why they all clapped when the principal character ran down front and said something to the audience that time. but they all did." ninian thought this might have been out of compliment. ina wished that monona might have seen, confessed that the last part was so pretty that she herself would not look; and into ina's eyes came their loveliest light. lulu sat there, hearing the talk about the play. "why couldn't i have said that?" she thought as the others spoke. all that they said seemed to her apropos, but she could think of nothing to add. the evening had been to her a light from heaven--how could she find anything to say? she sat in a daze of happiness, her mind hardly operative, her look moving from one to another. at last ninian looked at her. "sure you liked it, miss lulu?" "oh, yes! i think they all took their parts real well." it was not enough. she looked at them appealingly, knowing that she had not said enough. "you could hear everything they said," she added. "it was--" she dwindled to silence. dwight herbert savoured his rarebit with a great show of long wrinkled dimples. "excellent sauces they make here--excellent," he said, with the frown of an epicure. "a tiny wee bit more athabasca," he added, and they all laughed and told him that athabasca was a lake, of course. of course he meant tobasco, ina said. their entertainment and their talk was of this sort, for an hour. "well, now," said dwight herbert when it was finished, "somebody dance on the table." "dwightie!" "got to amuse ourselves somehow. come, liven up. they'll begin to read the funeral service over us." "why not say the wedding service?" asked ninian. in the mention of wedlock there was always something stimulating to dwight, something of overwhelming humour. he shouted a derisive endorsement of this proposal. "i shouldn't object," said ninian. "should you, miss lulu?" lulu now burned the slow red of her torture. they were all looking at her. she made an anguished effort to defend herself. "i don't know it," she said, "so i can't say it." ninian leaned toward her. "i, ninian, take thee, lulu, to be my wedded wife," he pronounced. "that's the way it goes!" "lulu daren't say it!" cried dwight. he laughed so loudly that those at the near tables turned. and, from the fastness of her wifehood and motherhood, ina laughed. really, it was ridiculous to think of lulu that way.... ninian laughed too. "course she don't dare say it," he challenged. from within lulu, that strange lulu, that other lulu who sometimes fought her battles, suddenly spoke out: "i, lulu, take thee, ninian, to be my wedded husband." "you will?" ninian cried. "i will," she said, laughing tremulously, to prove that she too could join in, could be as merry as the rest. "and i will. there, by jove, now have we entertained you, or haven't we?" ninian laughed and pounded his soft fist on the table. "oh, say, honestly!" ina was shocked. "i don't think you ought to--holy things----what's the _matter_, dwightie?" dwight herbert deacon's eyes were staring and his face was scarlet. "say, by george," he said, "a civil wedding is binding in this state." "a civil wedding? oh, well--" ninian dismissed it. "but i," said dwight, "happen to be a magistrate." they looked at one another foolishly. dwight sprang up with the indeterminate idea of inquiring something of some one, circled about and returned. ina had taken his chair and sat clasping lulu's hand. ninian continued to laugh. "i never saw one done so offhand," said dwight. "but what you've said is all you have to say according to law. and there don't have to be witnesses ... say!" he said, and sat down again. above that shroud-like plaited lace, the veins of lulu's throat showed dark as she swallowed, cleared her throat, swallowed again. "don't you let dwight scare you," she besought ninian. "scare me!" cried ninian. "why, i think it's a good job done, if you ask me." lulu's eyes flew to his face. as he laughed, he was looking at her, and now he nodded and shut and opened his eyes several times very fast. their points of light flickered. with a pang of wonder which pierced her and left her shaken, lulu looked. his eyes continued to meet her own. it was exactly like looking at his photograph. dwight had recovered his authentic air. "oh, well," he said, "we can inquire at our leisure. if it is necessary, i should say we can have it set aside quietly up here in the city--no one'll be the wiser." "set aside nothing!" said ninian. "i'd like to see it stand." "are you serious, nin?" "sure i'm serious." ina jerked gently at her sister's arm. "lulu! you hear him? what you going to say to that?" lulu shook her head. "he isn't in earnest," she said. "i am in earnest--hope to die," ninian declared. he was on two legs of his chair and was slightly tilting, so that the effect of his earnestness was impaired. but he was obviously in earnest. they were looking at lulu again. and now she looked at ninian, and there was something terrible in that look which tried to ask him, alone, about this thing. dwight exploded. "there was a fellow i know there in the theatre," he cried. "i'll get him on the line. he could tell me if there's any way--" and was off. ina inexplicably began touching away tears. "oh," she said, "what will mamma say?" lulu hardly heard her. mrs. bett was incalculably distant. "you sure?" lulu said low to ninian. for the first time, something in her exceeding isolation really touched him. "say," he said, "you come on with me. we'll have it done over again somewhere, if you say so." "oh," said lulu, "if i thought--" he leaned and patted her hand. "good girl," he said. they sat silent, ninian padding on the cloth with the flat of his plump hands. dwight returned. "it's a go all right," he said. he sat down, laughed weakly, rubbed at his face. "you two are tied as tight as the church could tie you." "good enough," said ninian. "eh, lulu?" "it's--it's all right, i guess," lulu said. "well, i'll be dished," said dwight. "sister!" said ina. ninian meditated, his lips set tight and high. it is impossible to trace the processes of this man. perhaps they were all compact of the devil-may-care attitude engendered in any persistent traveller. perhaps the incomparable cookery of lulu played its part. "i was going to make a trip south this month," he said, "on my way home from here. suppose we get married again by somebody or other, and start right off. you'd like that, wouldn't you--going south?" "yes," said lulu only. "it's july," said ina, with her sense of fitness, but no one heard. it was arranged that their trunks should follow them--ina would see to that, though she was scandalised that they were not first to return to warbleton for the blessing of mrs. bett. "mamma won't mind," said lulu. "mamma can't stand a fuss any more." they left the table. the men and women still sitting at the other tables saw nothing unusual about these four, indifferently dressed, indifferently conditioned. the hotel orchestra, playing ragtime in deafening concord, made lulu's wedding march. * * * * * it was still early next day--a hot sunday--when ina and dwight reached home. mrs. bett was standing on the porch. "where's lulie?" asked mrs. bett. they told. mrs. bett took it in, a bit at a time. her pale eyes searched their faces, she shook her head, heard it again, grasped it. her first question was: "who's going to do your work?" ina had thought of that, and this was manifest. "oh," she said, "you and i'll have to manage." mrs. bett meditated, frowning. "i left the bacon for her to cook for your breakfasts," she said. "i can't cook bacon fit to eat. neither can you." "we've had our breakfasts," ina escaped from this dilemma. "had it up in the city, on expense?" "well, we didn't have much." in mrs. bett's eyes tears gathered, but they were not for lulu. "i should think," she said, "i should think lulie might have had a little more gratitude to her than this." on their way to church ina and dwight encountered di, who had left the house some time earlier, stepping sedately to church in company with bobby larkin. di was in white, and her face was the face of an angel, so young, so questioning, so utterly devoid of her sophistication. "that child," said ina, "_must_ not see so much of that larkin boy. she's just a little, little girl." "of course she mustn't," said dwight sharply, "and if _i_ was her mother--" "oh stop that!" said ina, sotto voce, at the church steps. to every one with whom they spoke in the aisle after church, ina announced their news: had they heard? lulu married dwight's brother ninian in the city yesterday. oh, sudden, yes! and ro_man_tic ... spoken with that upward inflection to which ina was a prey. v august mrs. bett had been having a "tantrim," brought on by nothing definable. abruptly as she and ina were getting supper, mrs. bett had fallen silent, had in fact refused to reply when addressed. when all was ready and dwight was entering, hair wetly brushed, she had withdrawn from the room and closed her bedroom door until it echoed. "she's got one again," said ina, grieving; "dwight, you go." he went, showing no sign of annoyance, and stood outside his mother-in-law's door and knocked. no answer. "mother, come and have some supper." no answer. "looks to me like your muffins was just about the best ever." no answer. "come on--i had something funny to tell you and ina." he retreated, knowing nothing of the admirable control exercised by this woman for her own passionate satisfaction in sliding him away unsatisfied. he showed nothing but anxious concern, touched with regret, at his failure. ina, too, returned from that door discomfited. dwight made a gallant effort to retrieve the fallen fortunes of their evening meal, and turned upon di, who had just entered, and with exceeding facetiousness inquired how bobby was. di looked hunted. she could never tell whether her parents were going to tease her about bobby, or rebuke her for being seen with him. it depended on mood, and this mood di had not the experience to gauge. she now groped for some neutral fact, and mentioned that he was going to take her and jenny for ice cream that night. ina's irritation found just expression in office of motherhood. "i won't have you downtown in the evening," she said. "but you let me go last night." "all the better reason why you should not go to-night." "i tell you," cried dwight. "why not all walk down? why not all have ice cream...." he was all gentleness and propitiation, the reconciling element in his home. "me too?" monona's ardent hope, her terrible fear were in her eyebrows, her parted lips. "you too, certainly." dwight could not do enough for every one. monona clapped her hands. "goody! goody! last time you wouldn't let me go." "that's why papa's going to take you this time," ina said. these ethical balances having been nicely struck, ina proposed another: "but," she said, "but, you must eat more supper or you can _not_ go." "i don't want any more." monona's look was honest and piteous. "makes no difference. you must eat or you'll get sick." "no!" "very well, then. no ice cream soda for such a little girl." monona began to cry quietly. but she passed her plate. she ate, chewing high, and slowly. "see? she can eat if she will eat," ina said to dwight. "the only trouble is, she will _not_ take the time." "she don't put her mind on her meals," dwight herbert diagnosed it. "oh, bigger bites than that!" he encouraged his little daughter. di's mind had been proceeding along its own paths. "are you going to take jenny and bobby too?" she inquired. "certainly. the whole party." "bobby'll want to pay for jenny and i." "me, darling," said ina patiently, punctiliously--and less punctiliously added: "nonsense. this is going to be papa's little party." "but we had the engagement with bobby. it was an engagement." "well," said ina, "i think we'll just set that aside--that important engagement. i think we just will." "papa! bobby'll want to be the one to pay for jenny and i--" "di!" ina's voice dominated all. "will you be more careful of your grammar or shall i speak to you again?" "well, i'd rather use bad grammar than--than--than--" she looked resentfully at her mother, her father. their moral defection was evident to her, but it was indefinable. they told her that she ought to be ashamed when papa wanted to give them all a treat. she sat silent, frowning, put-upon. "look, mamma!" cried monona, swallowing a third of an egg at one impulse. ina saw only the empty plate. "mamma's nice little girl!" cried she, shining upon her child. the rules of the ordinary sports of the playground, scrupulously applied, would have clarified the ethical atmosphere of this little family. but there was no one to apply them. * * * * * when di and monona had been excused, dwight asked: "nothing new from the bride and groom?" "no. and, dwight, it's been a week since the last." "see--where were they then?" he knew perfectly well that they were in savannah, georgia, but ina played his game, told him, and retold bits that the letter had said. "i don't understand," she added, "why they should go straight to oregon without coming here first." dwight hazarded that nin probably had to get back, and shone pleasantly in the reflected importance of a brother filled with affairs. "i don't know what to make of lulu's letters," ina proceeded. "they're so--so--" "you haven't had but two, have you?" "that's all--well, of course it's only been a month. but both letters have been so--" ina was never really articulate. whatever corner of her brain had the blood in it at the moment seemed to be operative, and she let the matter go at that. "i don't think it's fair to mamma--going off that way. leaving her own mother. why, she may never see mamma again--" ina's breath caught. into her face came something of the lovely tenderness with which she sometimes looked at monona and di. she sprang up. she had forgotten to put some supper to warm for mamma. the lovely light was still in her face as she bustled about against the time of mamma's recovery from her tantrim. dwight's face was like this when he spoke of his foster-mother. in both these beings there was something which functioned as pure love. mamma had recovered and was eating cold scrambled eggs on the corner of the kitchen table when the ice cream soda party was ready to set out. dwight threw her a casual "better come, too, mother bett," but she shook her head. she wished to go, wished it with violence, but she contrived to give to her arbitrary refusal a quality of contempt. when jenny arrived with bobby, she had brought a sheaf of gladioli for mrs. bett, and took them to her in the kitchen, and as she laid the flowers beside her, the young girl stopped and kissed her. "you little darling!" cried mrs. bett, and clung to her, her lifted eyes lit by something intense and living. but when the ice cream party had set off at last, mrs. bett left her supper, gathered up the flowers, and crossed the lawn to the old cripple, grandma gates. "inie sha'n't have 'em," the old woman thought. and then it was quite beautiful to watch her with grandma gates, whom she tended and petted, to whose complainings she listened, and to whom she tried to tell the small events of her day. when her neighbour had gone, grandma gates said that it was as good as a dose of medicine to have her come in. mrs. bett sat on the porch restored and pleasant when the family returned. di and bobby had walked home with jenny. "look here," said dwight herbert, "who is it sits home and has _ice_ cream put in her lap, like a queen?" "vanilly or chocolate?" mrs. bett demanded. "chocolate, mammal" ina cried, with the breeze in her voice. "vanilly sets better," mrs. bett said. they sat with her on the porch while she ate. ina rocked on a creaking board. dwight swung a leg over the railing. monona sat pulling her skirt over her feet, and humming all on one note. there was no moon, but the warm dusk had a quality of transparency as if it were lit in all its particles. the gate opened, and some one came up the walk. they looked, and it was lulu. * * * * * "well, if it ain't miss lulu bett!" dwight cried involuntarily, and ina cried out something. "how did you know?" lulu asked. "know! know what?" "that it ain't lulu deacon. hello, mamma." she passed the others, and kissed her mother. "say," said mrs. bett placidly. "and i just ate up the last spoonful o' cream." "ain't lulu deacon!" ina's voice rose and swelled richly. "what you talking?" "didn't he write to you?" lulu asked. "not a word." dwight answered this. "all we've had we had from you--the last from savannah, georgia." "savannah, georgia," said lulu, and laughed. they could see that she was dressed well, in dark red cloth, with a little tilting hat and a drooping veil. she did not seem in any wise upset, nor, save for that nervous laughter, did she show her excitement. "well, but he's here with you, isn't he?" dwight demanded. "isn't he here? where is he?" "must be 'most to oregon by this time," lulu said. "oregon!" "you see," said lulu, "he had another wife." "why, he had not!" exclaimed dwight absurdly. "yes. he hasn't seen her for fifteen years and he thinks she's dead. but he isn't sure." "nonsense," said dwight. "why, of course she's dead if he thinks so." "i had to be sure," said lulu. at first dumb before this, ina now cried out: "monona! go upstairs to bed at once." "it's only quarter to," said monona, with assurance. "do as mamma tells you." "but--" "monona!" she went, kissing them all good-night and taking her time about it. everything was suspended while she kissed them and departed, walking slowly backward. "married?" said mrs. bett with tardy apprehension. "lulie, was your husband married?" "yes," lulu said, "my husband was married, mother." "mercy," said ina. "think of anything like that in our family." "well, go on--go on!" dwight cried. "tell us about it." lulu spoke in a monotone, with her old manner of hesitation: "we were going to oregon. first down to new orleans and then out to california and up the coast." on this she paused and sighed. "well, then at savannah, georgia, he said he thought i better know, first. so he told me." "yes--well, what did he _say_?" dwight demanded irritably. "cora waters," said lulu. "cora waters. she married him down in san diego, eighteen years ago. she went to south america with him." "well, he never let us know of it, if she did," said dwight. "no. she married him just before he went. then in south america, after two years, she ran away again. that's all he knows." "that's a pretty story," said dwight contemptuously. "he says if she'd been alive, she'd been after him for a divorce. and she never has been, so he thinks she must be dead. the trouble is," lulu said again, "he wasn't sure. and i had to be sure." "well, but mercy," said ina, "couldn't he find out now?" "it might take a long time," said lulu simply, "and i didn't want to stay and not know." "well, then, why didn't he say so here?" ina's indignation mounted. "he would have. but you know how sudden everything was. he said he thought about telling us right there in the restaurant, but of course that'd been hard--wouldn't it? and then he felt so sure she was dead." "why did he tell you at all, then?" demanded ina, whose processes were simple. "yes. well! why indeed?" dwight herbert brought out these words with a curious emphasis. "i thought that, just at first," lulu said, "but only just at first. of course that wouldn't have been right. and then, you see, he gave me my choice." "gave you your choice?" dwight echoed. "yes. about going on and taking the chances. he gave me my choice when he told me, there in savannah, georgia." "what made him conclude, by then, that you ought to be told?" dwight asked. "why, he'd got to thinking about it," she answered. a silence fell. lulu sat looking out toward the street. "the only thing," she said, "as long as it happened, i kind of wish he hadn't told me till we got to oregon." "lulu!" said ina. ina began to cry. "you poor thing!" she said. her tears were a signal to mrs. bett, who had been striving to understand all. now she too wept, tossing up her hands and rocking her body. her saucer and spoon clattered on her knee. "he felt bad too," lulu said. "he!" said dwight. "he must have." "it's you," ina sobbed. "it's you. _my_ sister!" "well," said lulu, "but i never thought of it making you both feel bad, or i wouldn't have come home. i knew," she added, "it'd make dwight feel bad. i mean, it was his brother--" "thank goodness," ina broke in, "nobody need know about it." lulu regarded her, without change. "oh, yes," she said in her monotone. "people will have to know." "i do not see the necessity." dwight's voice was an edge. then too he said "do not," always with dwight betokening the finalities. "why, what would they think?" lulu asked, troubled. "what difference does it make what they think?". "why," said lulu slowly, "i shouldn't like--you see they might--why, dwight, i think we'll have to tell them." "you do! you think the disgrace of bigamy in this family is something the whole town will have to know about?" lulu looked at him with parted lips. "say," she said, "i never thought about it being that." dwight laughed. "what did you think it was? and whose disgrace is it, pray?" "ninian's," said lulu. "ninian's! well, he's gone. but you're here. and i'm here. folks'll feel sorry for you. but the disgrace--that'd reflect on me. see?" "but if we don't tell, what'll they think then?" said dwight: "they'll think what they always think when a wife leaves her husband. they'll think you couldn't get along. that's all." "i should hate that," said lulu. "well, i should hate the other, let me tell you." "dwight, dwight," said ina. "let's go in the house. i'm afraid they'll hear--" as they rose, mrs. bett plucked at her returned daughter's sleeve. "lulie," she said, "was his other wife--was she _there_?" "no, no, mother. she wasn't there." mrs. bett's lips moved, repeating the words. "then that ain't so bad," she said. "i was afraid maybe she turned you out." "no," lulu said, "it wasn't that bad, mother." mrs. bett brightened. in little matters, she quarrelled and resented, but the large issues left her blank. through some indeterminate sense of the importance due this crisis, the deacons entered their parlour. dwight lighted that high, central burner and faced about, saying: "in fact, i simply will not have it, lulu! you expect, i take it, to make your home with us in the future, on the old terms." "well--" "i mean, did ninian give you any money?" "no. he didn't give me any money--only enough to get home on. and i kept my suit--why!" she flung her head back, "i wouldn't have taken any money!" "that means," said dwight, "that you will have to continue to live here--on the old terms, and of course i'm quite willing that you should. let me tell you, however, that this is on condition--on condition that this disgraceful business is kept to ourselves." she made no attempt to combat him now. she looked back at him, quivering, and in a great surprise, but she said nothing. "truly, lulu," said ina, "wouldn't that be best? they'll talk anyway. but this way they'll only talk about you, and the other way it'd be about all of us." lulu said only: "but the other way would be the truth." dwight's eyes narrowed: "my dear lulu," he said, "are you _sure_ of that?" "sure?" "yes. did he give you any proofs?" "proofs?" "letters--documents of any sort? any sort of assurance that he was speaking the truth?" "why, no," said lulu. "proofs--no. he told me." "he told you!" "why, that was hard enough to have to do. it was terrible for him to have to do. what proofs--" she stopped, puzzled. "didn't it occur to you," said dwight, "that he might have told you that because he didn't want to have to go on with it?" as she met his look, some power seemed to go from lulu. she sat down, looked weakly at them, and within her closed lips her jaw was slightly fallen. she said nothing. and seeing on her skirt a spot of dust she began to rub at that. "why, dwight!" ina cried, and moved to her sister's side. "i may as well tell you," he said, "that i myself have no idea that ninian told you the truth. he was always imagining things--you saw that. i know him pretty well--have been more or less in touch with him the whole time. in short, i haven't the least idea he was ever married before." lulu continued to rub at her skirt. "i never thought of that," she said. "look here," dwight went on persuasively, "hadn't you and he had some little tiff when he told you?" "no--no! why, not once. why, we weren't a bit like you and ina." she spoke simply and from her heart and without guile. "evidently not," dwight said drily. lulu went on: "he was very good to me. this dress--and my shoes--and my hat. and another dress, too." she found the pins and took off her hat. "he liked the red wing," she said. "i wanted black--oh, dwight! he did tell me the truth!" it was as if the red wing had abruptly borne mute witness. dwight's tone now mounted. his manner, it mounted too. "even if it is true," said he, "i desire that you should keep silent and protect my family from this scandal. i merely mention my doubts to you for your own profit." "my own profit!" she said no more, but rose and moved to the door. "lulu--you see! with di and all!" ina begged. "we just couldn't have this known--even if it was so." "you have it in your hands," said dwight, "to repay me, lulu, for anything that you feel i may have done for you in the past. you also have it in your hands to decide whether your home here continues. that is not a pleasant position for me to find myself in. it is distinctly unpleasant, i may say. but you see for yourself." lulu went on, into the passage. "wasn't she married when she thought she was?" mrs. bett cried shrilly. "mamma," said ina. "do, please, remember monona. yes--dwight thinks she's married all right now--and that it's all right, all the time." "well, i hope so, for pity sakes," said mrs. bett, and left the room with her daughter. hearing the stir, monona upstairs lifted her voice: "mamma! come on and hear my prayers, why don't you?" * * * * * when they came downstairs next morning, lulu had breakfast ready. "well!" cried ina in her curving tone, "if this isn't like old times." lulu said yes, that it was like old times, and brought the bacon to the table. "lulu's the only one in _this_ house can cook the bacon so's it'll chew," mrs. bett volunteered. she was wholly affable, and held contentedly to ina's last word that dwight thought now it was all right. "ho!" said dwight. "the happy family, once more about the festive toaster." he gauged the moment to call for good cheer. ina, too, became breezy, blithe. monona caught their spirit and laughed, head thrown well back and gently shaken. di came in. she had been told that auntie lulu was at home, and that she, di, wasn't to say anything to her about anything, nor anything to anybody else about auntie lulu being back. under these prohibitions, which loosed a thousand speculations, di was very nearly paralysed. she stared at her aunt lulu incessantly. not one of them had even a talent for the casual, save lulu herself. lulu was amazingly herself. she took her old place, assumed her old offices. when monona declared against bacon, it was lulu who suggested milk toast and went to make it. "mamma," di whispered then, like escaping steam, "isn't uncle ninian coming too?" "hush. no. now don't ask any more questions." "well, can't i tell bobby and jenny she's here?" "_no_. don't say anything at all about her." "but, mamma. what has she done?" "di! do as mamma tells you. don't you think mamma knows best?" di of course did not think so, had not thought so for a long time. but now dwight said: "daughter! are you a little girl or are you our grown-up young lady?" "i don't know," said di reasonably, "but i think you're treating me like a little girl now." "shame, di," said ina, unabashed by the accident of reason being on the side of di. "i'm eighteen," di reminded them forlornly, "and through high school." "then act so," boomed her father. baffled, thwarted, bewildered, di went over to jenny plow's and there imparted understanding by the simple process of letting jenny guess, to questions skilfully shaped. when dwight said, "look at my beautiful handkerchief," displayed a hole, sent his ina for a better, lulu, with a manner of haste, addressed him: "dwight. it's a funny thing, but i haven't ninian's oregon address." "well?" "well, i wish you'd give it to me." dwight tightened and lifted his lips. "it would seem," he said, "that you have no real use for that particular address, lulu." "yes, i have. i want it. you have it, haven't you, dwight?" "certainly i have it." "won't you please write it down for me?" she had ready a bit of paper and a pencil stump. "my dear lulu, now why revive anything? why not be sensible and leave this alone? no good can come by--" "but why shouldn't i have his address?" "if everything is over between you, why should you?" "but you say he's still my husband." dwight flushed. "if my brother has shown his inclination as plainly as i judge that he has, it is certainly not my place to put you in touch with him again." "you won't give it to me?" "my dear lulu, in all kindness--no." his ina came running back, bearing handkerchiefs with different coloured borders for him to choose from. he chose the initial that she had embroidered, and had not the good taste not to kiss her. * * * * * they were all on the porch that evening, when lulu came downstairs. "_where_ are you going?" ina demanded, sisterly. and on hearing that lulu had an errand, added still more sisterly; "well, but mercy, what you so dressed up for?" lulu was in a thin black and white gown which they had never seen, and wore the tilting hat with the red wing. "ninian bought me this," said lulu only. "but, lulu, don't you think it might be better to keep, well--out of sight for a few days?" ina's lifted look besought her. "why?" lulu asked. "why set people wondering till we have to?" "they don't have to wonder, far as i'm concerned," said lulu, and went down the walk. ina looked at dwight. "she never spoke to me like that in her life before," she said. she watched her sister's black and white figure going erectly down the street. "that gives me the funniest feeling," said ina, "as if lulu had on clothes bought for her by some one that wasn't--that was--" "by her husband who has left her," said dwight sadly. "is that what it is, papa?" di asked alertly. for a wonder, she was there; had been there the greater part of the day--most of the time staring, fascinated, at her aunt lulu. "that's what it is, my little girl," said dwight, and shook his head. "well, i think it's a shame," said di stoutly. "and i think uncle ninian is a slunge." "di!" "i do. and i'd be ashamed to think anything else. i'd like to tell everybody." "there is," said dwight, "no need for secrecy--now." "dwight!" said ina--ina's eyes always remained expressionless, but it must have been her lashes that looked so startled. "no need whatever for secrecy," he repeated with firmness. "the truth is, lulu's husband has tired of her and sent her home. we must face it." "but, dwight--how awful for lulu...." "lulu," said dwight, "has us to stand by her." lulu, walking down the main street, thought: "now mis' chambers is seeing me. now mis' curtis. there's somebody behind the vines at mis' martin's. here comes mis' grove and i've got to speak to her...." one and another and another met her, and every one cried out at her some version of: "lulu bett!" or, "w-well, it _isn't_ lulu bett any more, is it? well, what are you doing here? i thought...." "i'm back to stay," she said. "the idea! well, where you hiding that handsome husband of yours? say, but we were surprised! you're the sly one--" "my--mr. deacon isn't here." "oh." "no. he's west." "oh, i see." having no arts, she must needs let the conversation die like this, could invent nothing concealing or gracious on which to move away. she went to the post-office. it was early, there were few at the post-office--with only one or two there had she to go through her examination. then she went to the general delivery window, tense for a new ordeal. to her relief, the face which was shown there was one strange to her, a slim youth, reading a letter of his own, and smiling. "excuse me," said lulu faintly. the youth looked up, with eyes warmed by the words on the pink paper which he held. "could you give me the address of mr. ninian deacon?" "let's see--you mean dwight deacon, i guess?" "no. it's his brother. he's been here. from oregon. i thought he might have given you his address--" she dwindled away. "wait a minute," said the youth. "nope. no address here. say, why don't you send it to his brother? he'd know. dwight deacon, the dentist." "i'll do that," lulu said absurdly, and turned away. she went back up the street, walking fast now to get away from them all. once or twice she pretended not to see a familiar face. but when she passed the mirror in an insurance office window, she saw her reflection and at its appearance she felt surprise and pleasure. "well!" she thought, almost in ina's own manner. abruptly her confidence rose. something of this confidence was still upon her when she returned. they were in the dining-room now, all save di, who was on the porch with bobby, and monona, who was in bed and might be heard extravagantly singing. lulu sat down with her hat on. when dwight inquired playfully, "don't we look like company?" she did not reply. he looked at her speculatively. where had she gone, with whom had she talked, what had she told? ina looked at her rather fearfully. but mrs. bett rocked contentedly and ate cardamom seeds. "whom did you see?" ina asked. lulu named them. "see them to talk to?" from dwight. oh, yes. they had all stopped. "what did they say?" ina burst out. they had inquired for ninian, lulu said; and said no more. dwight mulled this. lulu might have told every one of these women that cock-and-bull story with which she had come home. it might be all over town. of course, in that case he could turn lulu out--should do so, in fact. still the story would be all over town. "dwight," said lulu, "i want ninian's address." "going to write to him!" ina cried incredulously. "i want to ask him for the proofs that dwight wanted." "my dear lulu," dwight said impatiently, "you are not the one to write. have you no delicacy?" lulu smiled--a strange smile, originating and dying in one corner of her mouth. "yes," she said. "so much delicacy that i want to be sure whether i'm married or not." dwight cleared his throat with a movement which seemed to use his shoulders for the purpose. "i myself will take this up with my brother," he said. "i will write to him about it." lulu sprang to her feet. "write to him _now_!" she cried. "really," said dwight, lifting his brows. "now--now!" lulu said. she moved about, collecting writing materials from their casual lodgments on shelf and table. she set all before him and stood by him. "write to him now," she said again. "my dear lulu, don't be absurd." she said: "ina. help me. if it was dwight--and they didn't know whether he had another wife, or not, and you wanted to ask him--oh, don't you see? help me." ina was not yet the woman to cry for justice for its own sake, nor even to stand by another woman. she was primitive, and her instinct was to look to her own male merely. "well," she said, "of course. but why not let dwight do it in his own way? wouldn't that be better?" she put it to her sister fairly: now, no matter what dwight's way was, wouldn't that be better? "mother!" said lulu. she looked irresolutely toward her mother. but mrs. bett was eating cardamom seeds with exceeding gusto, and lulu looked away. caught by the gesture, mrs. bett voiced her grievance. "lulie," she said, "set down. take off your hat, why don't you?" lulu turned upon dwight a quiet face which he had never seen before. "you write that letter to ninian," she said, "and you make him tell you so you'll understand. _i_ know he spoke the truth. but i want you to know." "m--m," said dwight. "and then i suppose you're going to tell it all over town--as soon as you have the proofs." "i'm going to tell it all over town," said lulu, "just as it is--unless you write to him now." "lulu!" cried ina. "oh, you wouldn't." "i would," said lulu. "i will." dwight was sobered. this unimagined lulu looked capable of it. but then he sneered. "and get turned out of this house, as you would be?" "dwight!" cried his ina. "oh, you wouldn't!" "i would," said dwight. "i will. lulu knows it." "i shall tell what i know and then leave your house anyway," said lulu, "unless you get ninian's word. and i want you should write him now." "leave your mother? and ina?" he asked. "leave everything," said lulu. "oh, dwight," said ina, "we can't get along without lulu." she did not say in what particulars, but dwight knew. dwight looked at lulu, an upward, sidewise look, with a manner of peering out to see if she meant it. and he saw. he shrugged, pursed his lips crookedly, rolled his head to signify the inexpressible. "isn't that like a woman?" he demanded. he rose. "rather than let you in for a show of temper," he said grandly, "i'd do anything." he wrote the letter, addressed it, his hand elaborately curved in secrecy about the envelope, pocketed it. "ina and i'll walk down with you to mail it," said lulu. dwight hesitated, frowned. his ina watched him with consulting brows. "i was going," said dwight, "to propose a little stroll before bedtime." he roved about the room. "where's my beautiful straw hat? there's nothing like a brisk walk to induce sound, restful sleep," he told them. he hummed a bar. "you'll be all right, mother?" lulu asked. mrs. bett did not look up. "these cardamon hev got a little mite too dry," she said. * * * * * in their room, ina and dwight discussed the incredible actions of lulu. "i saw," said dwight, "i saw she wasn't herself. i'd do anything to avoid having a scene--you know that." his glance swept a little anxiously his ina. "you know that, don't you?" he sharply inquired. "but i really think you ought to have written to ninian about it," she now dared to say. "it's--it's not a nice position for lulu." "nice? well, but whom has she got to blame for it?" "why, ninian," said ina. dwight threw out his hands. "herself," he said. "to tell you the truth, i was perfectly amazed at the way she snapped him up there in that restaurant." "why, but, dwight--" "brazen," he said. "oh, it was brazen." "it was just fun, in the first place." "but no really nice woman--" he shook his head. "dwight! lulu _is_ nice. the idea!" he regarded her. "would you have done that?" he would know. under his fond look, she softened, took his homage, accepted everything, was silent. "certainly not," he said. "lulu's tastes are not fine like yours. i should never think of you as sisters." "she's awfully good," ina said feebly. fifteen years of married life behind her--but this was sweet and she could not resist. "she has excellent qualities." he admitted it. "but look at the position she's in--married to a man who tells her he has another wife in order to get free. now, no really nice woman--" "no really nice man--" ina did say that much. "ah," said dwight, "but _you_ could never be in such a position. no, no. lulu is sadly lacking somewhere." ina sighed, threw back her head, caught her lower lip with her upper, as might be in a hem. "what if it was di?" she supposed. "di!" dwight's look rebuked his wife. "di," he said, "was born with ladylike feelings." it was not yet ten o'clock. bobby larkin was permitted to stay until ten. from the veranda came the indistinguishable murmur of those young voices. "bobby," di was saying within that murmur, "bobby, you don't kiss me as if you really wanted to kiss me, to-night." vi september the office of dwight herbert deacon, dentist, gold work a speciality (sic) in black lettering, and justice of the peace in gold, was above a store which had been occupied by one unlucky tenant after another, and had suffered long periods of vacancy when ladies' aid societies served lunches there, under great white signs, badly lettered. some months of disuse were now broken by the news that the store had been let to a music man. a music man, what on earth was that, warbleton inquired. the music man arrived, installed three pianos, and filled his window with sheet music, as sung by many ladies who swung in hammocks or kissed their hands on the music covers. while he was still moving in, dwight herbert deacon wandered downstairs and stood informally in the door of the new store. the music man, a pleasant-faced chap of thirty-odd, was rubbing at the face of a piano. "hello, there!" he said. "can i sell you an upright?" "if i can take it out in pulling your teeth, you can," dwight replied. "or," said he, "i might marry you free, either one." on this their friendship began. thenceforth, when business was dull, the idle hours of both men were beguiled with idle gossip. "how the dickens did you think of pianos for a line?" dwight asked him once. "now, my father was a dentist, so i came by it natural--never entered my head to be anything else. but _pianos_--" the music man--his name was neil cornish--threw up his chin in a boyish fashion, and said he'd be jiggered if he knew. all up and down the warbleton main street, the chances are that the answer would sound the same. "i'm studying law when i get the chance," said cornish, as one who makes a bid to be thought of more highly. "i see," said dwight, respectfully dwelling on the verb. later on cornish confided more to dwight: he was to come by a little inheritance some day--not much, but something. yes, it made a man feel a certain confidence.... "_don't_ it?" said dwight heartily, as if he knew. every one liked cornish. he told funny stories, and he never compared warbleton save to its advantage. so at last dwight said tentatively at lunch: "what if i brought that neil cornish up for supper, one of these nights?" "oh, dwightie, do," said ina. "if there's a man in town, let's know it." "what if i brought him up to-night?" up went ina's eyebrows. _to-night_? "'scalloped potatoes and meat loaf and sauce and bread and butter," lulu contributed. cornish came to supper. he was what is known in warbleton as dapper. this ina saw as she emerged on the veranda in response to dwight's informal halloo on his way upstairs. she herself was in white muslin, now much too snug, and a blue ribbon. to her greeting their guest replied in that engaging shyness which is not awkwardness. he moved in some pleasant web of gentleness and friendliness. they asked him the usual questions, and he replied, rocking all the time with a faint undulating motion of head and shoulders: warbleton was one of the prettiest little towns that he had ever seen. he liked the people--they seemed different. he was sure to like the place, already liked it. lulu came to the door in ninian's thin black-and-white gown. she shook hands with the stranger, not looking at him, and said, "come to supper, all." monona was already in her place, singing under-breath. mrs. bett, after hovering in the kitchen door, entered; but they forgot to introduce her. "where's di?" asked ina. "i declare that daughter of mine is never anywhere." a brief silence ensued as they were seated. there being a guest, grace was to come, and dwight said unintelligibly and like lightning a generic appeal to bless this food, forgive all our sins and finally save us. and there was something tremendous, in this ancient form whereby all stages of men bow in some now unrecognized recognition of the ceremonial of taking food to nourish life--and more. at "amen" di flashed in, her offices at the mirror fresh upon her--perfect hair, silk dress turned up at the hem. she met cornish, crimsoned, fluttered to her seat, joggled the table and, "oh, dear," she said audibly to her mother, "i forgot my ring." the talk was saved alive by a frank effort. dwight served, making jests about everybody coming back for more. they went on with warbleton happenings, improvements and openings; and the runaway. cornish tried hard to make himself agreeable, not ingratiatingly but good-naturedly. he wished profoundly that before coming he had looked up some more stories in the back of the musical gazettes. lulu surreptitiously pinched off an ant that was running at large upon the cloth and thereafter kept her eyes steadfastly on the sugar-bowl to see if it could be from _that_. dwight pretended that those whom he was helping a second time were getting more than their share and facetiously landed on di about eating so much that she would grow up and be married, first thing she knew. at the word "married" di turned scarlet, laughed heartily and lifted her glass of water. "and what instruments do you play?" ina asked cornish, in an unrelated effort to lift the talk to musical levels. "well, do you know," said the music man, "i can't play a thing. don't know a black note from a white one." "you don't? why, di plays very prettily," said di's mother. "but then how can you tell what songs to order?" ina cried. "oh, by the music houses. you go by the sales." for the first time it occurred to cornish that this was ridiculous. "you know, i'm really studying law," he said, shyly and proudly. law! how very interesting, from ina. oh, but won't he bring up some songs some evening, for them to try over? her and di? at this di laughed and said that she was out of practice and lifted her glass of water. in the presence of adults di made one weep, she was so slender, so young, so without defences, so intolerably sensitive to every contact, so in agony lest she be found wanting. it was amazing how unlike was this di to the di who had ensnared bobby larkin. what was one to think? cornish paid very little attention to her. to lulu he said kindly, "don't you play, miss--?" he had not caught her name--no stranger ever did catch it. but dwight now supplied it: "miss lulu bett," he explained with loud emphasis, and lulu burned her slow red. this question lulu had usually answered by telling how a felon had interrupted her lessons and she had stopped "taking"--a participle sacred to music, in warbleton. this vignette had been a kind of epitome of lulu's biography. but now lulu was heard to say serenely: "no, but i'm quite fond of it. i went to a lovely concert--two weeks ago." they all listened. strange indeed to think of lulu as having had experiences of which they did not know. "yes," she said. "it was in savannah, georgia." she flushed, and lifted her eyes in a manner of faint defiance. "of course," she said, "i don't know the names of all the different instruments they played, but there were a good many." she laughed pleasantly as a part of her sentence. "they had some lovely tunes," she said. she knew that the subject was not exhausted and she hurried on. "the hall was real large," she superadded, "and there were quite a good many people there. and it was too warm." "i see," said cornish, and said what he had been waiting to say: that he too had been in savannah, georgia. lulu lit with pleasure. "well!" she said. and her mind worked and she caught at the moment before it had escaped. "isn't it a pretty city?" she asked. and cornish assented with the intense heartiness of the provincial. he, too, it seemed, had a conversational appearance to maintain by its own effort. he said that he had enjoyed being in that town and that he was there for two hours. "i was there for a week." lulu's superiority was really pretty. "have good weather?" cornish selected next. oh, yes. and they saw all the different buildings--but at her "we" she flushed and was silenced. she was colouring and breathing quickly. this was the first bit of conversation of this sort of lulu's life. after supper ina inevitably proposed croquet, dwight pretended to try to escape and, with his irrepressible mien, talked about ina, elaborate in his insistence on the third person--"she loves it, we have to humour her, you know how it is. or no! you don't know! but you will"--and more of the same sort, everybody laughing heartily, save lulu, who looked uncomfortable and wished that dwight wouldn't, and mrs. bett, who paid no attention to anybody that night, not because she had not been introduced, an omission, which she had not even noticed, but merely as another form of "tantrim." a self-indulgence. they emerged for croquet. and there on the porch sat jenny plow and bobby, waiting for di to keep an old engagement, which di pretended to have forgotten, and to be frightfully annoyed to have to keep. she met the objections of her parents with all the batteries of her coquetry, set for both bobby and cornish and, bold in the presence of "company," at last went laughing away. and in the minute areas of her consciousness she said to herself that bobby would be more in love with her than ever because she had risked all to go with him; and that cornish ought to be distinctly attracted to her because she had not stayed. she was as primitive as pollen. ina was vexed. she said so, pouting in a fashion which she should have outgrown with white muslin and blue ribbons, and she had outgrown none of these things. "that just spoils croquet," she said. "i'm vexed. now we can't have a real game." from the side-door, where she must have been lingering among the waterproofs, lulu stepped forth. "i'll play a game," she said. * * * * * when cornish actually proposed to bring some music to the deacons', ina turned toward dwight herbert all the facets of her responsibility. and ina's sense of responsibility toward di was enormous, oppressive, primitive, amounting, in fact, toward this daughter of dwight herbert's late wife, to an ability to compress the offices of stepmotherhood into the functions of the lecture platform. ina was a fountain of admonition. her idea of a daughter, step or not, was that of a manufactured product, strictly, which you constantly pinched and moulded. she thought that a moral preceptor had the right to secrete precepts. di got them all. but of course the crest of ina's responsibility was to marry di. this verb should be transitive only when lovers are speaking of each other, or the minister or magistrate is speaking of lovers. it should never be transitive when predicated of parents or any other third party. but it is. ina was quite agitated by its transitiveness as she took to her husband her incredible responsibility. "you know, herbert," said ina, "if this mr. cornish comes here _very_ much, what we may expect." "what may we expect?" demanded dwight herbert, crisply. ina always played his games, answered what he expected her to answer, pretended to be intuitive when she was not so, said "i know" when she didn't know at all. dwight herbert, on the other hand, did not even play her games when he knew perfectly what she meant, but pretended not to understand, made her repeat, made her explain. it was as if ina _had_ to please him for, say, a living; but as for that dentist, he had to please nobody. in the conversations of dwight and ina you saw the historical home forming in clots in the fluid wash of the community. "he'll fall in love with di," said ina. "and what of that? little daughter will have many a man fall in love with her, _i_ should say." "yes, but, dwight, what do you think of him?" "what do i think of him? my dear ina, i have other things to think of." "but we don't know anything about him, dwight--a stranger so." "on the other hand," said dwight with dignity, "i know a good deal about him." with a great air of having done the fatherly and found out about this stranger before bringing him into the home, dwight now related a number of stray circumstances dropped by cornish in their chance talks. "he has a little inheritance coming to him--shortly," dwight wound up. "an inheritance--really? how much, dwight?" "now isn't that like a woman. isn't it?" "i _thought_ he was from a good family," said ina. "my mercenary little pussy!" "well," she said with a sigh, "i shouldn't be surprised if di did really accept him. a young girl is awfully flattered when a good-looking older man pays her attention. haven't you noticed that?" dwight informed her, with an air of immense abstraction, that he left all such matters to her. being married to dwight was like a perpetual rehearsal, with dwight's self-importance for audience. a few evenings later, cornish brought up the music. there was something overpowering in this brown-haired chap against the background of his negligible little shop, his whole capital in his few pianos. for he looked hopefully ahead, woke with plans, regarded the children in the street as if, conceivably, children might come within the confines of his life as he imagined it. a preposterous little man. and a preposterous store, empty, echoing, bare of wall, the three pianos near the front, the remainder of the floor stretching away like the corridors of the lost. he was going to get a dark curtain, he explained, and furnish the back part of the store as his own room. what dignity in phrasing, but how mean that little room would look--cot bed, washbowl and pitcher, and little mirror--almost certainly a mirror with a wavy surface, almost certainly that. "and then, you know," he always added, "i'm reading law." the plows had been asked in that evening. bobby was there. they were, dwight herbert said, going to have a sing. di was to play. and di was now embarked on the most difficult feat of her emotional life, the feat of remaining to bobby larkin the lure, the beloved lure, the while to cornish she instinctively played the rôle of womanly little girl. "up by the festive lamp, everybody!" dwight herbert cried. as they gathered about the upright piano, that startled, dwightish instrument, standing in its attitude of unrest, lulu came in with another lamp. "do you need this?" she asked. they did not need it, there was, in fact, no place to set it, and this lulu must have known. but dwight found a place. he swept ninian's photograph from the marble shelf of the mirror, and when lulu had placed the lamp there, dwight thrust the photograph into her hands. "you take care of that," he said, with a droop of lid discernible only to those who--presumably--loved him. his old attitude toward lulu had shown a terrible sharpening in these ten days since her return. she stood uncertainly, in the thin black and white gown which ninian had bought for her, and held ninian's photograph and looked helplessly about. she was moving toward the door when cornish called: "see here! aren't _you_ going to sing?" "what?" dwight used the falsetto. "lulu sing? _lulu_?" she stood awkwardly. she had a piteous recrudescence of her old agony at being spoken to in the presence of others. but di had opened the "album of old favourites," which cornish had elected to bring, and now she struck the opening chords of "bonny eloise." lulu stood still, looking rather piteously at cornish. dwight offered his arm, absurdly crooked. the plows and ina and di began to sing. lulu moved forward, and stood a little away from them, and sang, too. she was still holding ninian's picture. dwight did not sing. he lifted his shoulders and his eyebrows and watched lulu. when they had finished, "lulu the mocking bird!" dwight cried. he said "ba-ird." "fine!" cried cornish. "why, miss lulu, you have a good voice!" "miss lulu bett, the mocking ba-ird!" dwight insisted. lulu was excited, and in some accession of faint power. she turned to him now, quietly, and with a look of appraisal. "lulu the dove," she then surprisingly said, "to put up with you." it was her first bit of conscious repartee to her brother-in-law. cornish was bending over di. "what next do you say?" he asked. she lifted her eyes, met his own, held them. "there's such a lovely, lovely sacred song here," she suggested, and looked down. "you like sacred music?" she turned to him her pure profile, her eyelids fluttering up, and said: "i love it." "that's it. so do i. nothing like a nice sacred piece," cornish declared. bobby larkin, at the end of the piano, looked directly into di's face. "give _me_ ragtime," he said now, with the effect of bursting out of somewhere. "don't you like ragtime?" he put it to her directly. di's eyes danced into his, they sparkled for him, her smile was a smile for him alone, all their store of common memories was in their look. "let's try 'my rock, my refuge,'" cornish suggested. "that's got up real attractive." di's profile again, and her pleased voice saying that this was the very one she had been hoping to hear him sing. they gathered for "my rock, my refuge." "oh," cried ina, at the conclusion of this number, "i'm having such a perfectly beautiful time. isn't everybody?" everybody's hostess put it. "lulu is," said dwight, and added softly to lulu: "she don't have to hear herself sing." it was incredible. he was like a bad boy with a frog. about that photograph of ninian he found a dozen ways to torture her, called attention to it, showed it to cornish, set it on the piano facing them all. everybody must have understood--excepting the plows. these two gentle souls sang placidly through the album of old favourites, and at the melodies smiled happily upon each other with an air from another world. always it was as if the plows walked some fair, inter-penetrating plane, from which they looked out as do other things not quite of earth, say, flowers and fire and music. strolling home that night, the plows were overtaken by some one who ran badly, and as if she were unaccustomed to running. "mis' plow, mis' plow!" this one called, and lulu stood beside them. "say!" she said. "do you know of any job that i could get me? i mean that i'd know how to do? a job for money.... i mean a job...." she burst into passionate crying. they drew her home with them. * * * * * lying awake sometime after midnight, lulu heard the telephone ring. she heard dwight's concerned "is that so?" and his cheerful "be right there." grandma gates was sick, she heard him tell ina. in a few moments he ran down the stairs. next day they told how dwight had sat for hours that night, holding grandma gates so that her back would rest easily and she could fight for her faint breath. the kind fellow had only about two hours of sleep the whole night long. next day there came a message from that woman who had brought up dwight--"made him what he was," he often complacently accused her. it was a note on a postal card--she had often written a few lines on a postal card to say that she had sent the maple sugar, or could ina get her some samples. now she wrote a few lines on a postal card to say that she was going to die with cancer. could dwight and ina come to her while she was still able to visit? if he was not too busy.... nobody saw the pity and the terror of that postal card. they stuck it up by the kitchen clock to read over from time to time, and before they left, dwight lifted the griddle of the cooking-stove and burned the postal card. and before they left lulu said: "dwight--you can't tell how long you'll be gone?" "of course not. how should i tell?" "no. and that letter might come while you're away." "conceivably. letters do come while a man's away!" "dwight--i thought if you wouldn't mind if i opened it--" "opened it?" "yes. you see, it'll be about me mostly--" "i should have said that it'll be about my brother mostly." "but you know what i mean. you wouldn't mind if i did open it?" "but you say you know what'll be in it." "so i did know--till you--i've got to see that letter, dwight." "and so you shall. but not till i show it to you. my dear lulu, you know how i hate having my mail interfered with." she might have said: "small souls always make a point of that." she said nothing. she watched them set off, and kept her mind on ina's thousand injunctions. "don't let di see much of bobby larkin. and, lulu--if it occurs to her to have mr. cornish come up to sing, of course you ask him. you might ask him to supper. and don't let mother overdo. and, lulu, now do watch monona's handkerchief--the child will never take a clean one if i'm not here to tell her...." she breathed injunctions to the very step of the 'bus. in the 'bus dwight leaned forward: "see that you play post-office squarely, lulu!" he called, and threw back his head and lifted his eyebrows. in the train he turned tragic eyes to his wife. "ina," he said. "it's _ma_. and she's going to die. it can't be...." ina said: "but you're going to help her, dwight, just being there with her." it was true that the mere presence of the man would bring a kind of fresh life to that worn frame. tact and wisdom and love would speak through him and minister. toward the end of their week's absence the letter from ninian came. lulu took it from the post-office when she went for the mail that evening, dressed in her dark red gown. there was no other letter, and she carried that one letter in her hand all through the streets. she passed those who were surmising what her story might be, who were telling one another what they had heard. but she knew hardly more than they. she passed cornish in the doorway of his little music shop, and spoke with him; and there was the letter. it was so that dwight's foster mother's postal card might have looked on its way to be mailed. cornish stepped down and overtook her. "oh, miss lulu. i've got a new song or two--" she said abstractedly: "do. any night. to-morrow night--could you--" it was as if lulu were too preoccupied to remember to be ill at ease. cornish flushed with pleasure, said that he could indeed. "come for supper," lulu said. oh, could he? wouldn't that be.... well, say! such was his acceptance. he came for supper. and di was not at home. she had gone off in the country with jenny and bobby, and they merely did not return. mrs. bett and lulu and cornish and monona supped alone. all were at ease, now that they were alone. especially mrs. bett was at ease. it became one of her young nights, her alive and lucid nights. she was _there_. she sat in dwight's chair and lulu sat in ina's chair. lulu had picked flowers for the table--a task coveted by her but usually performed by ina. lulu had now picked sweet william and had filled a vase of silver gilt taken from the parlour. also, lulu had made ice-cream. "i don't see what di can be thinking of," lulu said. "it seems like asking you under false--" she was afraid of "pretences" and ended without it. cornish savoured his steaming beef pie, with sage. "oh, well!" he said contentedly. "kind of a relief, _i_ think, to have her gone," said mrs. bett, from the fulness of something or other. "mother!" lulu said, twisting her smile. "why, my land, i love her," mrs. bett explained, "but she wiggles and chitters." cornish never made the slightest effort, at any time, to keep a straight face. the honest fellow now laughed loudly. "well!" lulu thought. "he can't be so _very_ much in love." and again she thought: "he doesn't know anything about the letter. he thinks ninian got tired of me." deep in her heart there abode her certainty that this was not so. by some etiquette of consent, mrs. bett cleared the table and lulu and cornish went into the parlour. there lay the letter on the drop-leaf side-table, among the shells. lulu had carried it there, where she need not see it at her work. the letter looked no more than the advertisement of dental office furniture beneath it. monona stood indifferently fingering both. "monona," lulu said sharply, "leave them be!" cornish was displaying his music. "got up quite attractive," he said--it was his formula of praise for his music. "but we can't try it over," lulu said, "if di doesn't come." "well, say," said cornish shyly, "you know i left that album of old favourites here. some of them we know by heart." lulu looked. "i'll tell you something," she said, "there's some of these i can play with one hand--by ear. maybe--" "why sure!" said cornish. lulu sat at the piano. she had on the wool chally, long sacred to the nights when she must combine her servant's estate with the quality of being ina's sister. she wore her coral beads and her cameo cross. in her absence she had caught the trick of dressing her hair so that it looked even more abundant--but she had not dared to try it so until to-night, when dwight was gone. her long wrist was curved high, her thin hand pressed and fingered awkwardly, and at her mistakes her head dipped and strove to make all right. her foot continuously touched the loud pedal--the blurred sound seemed to accomplish more. so she played "how can i leave thee," and they managed to sing it. so she played "long, long ago," and "little nell of narragansett bay." beyond open doors, mrs. bett listened, sang, it may be, with them; for when the singers ceased, her voice might be heard still humming a loud closing bar. "well!" cornish cried to lulu; and then, in the formal village phrase: "you're quite a musician." "oh, no!" lulu disclaimed it. she looked up, flushed, smiling. "i've never done this in front of anybody," she owned. "i don't know what dwight and ina'd say...." she drooped. they rested, and, miraculously, the air of the place had stirred and quickened, as if the crippled, halting melody had some power of its own, and poured this forth, even thus trampled. "i guess you could do 'most anything you set your hand to," said cornish. "oh, no," lulu said again. "sing and play and cook--" "but i can't earn anything. i'd like to earn something." but this she had not meant to say. she stopped, rather frightened. "you would! why, you have it fine here, i thought." "oh, fine, yes. dwight gives me what i have. and i do their work." "i see," said cornish. "i never thought of that," he added. she caught his speculative look--he had heard a tale or two concerning her return, as who in warbleton had not heard? "you're wondering why i didn't stay with him!" lulu said recklessly. this was no less than wrung from her, but its utterance occasioned in her an unspeakable relief. "oh, no," cornish disclaimed, and coloured and rocked. "yes, you are," she swept on. "the whole town's wondering. well, i'd like 'em to know, but dwight won't let me tell." cornish frowned, trying to understand. "'won't let you!'" he repeated. "i should say that was your own affair." "no. not when dwight gives me all i have." "oh, that--" said cornish. "that's not right." "no. but there it is. it puts me--you see what it does to me. they think--they all think my--husband left me." it was curious to hear her bring out that word--tentatively, deprecatingly, like some one daring a foreign phrase without warrant. cornish said feebly: "oh, well...." before she willed it, she was telling him: "he didn't. he didn't leave me," she cried with passion. "he had another wife." incredibly it was as if she were defending both him and herself. "lord sakes!" said cornish. she poured it out, in her passion to tell some one, to share her news of her state where there would be neither hardness nor censure. "we were in savannah, georgia," she said. "we were going to leave for oregon--going to go through california. we were in the hotel, and he was going out to get the tickets. he started to go. then he came back. i was sitting the same as there. he opened the door again--the same as here. i saw he looked different--and he said quick: 'there's something you'd ought to know before we go.' and of course i said, 'what?' and he said it right out--how he was married eighteen years ago and in two years she ran away and she must be dead but he wasn't sure. he hadn't the proofs. so of course i came home. but it wasn't him left me." "no, no. of course he didn't," cornish said earnestly. "but lord sakes--" he said again. he rose to walk about, found it impracticable and sat down. "that's what dwight don't want me to tell--he thinks it isn't true. he thinks--he didn't have any other wife. he thinks he wanted--" lulu looked up at him. "you see," she said, "dwight thinks he didn't want me." "but why don't you make your--husband--i mean, why doesn't he write to mr. deacon here, and tell him the truth--" cornish burst out. under this implied belief, she relaxed and into her face came its rare sweetness. "he has written," she said. "the letter's there." he followed her look, scowled at the two letters. "what'd he say?" "dwight don't like me to touch his mail. i'll have to wait till he comes back." "lord sakes!" said cornish. this time he did rise and walk about. he wanted to say something, wanted it with passion. he paused beside lulu and stammered: "you--you--you're too nice a girl to get a deal like this. darned if you aren't." to her own complete surprise lulu's eyes filled with tears, and she could not speak. she was by no means above self-sympathy. "and there ain't," said cornish sorrowfully, "there ain't a thing i can do." and yet he was doing much. he was gentle, he was listening, and on his face a frown of concern. his face continually surprised her, it was so fine and alive and near, by comparison with ninian's loose-lipped, ruddy, impersonal look and dwight's thin, high-boned hardness. all the time cornish gave her something, instead of drawing upon her. above all, he was there, and she could talk to him. "it's--it's funny," lulu said. "i'd be awful glad if i just _could_ know for sure that the other woman was alive--if i couldn't know she's dead." this surprising admission cornish seemed to understand. "sure you would," he said briefly. "cora waters," lulu said. "cora waters, of san diego, california. and she never heard of me." "no," cornish admitted. they stared at each other as across some abyss. in the doorway mrs. bett appeared. "i scraped up everything," she remarked, "and left the dishes set." "that's right, mamma," lulu said. "come and sit down." mrs. bett entered with a leisurely air of doing the thing next expected of her. "i don't hear any more playin' and singin'," she remarked. "it sounded real nice." "we--we sung all i knew how to play, i guess, mamma." "i use' to play on the melodeon," mrs. bett volunteered, and spread and examined her right hand. "well!" said cornish. she now told them about her log-house in a new england clearing, when she was a bride. all her store of drama and life came from her. she rehearsed it with far eyes. she laughed at old delights, drooped at old fears. she told about her little daughter who had died at sixteen--a tragedy such as once would have been renewed in a vital ballad. at the end she yawned frankly as if, in some terrible sophistication, she had been telling the story of some one else. "give us one more piece," she said. "can we?" cornish asked. "i can play 'i think when i read that sweet story of old,'" lulu said. "that's the ticket!" cried cornish. they sang it, to lulu's right hand. "that's the one you picked out when you was a little girl, lulie," cried, mrs. bett. lulu had played it now as she must have played it then. half after nine and di had not returned. but nobody thought of di. cornish rose to go. "what's them?" mrs. bett demanded. "dwight's letters, mamma. you mustn't touch them!" lulu's voice was sharp. "say!" cornish, at the door, dropped his voice. "if there was anything i could do at any time, you'd let me know, wouldn't you?" that past tense, those subjunctives, unconsciously called upon her to feel no intrusion. "oh, thank you," she said. "you don't know how good it is to feel--" "of course it is," said cornish heartily. they stood for a moment on the porch. the night was one of low clamour from the grass, tiny voices, insisting. "of course," said lulu, "of course you won't--you wouldn't--" "say anything?" he divined. "not for dollars. not," he repeated, "for dollars." "but i knew you wouldn't," she told him. he took her hand. "good-night," he said. "i've had an awful nice time singing and listening to you talk--well, of course--i mean," he cried, "the supper was just fine. and so was the music." "oh, no," she said. mrs. bett came into the hall. "lulie," she said, "i guess you didn't notice--this one's from ninian." "mother--" "i opened it--why, of course i did. it's from ninian." mrs. bett held out the opened envelope, the unfolded letter, and a yellowed newspaper clipping. "see," said the old woman, "says, 'corie waters, music hall singer--married last night to ninian deacon--' say, lulie, that must be her...." lulu threw out her hands. "there!" she cried triumphantly. "he _was_ married to her, just like he said!" * * * * * the plows were at breakfast next morning when lulu came in casually at the side-door. yes, she said, she had had breakfast. she merely wanted to see them about something. then she said nothing, but sat looking with a troubled frown at jenny. jenny's hair was about her neck, like the hair of a little girl, a south window poured light upon her, the fruit and honey upon the table seemed her only possible food. "you look troubled, lulu," mrs. plow said. "is it about getting work?" "no," said lulu, "no. i've been places to ask--quite a lot of places. i guess the bakery is going to let me make cake." "i knew it would come to you," mrs. plow said, and lulu thought that this was a strange way to speak, when she herself had gone after the cakes. but she kept on looking about the room. it was so bright and quiet. as she came in, mr. plow had been reading from a book. dwight never read from a book at table. "i wish----" said lulu, as she looked at them. but she did not know what she wished. certainly it was for no moral excellence, for she perceived none. "what is it, lulu?" mr. plow asked, and he was bright and quiet too, lulu thought. "well," said lulu, "it's not much. but i wanted jenny to tell me about last night." "last night?" "yes. would you----" hesitation was her only way of apology. "where did you go?" she turned to jenny. jenny looked up in her clear and ardent fashion: "we went across the river and carried supper and then we came home." "what time did you get home?" "oh, it was still light. long before eight, it was." lulu hesitated and flushed, asked how long di and bobby had stayed there at jenny's; whereupon she heard that di had to be home early on account of mr. cornish, so that she and bobby had not stayed at all. to which lulu said an "of course," but first she stared at jenny and so impaired the strength of her assent. almost at once she rose to go. "nothing else?" said mrs. plow, catching that look of hers. lulu wanted to say: "my husband _was_ married before, just as he said he was." but she said nothing more, and went home. there she put it to di, and with her terrible bluntness reviewed to di the testimony. "you were not with jenny after eight o'clock. where were you?" lulu spoke formally and her rehearsals were evident. di said: "when mamma comes home, i'll tell her." with this lulu had no idea how to deal, and merely looked at her helplessly. mrs. bett, who was lacing her shoes, now said casually: "no need to wait till then. her and bobby were out in the side yard sitting in the hammock till all hours." di had no answer save her furious flush, and mrs. bett went on: "didn't i tell you? i knew it before the company left, but i didn't say a word. thinks i, 'she's wiggles and chitters.' so i left her stay where she was." "but, mother!" lulu cried. "you didn't even tell me after he'd gone." "i forgot it," mrs. bett said, "finding ninian's letter and all--" she talked of ninian's letter. di was bright and alert and firm of flesh and erect before lulu's softness and laxness. "i don't know what your mother'll say," said lulu, "and i don't know what people'll think." "they won't think bobby and i are tired of each other, anyway," said di, and left the room. through the day lulu tried to think what she must do. about di she was anxious and felt without power. she thought of the indignation of dwight and ina that di had not been more scrupulously guarded. she thought of di's girlish folly, her irritating independence--"and there," lulu thought, "just the other day i was teaching her to sew." her mind dwelt too on dwight's furious anger at the opening of ninian's letter. but when all this had spent itself, what was she herself to do? she must leave his house before he ordered her to do so, when she told him that she had confided in cornish, as tell she must. but what was she to _do_? the bakery cake-making would not give her a roof. stepping about the kitchen in her blue cotton gown, her hair tight and flat as seemed proper when one was not dressed, she thought about these things. and it was strange: lulu bore no physical appearance of one in distress or any anxiety. her head was erect, her movements were strong and swift, her eyes were interested. she was no drooping lulu with dragging step. she was more intent, she was somehow more operative than she had ever been. mrs. bett was working contentedly beside her, and now and then humming an air of that music of the night before. the sun surged through the kitchen door and east window, a returned oriole swung and fluted on the elm above the gable. wagons clattered by over the rattling wooden block pavement. "ain't it nice with nobody home?" mrs. bett remarked at intervals, like the burden of a comic song. "hush, mother," lulu said, troubled, her ethical refinements conflicting with her honesty. "speak the truth and shame the devil," mrs. bett contended. when dinner was ready at noon, di did not appear. a little earlier lulu had heard her moving about her room, and she served her in expectation that she would join them. "di must be having the 'tantrim' this time," she thought, and for a time said nothing. but at length she did say: "why doesn't di come? i'd better put her plate in the oven." rising to do so, she was arrested by her mother. mrs. bett was eating a baked potato, holding her fork close to the tines, and presenting a profile of passionate absorption. "why, di went off," she said. "went off!" "down the walk. down the sidewalk." "she must have gone to jenny's," said lulu. "i wish she wouldn't do that without telling me." monona laughed out and shook her straight hair. "she'll catch it!" she cried in sisterly enjoyment. it was when lulu had come back from the kitchen and was seated at the table that mrs. bett observed: "i didn't think inie'd want her to take her nice new satchel." "her satchel?" "yes. inie wouldn't take it north herself, but di had it." "mother," said lulu, "when di went away just now, was she carrying a satchel?" "didn't i just tell you?" mrs. bett demanded, aggrieved. "i said i didn't think inie--" "mother! which way did she go?" monona pointed with her spoon. "she went that way," she said. "i seen her." lulu looked at the clock. for monona had pointed toward the railway station. the twelve-thirty train, which every one took to the city for shopping, would be just about leaving. "monona," said lulu, "don't you go out of the yard while i'm gone. mother, you keep her--" lulu ran from the house and up the street. she was in her blue cotton dress, her old shoes, she was hatless and without money. when she was still two or three blocks from the station, she heard the twelve-thirty "pulling out." she ran badly, her ankles in their low, loose shoes continually turning, her arms held taut at her sides. so she came down the platform, and to the ticket window. the contained ticket man, wonted to lost trains and perturbed faces, yet actually ceased counting when he saw her: "lenny! did di deacon take that train?" "sure she did," said lenny. "and bobby larkin?" lulu cared nothing for appearances now. "he went in on the local," said lenny, and his eyes widened. "where?" "see." lenny thought it through. "millton," he said. "yes, sure. millton. both of 'em." "how long till another train?" "well, sir," said the ticket man, "you're in luck, if you was goin' too. seventeen was late this morning--she'll be along, jerk of a lamb's tail." "then," said lulu, "you got to give me a ticket to millton, without me paying till after--and you got to lend me two dollars." "sure thing," said lenny, with a manner of laying the entire railway system at her feet. "seventeen" would rather not have stopped at warbleton, but lenny's signal was law on the time card, and the magnificent yellow express slowed down for lulu. hatless and in her blue cotton gown, she climbed aboard. then her old inefficiency seized upon her. what was she going to do? millton! she had been there but once, years ago--how could she ever find anybody? why had she not stayed in warbleton and asked the sheriff or somebody--no, not the sheriff. cornish, perhaps. oh, and dwight and ina were going to be angry now! and di--little di. as lulu thought of her she began to cry. she said to herself that she had taught di to sew. in sight of millton, lulu was seized with trembling and physical nausea. she had never been alone in any unfamiliar town. she put her hands to her hair and for the first time realized her rolled-up sleeves. she was pulling down these sleeves when the conductor came through the train. "could you tell me," she said timidly, "the name of the principal hotel in millton?" ninian had asked this as they neared savannah, georgia. the conductor looked curiously at her. "why, the hess house," he said. "wasn't you expecting anybody to meet you?" he asked, kindly. "no," said lulu, "but i'm going to find my folks--" her voice trailed away. "beats all," thought the conductor, using his utility formula for the universe. in millton lulu's inquiry for the hess house produced no consternation. nobody paid any attention to her. she was almost certainly taken to be a new servant there. "you stop feeling so!" she said to herself angrily at the lobby entrance. "ain't you been to that big hotel in savannah, georgia?" the hess house, millton, had a tradition of its own to maintain, it seemed, and they sent her to the rear basement door. she obeyed meekly, but she lost a good deal of time before she found herself at the end of the office desk. it was still longer before any one attended her. "please, sir!" she burst out. "see if di deacon has put her name on your book." her appeal was tremendous, compelling. the young clerk listened to her, showed her where to look in the register. when only strange names and strange writing presented themselves there, he said: "tried the parlour?" and directed her kindly and with his thumb, and in the other hand a pen divorced from his ear for the express purpose. in crossing the lobby in the hotel at savannah, georgia, lulu's most pressing problem had been to know where to look. but now the idlers in the hess house lobby did not exist. in time she found the door of the intensely rose-coloured reception room. there, in a fat, rose-coloured chair, beside a cataract of lace curtain, sat di, alone. lulu entered. she had no idea what to say. when di looked up, started up, frowned, lulu felt as if she herself were the culprit. she said the first thing that occurred to her: "i don't believe mamma'll like your taking her nice satchel." "well!" said di, exactly as if she had been at home. and superadded: "my goodness!" and then cried rudely: "what are you here for?" "for you," said lulu. "you--you--you'd ought not to be here, di." "what's that to you?" di cried. "why, di, you're just a little girl----" lulu saw that this was all wrong, and stopped miserably. how was she to go on? "di," she said, "if you and bobby want to get married, why not let us get you up a nice wedding at home?" and she saw that this sounded as if she were talking about a tea-party. "who said we wanted to be married?" "well, he's here." "who said he's here?" "isn't he?" di sprang up. "aunt lulu," she said, "you're a funny person to be telling _me_ what to do." lulu said, flushing: "i love you just the same as if i was married happy, in a home." "well, you aren't!" cried di cruelly, "and i'm going to do just as i think best." lulu thought this over, her look grave and sad. she tried to find something to say. "what do people say to people," she wondered, "when it's like this?" "getting married is for your whole life," was all that came to her. "yours wasn't," di flashed at her. lulu's colour deepened, but there seemed to be no resentment in her. she must deal with this right--that was what her manner seemed to say. and how should she deal? "di," she cried, "come back with me--and wait till mamma and papa get home." "that's likely. they say i'm not to be married till i'm twenty-one." "well, but how young that is!" "it is to you." "di! this is wrong--it _is_ wrong." "there's nothing wrong about getting married--if you stay married." "well, then it can't be wrong to let them know." "it isn't. but they'd treat me wrong. they'd make me stay at home. and i won't stay at home--i won't stay there. they act as if i was ten years old." abruptly in lulu's face there came a light of understanding. "why, di," she said, "do you feel that way too?" di missed this. she went on: "i'm grown up. i feel just as grown up as they do. and i'm not allowed to do a thing i feel. i want to be away--i will be away!" "i know about that part," lulu said. she now looked at di with attention. was it possible that di was suffering in the air of that home as she herself suffered? she had not thought of that. there di had seemed so young, so dependent, so--asquirm. here, by herself, waiting for bobby, in the hess house at millton, she was curiously adult. would she be adult if she were let alone? "you don't know what it's like," di cried, "to be hushed up and laughed at and paid no attention to, everything you say." "don't i?" said lulu. "don't i?" she was breathing quickly and looking at di. if _this_ was why di was leaving home.... "but, di," she cried, "do you love bobby larkin?" by this di was embarrassed. "i've got to marry somebody," she said, "and it might as well be him." "but is it him?" "yes, it is," said di. "but," she added, "i know i could love almost anybody real nice that was nice to me." and this she said, not in her own right, but either she had picked it up somewhere and adopted it, or else the terrible modernity and honesty of her day somehow spoke through her, for its own. but to lulu it was as if something familiar turned its face to be recognised. "di!" she cried. "it's true. you ought to know that." she waited for a moment. "you did it," she added. "mamma said so." at this onslaught lulu was stupefied. for she began to perceive its truth. "i know what i want to do, i guess," di muttered, as if to try to cover what she had said. up to that moment, lulu had been feeling intensely that she understood di, but that di did not know this. now lulu felt that she and di actually shared some unsuspected sisterhood. it was not only that they were both badgered by dwight. it was more than that. they were two women. and she must make di know that she understood her. "di," lulu said, breathing hard, "what you just said is true, i guess. don't you think i don't know. and now i'm going to tell you--" she might have poured it all out, claimed her kinship with di by virtue of that which had happened in savannah, georgia. but di said: "here come some ladies. and goodness, look at the way you look!" lulu glanced down. "i know," she said, "but i guess you'll have to put up with me." the two women entered, looked about with the complaisance of those who examine a hotel property, find criticism incumbent, and have no errand. these two women had outdressed their occasion. in their presence di kept silence, turned away her head, gave them to know that she had nothing to do with this blue cotton person beside her. when they had gone on, "what do you mean by my having to put up with you?" di asked sharply. "i mean i'm going to stay with you." di laughed scornfully--she was again the rebellious child. "i guess bobby'll have something to say about that," she said insolently. "they left you in my charge." "but i'm not a baby--the idea, aunt lulu!" "i'm going to stay right with you," said lulu. she wondered what she should do if di suddenly marched away from her, through that bright lobby and into the street. she thought miserably that she must follow. and then her whole concern for the ethics of di's course was lost in her agonised memory of her terrible, broken shoes. di did not march away. she turned her back squarely upon lulu, and looked out of the window. for her life lulu could think of nothing more to say. she was now feeling miserably on the defensive. they were sitting in silence when bobby larkin came into the room. four bobby larkins there were, in immediate succession. the bobby who had just come down the street was distinctly perturbed, came hurrying, now and then turned to the left when he met folk, glanced sidewise here and there, was altogether anxious and ill at ease. the bobby who came through the hotel was a bobby who had on an importance assumed for the crisis of threading the lobby--a bobby who wished it to be understood that here he was, a man among men, in the hess house at millton. the bobby who entered the little rose room was the bobby who was no less than overwhelmed with the stupendous character of the adventure upon which he found himself. the bobby who incredibly came face to face with lulu was the real bobby into whose eyes leaped instant, unmistakable relief. di flew to meet him. she assumed all the pretty agitations of her rôle, ignored lulu. "bobby! is it all right?" bobby looked over her head. "miss lulu," he said fatuously. "if it ain't miss lulu." he looked from her to di, and did not take in di's resigned shrug. "bobby," said di, "she's come to stop us getting married, but she can't. i've told her so." "she don't have to stop us," quoth bobby gloomily, "we're stopped." "what do you mean?" di laid one hand flatly along her cheek, instinctive in her melodrama. bobby drew down his brows, set his hand on his leg, elbow out. "we're minors," said he. "well, gracious, you didn't have to tell them that." "no. they knew _i_ was." "but, silly! why didn't you tell them you're not?" "but i am." di stared. "for pity sakes," she said, "don't you know how to do anything?" "what would you have me do?" he inquired indignantly, with his head held very stiff, and with a boyish, admirable lift of chin. "why, tell them we're both twenty-one. we look it. we know we're responsible--that's all they care for. well, you are a funny...." "you wanted me to lie?" he said. "oh, don't make out you never told a fib." "well, but this--" he stared at her. "i never heard of such a thing," di cried accusingly. "anyhow," he said, "there's nothing to do now. the cat's out. i've told our ages. we've got to have our folks in on it." "is that all you can think of?" she demanded. "what else?" "why, come on to bainbridge or holt, and tell them we're of age, and be married there." "di," said bobby, "why, that'd be a rotten go." di said, oh very well, if he didn't want to marry her. he replied stonily that of course he wanted to marry her. di stuck out her little hand. she was at a disadvantage. she could use no arts, with lulu sitting there, looking on. "well, then, come on to bainbridge," di cried, and rose. lulu was thinking: "what shall i say? i don't know what to say. i don't know what i can say." now she also rose, and laughed awkwardly. "i've told di," she said to bobby, "that wherever you two go, i'm going too. di's folks left her in my care, you know. so you'll have to take me along, i guess." she spoke in a manner of distinct apology. at this bobby had no idea what to reply. he looked down miserably at the carpet. his whole manner was a mute testimony to his participation in the eternal query: how did i get into it? "bobby," said di, "are you going to let her lead you home?" this of course nettled him, but not in the manner on which di had counted. he said loudly: "i'm not going to bainbridge or holt or any town and lie, to get you or any other girl." di's head lifted, tossed, turned from him. "you're about as much like a man in a story," she said, "as--as papa is." the two idly inspecting women again entered the rose room, this time to stay. they inspected lulu too. and lulu rose and stood between the lovers. "hadn't we all better get the four-thirty to warbleton?" she said, and swallowed. "oh, if bobby wants to back out--" said di. "i don't want to back out," bobby contended furiously, "b-b-but i won't--" "come on, aunt lulu," said di grandly. bobby led the way through the lobby, di followed, and lulu brought up the rear. she walked awkwardly, eyes down, her hands stiffly held. heads turned to look at her. they passed into the street. "you two go ahead," said lulu, "so they won't think--" they did so, and she followed, and did not know where to look, and thought of her broken shoes. at the station, bobby put them on the train and stepped back. he had, he said, something to see to there in millton. di did not look at him. and lulu's good-bye spoke her genuine regret for all. "aunt lulu," said di, "you needn't think i'm going to sit with you. you look as if you were crazy. i'll sit back here." "all right, di," said lulu humbly. * * * * * it was nearly six o'clock when they arrived at the deacons'. mrs. bett stood on the porch, her hands rolled in her apron. "surprise for you!" she called brightly. before they had reached the door, ina bounded from the hall. "darling!" she seized upon di, kissed her loudly, drew back from her, saw the travelling bag. "my new bag!" she cried. "di! what have you got that for?" in any embarrassment di's instinctive defence was hearty laughter. she now laughed heartily, kissed her mother again, and ran up the stairs. lulu slipped by her sister, and into the kitchen. "well, where have _you_ been?" cried ina. "i declare, i never saw such a family. mamma don't know anything and neither of you will tell anything." "mamma knows a-plenty," snapped mrs. bett. monona, who was eating a sticky gift, jumped stiffly up and down. "you'll catch it--you'll catch it!" she sent out her shrill general warning. mrs. bett followed lulu to the kitchen; "i didn't tell inie about her bag and now she says i don't know nothing," she complained. "there i knew about the bag the hull time, but i wasn't going to tell her and spoil her gettin' home." she banged the stove-griddle. "i've a good notion not to eat a mouthful o' supper," she announced. "mother, please!" said lulu passionately. "stay here. help me. i've got enough to get through to-night." dwight had come home. lulu could hear ina pouring out to him the mysterious circumstance of the bag, could hear the exaggerated air of the casual with which he always received the excitement of another, and especially of his ina. then she heard ina's feet padding up the stairs, and after that di's shrill, nervous laughter. lulu felt a pang of pity for di, as if she herself were about to face them. there was not time both to prepare supper and to change the blue cotton dress. in that dress lulu was pouring water when dwight entered the dining-room. "ah!" said he. "our festive ball-gown." she gave him her hand, with her peculiar sweetness of expression--almost as if she were sorry for him or were bidding him good-bye. "_that_ shows who you dress for!" he cried. "you dress for me; ina, aren't you jealous? lulu dresses for me!" ina had come in with di, and both were excited, and ina's head was moving stiffly, as in all her indignations. mrs. bett had thought better of it and had given her presence. already monona was singing. "lulu," said dwight, "really? can't you run up and slip on another dress?" lulu sat down in her place. "no," she said. "i'm too tired. i'm sorry, dwight." "it seems to me--" he began. "i don't want any," said monona. but no one noticed monona, and ina did not defer even to dwight. she, who measured delicate, troy occasions by avoirdupois, said brightly: "now, di. you must tell us all about it. where had you and aunt lulu been with mamma's new bag?" "aunt lulu!" cried dwight. "a-ha! so aunt lulu was along. well now, that alters it." "how does it?" asked his ina crossly. "why, when aunt lulu goes on a jaunt," said dwight herbert, "events begin to event." "come, di, let's hear," said ina. "ina," said lulu, "first can't we hear something about your visit? how is----" her eyes consulted dwight. his features dropped, the lines of his face dropped, its muscles seemed to sag. a look of suffering was in his eyes. "she'll never be any better," he said. "i know we've said good-bye to her for the last time." "oh, dwight!" said lulu. "she knew it too," he said. "it--it put me out of business, i can tell you. she gave me my start--she took all the care of me--taught me to read--she's the only mother i ever knew----" he stopped, and opened his eyes wide on account of their dimness. "they said she was like another person while dwight was there," said ina, and entered upon a length of particulars, and details of the journey. these details dwight interrupted: couldn't lulu remember that he liked sage on the chops? he could hardly taste it. he had, he said, told her this thirty-seven times. and when she said that she was sorry, "perhaps you think i'm sage enough," said the witty fellow. "dwightie!" said ina. "mercy." she shook her head at him. "now, di," she went on, keeping the thread all this time. "tell us your story. about the bag." "oh, mamma," said di, "let me eat my supper." "and so you shall, darling. tell it in your own way. tell us first what you've done since we've been away. did mr. cornish come to see you?" "yes," said di, and flashed a look at lulu. but eventually they were back again before that new black bag. and di would say nothing. she laughed, squirmed, grew irritable, laughed again. "lulu!" ina demanded. "you were with her--where in the world had you been? why, but you couldn't have been with her--in that dress. and yet i saw you come in the gate together." "what!" cried dwight herbert, drawing down his brows. "you certainly did not so far forget us, lulu, as to go on the street in that dress?" "it's a good dress," mrs. bett now said positively. "of course it's a good dress. lulie wore it on the street--of course she did. she was gone a long time. i made me a cup o' tea, and _then_ she hadn't come." "well," said ina, "i never heard anything like this before. where were you both?" one would say that ina had entered into the family and been born again, identified with each one. nothing escaped her. dwight, too, his intimacy was incredible. "put an end to this, lulu," he commanded. "where were you two--since you make such a mystery?" di's look at lulu was piteous, terrified. di's fear of her father was now clear to lulu. and lulu feared him too. abruptly she heard herself temporising, for the moment making common cause with di. "oh," she said, "we have a little secret. can't we have a secret if we want one?" "upon my word," dwight commented, "she has a beautiful secret. i don't know about your secrets, lulu." every time that he did this, that fleet, lifted look of lulu's seemed to bleed. "i'm glad for my dinner," remarked monona at last. "please excuse me." on that they all rose. lulu stayed in the kitchen and did her best to make her tasks indefinitely last. she had nearly finished when di burst in. "aunt lulu, aunt lulu!" she cried. "come in there--come. i can't stand it. what am i going to do?" "di, dear," said lulu. "tell your mother--you must tell her." "she'll cry," di sobbed. "then she'll tell papa--and he'll never stop talking about it. i know him--every day he'll keep it going. after he scolds me it'll be a joke for months. i'll die--i'll die, aunt lulu." ina's voice sounded in the kitchen. "what are you two whispering about? i declare, mamma's hurt, di, at the way you're acting...." "let's go out on the porch," said lulu, and when di would have escaped, ina drew her with them, and handled the situation in the only way that she knew how to handle it, by complaining: well, but what in this world.... lulu threw a white shawl about her blue cotton dress. "a bridal robe," said dwight. "how's that, lulu--what are _you_ wearing a bridal robe for--eh?" she smiled dutifully. there was no need to make him angry, she reflected, before she must. he had not yet gone into the parlour--had not yet asked for his mail. it was a warm dusk, moonless, windless. the sounds of the village street came in--laughter, a touch at a piano, a chiming clock. lights starred and quickened in the blurred houses. footsteps echoed on the board walks. the gate opened. the gloom yielded up cornish. lulu was inordinately glad to see him. to have the strain of the time broken by him was like hearing, on a lonely whiter wakening, the clock strike reassuring dawn. "lulu," said dwight low, "your dress. do go!" lulu laughed. "the bridal shawl takes off the curse," she said. cornish, in his gentle way, asked about the journey, about the sick woman--and dwight talked of her again, and this time his voice broke. di was curiously silent. when cornish addressed her, she replied simply and directly--the rarest of di's manners, in fact not di's manner at all. lulu spoke not at all--it was enough to have this respite. after a little the gate opened again. it was bobby. in the besetting fear that he was leaving di to face something alone, bobby had arrived. and now di's spirits rose. to her his presence meant repentance, recapitulation. her laugh rang out, her replies came archly. but bobby was plainly not playing up. bobby was, in fact, hardly less than glum. it was dwight, the irrepressible fellow, who kept the talk going. and it was no less than deft, his continuously displayed ability playfully to pierce lulu. some one had "married at the drop of the hat. you know the kind of girl?" and some one "made up a likely story to soothe her own pride--you know how they do that?" "well," said ina, "my part, i think _the_ most awful thing is to have somebody one loves keep secrets from one. no wonder folks get crabbed and spiteful with such treatment." "mamma!" monona shouted from her room. "come and hear me say my prayers!" monona entered this request with precision on ina's nastiest moments, but she always rose, unabashed, and went, motherly and dutiful, to hear devotions, as if that function and the process of living ran their two divided channels. she had dispatched this errand and was returning when mrs. bett crossed the lawn from grandma gates's, where the old lady had taken comfort in mrs. bett's ministrations for an hour. "don't you help me," mrs. bett warned them away sharply. "i guess i can help myself yet awhile." she gained her chair. and still in her momentary rule of attention, she said clearly: "i got a joke. grandma gates says it's all over town di and bobby larkin eloped off together to-day. _he_!" the last was a single note of laughter, high and brief. the silence fell. "what nonsense!" dwight herbert said angrily. but ina said tensely: "_is_ it nonsense? haven't i been trying and trying to find out where the black satchel went? di!" di's laughter rose, but it sounded thin and false. "listen to that, bobby," she said. "listen!" "that won't do, di," said ina. "you can't deceive mamma and don't you try!" her voice trembled, she was frantic with loving and authentic anxiety, but she was without power, she overshadowed the real gravity of the moment by her indignation. "mrs. deacon----" began bobby, and stood up, very straight and manly before them all. but dwight intervened, dwight, the father, the master of his house. here was something requiring him to act. so the father set his face like a mask and brought down his hand on the rail of the porch. it was as if the sound shattered a thousand filaments--where? "diana!" his voice was terrible, demanded a response, ravened among them. "yes, papa," said di, very small. "answer your mother. answer _me_. is there anything to this absurd tale?" "no, papa," said di, trembling. "nothing whatever?" "nothing whatever." "can you imagine how such a ridiculous report started?" "no, papa." "very well. now we know where we are. if anyone hears this report repeated, send them to _me_." "well, but that satchel--" said ina, to whom an idea manifested less as a function than as a leech. "one moment," said dwight. "lulu will of course verify what the child has said." there had never been an adult moment until that day when lulu had not instinctively taken the part of the parents, of all parents. now she saw dwight's cruelty to her as his cruelty to di; she saw ina, herself a child in maternity, as ignorant of how to deal with the moment as was dwight. she saw di's falseness partly parented by these parents. she burned at the enormity of dwight's appeal to her for verification. she threw up her head and no one had ever seen lulu look like this. "if you cannot settle this with di," said lulu, "you cannot settle it with me." "a shifty answer," said dwight. "you have a genius at misrepresenting facts, you know, lulu." "bobby wanted to say something," said ina, still troubled. "no, mrs. deacon," said bobby, low. "i have nothing--more to say." in a little while, when bobby went away, di walked with him to the gate. it was as if, the worst having happened to her, she dared everything now. "bobby," she said, "you hate a lie. but what else could i do?" he could not see her, could see only the little moon of her face, blurring. "and anyhow," said di, "it wasn't a lie. we _didn't_ elope, did we?" "what do you think i came for to-night?" asked bobby. the day had aged him; he spoke like a man. his very voice came gruffly. but she saw nothing, softened to him, yielded, was ready to take his regret that they had not gone on. "well, i came for one thing," said bobby, "to tell you that i couldn't stand for your wanting me to lie to-day. why, di--i hate a lie. and now to-night--" he spoke his code almost beautifully. "i'd rather," he said, "they had never let us see each other again than to lose you the way i've lost you now." "bobby!" "it's true. we mustn't talk about it." "bobby! i'll go back and tell them all." "you can't go back," said bobby. "not out of a thing like that." she stood staring after him. she heard some one coming and she turned toward the house, and met cornish leaving. "miss di," he cried, "if you're going to elope with anybody, remember it's with me!" her defence was ready--her laughter rang out so that the departing bobby might hear. she came back to the steps and mounted slowly in the lamplight, a little white thing with whom birth had taken exquisite pains. "if," she said, "if you have any fear that i may ever elope with bobby larkin, let it rest. i shall never marry him if he asks me fifty times a day." "really, darling?" cried ina. "really and truly," said di, "and he knows it, too." lulu listened and read all. "i wondered," said ina pensively, "i wondered if you wouldn't see that bobby isn't much beside that nice mr. cornish!" when di had gone upstairs, ina said to lulu in a manner of cajoling confidence: "sister----" she rarely called her that, "_why_ did you and di have the black bag?" so that after all it was a relief to lulu to hear dwight ask casually: "by the way, lulu, haven't i got some mail somewhere about?" "there are two letters on the parlour table," lulu answered. to ina she added: "let's go in the parlour." as they passed through the hall, mrs. bett was going up the stairs to bed--when she mounted stairs she stooped her shoulders, bunched her extremities, and bent her head. lulu looked after her, as if she were half minded to claim the protection so long lost. dwight lighted the gas. "better turn down the gas jest a little," said he, tirelessly. lulu handed him the two letters. he saw ninian's writing and looked up, said "a-ha!" and held it while he leisurely read the advertisement of dental furniture, his ina reading over his shoulder. "a-ha!" he said again, and with designed deliberation turned to ninian's letter. "an epistle from my dear brother ninian." the words failed, as he saw the unsealed flap. "you opened the letter?" he inquired incredulously. fortunately he had no climaxes of furious calm for high occasions. all had been used on small occasions. "you opened the letter" came in a tone of no deeper horror than "you picked the flower"--once put to lulu. she said nothing. as it is impossible to continue looking indignantly at some one who is not looking at you, dwight turned to ina, who was horror and sympathy, a nice half and half. "your sister has been opening my mail," he said. "but, dwight, if it's from ninian--" "it is _my_ mail," he reminded her. "she had asked me if she might open it. of course i told her no." "well," said ina practically, "what does he say?" "i shall open the letter in my own time. my present concern is this disregard of my wishes." his self-control was perfect, ridiculous, devilish. he was self-controlled because thus he could be more effectively cruel than in temper. "what excuse have you to offer?" lulu was not looking at him. "none," she said--not defiantly, or ingratiatingly, or fearfully. merely, "none." "why did you do it?" she smiled faintly and shook her head. "dwight," said ina, reasonably, "she knows what's in it and we don't. hurry up." "she is," said dwight, after a pause, "an ungrateful woman." he opened the letter, saw the clipping, the avowal, with its facts. "a-ha!" said he. "so after having been absent with my brother for a month, you find that you were _not_ married to him." lulu spoke her exceeding triumph. "you see, dwight," she said, "he told the truth. he had another wife. he didn't just leave me." dwight instantly cried: "but this seems to me to make you considerably worse off than if he had." "oh, no," lulu said serenely. "no. why," she said, "you know how it all came about. he--he was used to thinking of his wife as dead. if he hadn't--hadn't liked me, he wouldn't have told me. you see that, don't you?" dwight laughed. "that your apology?" he asked. she said nothing. "look here, lulu," he went on, "this is a bad business. the less you say about it the better, for all our sakes--_you_ see that, don't you?" "see that? why, no. i wanted you to write to him so i could tell the truth. you said i mustn't tell the truth till i had the proofs ..." "tell who?" "tell everybody. i want them to know." "then you care nothing for our feelings in this matter?" she looked at him now. "your feeling?" "it's nothing to you that we have a brother who's a bigamist?" "but it's me--it's me." "you! you're completely out of it. just let it rest as it is and it'll drop." "i want the people to know the truth," lulu said. "but it's nobody's business but our business! i take it you don't intend to sue ninian?" "sue him? oh no!" "then, for all our sakes, let's drop the matter." lulu had fallen in one of her old attitudes, tense, awkward, her hands awkwardly placed, her feet twisted. she kept putting a lock back of her ear, she kept swallowing. "tell you, lulu," said dwight. "here are three of us. our interests are the same in this thing--only ninian is our relative and he's nothing to you now. is he?" "why, no," said lulu in surprise. "very well. let's have a vote. your snap judgment is to tell this disgraceful fact broadcast. mine is, least said, soonest mended. what do you say, ina--considering di and all?" "oh, goodness," said ina, "if we get mixed up with bigamy, we'll never get away from it. why, i wouldn't have it told for worlds." still in that twisted position, lulu looked up at her. her straying hair, her parted lips, her lifted eyes were singularly pathetic. "my poor, poor sister!" ina said. she struck together her little plump hands. "oh, dwight--when i think of it: what have i done--what have _we_ done that i should have a good, kind, loving husband--be so protected, so loved, when other women.... darling!" she sobbed, and drew near to lulu. "you _know_ how sorry i am--we all are...." lulu stood up. the white shawl slipped to the floor. her hands were stiffly joined. "then," she said, "give me the only thing i've got--that's my pride. my pride--that he didn't want to get rid of me." they stared at her. "what about _my_ pride?" dwight called to her, as across great distances. "do you think i want everybody to know my brother did a thing like that?" "you can't help that," said lulu. "but i want you to help it. i want you to promise me that you won't shame us like this before all our friends." "you want me to promise what?" "i want you--i ask you," dwight said with an effort, "to promise me that you will keep this, with us--a family secret." "no!" lulu cried. "no. i won't do it! i won't do it! i won't do it!" it was like some crude chant, knowing only two tones. she threw out her hands, her wrists long and dark on her blue skirt. "can't you understand anything?" she asked. "i've lived here all my life--on your money. i've not been strong enough to work, they say--well, but i've been strong enough to be a hired girl in your house--and i've been glad to pay for my keep.... but there wasn't anything about it i liked. nothing about being here that i liked.... well, then i got a little something, same as other folks. i thought i was married and i went off on the train and he bought me things and i saw the different towns. and then it was all a mistake. i didn't have any of it. i came back here and went into your kitchen again--i don't know why i came back. i s'pose because i'm most thirty-four and new things ain't so easy any more--but what have i got or what'll i ever have? and now you want to put on to me having folks look at me and think he run off and left me, and having 'em all wonder.... i can't stand it. i can't stand it. i can't...." "you'd rather they'd know he fooled you, when he had another wife?" dwight sneered. "yes! because he wanted me. how do i know--maybe he wanted me only just because he was lonesome, the way i was. i don't care why! and i won't have folks think he went and left me." "that," said dwight, "is a wicked vanity." "that's the truth. well, why can't they know the truth?" "and bring disgrace on us all." "it's me--it's me----" lulu's individualism strove against that terrible tribal sense, was shattered by it. "it's all of us!" dwight boomed. "it's di." "_di?_" he had lulu's eyes now. "why, it's chiefly on di's account that i'm talking," said dwight. "how would it hurt di?" "to have a thing like that in the family? well, can't you see how it'd hurt her?" "would it, ina? would it hurt di?" "why, it would shame her--embarrass her--make people wonder what kind of stock she came from--oh," ina sobbed, "my pure little girl!" "hurt her prospects, of course," said dwight. "anybody could see that." "i s'pose it would," said lulu. she clasped her arms tightly, awkwardly, and stepped about the floor, her broken shoes showing beneath her cotton skirt. "when a family once gets talked about for any reason----" said ina and shuddered. "i'm talked about now!" "but nothing that you could help. if he got tired of you, you couldn't help that." this misstep was dwight's. "no," lulu said, "i couldn't help that. and i couldn't help his other wife, either." "bigamy," said dwight, "that's a crime." "i've done no crime," said lulu. "bigamy," said dwight, "disgraces everybody it touches." "even di," lulu said. "lulu," said dwight, "on di's account will you promise us to let this thing rest with us three?" "i s'pose so," said lulu quietly. "you will?" "i s'pose so." ina sobbed: "thank you, thank you, lulu. this makes up for everything." lulu was thinking: "di has a hard enough time as it is." aloud she said: "i told mr. cornish, but he won't tell." "i'll see to that," dwight graciously offered. "goodness," ina said, "so he knows. well, that settles----" she said no more. "you'll be happy to think you've done this for us, lulu," said dwight. "i s'pose so," said lulu. ina, pink from her little gust of sobbing, went to her, kissed her, her trim tan tailor suit against lulu's blue cotton. "my sweet, self-sacrificing sister," she murmured. "oh stop that!" lulu said. dwight took her hand, lying limply in his. "i can now," he said, "overlook the matter of the letter." lulu drew back. she put her hair behind her ears, swallowed, and cried out. "don't you go around pitying me! i'll have you know i'm glad the whole thing happened!" * * * * * cornish had ordered six new copies of a popular song. he knew that it was popular because it was called so in a chicago paper. when the six copies arrived with a danseuse on the covers he read the "words," looked wistfully at the symbols which shut him out, and felt well pleased. "got up quite attractive," he thought, and fastened the six copies in the window of his music store. it was not yet nine o'clock of a vivid morning. cornish had his floor and sidewalk sprinkled, his red and blue plush piano spreads dusted. he sat at a folding table well back in the store, and opened a law book. for half an hour he read. then he found himself looking off the page, stabbed by a reflection which always stabbed him anew: was he really getting anywhere with his law? and where did he really hope to get? of late when he awoke at night this question had stood by the cot, waiting. the cot had appeared there in the back of the music-store, behind a dark sateen curtain with too few rings on the wire. how little else was in there, nobody knew. but those passing in the late evening saw the blur of his kerosene lamp behind that curtain and were smitten by a realistic illusion of personal loneliness. it was behind that curtain that these unreasoning questions usually attacked him, when his giant, wavering shadow had died upon the wall and the faint smell of the extinguished lamp went with him to his bed; or when he waked before any sign of dawn. in the mornings all was cheerful and wonted--the question had not before attacked him among his red and blue plush spreads, his golden oak and ebony cases, of a sunshiny morning. a step at his door set him flying. he wanted passionately to sell a piano. "well!" he cried, when he saw his visitor. it was lulu, in her dark red suit and her tilted hat. "well!" she also said, and seemed to have no idea of saying anything else. her excitement was so obscure that he did not discern it. "you're out early," said he, participating in the village chorus of this bright challenge at this hour. "oh, no," said lulu. he looked out the window, pretending to be caught by something passing, leaned to see it the better. "oh, how'd you get along last night?" he asked, and wondered why he had not thought to say it before. "all right, thank you," said lulu. "was he--about the letter, you know?" "yes," she said, "but that didn't matter. you'll be sure," she added, "not to say anything about what was in the letter?" "why, not till you tell me i can," said cornish, "but won't everybody know now?" "no," lulu said. at this he had no more to say, and feeling his speculation in his eyes, dropped them to a piano scarf from which he began flicking invisible specks. "i came to tell you good-bye," lulu said. "_good-bye!_" "yes. i'm going off--for a while. my satchel's in the bakery--i had my breakfast in the bakery." "say!" cornish cried warmly, "then everything _wasn't_ all right last night?" "as right as it can ever be with me," she told him. "oh, yes. dwight forgave me." "forgave you!" she smiled, and trembled. "look here," said cornish, "you come here and sit down and tell me about this." he led her to the folding table, as the only social spot in that vast area of his, seated her in the one chair, and for himself brought up a piano stool. but after all she told him nothing. she merely took the comfort of his kindly indignation. "it came out all right," she said only. "but i won't stay there any more. i can't do that." "then what are you going to do?" "in millton yesterday," she said, "i saw an advertisement in the hotel--they wanted a chambermaid." "oh, miss bett!" he cried. at that name she flushed. "why," said cornish, "you must have been coming from millton yesterday when i saw you. i noticed miss di had her bag--" he stopped, stared. "you brought her back!" he deduced everything. "oh!" said lulu. "oh, no--i mean--" "i heard about the eloping again this morning," he said. "that's just what you did--you brought her back." "you mustn't tell that! you won't? you won't!" "no. 'course not." he mulled it. "you tell me this: do they know? i mean about your going after her?" "no." "you never told!" "they don't know she went." "that's a funny thing," he blurted out, "for you not to tell her folks--i mean, right off. before last night...." "you don't know them. dwight'd never let up on that--he'd _joke_ her about it after a while." "but it seems--" "ina'd talk about disgracing _her_. they wouldn't know what to do. there's no sense in telling them. they aren't a mother and father," lulu said. cornish was not accustomed to deal with so much reality. but lulu's reality he could grasp. "you're a trump anyhow," he affirmed. "oh, no," said lulu modestly. yes, she was. he insisted upon it. "by george," he exclaimed, "you don't find very many _married_ women with as good sense as you've got." at this, just as he was agonising because he had seemed to refer to the truth that she was, after all, not married, at this lulu laughed in some amusement, and said nothing. "you've been a jewel in their home all right," said cornish. "i bet they'll miss you if you do go." "they'll miss my cooking," lulu said without bitterness. "they'll miss more than that, i know. i've often watched you there--" "you have?" it was not so much pleasure as passionate gratitude which lighted her eyes. "you made the whole place," said cornish. "you don't mean just the cooking?" "no, no. i mean--well, that first night when you played croquet. i felt at home when you came out." that look of hers, rarely seen, which was no less than a look of loveliness, came now to lulu's face. after a pause she said: "i never had but one compliment before that wasn't for my cooking." she seemed to feel that she must confess to that one. "he told me i done my hair up nice." she added conscientiously: "that was after i took notice how the ladies in savannah, georgia, done up theirs." "well, well," said cornish only. "well," said lulu, "i must be going now. i wanted to say good-bye to you--and there's one or two other places...." "i hate to have you go," said cornish, and tried to add something. "i hate to have you go," was all that he could find to add. lulu rose. "oh, well," was all that she could find. they shook hands, lulu laughing a little. cornish followed her to the door. he had begun on "look here, i wish ..." when lulu said "good-bye," and paused, wishing intensely to know what he would have said. but all that he said was: "good-bye. i wish you weren't going." "so do i," said lulu, and went, still laughing. cornish saw her red dress vanish from his door, flash by his window, her head averted. and there settled upon him a depression out of all proportion to the slow depression of his days. this was more--it assailed him, absorbed him. he stood staring out the window. some one passed with a greeting of which he was conscious too late to return. he wandered back down the store and his pianos looked back at him like strangers. down there was the green curtain which screened his home life. he suddenly hated that green curtain. he hated this whole place. for the first time it occurred to him that he hated warbleton. he came back to his table, and sat down before his lawbook. but he sat, chin on chest, regarding it. no ... no escape that way.... a step at the door and he sprang up. it was lulu, coming toward him, her face unsmiling but somehow quite lighted. in her hand was a letter. "see," she said. "at the office was this...." she thrust in his hand the single sheet. he read: " ... just wanted you to know you're actually rid of me. i've heard from her, in brazil. she ran out of money and thought of me, and her lawyer wrote to me.... i've never been any good--dwight would tell you that if his pride would let him tell the truth once in a while. but there ain't anything in my life makes me feel as bad as this.... i s'pose you couldn't understand and i don't myself.... only the sixteen years keeping still made me think she was gone sure ... but you were so downright good, that's what was the worst ... do you see what i want to say ..." cornish read it all and looked at lulu. she was grave and in her eyes there was a look of dignity such as he had never seen them wear. incredible dignity. "he didn't lie to get rid of me--and she was alive, just as he thought she might be," she said. "i'm glad," said cornish. "yes," said lulu. "he isn't quite so bad as dwight tried to make him out." it was not of this that cornish had been thinking. "now you're free," he said. "oh, that ..." said lulu. she replaced her letter in its envelope. "now i'm really going," she said. "good-bye for sure this time...." her words trailed away. cornish had laid his hand on her arm. "don't say good-bye," he said. "it's late," she said, "i--" "don't you go," said cornish. she looked at him mutely. "do you think you could possibly stay here with me?" "oh!" said lulu, like no word. he went on, not looking at her. "i haven't got anything. i guess maybe you've heard something about a little something i'm supposed to inherit. well, it's only five hundred dollars." his look searched her face, but she hardly heard what he was saying. "that little warden house--it don't cost much--you'd be surprised. rent, i mean. i can get it now. i went and looked at it the other day, but then i didn't think--" he caught himself on that. "it don't cost near as much as this store. we could furnish up the parlour with pianos--" he was startled by that "we," and began again: "that is, if you could ever think of such a thing as marrying me." "but," said lulu. "you _know_! why, don't the disgrace--" "what disgrace?" asked cornish. "oh," she said, "you--you----" "there's only this about that," said he. "of course, if you loved him very much, then i'd ought not to be talking this way to you. but i didn't think--" "you didn't think what?" "that you did care so very much--about him. i don't know why." she said: "i wanted somebody of my own. that's the reason i done what i done. i know that now." "i figured that way," said cornish. they dismissed it. but now he brought to bear something which he saw that she should know. "look here," he said, "i'd ought to tell you. i'm--i'm awful lonesome myself. this is no place to live. and i guess living so is one reason why i want to get married. i want some kind of a home." he said it as a confession. she accepted it as a reason. "of course," she said. "i ain't never lived what you might say private," said cornish. "i've lived too private," lulu said. "then there's another thing." this was harder to tell her. "i--i don't believe i'm ever going to be able to do a thing with law." "i don't see," said lulu, "how anybody does." "i'm not much good in a business way," he owned, with a faint laugh. "sometimes i think," he drew down his brows, "that i may never be able to make any money." she said: "lots of men don't." "could you risk it with me?" cornish asked her. "there's nobody i've seen," he went on gently, "that i like as much as i do you. i--i was engaged to a girl once, but we didn't get along. i guess if you'd be willing to try me, we would get along." lulu said: "i thought it was di that you--" "miss di? why," said cornish, "she's a little kid. and," he added, "she's a little liar." "but i'm going on thirty-four." "so am i!" "isn't there somebody--" "look here. do you like me?" "oh, yes!" "well enough--" "it's you i was thinking of," said lulu. "i'd be all right." "then!" cornish cried, and he kissed her. * * * * * "and now," said dwight, "nobody must mind if i hurry a little wee bit. i've got something on." he and ina and monona were at dinner. mrs. bett was in her room. di was not there. "anything about lulu?" ina asked. "lulu?" dwight stared. "why should i have anything to do about lulu?" "well, but, dwight--we've got to do something." "as i told you this morning," he observed, "we shall do nothing. your sister is of age--i don't know about the sound mind, but she is certainly of age. if she chooses to go away, she is free to go where she will." "yes, but, dwight, where has she gone? where could she go? where--" "you are a question-box," said dwight playfully. "a question-box." ina had burned her plump wrist on the oven. she lifted her arm and nursed it. "i'm certainly going to miss her if she stays away very long," she remarked. "you should be sufficient unto your little self," said dwight. "that's all right," said ina, "except when you're getting dinner." "i want some crust coffee," announced monona firmly. "you'll have nothing of the sort," said ina. "drink your milk." "as i remarked," dwight went on, "i'm in a tiny wee bit of a hurry." "well, why don't you say what for?" his ina asked. she knew that he wanted to be asked, and she was sufficiently willing to play his games, and besides she wanted to know. but she _was_ hot. "i am going," said dwight, "to take grandma gates out in a wheel-chair, for an hour." "where did you get a wheel-chair, for mercy sakes?" "borrowed it from the railroad company," said dwight, with the triumph peculiar to the resourceful man. "why i never did it before, i can't imagine. there that chair's been in the depot ever since i can remember--saw it every time i took the train--and yet i never once thought of grandma." "my, dwight," said ina, "how good you are!" "nonsense!" said he. "well, you are. why don't i send her over a baked apple? monona, you take grandma gates a baked apple--no. you shan't go till you drink your milk." "i don't want it." "drink it or mamma won't let you go." monona drank it, made a piteous face, took the baked apple, ran. "the apple isn't very good," said ina, "but it shows my good will." "also," said dwight, "it teaches monona a life of thoughtfulness for others." "that's what i always think," his ina said. "can't you get mother to come out?" dwight inquired. "i had so much to do getting dinner onto the table, i didn't try," ina confessed. "you didn't have to try," mrs. bett's voice sounded. "i was coming when i got rested up." she entered, looking vaguely about. "i want lulie," she said, and the corners of her mouth drew down. she ate her dinner cold, appeased in vague areas by such martyrdom. they were still at table when the front door opened. "monona hadn't ought to use the front door so common," mrs. bett complained. but it was not monona. it was lulu and cornish. "well!" said dwight, tone curving downward. "well!" said ina, in replica. "lulie!" said mrs. bett, and left her dinner, and went to her daughter and put her hands upon her. "we wanted to tell you first," cornish said. "we've just got married." "for _ever_ more!" said ina. "what's this?" dwight sprang to his feet. "you're joking!" he cried with hope. "no," cornish said soberly. "we're married--just now. methodist parsonage. we've had our dinner," he added hastily. "where'd you have it?" ina demanded, for no known reason. "the bakery," cornish replied, and flushed. "in the dining-room part," lulu added. dwight's sole emotion was his indignation. "what on earth did you do it for?" he put it to them. "married in a bakery--" no, no. they explained it again. neither of them, they said, wanted the fuss of a wedding. dwight recovered himself in a measure. "i'm not surprised, after all," he said. "lulu usually marries in this way." mrs. bett patted her daughter's arm. "lulie," she said, "why, lulie. you ain't been and got married twice, have you? after waitin' so long?" "don't be disturbed, mother bett," dwight cried. "she wasn't married that first time, if you remember. no marriage about it!" ina's little shriek sounded. "dwight!" she cried. "now everybody'll have to know that. you'll have to tell about ninian now--and his other wife!" standing between her mother and cornish, an arm of each about her, lulu looked across at ina and dwight, and they all saw in her face a horrified realisation. "ina!" she said. "dwight! you _will_ have to tell now, won't you? why i never thought of that." at this dwight sneered, was sneering still as he went to give grandma gates her ride in the wheel-chair and as he stooped with patient kindness to tuck her in. the street door was closed. if mrs. bett was peeping through the blind, no one saw her. in the pleasant mid-day light under the maples, mr. and mrs. neil cornish were hurrying toward the railway station. [frontispice illustration: "come on, smoke, we've gotter go now."] that printer of udell's a story of the middle west by harold bell wright dedication to that friend whose life has taught me many beautiful truths; whose words have strengthened and encouraged me to live more true to my god, my fellows and myself; who hoped for me when others lost hope; who believed in me when others could not; who saw good when others looked for evil; to that friend, whoever he is, wherever he may be, i affectionately dedicate this story. h. b. w. "and the king shall answer and say unto them, verily i say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me." chapter i "o god, take ker' o' dick!--he'll sure have a tough time when i'm gone,--an' i'm er' goin'--mighty fast i reckon.--i know i aint done much ter brag on,--lord,--but i aint had nary show.--i allus 'low'd ter do ye better,--but hit's jes' kept me scratchin'--ter do fer me an' dick,--an' somehow i aint had time--ter sarve--ye like i ought.--an' my man he's most ways--no 'count an' triflin',--lord,--'cepten when he likers up,--an' then,--you know how he uses me an' dick.--but dick, he aint no ways ter blame--fer what his dad an' mammy is,--an' i ax ye--fair,--o lord,--take ker o' him--fer--jesus' sake--amen." "dick!--o dick,--whar are ye honey?" a hollow-cheeked wisp of a boy arose from the dark corner where he had been crouching like a frightened animal, and with cautious steps drew near the bed. timidly he touched the wasted hand that lay upon the dirty coverlid. "what ye want, maw?" the woman hushed her moaning and turned her face, upon which the shadow was already fallen, toward the boy. "i'm er goin'--mighty fast,--dicky," she said, in a voice that was scarcely audible. "whar's yer paw?" bending closer to the face upon the pillow, the lad pointed with trembling finger toward the other end of the cabin and whispered, while his eyes grew big with fear, "sh--, he's full ergin. bin down ter th' stillhouse all evenin'--don't stir him, maw, er we'll git licked some more. tell me what ye want." but his only answer was that broken prayer as the sufferer turned to the wail again. "o lord, take ker o'--" a stick of wood in the fire-place burned in two and fell with a soft thud on the ashes; a lean hound crept stealthily to the boy's side and thrust a cold muzzle against his ragged jacket; in the cupboard a mouse rustled over the rude dishes and among the scanty handful of provisions. then, cursing foully in his sleep, the drunkard stirred uneasily and the dog slunk beneath the bed, while the boy stood shaking with fear until all was still again. reaching out, he touched once more that clammy hand upon the dirty coverlid. no movement answered to his touch. reaching farther, he cautiously laid his fingers upon the ashy-colored temple, awkwardly brushing back a thin lock of the tangled hair. the face, like the hand, was cold. with a look of awe and horror in his eyes, the child caught his parent by the shoulder and shook the lifeless form while he tried again and again to make her hear his whispered words. "maw! maw! wake up; hit'l be day purty soon an' we can go and git some greens; an' i'll take the gig an' kill some fish fer you; the's a big channel cat in the hole jes' above the riffles; i seed 'im ter day when i crost in the john boat. say maw, i done set a dead fall yester'd', d' reckon i'll ketch anythin'? wish't it 'ud be a coon, don't you?--maw! o maw, the meal's most gone. i only made a little pone las' night; thar's some left fer you. shant i fix ye some 'fore dad wakes up?" but there was no answer to his pleading, and, ceasing his efforts, the lad sank on his knees by the rude bed, not daring even to give open expression to his grief lest he arouse the drunken sleeper by the fireplace. for a long time he knelt there, clasping the cold hand of his lifeless mother, until the lean hound crept again to his side, and thrusting that cold muzzle against his cheek, licked the salt tears, that fell so hot. at last, just as the first flush of day stained the eastern sky, and the light tipped the old pine tree on the hill with glory, the boy rose to his feet. placing his hand on the head of his only comforter, he whispered, "come on, smoke, we've gotter go now." and together boy and dog crept softly across the room and stole out of the cabin door--out of the cabin door, into the beautiful light of the new day. and the drunken brute still slept on the floor by the open fire-place, but the fire was dead upon the hearth. "he can't hurt maw any more, smoke," said the lad, when the two were at a safe distance. "no, he sure can't lick her agin, an' me an' you kin rustle fer ourselves, i reckon." * * * * * sixteen years later, in the early gray of another morning, a young man crawled from beneath a stack of straw on the outskirts of boyd city, a busy, bustling mining town of some fifteen thousand people, in one of the middle western states, many miles from the rude cabin that stood beneath the hill. the night before, he had approached the town from the east, along the road that leads past mount olive, and hungry, cold and weary, had sought shelter of the friendly stack, much preferring a bed of straw and the companionship of cattle to any lodging place he might find in the city, less clean and among a ruder company. it was early march and the smoke from a nearby block of smelters was lost in a chilling mist, while a raw wind made the young man shiver as he stood picking the bits of straw from his clothing. when he had brushed his garments as best he could and had stretched his numb and stiffened limbs, he looked long and thoughtfully at the city lying half hidden in its shroud of gray. "i wonder"--he began, talking to himself and thinking grimly of the fifteen cents in his right-hand pants pocket--"i wonder if--" "mornin' pard," said a voice at his elbow. "ruther late when ye got in las' night, warn't it?" the young man jumped, and turning faced a genuine specimen of the genus hobo. "did you sleep in this straw-stack last night?" he ejaculated, after carefully taking the ragged fellow's measure with a practiced eye. "sure; this here's the hotel whar i put up--slept in the room jes' acrost the hall from your'n.--whar ye goin' ter eat?"--with a hungry look. "don't know. did you have any supper last night?" "nope, supper was done et when i got in." "same here." "i didn't have nothin' fer dinner neither," continued the tramp, "an' i'm er gettin' powerful weak." the other thought of his fifteen cents. "where are you going?" he said shortly. the ragged one jerked his thumb toward the city. "hear'd as how thar's a right smart o' work yonder and i'm on the hunt fer a job." "what do you do?" "tendin' mason's my strong-holt. i've done most ever'thing though; used ter work on a farm, and puttered round a saw-mill some in the arkansaw pineries. aim ter strike a job at somethin' and go back thar where i know folks. nobody won't give a feller nuthin' in this yer god-fer-saken country; haint asked me ter set down fer a month. back home they're allus glad ter have a man eat with 'em. i'll sure be all right thar." the fellow's voice dropped to the pitiful, pleading, insinuating whine of the professional tramp. the young man stood looking at him. good-for-nothing was written in every line of the shiftless, shambling figure, and pictured in every rag of the fluttering raiment, and yet--the fellow really was hungry,--and again came the thought of that fifteen cents. the young man was hungry himself; had been hungry many a time in the past, and downright, gnawing, helpless hunger is a great leveler of mankind; in fact, it is just about the only real bond of fellowship between men. "come on," he said at last, "i've got fifteen cents; i reckon we can find something to eat." and the two set out toward the city together. passing a deserted mining shaft and crossing the railroad, they entered the southern portion of the town, and continued west until they reached the main street, where they stopped at a little grocery store on the corner. the one with the fifteen cents invested two-thirds of his capital in crackers and cheese, his companion reminding the grocer meanwhile that he might throw in a little extra, "seein' as how they were the first customers that mornin'." the merchant, good-naturedly did so, and then turned to answer the other's question about work. "what can you do?" "i'm a printer by trade, but will do anything." "how does it happen you are out of work?" "i was thrown out by the kansas city strike and have been unable to find a place since." "is he looking for work too?" with a glance that made his customer's face flush, and a nod toward the fellow from arkansas, who sat on a box near the stove rapidly making away with more than his half of the breakfast. the other shrugged his shoulders, "we woke up in the same straw-stack this morning and he was hungry, that's all." "well," returned the store-keeper, as he dropped the lid of the cracker box with a bang, "you'll not be bothered with him long if you are really hunting a job." "you put me on the track of a job and i'll show you whether i mean business or not," was the quick reply. to which the grocer made answer as he turned to his task of dusting the shelves: "there's lots of work in boyd city and lots of men to do it." the stranger had walked but a little way down the street when a voice close behind him said, "i'm erbliged ter ye for the feed, pard; reckon i'll shove erlong now." he stopped and the other continued: "don't much like the looks of this yer' place no how, an' a feller w'at jes' come by, he said as how thar war heaps o' work in jonesville, forty miles below. reckon i'll shove erlong. aint got the price of er drink hev' ye? can't ye set 'em up jest fer old times' sake ye know?" and a cunning gleam crept into the bloodshot eyes of the vagabond. the other started as he looked keenly at the bloated features of the creature before him, and there was a note of mingled fear and defiance in his voice as he said, "what do you mean? what do you know about old times?" the tramp shuffled uneasily, but replied with a knowing leer, "aint ye dicky falkner what used ter live cross the river from jimpson's still-house?" "well, what of it?" the note of defiance was stronger. "oh nuthin, only i'm jake tompkins, that used ter work fer jimpson at the still. me 'n yer daddy war pards; i used ter set 'em up ter him heap o' times." "yes," replied dick bitterly, "i know you now. you gave my father whiskey and then laughed when he went home drunk and drove my mother from the cabin to spend the night in the brush. you know it killed her." "yer maw allus was weakly-like," faltered the other; "she'd no call ter hitch up with bill falkner no how; she ort ter took a man with book larnin' like her daddy, ole jedge white. it allus made yer paw mad 'cause she knowed more'n him. but bill lowed he'd tame her an' he shor' tried hit on. too bad she went an' died, but she ort ter knowed a man o' bill's spirit would a took his licker when he wanted hit. i recollect ye used ter take a right smart lot yerself fer a kid." the defiance in the young man's voice gave way to a note of hopeless despair. "yes," he said, "you and dad made me drink the stuff before i was old enough to know what it would do for me." then, with a bitter oath, he continued, half to himself, "what difference does it make anyway. every time i try to break loose something reaches out and pulls me down again. i thought i was free this time sure and here comes this thing. i might as well go to the devil and done with it. why shouldn't i drink if i want to; whose business is it but my own?" he looked around for the familiar sign of a saloon. "that's the talk," exclaimed the other with a swagger. "that's how yer paw used ter put it. your maw warn't much good no how, with her finicky notions 'bout eddicati'n an' sech. a little pone and baken with plenty good ol' red eye's good 'nough fer us. yer maw she--" but he never finished, for dick caught him by the throat with his left hand, the other clenched ready to strike. the tramp shrank back in a frightened, cowering heap. "you beast," cried the young man with another oath. "if you dare to take my mother's name in your foul mouth again i'll kill you with my bare hands." "i didn't go fer to do hit. 'fore god i didn't go ter. lemme go dicky; me'n yer daddy war pards. lemme go. yer paw an' me won't bother ye no more dicky; he can't; he's dead." "dead!" dick released his grasp and the other sprang to a safe distance.--"dead!" he gazed at the quaking wretch before him in amazement. the tramp nodded sullenly, feeling at his throat. "yep, dead," he said hoarsely. "me an' him war bummin' a freight out o' st. louie, an' he slipped. i know he war killed 'cause i saw 'em pick him up; six cars went over him an' they kept me in hock fer two months." dick sat down on the curbing and buried his face in his hands. "dead--dead"--he softly repeated to himself. "dad is dead--killed by the cars in st. louis.--dead--dead--" then all the past life came back to him with a rush: the cabin home across the river from the distillery; the still-house itself, with the rough men who gathered there; the neighboring shanties with their sickly, sad-faced women, and dirty, quarreling children; the store and blacksmith shop at the crossroads in the pinery seven miles away. he saw the river flowing sluggishly at times between banks of drooping willows and tall marsh grass, as though smitten with the fatal spirit of the place, then breaking into hurried movement over pebbly shoals as though trying to escape to some healthier climate; the hill where stood the old pine tree; the cave beneath the great rock by the spring; and the persimmon grove in the bottoms. then once more he suffered with his mother, from his drunken father's rage and every detail of that awful night in the brush, with the long days and nights of sickness that followed before her death, came back so vividly that he wept again with his face in his hands as he had cried by the rude bedside in the cabin sixteen years ago. then came the years when he had wandered from his early home and had learned to know life in the great cities. what a life he had found it. he shuddered as it all came back to him now. the many times when inspired by the memory of his mother, he had tried to break away from the evil, degrading things that were in and about him, and the many times he had been dragged back by the training and memory of his father; the gambling, the fighting, the drinking, the periods of hard work, the struggle to master his trade, and the reckless wasting of wages in times of wild despair again. and now his father was dead--dead--he shuddered. there was nothing to bind him to the past now; he was free. "can't ye give me that drink, dicky? jest one little horn. it'll do us both good, an' then i'll shove erlong; jes fer old times' sake, ye know." the voice of the tramp broke in upon his thoughts. for a moment longer he sat there; then started to his feet, a new light in his eye; a new ring in his voice. "no, jake," he said slowly; "i wouldn't if i could now. i'm done with the old times forever." he threw up his head and stood proudly erect while the tramp gazed in awe at something in his face he had never seen before. "i have only five cents in the world," continued dick. "here, take it. you'll be hungry again soon and--and--good bye, jake--good bye--" he turned and walked swiftly away while the other stood staring in astonishment and wonder, first at the coin in his hand, then at the retreating figure. then with an exclamation, the ragged fellow wheeled and started in the opposite direction toward the railroad yards, to catch a south-bound freight. dick had walked scarcely a block when a lean hound came trotting across the street. "dear old smoke," he said to himself, his mind going back to the companion of his early struggle--"dear old smoke." then as the half-starved creature came timidly to his side and looked up at him with pleading eyes, he remembered his share of the breakfast, still untouched, in his pocket. "you look like an old friend of mine," he continued, as he stooped to pat the bony head, "a friend who is never hungry now--, but you're hungry aren't you?" a low whine answered him. "yes, you're hungry all right." and the next moment a wagging tail was eloquently giving thanks for the rest of the crackers and cheese. the factories and mills of the city gave forth their early greeting, while the sun tried in vain to drive away the chilly mist. men with dinner buckets on their arms went hurrying along at call of the whistles, shop-keepers were sweeping, dusting and arranging their goods, a street-car full of miners passed, with clanging gong; and the fire department horses, out for their morning exercise, clattered down the street. amid the busy scene walked dick, without work, without money, without friends, but with a new purpose in his heart that was more than meat or drink. a new feeling of freedom and power made him lift his head and move with a firm and steady step. all that morning he sought for employment, inquiring at the stores and shops, but receiving little or no encouragement. toward noon, while waiting for an opportunity to interview the proprietor of a store, he picked up a daily paper that was lying on the counter, and turning to the "want" column, read an advertisement for a man to do general work about the barn and yard. when he had received the usual answer to his request for work, he went at once to the address given in the paper. "is mr. goodrich in?" he asked of the young man who came forward with a look of inquiry on his face. "what do you want?" was the curt reply. "i want to see mr. goodrich," came the answer in tones even sharper, and the young man conducted him to the door of the office. "well," said a portly middle-aged gentleman, when he had finished dictating a letter to the young lady seated at the typewriter, "what do you want?" "i came in answer to your ad in this morning's whistler," answered dick. "umph--where did you work last?" "at kansas city. i'm a printer by trade, but willing to do anything until i get a start." "why aren't you working at your trade?" "i was thrown out by the strike and have been unable to find anything since." a look of anger and scorn swept over the merchant's face. "so you're one of that lot, are you? why don't you fellows learn to take what you can get? look there." he pointed to a pile of pamphlets lying on the table. "just came in to-day; they cost me fifty per cent more than i ever paid before, just because you cattle can't be satisfied; and now you want me to give you a place. if i had my way, i'd give you, and such as you, work on the rock pile." and he wheeled his chair toward his desk again. "but," said dick, "i'm hungry--i must do something--i'm not a beggar--i'll earn every cent you pay me." "i tell you no," shouted the other. "i won't have men about me who look above their position," and he picked up his pen. "but, sir," said dick again, "what am i to do?" "i don't care what you do," returned the other. "there is a stone-yard here for such as you." "sir," answered dick, standing very straight, his face as pale as death. "sir, you will yet learn that it does matter very much what such fellows as i do, and some day you will be glad to apologize for your words this morning. i am no more worthy to work on the rock pile than yourself. as a man, i am every bit your equal, and will live to prove it. good morning, sir." and he marched out of the office like a soldier on parade, leaving the young lady at the typewriter motionless with amazement, and her employer dumb with rage. what induced him to utter such words dick could not say; he only knew that they were true, and they seemed somehow to be forced from him; though in spite of his just anger he laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation before he was fairly away from the building. the factory whistles blew for dinner, but there was no dinner for dick; they blew again for work at one o'clock, but still there was nothing for dick to do. all that afternoon he continued his search with the same result--we don't need you. some, it is true, were kind in their answers. one old gentleman, a real estate man, dick felt sure was about to help him, but he was called away on business, and the poor fellow went on his weary search again. then the whistles blew for six o'clock, and the workmen, their faces stained with the marks of toil, hurried along the streets toward home; clerks and business men crowded the restaurants and lunch counters, the street cars were filled with shoppers going to their evening meal. through hungry eyes, dick watched the throng, wondering what each worked at during the day and what they would have for supper. the sun went behind a bank of dull, lead-colored clouds and the wind sprang up again, so sharp and cold that the citizens turned up the collars of their coats and drew their wraps about them, while dick sought shelter from the chilly blast in an open hallway. suddenly a policeman appeared before him. "what are you doing here?" "nothing," answered dick. "wal, ye'd better be doing something. i've had my eye on you all the afternoon. i'll run ye in if i ketch ye hanging round any more. get a move on now." and dick stepped out on the sidewalk once more to face the bitter wind. walking as rapidly as possible, he made his way north on broadway, past the big hotel, all aglow with light and warmth, past the vacant lots and the bicycle factory, until he reached the ruins of an old smelter just beyond the missouri pacific tracks. he had noticed the place earlier in the day as he passed it on his way to the brickyard. groping about over the fallen walls of the furnace, stumbling over scraps of iron and broken timbers in the dusk, he searched for a corner that would in some measure protect him from the wind. it grew dark very fast, and soon he tripped and fell against an old boiler lying upturned in the ruin. throwing out his hand to save himself, by chance, he caught the door of the firebox, and in a moment more was inside, crouching in the accumulated dirt, iron rust and ashes. at least the wind could not get at him here; and leaning his back against the iron wall of his strange bed-room, tired and hungry, he fell asleep. chapter ii the next morning dick crawled from his rude lodging place stiff and sore, and after making his toilet as best he could, started again on his search for employment. it was nearly noon when he met a man who in answer to his inquiry said: "i'm out of a job myself, stranger, but i've got a little money left; you look hungry." dick admitted that he had had no breakfast. "tell you what i'll do," said the other. "i ain't got much, but we can go to a joint i know of where they set up a big free lunch. i'll pay for the beer and you can wade into the lunch." poor dick, weak from hunger, chilled with the march winds, tired and discouraged, he forgot his resolve of the day before and followed his would-be benefactor. it was not far and they soon stood in a well-warmed saloon. the grateful heat, the polished furniture, the rows of bottles and glasses, the clean-looking, white-jacketed and aproned bar-tender, and the merry air of those whom he served, were all wonderfully attractive to the poor shivering wanderer from out in the cold. and then there was the long table well loaded with strong, hot food. the starving fellow started toward it eagerly, with outstretched hand. "two beers here," cried his companion. then dick remembered his purpose. the hand reaching out to grasp the food was withdrawn; his pale face grew more haggard. "my god!" he thought, "what can i do. i must have food." he saw the bartender take two large glasses from the shelf. his whole physical being plead with him, demanding food and drink, and shaking like a leaf he gazed about him with the air of a hunted thing. he saw one of the glasses in the hand of the man in the white jacket and apron filling with the amber liquid. a moment more and--"stop!" he cried, rushing toward the one who held the glasses. "stop! it's a mistake. i don't drink." the man paused and looked around with an evil leer, one glass still unfilled in his hand. then with a brutal oath, "what are ye in here for then?" dick trembled. "i--i--was cold and hungry--" his eyes sought the food on the table--"and--and--this gentleman asked me to come. he's not to blame; he thought i wanted a drink." his new-found friend looked at him with a puzzled expression. "oh take a glass, stranger. you need it; and then help yourself to the lunch." dick shook his head; he could not speak. "look here!" broke in the bartender, with another string of vile language, as he quickly filled the empty glass and set it on the counter before dick. "you drink this er git out. that there lunch is fer our customers and we aint got no room fer temperance cranks er bums. which'll it be? talk quick." dick's eyes went from the food to the liquor; then to the saloon man's hard face, while a strange hush fell over those who witnessed the scene. slowly the stranger swept the room with a pleading glance, but met only curious indifference on every side. again he turned to the food and liquor, and put out his hand. a light of triumph flashed in the eyes of the man behind the bar, but the hand was withdrawn and dick backed slowly toward the door. "i won't," he said, between his clenched teeth, then to his would-be friend, "thank you for your good intention." the silence in the room was broken by a shout of harsh laughter as the bartender raised the glass of beer he had drawn for dick and mockingly drank him good luck as the poor fellow stepped through the doorway leaving warmth and food behind. all that day dick continued his search for work. night came on again and he found himself wandering, half dazed, in the more aristocratic portion of the city. he was too tired to go to the old smelter again. he could not think clearly and muttered and mumbled to himself as he stumbled aimlessly along. the door of a cottage opened, letting out a flood of light, and a woman's voice called, "dick, oh dick, come home now; supper is waiting." and a lad of ten, playing in the neighboring yard with his young companion, answered with a shout as he bounded across the lawn. through the windows our dick caught a glimpse of the cosy home: father, mother, two sisters, bright pictures, books, and a table set with snowy linen, shining silver and sparkling glass. later, strange voices seemed to call him, and several times he paused to listen. then someone in the distance seemed to say, "move on; move on." the words echoed and re-echoed through his tired brain. "move on; move on," the weary, monotonous strain continued as he dragged his heavy feet along the pavement. "move on; move on;" the words seemed repeated just ahead. who was it? what did they want, and why couldn't they let him rest? he drew near a large building with beautiful stained glass windows, through which the light streamed brilliantly. in the center was a picture of the christ, holding in his arms a lamb, and beneath, the inscription, "i came to seek and to save that which was lost." "move on; move on;" the words seemed shrieked in his ears now, and looking up he saw a steeple in the form of a giant hand, pointing toward the stormy sky. "why of course,"--he laughed with mirthless lips,--"of course,--it's a church. what a fool--i ought to have come here long ago.--this is thursday night and that voice is the bell calling people to prayer meeting." "i'll be all right now," he continued to himself as he leaned against a tree near the building. "i ought to have remembered the church before.--i've set up their notices many a time; they always say 'everybody welcome.' christians won't let me starve--they'll help me earn something to eat.--i'm not a beggar--not me," and he tried to straighten his tired figure. "all i want is a chance." by this time, well-dressed people were passing where dick stood muttering to himself, and entering the open door of the church. then the organ began to play, and arousing himself by a supreme effort of his will, dick followed them into the building. the organ now filled the air with its sweetly solemn tones. the bell with its harsh command to move on was forgotten; and as dick sank on a cushioned seat near the door, his heart was filled with restful thoughts. he saw visions of a gracious being who cared for all mankind, and who had been all this time waiting to help him. had he not heard his mother pray, years ago in the cabin, "o lord take care o' dick!--" how foolish he had been to forget--he ought to have remembered,--but he would never forget again,--never. the music and the singing stopped. the pastor arose and read the lesson, calling particular attention to the words recorded in the twenty-fifth chapter of matthew: "inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me." then after a long prayer and another song, the man of god spoke a few words about the christian's joy and duty in helping the needy; that the least of these, meant those who needed help, no matter what their positions in life; and that whosoever gave aid to one in the name of christ, glorified the master's name and helped to enthrone him in the hearts of men. "the least of these," whispered dick to himself, then unconsciously uttering his thoughts in the dialect of his childhood--"that's me shor'; i don't reckon i kin be much less'n i am right now." and as one after another of the christians arose and testified to the joy they found in doing christ's work, and told of experiences where they had been blessed by being permitted to help some poor one, his heart warmed within him, and, in his own way, he thanked god that he had been led to such a place and to such people. with another song, "praise god from whom all blessings flow," the congregation was dismissed and began slowly passing from the building, exchanging greetings, with more or less warmth, and remarking what a helpful meeting they had had, and how much it had been enjoyed. dick stood near the door, hat in hand, patiently waiting. one by one the members passed him; two or three said "good evening;" one shook him by the hand; but something in their faces as they looked at his clothing checked the words that rose to his lips, and the poor fellow waited, his story untold. at last the minister came down the aisle, and greeting dick, was about to pass out with the others; this was too much, and in a choked voice the young man said, "sir, may i speak to you a moment?" "if you'll be brief," replied the preacher, glancing at his watch. "i have an engagement soon." dick told his story in a few words. "i'm not begging, sir," he added. "i thought some of the church members might have work that i could do, or might know where i could find employment." the minister seemed a little embarrassed; then beckoning to a few who still remained, "brother godfrey, here's a man who wants work; do you know of anything?" "um, i'm sorry, but i do not," promptly replied the good deacon. "what can you do?" turning to dick. he made the usual answer and the officer of the church said again, "find it rather hard to strike anything in boyd city i fear; so many tramps, you know. been out of work long?" "yes sir, and out of food too." "too bad; too bad," said the deacon. and "too bad; too bad," echoed the preacher, and the other followers of the meek and lowly jesus. "if we hear of anything we'll let you know. where are you stopping?" "on the street," replied dick, "when i am not moved on by the police." "um--well--we'll leave word here at the church with the janitor if we learn of anything." "are you a christian?" asked one good old mother in israel. "no," stammered poor confused dick; "i guess not." "do you drink?" "no mam." "well, don't get discouraged; look to god; he can help you; and we'll all pray for you. come and hear our brother french preach; i am sure you will find the light. he is the best preacher in the city. everybody says so. good-night." the others had already gone. the sexton was turning out the lights, and a moment later dick found himself once more on the street, looking with a grim smile on his hunger-pinched features, at the figure of the christ, wrought in the costly stained glass window. "one of the least of these," he muttered hoarsely to himself. then the figure and the inscription slowly faded, as one by one the lights went out, until at last it vanished and he seemed to hear his mother's voice: "i ax ye fair--o lord--take ker o' dick--fer jesus sake--amen." the door shut with a bang. a key grated in the heavy lock that guarded the treasures of the church; and the footsteps of the church's humblest servant died away in the distance, as dick turned to move on again. the city rumbled on with its business and its pleasure, its merriment and crime. guardians of the law protected the citizens by seeing to it that no ill-dressed persons sat too long upon the depot benches, sheltered themselves from the bitter wind in the open hall-way, or looked too hungrily in at the bakery windows. on the avenue the homes grew hushed and still, with now and then a gleam of light from some library or sitting-room window, accompanied by the tones of a piano or guitar,--or sound of laughing voices. and the house of god stood silent, dark and cold, with the figure of the christ upon the window and the spire, like a giant hand, pointing upward. chapter iii "i declare to goodness, if that ain't the third tramp i've chased away from this house to-day! i'll have father get a dog if this keeps up. they do pester a body pretty nigh to death." mrs. wilson slammed the kitchen door and returned to her dish-washing. "the ide' of givin' good victuals to them that's able to work--not much i won't--let 'em do like i do." and the good lady plied her dish-cloth with such energy that her daughter hastily removed the clean plates and saucers from the table to avoid the necessity of drying them again. "but this man wanted work, didn't he mother?" asked clara, "and i heard you tell father at dinner that you wanted someone to fix the cowshed and clean up the back yard." "there you go again," angrily snapped the older woman, resting her wet hands upon her hips and pausing in her labor, the better to emphasize her words; "allus a criticisin' and a findin' fault--since you took up with that plagy church there aint been nothin' right." "forgive me mother, i didn't think," said the daughter, looking into the wrathful black eyes of her parent. "didn't think," whined the woman, "you never think of nothin' but your blamed young folks' society or sunday school. your mother an' father and home aint good enough fer your saintship now-a-days. i wish to goodness you'd never heard tell of that preacher; the whole set's a batch of stingy hypocrites." she turned to her dish-washing again with a splash. "an' there's george udell, he aint going to keep hanging around forever, i can tell you; there's too many that'ud jump at his offer, fer him to allus be a dancin' after you; an' when you git through with your foolishness, you'll find him married and settled down with some other girl, an' what me and your father'll do when we git too old to work, the lord only knows. if you had half sense you'd take him too quick." clara made no reply, but finishing her work in silence, hung up her apron and left the kitchen. later, when mrs. wilson went into the pleasant little sitting-room, where the flowers in the window _would_ bloom, and the pet canary _would_ sing in spite of the habitual crossness of the mistress of the house, she found her daughter attired for the street. "where are you going now?" she asked; "some more foolishness, i'll be bound; you just take them things off and stay to home; this here weather aint fit fer you to be trapsin round in. you'll catch your death of cold; then i'll have to take care of you. i do believe, clara wilson, you are the most ungratefulest girl i ever see." "but mother, i just must go to the printing office this afternoon. our society meets to-morrow night and i must look after the printing of the constitution and by-laws." "what office you goin' to?" asked the mother sharply. "why, george's, of course," said clara; "you know i wouldn't go anywhere else." "oh well, get along then; i guess the weather won't hurt you; its clearin' off a little anyway. i'll fix up a bit and you can bring george home to supper." and the old lady grew quite cheerful as she watched the sturdy figure of her daughter making her way down the board walk and through the front gate. george udell was a thriving job printer in boyd city, and stood high in favor of the public generally, and of the wilson family in particular, as might be gathered from the conversation of clara's mother. "i tell you," she said, in her high-pitched tones, "george udell is good enough fer any gal. he don't put on as much style as some, an' aint much of a church man; but when it comes to makin' money he's all there, an' that's the main thing now-a-days." as for clara, she was not insensible to the good points in mr. udell's character, of which money-making was by no means the most important, for she had known him ever since the time, when as a long, lank, awkward boy, he had brought her picture cards and bits of bright-colored printing. she was a wee bit of a girl then, but somehow, her heart told her that her friend was more honest than most boys, and, as she grew older, in spite of her religious convictions, she had never been forced to change her mind. but george udell was not a christian. some said he was an infidel; at least he was not a member of any church; and when approached on the subject, always insisted that he did not know what he believed; and that he doubted very much if many church members knew more of their beliefs. furthermore; he had been heard upon several occasions to make slighting remarks about the church, contrasting its present standing and work with the law of love and helpfulness as laid down by the master they professed to follow. true, no one had ever heard him say that he did not believe in christ or god. but what of that? had he not said that he did not believe in the church? and was not that enough to mark him as an infidel? clara, in spite of her home training, was, as has been shown, a strong church member, a zealous christian, and an earnest worker for the cause of christ. being a practical girl, she admitted that there were many faults in the church of today; and that christians did not always live up to their professions. but, bless you, you could not expect people to be perfect; and the faults that existed in the church were there because all churches were not the same, which really means, you of course understand-"all churches are not of _my_ denomination." and so, in spite of her regard for the printer, she could not bring herself to link her destiny with one whose eternal future was so insecure, and whose life did not chord with that which was to her, the one great keynote of the universe, the church. and then, too, does not the good book say: "be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers." what could that mean if not, "do not marry an infidel?" while clara was thinking of all these things and making her way through the mud of boyd city streets, udell, at the printing office, was having a particularly trying time. to begin with, his one printer had gone off on a spree the saturday before and failed to return. then several rush jobs had come in; he had tried in vain to get help; the boy had come late to the office, and, altogether it seemed as though everything had happened that could happen to make things uncomfortable. clara arrived on the scene just when the confusion was at its height; the room was littered with scraps of paper and inky cloths; the famous printer's towel was lying on the desk; the stove, with its hearth piled full of ashes, emitted smoke and coal gas freely; and the printer was emptying the vials of his wrath upon the public in general, because all wanted their printing done at the same instant; while the boy, with a comical look of fear upon his ink-stained face, was dodging here and there, striving as best he could to avoid the threatening disaster. the young girl's coming was like a burst of sunlight. in an instant the storm was past. the boy's face resumed at once its usual expression of lofty indifference; the fire burned freely in the stove; the towel was whisked into its proper corner; and she was greeted with the first smile that had shown on the printer's face that day. "you're just in time," he cried gaily, as he seated her in the cleanest corner of the office. "i should think so," she answered, smiling, and glancing curiously about the room; "looks as though you wanted a woman here." "i do," declared george. "i've always wanted _a_ woman; haven't i told you that often enough?" "for shame, george udell. i came here on business," clara answered with glowing cheeks. "well, that's mighty important business for me," udell answered. "you see--" but clara interrupted him. "what's the matter here anyway?" she asked. "oh--nothing; only my man is off on a drunken spree, and everybody wants their stuff at the same time. i worked until two o'clock last night; that's why i wasn't at your house; and i must work tonight too. i'm--yes, there's another;" as the telephone rang. "hello!--yes, this is udell's job office--we have the matter set up and will send you proof as soon as possible--i'm sorry, but we are doing the best we can--yes--all right--i'll get at it right away--three o'clock--can't possibly get it out before"--bang! he hung up the receiver. "i tell you this is making me thin. if you had half the influence at headquarters that you profess to have, i wish you'd pray them to send me a printer." "why don't you get help?" "get help?--get nothing! i tell you i've prayed, and threatened, and bribed, and promised, as well as the best prayer-meeting church member you've got, and i can't get the sign of an answer. reckon the wire must be down," he added, a queer shadow of a smile twitching up the corners of his mouth; "y-e-s," as the phone rang again. "i wish that wire was down." the girl noted the worn look on his rugged face, and when he had hung up the receiver again, said: "i wish i could help you, george." "you can, clara,--you know you can," he answered quickly. "you can give me more help than the ghost of franklin himself. i don't mind the hard work, and the worry wouldn't amount to anything if only--if only--" he stopped, as clara shook her head. "george, you know i have told you again and again--" "but clara," he broke in,--"i wouldn't in any way interfere with your church work. i'd even go with you every sunday, and you could pay the preacher as much as you liked. don't you see, dear, it couldn't possibly make any difference?" "you don't understand, george," she answered, "and i can't make you see it; there's no use talking, i _can't_, until you change your ideas about--" the door opened and a weary, hungry, unshaven face looked in.--the door opened wider and a figure came shuffling timidly toward the man and girl. "what do you want?" said udell, gruffly, a little put out at such an interruption. "are you the foreman of this office?" said the newcomer. "yes, i'm the boss." "do you need any help? i'm a printer." "you a printer?" exclaimed udell. "what's the matter?--no,"--he interrupted himself.-"never mind what the matter is. i don't care if you're wanted for horse stealing. can you go to work now?" the man nodded. udell showed him to a case and placed copy before him. "there you are, and the faster you work the better i'll pay you." again the other nodded, and without a word caught up a stick and reached for the type. george turned back to clara who had risen. "don't go yet," he said. "oh, yes, i must; i have been here too long now; you have so much to do; i only wanted to get that society printing." george handed her the package. "who is he?" she whispered, with a look toward the newcomer. "don't know; some bum i suppose; looks like he had been on a big spree. i only hope i can keep him sober long enough to help me over this rush." "you're wrong there," said the girl, moving toward the door, "he asked for work at our house early this morning; that man is no drunkard, neither is he a common tramp." "how do you know?" "same as i know you, by the looks," laughed clara. "go talk to him and find out. you see your prayer was answered, even if you did pray like a church member. who knows, perhaps the wire is not down after all," and she was gone. the printer turned to his work again with a lighter heart for this bit of brightness. somehow he felt that things would come out all right some day, and he would do the best he could to be patient; and, for clara's sake, while he could not be all she wished, he would make of himself all that he could. for a while, he was very busy with some work in the rear of the office; then remembering clara's strange words about the tramp, he went over to the case where the new man sat perched upon his high stool. the stranger was working rapidly and doing good work. george noticed though, that the hand which held the stick trembled; and that sometimes a letter dropped from the nervous fingers. "what's the matter?" he asked, eyeing him keenly. the man, without lifting his head, muttered, "nothing." "are you sick?" a shake of the head was the only answer. "been drinking?" "_no_." this time the head was lifted and two keen gray eyes, filled with mingled suffering and anger, looked full in the boss's face. "i've been without work for some time and am hungry, that's all." the head bent again over the case and the trembling fingers reached for the type. "hungry!--good god, man!" exclaimed udell. "why didn't you say so?"--and turning quickly to the boy he said, "here, skip down to that restaurant and bring a big hot lunch. tell 'em to get a hustle on too." [illustration: "here you are; come and fill up."] the boy fled and george continued talking to himself; "hungry--and i thought he had been on a spree. i ought to have known better than that. i've been hungry myself--clara's right; he is no bum printer. great shade of the immortal benjamin f! but he's plucky though--and proud--you could see that by the look in his eye when i asked him if he'd been drunk--poor fellow--knows his business too--just the man i've been looking for, i'll bet--huh--wonder if the wire is down." and then as the boy returned with the basket of hot eatables, he called cheerily, "here you are; come and fill up; no hungry man in this establishment, rush or no rush." he was answered by a clatter as half a stick full of type dropped from the trembling hand of the stranger. "thank you," the poor fellow tried to say, as he staggered toward the kind-hearted infidel, and then, as he fell, dick's outstretched fingers just touched udell's feet. chapter iv it was a strange coincidence that the rev. james cameron should have preached his sermon on "the church of the future," the sunday following the incidents which have been related in the preceding chapters. if he had only known, rev. cameron might have found a splendid illustration, very much to the point, in the story of dick falkner's coming to boyd city and his search for employment. but the minister knew nothing of dick or his trouble. he had no particular incident in mind; but simply desired to see a more practical working of christianity. in other words, he wished to see christians doing the things that christ did, and using, in matters of the church, the same business sense which they brought to bear upon their own affairs. he thought of the poverty, squalor and wretchedness of some for whom christ died, and of the costly luxuries of the church into whose hands the master had given the care of these. he thought of the doors to places of sin, swinging wide before the young, while the doors of the church were often closed against them. he thought of the secret societies and orders, doing the work that the church was meant to do, and of the honest, moral men, who refused to identify themselves with the church, though professing belief in jesus christ; and, thinking of these things and more like them, he was forced to say that the church must change her methods; that she must talk less and do more; that she must rest her claims to the love of mankind where christ rested his; upon the works that he did. he saw that the church was proving false to the christ; that her service was a service of the lips only; that her worship was form and ceremony--not of the heart--a hollow mockery. he saw that she was not touching the great problems of life; and that, while men were dying for want of spiritual bread, she was offering them only the stones of ecclesiastical pride and denominational egotism. he saw all this, and yet,--because he was a strong man--remained full of love for christ and taught that those things were not christianity but the lack of it; and placed the blame where it justly belonged, upon the teaching and doctrines of men, and not upon the principles of christ; but upon the shepherds, who fattened themselves, while the starving sheep grew thin and lean; and not upon him who came to seek and save that which was lost. adam goodrich walked out of the church with his aristocratic nose elevated even beyond its usual angle. he was so offended by the plebeian tastes of his pastor that he almost failed to notice banker lindsley who passed him in the vestibule. "fine discourse--fine discourse, mr. goodrich." "uh--" grunted adam, tossing his head. "just the kind of sermon we need;" went on mr. lindsley, who was not a church member. "practical and fearless; i'm glad to have heard him. i shall come again;" and he hurried out of the house. it was not often that a sermon was honored by being discussed at the goodrich table; nor indeed, that any topic of religion was mentioned; but adam could not contain himself after the unheard of things which his pastor had preached that morning. "it's a pity that cameron hasn't better judgment," he declared, in a voice that showed very plainly the state of his mind. "he could easily make his church the first church in the city if he would only let well enough alone and not be all the time stirring things up. he is a good speaker, carries himself like an aristocrat, and comes from a good family; but he is forever saying things that jar the best people. he might be drawing half as much again salary if only he would work to get those people who are worth something into the church, instead of spending all his time with the common herd." "perhaps he thinks the common herd worth saving too," suggested miss amy, a beautiful girl of nineteen, with dark hair and eyes. "what do you know about it?" replied the father. "you're getting your head full of those silly young people's society notions, and your friends will drop you if you don't pay more attention to your social duties. the common classes are all right of course, but they can't expect to associate with us. cameron has his mission schools; why isn't that enough? and he makes three times as many calls on south broadway and over by the shops, as he does on our street." "perhaps he thinks, 'they that are whole have no need of a physician,'" again suggested the young lady. "amy," said mrs. goodrich, "how often have i told you that it's not the thing to be always repeating the bible. no one does it now. why will you make yourself so common?" "you agree with cameron perfectly, mother," put in frank, the only son; "he said this morning that no one used their bibles now-a-days." "it's not necessary to be always throwing your religion at people's heads," answered the father, "and as for cameron's new-fangled notion about the church being more helpful to those who need help, he'll find out that it won't work. we are the ones who pay his salary, and if he can't preach the things we want to hear, he'll find himself going hungry, or forced to dig along with those he is so worried about. i don't find anything in the bible that tells me to associate with every low-down person in the city, and i guess i'm as good a christian as anyone in the church." "brother cameron said that helping people and associating with them were two different things," said amy. "well, it means the same, anyway, in the eyes of the world," retorted the father. "fancy," said frank, "my going down the street with that tramp who called at the office last week. according to cameron, you ought to have invited him home and asked him to stay with us until he found a job, i suppose. amy would have liked to meet him, and to make his visit with us pleasant. he was not bad-looking, barring his clothes and a few whiskers." "who was that, mr. goodrich?" inquired the wife. "oh, an impudent fellow that frank let into the office the other day; he claimed that he was a printer and wanted work; said that he was thrown out of employment by the kansas city strike; anyone could see that he was a fraud through and through, just cameron's kind. if i had my way i would give him work that he wouldn't want. such people are getting altogether too numerous, and there will be no room for a respectable man if this thing keeps up. i don't know what we'll come to if we have many such sermons as that this morning; they want the earth now." "they'd get heaven too if cameron had his way," put in frank again. "won't it be fine when the church becomes a home for every wandering willie who happens along?" "did not christ intend his church to be a home for the homeless?" asked the sister. "amy," interrupted mrs. goodrich, "you are getting too many of those fanciful notions; you will learn in time that the church is meant to go to on sundays, and that people who know what is demanded of them by the best society, leave socials, aids, missions, and such things to the lower classes." "yes," answered frank, as he arose to leave the table--"and don't go looking up that bum printer to teach him the way of the lord." the reader must not think that the goodrichs were unworthy members of the church; their names were all on the roll of membership, and frank and amy were also active members of the young people's societies. beside this, adam contributed liberally (in his own eyes at least) to the support of the gospel; and gave, now and then, goodly sums set opposite his name on subscription lists, for various charitable purposes; although he was very careful, withal, that his gifts to god never crippled his business interests, and managed, in religious matters, to make a little go a long way. the pastor of the jerusalem church, having been called to attend a funeral, was not present at the meeting of the boyd city ministerial association, following his sermon, and the field was left open for his brethren, who assembled in the lecture room of the zion church on monday morning. after the association had been called to order by the president, the reports of the work given by the various pastors had been heard, and some unfinished business transacted, good old father beason arose, and, in his calm, impassioned manner, addressed the chair. "brethren," he said, "i don't know how you all feel about it, but i would like to know what the association thinks about brother cameron's sermon yesterday. now, i don't want to be misunderstood, brethren; i haven't a particle of fault to find with brother cameron. i love him as a man; i admire him as a preacher; and i believe that whatever he has said he meant for the best. but, brother cameron is a young man yet, and i have heard a good deal of talk about the things he said sabbath morning; and i would just like to know what you brethren think about it. have any of you heard anything?" six reverend heads nodded that they had, and the speaker continued: "well, i thought probably you would hear something, and with no harm meant toward our brother, i would like to have you express yourselves. i have been in the ministry nearly forty years now, and i have never heard such things as people say he said. and, brethren, i'm awfully afraid that there is a good deal of truth in it all--a good deal of truth in it all;" and slowly shaking his head the old man took his seat. the rev. jeremiah wilks was on his feet instantly, and, speaking in a somewhat loud and nervous manner, said: "mr. chairman, i was coming down town early this morning, after some thread and ribbons and things for my wife, and sister thurston, who runs that little store on third street--you know she's a member of my church, you know--and always gives me things lots cheaper than i can get them anywhere else, because she's a member of my church, you know--she says to me that brother cameron said that the average church of to-day was the biggest fraud on earth. now she was there and heard him. i don't know of course, whether he really said that or not; that is, i mean, you know,--i don't know whether he meant it that way or not. but i've heard him say myself, that he didn't think the church was doing all she might along some lines. i don't know whether he means all the churches or only his own. _my_ people gave fifteen dollars for foreign missions last year, and the ladies' aid paid fifty dollars on my salary. besides that, they bought me a new overcoat last winter, and it will last me through next winter too. they paid eighteen dollars for that, i'm told; and of course they got it cheap because it was for me, you know. and we gave a pound social to sister grady, whose husband died some time ago, you know. it took almost all her money to pay funeral expenses--she's a member of my church you know; so was he, poor man; he's gone now. i'm sure i don't know about brother cameron's church; we're doing all _we_ can; and i don't think it's right for him to talk against the work of the lord." the reverend gentleman resumed his seat with the satisfied air of a school boy who has just succeeded in hitting a hornet's nest, and devoutly wishes that someone would come along to share the fun. little hugh cockrell arose, and, crossing his hands, meekly spoke: "now, brethren, i don't think we ought to be hasty in regard to this matter. i would advise caution. we must give the subject due and careful consideration. we all respect and love brother cameron. let us not be hasty in condemning him. you know the scriptures say, judge not, and i believe we ought to be careful. we don't know what cameron meant exactly. brethren, let us try to find out. i know i have heard a great many things, and some of my members say that he spoke rather slightingly of the ministry as a whole, and seemed to think that the church was not practical enough, and my wife is a good deal hurt about some things that he said about the clergy. but, let's be careful. i don't want to believe that our brother would cast a slur in any way upon us or the church. let's be cautious and work in a christianlike manner; find out by talking with people on the street and in their homes, what he said, and above all, don't let cameron know how we feel. we ought not to be hasty, brethren, about judging our brother." there were nods of approval as the minister took his seat, for he was much admired in the association because of his piety, and much respected for his judgment. all knew that nothing could possibly harm them if they followed rev. cockrell's advice. then the rev. dr. frederick hartzell reared his stoop-shouldered, narrow-chested, but commanding figure, and, in a most impressive and scholarly manner addressed the association. "of course i don't know anything about this matter, brethren; it's all news to me. i am so confined by my studies that i go on the street very little, and, when i do go out, my mind is so full of the deep things of the scriptures, that i find it hard to retain anything that has to do with the commonplace in life; and in-as-much as the reverend gentleman failed to consult me as to his sermon, which i understand he calls the church of the future, i am unable to say at present whether his position is orthodox or not. but brethren, of one thing i am sure, and i don't care what cameron or any other man thinks; the orthodox church of to-day is the power of god unto salvation. god intended that we ministers should be his representatives on earth, and as such, we ought to have a keen appreciation of the grandeur and nobility of our calling. after years of study on the part of myself, and after much consultation with other eminent men, i give it as my opinion that the church of the future will be the same as the church of the past. all denominations--that is, all evangelical denominations, are built upon a rock. upon this rock i will build my church, matthew - . brethren, we are secure; even the gates of hades cannot prevail against us; and it is proven by the scholarship of the world, that we shall be the same in the future as we have been in the past. rev. cameron, whatever may be his opinions, cannot harm so glorious an institution. why, brethren, we represent the brains and culture of the world. look at our schools and seminaries; we must be right. no change can possibly come; no change is needed. as to the gentleman's remarks about the ministry; if he made any, i don't think his opinion matters much anyhow, i understand that he is not a graduate of any regular theological institution; and i'm sure that he cannot harm _my_ reputation in the least." secure in the impregnable position of his own learning and in the scholarship of his church; amid a hush of profound awe and admiration, the learned gentleman took his seat. rev. hartzell's speech practically finished the discussion of the sermon by the association. indeed, the rev. frederick nearly always finished whatever discussion he took part in. one or two of the remaining preachers tried to speak, but subsided as soon as they caught the eye of the scholar fixed upon them, and the association was adjourned, with a prayer by the president that they might always be able to conduct the master's business in a manner well pleasing in his sight; and that they might have strength to always grapple boldly with questions concerning the church, ever proving true to the principles of the christ, and following in his footsteps. while the members of the ministerial association were engaged in discussing rev. cameron's much-abused sermon, the printer, george udell, dropped in at the office of mr. wicks, to make the final payment on a piece of property which he had purchased some months before. mr. wicks, or as he was more often called, uncle bobbie, was an old resident of the county, an elder in the jerusalem church, and rev. cameron's right-hand man. "well," he said, as he handed george the proper papers, "that place is your'n, young man, what are ye goin' to do with it?" "oh i don't know," replied udell, "it's handy to have round; good building spot, isn't it?" "you bet it is," returned the other. "there aint no better in boyd city, an' i reckon i know. ye must be goin' to get a wife, talking about buildin'?" udell shook his head. "well, ye ought to. let's see--this is the third piece of property i've sold ye, aint it?--all of 'em good investments too--you're gettin' a mighty good start fer a young man. don't it make ye think of the being what's back of all these blessin's? strikes me ye'r too blame good a man to be livin' without any religion. george, why don't you go to church anyway? don't ye know you ought to?" "why don't i go to church," said udell thoughtfully; "well, mr. wicks, i'll tell you why i don't go to church. just because i've got too much to do. i make my own way in the world and it takes all the business sense i have to do it. the dreamy, visionary, speculative sort of things i hear at meeting may be all right for a fellow's soul, but they don't help him much in taking care of his body, and i can't afford to fill my mind with such stuff. i am living this side of the grave. of course i like to hear a good talker, and i enjoy the music, but their everlasting pretending to be what they are not, is what gets me. you take this town right here now," he continued, pushing his hat back from his forehead; "we've got ten or twelve churches and as many preachers; they all say that they are following christ, and profess to exist for the good of men and the glory of god. and what are they actually doing to make this place better? there's not a spot in this city, outside a saloon, where a man can spend an hour when he's not at work; and not a sign of a place where a fellow down on his luck can stay all night. only last week, a clean honest young printer, who was out of money through no fault of his own, struck me for a job, and before night fainted from hunger; and yet, the preachers say that christ told us to feed the hungry, and that if we didn't it counted against us as though we had let him starve. according to their own teaching, what show have these churches in boyd city when they spend every cent they can rake and scrape to keep their old machines running and can't feed even one hungry man? your church members are all right on the believe, trust, hope, pray and preach, but they're not so much on the do. and i've noticed it's the _do_ that counts in this life. why, their very idea of heaven is that it's a loafing place, where you get more than you ask for or have any right to expect." "gettin' a little excited, ain't ye?" smiled uncle bobbie, though there was a tear twinkling in his sharp old eyes. "yes i am," retorted the other. "it's enough to excite anyone who has a heart to feel and eyes to see the misery in this old world, and then to be asked eternally, 'why don't you go to church?' why look at 'em; they even let their own preachers starve when they get too old to work. societies and lodges don't do that. i don't mean to step on your toes though," he added hastily. "you know that, uncle bobbie. you've proven yourself a christian to me in ways i'll never forget. my old mother was a member of the church and they let her go hungry, when i was too little to take care of her; and if it hadn't been for you she would have died then. but you fed her, and if there's a heaven, she's there, and you'll be there too. but what makes me mad is, that these fellows who _never_ do anything, are just as sure of it as you who do so much." "ah, george," said wicks; "that help i give your maw warn't nothin'. do you think i'd see her suffer? why, i knowed her when she was a girl." "i know, uncle bobbie, but that isn't the question. why, don't the church _do_ some of the things they are always talking about?" "do infidels do any more?" asked mr. wicks. "no, they don't," answered george, "but they don't thank god that jesus christ was crucified, so that they might get to heaven, either." "thar's one fellow that i didn't feed," said the old man, after a long pause. "that same printer called here and i didn't give him nothin' to do. i've thought of it many a time since though, and asked the lord to forgive me for sech carelessness. and so he's got a job with you, has he? well, i'm mighty glad. but say, george, were you at our church yesterday?" "no," answered udell, "why?" "oh, nothin'; only i thought from the way you've been preachin' cameron's sermon, that you'd heard him give it, that's all." chapter v "there's only one girl in this world for me," whistled dick, as he made a form ready for the press. only in his own mind he rendered it, "there's not one girl in this world for me;" and from dick's point of view his version was the better one. thus far in his life there had come no woman's influence; no loving touch of a girlish hand to help in moulding his character; no sweet voice bidding him do right; no soft eyes to look praise or blame. he had only the memory of his mother. it was less than a week ago that the poor outcast had fainted from lack of food, but he had already become a fixture in the office. george udell confided to miss wilson that he did not know how he could get along without him, and that he was, by long odds, the best hand he had ever had. he was quick and sure in his work, and as george put it, "you don't have to furnish him a map when you tell him to do anything." with three good meals a day and a comfortable cot in the office for the night, with the privilege of spending his evenings by the fire, and the assurance that there was work for him for many weeks ahead, it was no wonder that dick whistled as he bent over the stone. locking up the form, he carried it to the press and was fixing the guide pins, when the door opened and a young lady came in. dick's whistle stopped instantly and his face flushed like a school girl as he gave her a chair and went to call udell, who was in the other room trying to convince the boy that the stove needed a bucket of coal. "faith," said dick to himself, as he went back to the press, "if there is one girl in this world for me i hope she looks like that one. what a lovely voice," he added, as he carefully examined the first impression; "and a heavenly smile;" as he finished his work and went back to the composing case; "and what eyes,"--he turned sideways to empty his stick--"and what hair;" trying to read his copy--"a perfect form;" reaching for the type again. "i wonder who--" "dick!" shouted udell. crash went the overturned stool, and, "yes sir," answered the young man, with a very red face, struggling to his feet. a merry light danced in the brown eyes, though the girlish countenance was serious enough. udell looked at his assistant in mingled wonder and amusement. "what's the matter, dick?" he asked, as the latter came toward him. "nothing, sir--i only--i was--" he looked around in confusion at the overturned stool, and the type on the floor. "yes, i see you were," said his employer with a chuckle. "miss goodrich, this is mr. falkner; perhaps he can help us out of our difficulty. mr. falkner is just from kansas city," he added, "and is up in all the latest things in printing." "oh yes," and amy's eyes showed their interest. "you see, mr. falkner, we are trying to select a cover design for this little book. mr. udell has suggested several, but we cannot come to any decision as to just the proper one. which would you choose?" dick's embarrassment left him at once when a matter of work was to be considered. "this would be my choice," he said, selecting a design. "i like that too," said the young lady; "but you see it is not _just_ what i want;" and she looked not a little worried, for above all things, miss goodrich liked things _just_ as she liked them; and besides, this was _such_ an important matter. "i'll tell you what," said dick. "if you'll let me, and mr. udell does not object, i'll set up a cover for you to-night after supper." "o, indeed, you must not think of it," said amy. "but i would enjoy it," he answered. "you need to rest after your day's work," she replied; "and besides, it would be so much trouble for you to come way down here in the night. no, you need not mind; this will do very well." "but we often work after hours, and i--i--do not live far from here," said dick. "what do you think, mr. udell?" "i am sure, miss goodrich, that mr. falkner would enjoy the work, for we printers have a good bit of pride in that kind of thing you know, and, as he says, we often work after supper. i think you might let him do it, without too great a feeling of obligation." after some further talk, the matter was finally settled as he had suggested, and dick went back to his work; as he picked up his overturned stool, he heard the door close and then udell stood beside him, with a broad grin on his face. "well, i'll be shot," ejaculated the printer, "i've seen fellows take a tumble before, but hang me if i ever saw a man so completely kerflummuxed. great shade of the immortal benjamin f--! but you were a sight--must be you're not used to the ladies. seemed all right though when you got your legs under you and your mouth agoing. what in time ailed you anyway?" "who is she?" asked dick, ignoring the other's laughter, and dodging his question. "who is she? why i introduced you to her, man; her name is amy goodrich. her daddy is that old duffer who keeps the hardware store, and is so eminently respectable that you can't get near him unless you have a pedigree and a bank account. amy is the only daughter, but she has a brother though who takes after the old man. the girl takes after herself i reckon." dick made no reply and udell continued: "the whole family are members of the swellest church in the city, but the girl is the only one who works at it much. she teaches in the mission sunday school; leads in the young people's society and all that. i don't imagine the old folks like it though; too common you know." and he went off to look after the boy again, who was slowly but painfully running off the bill-heads that dick had fixed on the press. "what's the matter with him, george?" asked that individual, leaning wearily against the machine; "did he faint agin, or was he havin' a fit?" "you shut up and get that job off sometime this week," answered udell, as he jerked the lever of the electric motor four notches to the right. just before the whistles blew for dinner, he again went back to dick and stood looking over his shoulder at a bad bit of copy the latter was trying to decipher. "well, what do you think about it?" he asked. "she's divine," answered dick absently, as he carefully placed a capital a upside down. george threw back his head and roared; "well, you've got it sure," he said, when he could speak. "got what?" asked dick in wonder. "oh, nothing," replied the other, going off with another shout. "but look here;" he said, after a moment; very serious this time; "let me give you a piece of good advice, my friend; don't you go to thinking about _that_ girl too much." "what girl? whose thinking about her? you need have no fears on that score," said dick, a little sharply. "oh, you needn't get mad about it, a fellow can't help but think a chap is hit when he falls down, can he?" and with another laugh, george removed his apron and left for dinner. "yes, it did look bad;" said dick to himself, as he dried his hands on the office towel; "but i never saw such eyes; and she's as good as she looks too; but adam goodrich's daughter, whew--" and he whistled softly to himself as he thought of his first meeting with the wealthy hardware merchant. that evening while miss goodrich was entertaining a few of her friends at her beautiful home on the avenue, and while udell, with clara wilson, was calling on old mother gray, whose husband had been injured in the mines, dick worked alone in the printing office. the little book, as amy called it, was a pamphlet issued by the literary club of which she was the secretary, and never since the time when he set his first line of type, had dick been so bothered over a bit of printing. the sweet brown eyes and smiling lips of the young woman were constantly coming between him and his work, and he paused often to carry on an imaginary conversation with her. sometimes he told her funny incidents from his adventurous past and heard her laugh in keen appreciation. then they talked of more earnest things and her face grew grave and thoughtful. again he told her all his plans and ambitions, and saw her eyes light with sympathy as she gladly promised her helpful friendship. then, inspired by her interest, he grew bolder, and forgetting the task before him altogether, fought life's battles in the light of her smiles, conquering every difficulty, and winning for himself a place and name among men. and then, as he laid his trophies at her feet, her father, the wealthy merchant, appeared, and dick walked the floor in a blind rage. but he managed to finish his work at last, and about three o'clock, tumbled on to his cot in the stock room, where he spent the rest of the night trying to rescue amy from her father, who assumed the shape of a hardware dragon, with gold eyes, and had imprisoned the young lady in a log cabin near the river, beneath a hill upon which grew a pine tree tipped with fire, while a lean hound sat at the water's edge and howled. chapter vi uncle bobbie wicks pulled down the top of his desk and heard the lock click with a long sigh of satisfaction, for a glance at his large, old-fashioned hunting-case watch told him that it was nearly eleven o'clock. it was a dismal, dreary, rainy night; just the sort of a night to make a man thank god that he had a home; and those who had homes to go to were already there, except a few business men, who like mr. wicks, were obliged to be out on work of especial importance. locking the rear door of the office and getting hastily into his rain coat, the old gentleman took his hat and umbrella from the rack and stepped out into the storm. as he was trudging along through the wet, his mind still on business, a gleam of light from the window of udell's printing office caught his eye. "hello!" he said to himself; "george is working late tonight; guess i'll run in and see if he's got that last batch of bill-heads fixed yet; we'll need 'em tomorrow morning. howdy, george," he said, a few seconds later; and then stopped, for it was not udell, but dick, who was bending over the stone; and in place of working with the type, he was playing a game of solitaire, while he pulled away at an old corn-cob pipe. "good evening," said the young man, pausing in his amusement, "what can i do for you?" "i see ye got a job," said uncle bobbie. "yes," dick replied, as he shuffled the cards; "and a very good one too." "huh! looks like ye weren't overworked just now." "oh, this is out of hours; we quit at six, you know." "strikes me ye might find somethin' better to do than foolin' with them dirty pasteboards, if 'tis out of hours;" said mr. wicks, pointedly. "they are rather soiled," remarked dick, critically examining the queen of hearts; and then he continued, in a matter-of-fact tone, "you see i found them back of the coal box; some fellow had thrown them away, i guess. lucky for me that he did." "lucky for you? is that the best you can do with your time?" "perhaps you would suggest some more elevating amusement," smiled dick. "well, why don't you read somethin'?" the young man waved his pipe toward a lot of month-old papers and printers journals--"my dear sir, i have gone through that pile three times and have exhausted every almanac in this establishment." "visit some of your friends." "not one in the city except udell," answered the other, "and if i had--" he glanced down at his worn clothing. mr. wicks tried again; "well, go somewhere." "where?" asked dick. "there is only one place open to _me_--the saloon--i haven't money enough for that, and if i had, i wouldn't spend it there now. i might go to some respectable gambling den, i suppose, but there's the money question again, and my foolish pride, so i play solitaire. i know i am in good company at least, if the sport isn't quite so exciting." uncle bobbie was silent. the rain swished against the windows and roared on the tin roof of the building; the last car of the evening, with one lone passenger, scurried along broadway, its lights brightly reflected on the wet pavement; a cab rumbled toward the hotel, the sound of the horses' feet dull and muffled in the mist; and a solitary policeman, wrapped in his rubber coat, made his way along the almost deserted street. as uncle bobbie stood listening to the lonely sounds and looking at the young man, with his corn-cob pipe and pack of dirty cards, he thought of his own cheery fireside and of his waiting wife. "to-be-sure," he said at last, carefully placing his umbrella in a corner near the door, and as carefully removing his coat and hat; "to-be-sure, i quit smokin' sometime ago--'bout a month, i reckon--used to smoke pretty nigh all the time, but wife she wanted me to quit--i don't know as there is any use in it." a long pause followed, as he drew a chair to the stove and seated himself. "to-be-sure, i don't know as there's any great harm in it either." there was another pause, while dick also placed his chair near the stove--"and i git so plaguey fat every time i quit." dick tilted back and lazily blew a soft cloud into the air. uncle bobbie arose and placed the coal bucket between them. "told mother last night i was gettin' too fat again--but it made me sick last time i tried it--i wonder if it would make me sick now."--a longer pause than usual followed--then: "it's really dangerous for me to get so fat, and smokin' 's the only thing that keeps it down. d'ye reckon it would make me sick again?" he drew a cigar from his pocket, almost as big as a cannon fire-cracker and fully as dangerous. "i got this t'day. looks like a pretty good one. it didn't use to make me sick 'fore i quit the last time." dick handed him a match and two minutes later the big cigar was burning as freely as its nature would permit. "what an awful wasteful habit it is to-be-sure, ain't it?" went on the old gentleman between vigorous puffs. "just think, there's school books, and bibles and baby clothes and medicine for the sick, and food for the hungry, and houses and stores, and farms, and cattle, all a' goin' up in that smoke;" he pointed with his cigar to the blue cloud that hung between them. "if i had half the money church members burn, i could take care of every old worn-out preacher in the world, and have a good bit left over for the poor children. i wisht i was as young as you be; i'd quit it fer good; but it sure does take a hold on an old feller like me." dick's face grew thoughtful. "i never looked at it in that way before," he said, as he took his pipe from his mouth; "it's a big comfort to a chap who is all alone, though i suppose it does get a strong hold on a man who has used it most of his life; and a fellow could do a lot of good with the money it costs him." he arose to his feet and went to the window, where he stood for a moment looking out into the rain. presently he came back to his chair again; "look out," cried uncle bobbie, as dick took his seat, "you've dropped your pipe into the coal bucket." "oh, that's all right; its worn-out anyway, and i have another." but he smoked no more that evening. "where are you from?" asked wicks abruptly. "everywhere," answered dick, shortly, for he did not relish the thought of being questioned about his past. "where you goin'?" came next from his companion. "nowhere," just as short. "folks livin'?" "no." "how long been dead?" "since i was a little fellow." "ain't you got no relations?" "don't want any if they're like an aunt of mine." uncle bobbie nodded in sympathy. "how'd you happen to strike this place?" dick told him in three words, "lookin' for work." "udell's a mighty fine fellow." "you're right he is." "not much of a christian though." and the old man watched dick keenly through the cloud of smoke. "no, good thing for me he isn't," the young man answered bitterly, his face and voice betraying his feelings. "i know; yes, i know," nodded uncle bobbie. "to-be-sure, i used to look at things just like you, and then i got more sense and learned a heap better, and i tell you right now that you'll do the same way. i know there is church members that are meaner'n a mule with shoulder galls. they won't pull nothin' and would kick a man's head off quicker'n greased lightnin'. but they ain't goin' to heaven, be they? not much they ain't; no more'n my dog's goin' to the legislature. and there's them outside the church that's a whole lot worse. taint christianity that makes folks mean, but they're mean in spite of it, though you can't get such fellers as you to see it that way, no more'n you can foller a mosquito through a mile o' fog. to-be-sure, i aint blamin' you much though." dick's face changed. this was not just what he expected. "i'll tell you," he said, when he saw that the old gentleman expected him to reply. "ever since i can remember, i've been kicked and cuffed and cursed by saint and sinner alike, until i can't see much difference between the church members and those whom they say are in the world." "except that the members of the church do the kickin' and cuffin' and let the sinners do the cussin'," broke in uncle bobbie. "to-be-sure, ye can't tell me nothin' about that either." "i'm not saying anything about the teaching of christ," continued dick; "that's all right so far as it goes, but it don't seem to go very far. i have not made much of a success of life, but i've worked mighty hard to earn a living and learn my trade, and i don't know but that i am willing to take my chances with some of the church members i have seen." "to-be-sure," said uncle bobbie; "and i reckon your chance is just as good as their'n. but it strikes me that i want to stand a little better show than them fellers. how about the folks that be christians? you know there is them that do follow the master's teachin'; what about their chances, heh?" "you see it's just this way," continued uncle bobbie, settling himself more comfortably in his chair; "i had a whole lot of brothers and sisters at home, back in ohio; an' they was all members of the church but me. to-be-sure, i went to sunday school and meetin' with the rest--i jing! i had to!--huh!--my old dad would just naturally a took th' hide off me if i hadn't. yes sir-ee, you bet i went to church. but all the same i didn't want to. an' they sorter foundered me on religi'n, i reckon, jim and bill and tom and dave. they'd all take their girls and go home with them after meetin', an' i'd have to put out the team and feed the stock all alone; an' sunday evenin' every one of 'em would be off to singin' and i'd have to milk and feed again. an' then after meetin' of course the boys had to take their girls home, and other fellows would come home with our girls, and i'd have to put up the team and take care of the boys' horses that come sparkin'. an' somehow i didn't take to christianity. to-be-sure, 'twas a good thing fer the stock i didn't." he carefully knocked the ashes from his cigar and continued: "to-be-sure, i know now that wasn't no excuse, but it looked that way then. after a while the boys married off and i staid to home and took care of the old folks; and purty soon the girls they got married too; and then pa and ma got too old to go out, and i couldn't leave 'em much, and so i didn't get to meetin' very often. things went on that way a spell 'til bill got to thinkin' he'd better come and live on the home farm and look after things, as i didn't have no woman; to-be-sure, it did need a good bit of tendin'. six hundred acres all in fine shape and well stocked--so i told pa that i'd come west an let 'em run things at home. i got a job punchin' steers out here in james county, and they're all back there yet. the old folks died a little bit after i came west, and bill--well--bill, he keeps the home place 'cause he took care of 'em ye know--well, i homesteaded a hundred and sixty, and after a spell, the santa fe road come through and i got to buyin' grain and hogs, and tradin' in castor-oil beans and managed to get hold of some land here when the town was small. to-be-sure, i aint rich yet, though i've got enough to keep me i reckon. i handle a little real estate, get some rent from my buildin's, and loan a little money now and then. but you bet i've worked for every cent i've got, and i didn't fool none of it away either, 'cept what went up in smoke." the old gentleman's voice sank lower and lower as he recalled the years that had flown. and as dick looked at the kindly face, seamed and furrowed by the cares of life, and the hair just whitened by the frost of time, now half hidden in a halo of smoke, he felt his heart warm with sympathy, which he knew was returned full measure by the boy who had left his ohio home to battle with life alone in that strange western country. "but what i wanted to tell ye," said uncle bobbie, coming suddenly back to the present and speaking in his usual abrupt manner, "you'll find out, same as i have, that it don't much matter how the other feller dabbles in the dirt, you've got to keep your hands clean anyhow. an' taint the question whether the other feller's mean or not, but am i livin' square? i know that christ is the saviour of men, but he can't save 'em 'less they want him to, no more'n i can catch a jack-rabbit a-foot. christianity's all right, but it aint a goin' to do no good 'less people live it, and there's a heap more living it too than we think. what such fellers as you want to do is to listen to what christ says and not look at what some little two by four church member does. they aint worth that;" and he tossed his cigar stub to keep company with dick's pipe. dick said nothing, because he could find no words to express himself, and the older man, seeing how it was, rose to his feet. "well, i must be goin'. wife'll think i've clean gone back on her. come up to the house and see me sometime. i reckon you know you're welcome after what i've been sayin'." and then as the young man gave him a lift with his coat; "keep a stiff upper lip; you'll strike pay dirt after a while; just keep a hangin' on, like a puppy to a root. good-night," and dick was alone again. "wife," said mr. wicks next morning, just before getting up to build the fire; "wife, i made a discovery last night." "you were out late enough to discover something," returned mrs. wicks, with a laugh; "what is it?" and uncle bobbie replied slowly as he arose and began dressing, "there's some fellers go to the devil just because they aint got nowheres else to go." later, the old gentleman sat at his desk in his office, tilted back in his revolving chair, his feet among the papers where his hands should have been. no one came in to disturb his revery for it was still early in the morning, and the only sound was the clicking of a typewriter in the next room. suddenly the feet came down to their proper place with a bang, and leaning forward, he wrote rapidly for a few moments, then called, "charlie." the noise of the typewriter stopped and a young man entered the room. "charlie, i've been gettin' out a little advertisin' stuff here, and i wish you'd take it over to george udell's an' wait until they fix it up, so you can bring me back the proof. you can let them letters rest a spell." the young man took his hat and umbrella, for it was still raining, and started on his errand, but his employer stopped him. "wait a bit, charlie. do you remember that young feller what called here for a job week before last, the time i sold that johnson property, you know?" "said he was a printer from kansas city?" asked charlie. the other nodded. "yes, sir, i remember him." "well, he's got a job with udell. i was there last night and had a talk with him. he aint got no friends and stays in the office nights alone. i just thought i'd tell you. he's shy of christians though, and proud as an old turkey gobbler in the spring. but he needs somebody to talk to more'n anything else, that's all." and the old man turned back to his papers. this was the beginning. the end is easily foreseen; for, given a young man of dick's temperament, longing for companionship, and another young man of charlie's make-up, with a legitimate business to bring the two together, and only a friendship of the david and jonathan order could result. dick was distant at first, but charlie was too wise to force himself upon him, and as mr. wicks found many excuses for sending his young assistant to the printing office, the two slowly grew better acquainted. then came a time when charlie dared to ask dick what he did evenings, and dick answered in his proud way, "smoke and play solitaire. couldn't charlie come up and chat with him sometimes? he couldn't play cards and didn't care to smoke, but he did like to talk. yes, charlie could if he chose, but he would find it a dull place to spend an evening." dick was pulling away at his corn-cob pipe the first time charlie came, but moved to hide it from sight as the latter entered the room. then thinking better of it, with a proud lifting of his chin, he stuck the pipe in his mouth again. however, charlie noticed that the smoke soon ceased to come from his companion's lips, and guessed that the tobacco was not burning well. this was the last time that he ever saw dick smoking. indeed, it was the last time that dick ever used tobacco in any form. "for," said he to himself, "i can't afford to do anything that robs babies and mothers, and makes me disagreeable to my friends." the ice once broken, charlie's calls grew more and more frequent, until the two met and talked like old friends, and often left the office to walk about the city, arm in arm, after dark. "mr. udell," said dick, one saturday night, as the latter handed him his wages for the week, "where's the best place to go for clothing?" and george, with a pleased look on his face, which dick could not help but notice, directed him to a clothing store on the corner of fourth and broadway. chapter vii the quiet of a sunday morning in early may was over the city. stores and business houses were closed, save here and there a meat market, which opened for careless citizens who had neglected to lay in their supply the night before. a group of negro loafers sat on the stone steps of the national bank, and lounged about the entrance of the opera house. a little farther up the street a company of idle whites sat in front of a restaurant; and farther on, in the doorway of a saloon, a drunkard was sleeping in the sun. old dr. watkins, in his buggy, came clattering down the street and stopped in front of the boyd city drug store, and a man with his arm in a sling followed him into the building. then the church bells rang out their cheery invitation, and the children, neat and clean in their sunday clothes, trooped along the street to the sunday schools. an hour later the voices of the bells again floated over the silent city, and men and women were seen making their way to the various places of worship. in the throng which passed through the door of the jerusalem church was a gentleman dressed in gray. it was not difficult to guess from his manner, as he stood in the vestibule as though waiting for someone, that he was a stranger in the place. his figure was tall, nearly if not quite six feet, well formed, but lithe rather than heavy, giving one the impression not only of strength, but of grace as well; the well-set head and clear-cut features; the dark hair and brows, overshadowing, deep-set, keen gray eyes; the mouth and chin, clean-shaven and finely turned; all combined to carry still farther the impression of power. even the most careless observer would know that he would be both swift and sure in action, while a closer student would say, "here is one who rules himself, as he leads others; who is strong in spirit as well as body; who is as kind as he is powerful; as loving as he is ambitious; this is indeed a man whom one would love as a friend and be forced to respect as an enemy." charlie bowen, one of the ushers, came hurrying up and caught the stranger by the hand. "good," he whispered, looking him over admiringly; "glad to see you, old man. whew, but you do look swell. folks will think you're a congressman sure, in that outfit." "do i take my hat off when i go in?" whispered dick, who already had his hat in his hand, "or do i wait till after prayers?" "you come along and do as the romans do, of course," replied charlie. "didn't know i was getting into a catholic church," retorted the other. "say, don't rush me way up in front, will you?" "never you mind that. come on." and before dick could say more the usher was half way up the aisle. "who is that stranger charlie bowen is seating?" said old mrs. gadsby in a low voice, to her neighbor. the neighbor shook her head. "isn't he handsome?" whispered a young school teacher to her chum. "some distinguished strangers here to-day," thought the pastor as he glanced over his congregation. and adam goodrich turned his head just in time to look into the face of the tramp printer, who was being seated in the pew behind him. miss goodrich was with her father and dick heard nothing of the opening part of the service, only coming to himself when cameron was well started in his discourse. the preacher's theme was, "the sermon on the mount," and the first words that caught the young man's ear were, "blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." he glanced around at the congregation. mrs. gadsby was inspecting the diamonds in the ears of the lady by her side, who was resting her powdered and painted face on the back of the pew in front, as though in devotion. "blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted," read the minister. dick thought of the widows and orphans in the city, and of the luxurious homes of the people he saw about him. "blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." dick looked straight at adam goodrich, the very back of whose head showed haughty arrogance and pride. "blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." dick lifted up his eyes and looked at four members of the choir who were whispering and giggling behind their books, and noted the beautiful frescoed ceiling, the costly stained-glass windows, the soft carpets and carved furniture on the rostrum, and the comfortable, well-cushioned pews. "is all this righteousness?" he asked himself. and he thought of the boys and girls on the street, of the hungry, shivering, starving, sin-stained creatures he had seen and known, who would not dare present themselves at the outer door of this temple, consecrated to the service of him who said, "come unto me and i will give you rest." and then, lest men might be mistaken, added, "whosoever will may come." "blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see god." dick's eyes rested on the girl in the next seat. yes, amy was pure in heart. there was no shadow of evil on that beautiful brow. innocence, purity and truth were written in every line of the girlish features, and dick's heart ached as he thought of his own life and the awful barrier between them; not the barrier of social position or wealth; _that_, he knew, could be overcome; but the barrier he had builded himself, in the reckless, wasted years. and then and there the strong young man fought a battle in the secret chamber of his own soul; fought a battle and won; putting from himself forever, as he believed, the dreams he had dared to dream in the lonely evening hours in the printing office. his struggle with himself seemed to make dick feel more keenly the awful mockery of the worshippers; and to him, who all his life had been used to looking at things as they really were, without the glasses of conventionalism or early training, the very atmosphere of the place was stifling. when the services were over, he rushed from the building without even returning charlie's salutation, only drawing a long breath when he was safe on the street again; and rejoiced in his heart when at dinner, the restaurant keeper cursed his wife in the kitchen, and a drunken boarder fell from his chair. "this, at least, is real," he said to himself; "but what a world this would be if only the sermon on the mount were lived, not simply talked about." the monday night following dick's visit to the church, charlie bowen had gone back to the office after supper, as he often did when business was brisk, forgetting that it was the first monday in the month, and that the official board of the jerusalem church would hold their regular business meeting there. the matter was only brought to his mind when elder wicks, with rev. cameron, entered, followed soon after by two or three others. charlie's first impulse was to leave the office, but it was necessary that his work be done. his employer knew that he was there and could easily give him a hint if it would be better for him to retire. shrewd old uncle bobbie, however, had his own plans in regard to this particular meeting, and it was not a part of them to have his young assistant leave the office. so nothing was said, and the meeting opened in the regulation way, with a prayer by elder gardner, the chairman of the board. the pastor and the different standing committees, with the treasurer, made their reports; some general matters were passed upon, and then the much-talked-of, long-deferred subject of building an addition to their place of worship was introduced. "you know, brethren," said the pastor, "our house does not begin to hold the people at the regular services, and we must have more sunday school room. it seems to me that there will be no better time than the present. the church is in a prosperous condition; we are out of debt; and if we ever expect to enlarge our work we must begin." "i know, brother cameron," said deacon godfrey, stating the standard objection, as it had been stated for the past two years, "but where's the money to come from? the members are paying all they can now to keep out of debt, and i don't believe they will do any more." "we do need more room," said elder chambers; "that's a fact. the sunday school is too crowded, and lots of people can't get to hear the preaching. but i'm like brother godfrey, i don't see how it's to be done. i'm giving every cent i can now, and i know lots of the brethren who are doing the same." "the lord will provide," said deacon wickham, with a pious uplifting of his eyes, and a sanctimonious whine in his voice. "the lord will provide. brethren, i'm ashamed for you to talk in this doubting manner. what would the congregation think if they should hear you? can't you trust the lord? don't, oh, don't doubt his precious promises. he will provide. if we need an addition to the church let us ask him. he will provide." "yes, the lord will provide, but we've got to do the hustlin'," said uncle bobbie. "he'll provide common sense and expect us to use it." "couldn't the women folks do something?" timidly suggested another. "of course they could," said deacon sharpe. "they could get up a social, or fair, or an entertainment of some kind. they used to do a lot that way before brother cameron came." "yes, and spent twenty-seven cents to make seventeen, while their boys run the streets and their husbands darn their own britches," broke in uncle bobbie again. "i tell you, i don't believe that so much of this ladies' aid business is business. christ wouldn't run a peanut stand to support the church, ner pave a sinner's way to heaven with pop-corn balls and molasses candy--" a half smothered cough came from the next room and everybody started. "oh, it's only charlie. he's got some work to do to-night," said the old man, reassuringly. "everybody does it though," said deacon sharpe, encouraged by the nods of chambers and godfrey. "all the churches depend upon the women, with their fairs and such, to pay their way. i don't see what's the harm. it gives the women something to do, and keeps us from paying out so much cash." "yes, an' that's what ails the churches," retorted elder wicks again. "there's too many of 'em run on the lemonade and ice cream basis; and as fer givin' the women somethin' to do, my wife's got her hands full takin' care o' me and her home. that's what i got her for, ain't it? she didn't marry the church--to-be-sure, though, it does look like it sometimes." "we must all work in the master's vineyard. none shall lose his reward," said deacon wickham again. "we all have our talents and god will hold us responsible for the use we make of them. we all have our work to do." to which sentiment uncle bobbie's reply was, "yes; that means all the women have our work to do, and that we'll get our reward by makin' 'em do it. i ain't got no use fer a man who lets a woman do his work, even in church. there's enough for 'em to do that we can't, without their spoilin' their eyes and breakin' their backs makin' sofa pillows, carpet rags, and mince meat, to pay the runnin' expenses of the church, and the debt besides." "i know of only one way," said the pastor, anxious to prevent these too frequent clashes between the pious deacon and the sharp old elder. "what's that?" asked chairman gardner. "the young people's society." there was a slight rustle and the sound as of a book falling to the floor in the other room. "umph," said godfrey; "what can _they_ do?" "have you ever attended their meetings?" asked cameron. "they have done more practical, christian work this past year than all the rest of the church put together. and if the truth must be told, are more to be depended upon at regular services, and prayer meeting, than some members of the official board." "better turn the church into a young folks' society then," said wickham, angrily; "and throw away the bible altogether. christ didn't say, 'upon this rock i'll build my young people's society.' for my part, i won't have nothing to do with it. there is not a single passage of scripture that says we shall have such things; and until you can show me, book, chapter and verse, i'll fight it." "i'll give ye book, chapter and verse," said uncle bobbie; "phillippians, iv: ." there was a painful silence and then one of the deacons asked, "but would the young folks help?" "i think so," said the pastor. "we might ask charlie bowen 'bout that," suggested mr. wicks. "charlie," he called, "are you most through with them books?" "yes, sir," answered the young man. "well, lock 'em up and come in here." when they had laid the matter before him charlie said, "yes, i am sure the society would take the matter up but for one thing; ever since brother cameron's sermon, on the church of the future, we have been planning to furnish a reading room somewhere, and it may be that they wouldn't want to give up the idea. if it was arranged so that we could have a room in the church when the addition was built, i am sure the society would be glad to take hold." uncle bobbie's eyes twinkled as he watched his young helper. he had not misjudged his man. this was just what he had expected. but deacon wickham was on his feet almost before charlie finished speaking. "brethren, this is entirely out of order. we have no right to listen to the counsel of this boy. he has not a single qualification, for either a deacon or an elder. i believe we ought to go according to the scriptures or not at all; and as for this new-fangled idea of a reading room in the church, it's all wrong. the bible don't say a thing about reading rooms and there is no authority for it whatever. if the inspired apostles had wanted reading rooms in the church they would have said so. paul didn't have them. let us stand for the religion of our fathers and let the young people read at home if they want to. brethren, i am opposed to the whole thing. this boy has no right to speak here." wicks whispered to charlie, "never you mind him. he's got just so much sputtering to do anyway. i'll fix him in a minute, and then he'll wash his hands of the whole matter." "i think it's a fine plan," he said aloud. "so do i," agreed deacon sharpe. "why not let the young folks have the room? we could charge ten cents admission and make a good thing for the church. i believe we ought to watch these corners and make a little now and then. paul worked to support himself." "make not my father's house an house of merchandise," said cameron, but faintly concealing his disgust. "i tell you, brethren, this thing must be free. i am sure that is the plan of the young folks. the young people's society is not in the business to make money. am i right, charlie?" "yes, sir," answered the young christian eagerly. "we wanted to fix some place where the young men of the town could spend their evenings, without going to the bad. there are lots of them who don't have homes, but live in boarding houses and have no place to go." "and a pretty crowd you'll have too," said wickham. "yes, and if you had to pay the preacher you'd want to rent the room," said sharpe. cameron's face flushed at the hard words. "come, come, brethren, what shall we do about this?" said the chairman. "i move," said elder wicks, "that we ask the young people's society to assist us in building the addition to the church, and that we give them one of the rooms." "i second the motion," said cameron; and it was carried. then the meeting adjourned with the usual prayer. "well," said wickham, "i wash my hands of the whole matter." uncle bobbie nudged charlie in the side as he started for his hat; and later, as he walked down the street, arm in arm with his pastor and his bookkeeper, he said: "poor old wickham; his heart's all right, but he's got so much scripture in his head that his think machine won't work." "friends," said cameron, as they paused in front of the parsonage; "this is the day i have looked forward to for a long time. this step will revolutionize our methods. it's hard to get out of old ruts, but the world needs applied christianity. thank god for the young people." and uncle bobbie said, "amen." chapter viii charlie bowen ran into the printing office one day on his way home to dinner. "dick," he said, "it's time you got out of this. i want you to put on your best bib and tucker to-night and go with me to meet some young people." dick carefully spread a pile of letterheads on the drying rack; then shutting off the power, stood watching the machine as its movements grew slower and slower. "young people," he thought; "the young people's society of the jerusalem church. i saw the announcement in to-day's independent. church members--_she'll_ be there, and i'll have the joy of seeing how near i can come to the candle without getting my wings singed. well, i suppose a fellow can't stay in the dark all the time," he said aloud, as he turned from the now motionless press. "of course not," cried charlie. "you've hidden yourself long enough. it will do you a world of good to get out; and, beside, i always do feel like a sneak when i'm having a good time and you're moping up here in this dirty old place." dick looked around. "i've moped in worse places," he said. "but i'll go with you to-night and be as giddy as you please. i'll whisper pretty nothings to the female lambkins and exchange commonplace lies with the young gentlemen, and then--why then--we'll come away again and straightway forget what manner of things we said and did, and they won't count when we meet on the street before folks." "that's all right," returned the other. "you just come anyway and see how badly you're mistaken. i'll call for you at seven-thirty sharp." and he left him cleaning up for his mid-day lunch. when charlie returned to the office that evening he found dick dressed ready to go, and a strange contrast the latter presented to the poorly-clad, half-starved tramp who had walked into boyd city only a few weeks before. some thought of this flashed through dick's mind as he read the admiration in his friend's face, and his own eyes glowed with pleasure. then a shadow swiftly came, but only for a moment. he was determined to forget, for one evening at least. "come on," he cried gaily, squaring his shoulders as though looking forward to a battle, "my soul seemeth anxious for the fray." charlie laughed as he answered, "i only hope that you'll come off whole. there will be some mighty nice girls there to-night. look out you don't get your everlasting." when the two young men reached the home of helen mayfield, where the social was to be held, they were met at the door by miss clara wilson, who was chairman of the reception committee. "glory," whispered that young lady to herself. "here comes charlie bowen with that tramp printer of george's. wish george could see him now." but not a hint of her thought found expression in her face, and the cordial, whole-hearted way in which she offered her hand in greeting, carried the conviction that no matter what might be his reception from others, this, at least, was genuine. the guests gathered quickly, and soon there was a house full of laughing, chattering, joking young people; and dick, true to his promise, laughed and chattered with the rest. "who is that tall, handsome man with the dark hair, talking to those girls with nellie graham and will clifton?" whispered amy goodrich to miss wilson, who had been asking her why frank was not at the gathering. "haven't you met him yet?" answered clara, secretly amused, for george had told her of the incident at the office. "that's mr. falkner, from kansas city. come, you must meet him. mr. falkner," she said, skillfully breaking up the group, "i wish to present you to a very dear friend. miss goodrich, mr. falkner." poor dick felt the room spin round and everybody looking at him, as he mumbled over some nonsense about the great honor and happiness of having met miss goodrich before. amy looked at him in astonishment. "i think you are mistaken, mr. falkner," she said. "i do not remember having met you. where was it; here in town?" with a mighty effort, dick caught hold of himself, as it were, and gazed around with an air of defiance. to his amazement, no one was paying the least attention to him. only his fair partner was looking up into his face with mingled amusement, wonder and admiration written on her features. "in california; i think it was year before last," he said glibly. amy laughed--"but i never was in california in my life, so you must be mistaken." then, as dick swept the room with another anxious glance: "what is the matter, mr. falkner; are you looking for someone?" "i was wondering where charlie bowen went to," he answered desperately. "i didn't know but what he would want me to turn the ice-cream freezer or something." [illustration: "mr. falkner, i wish to present you to a very dear friend."] miss goodrich laughed again. "you're the funniest man," she said, and something in her voice or manner brought dick to his senses with a jar. "well," he said, with a smile, "if i am mistaken i am very sorry, i assure you." "about the ice cream?" "no, about having met you before." "oh, sorry that you thought you had met me?" dick protested to some length with much unnecessary earnestness, and at last suggested that they find seats. miss goodrich agreed, and leading the way to an adjoining room, discovered a cushioned corner near the window. "do you know," she said, when they were seated, "i, too, feel as you do?" "about the ice-cream?" retorted dick. "no," she laughed, "about having met you before." "indeed, i am glad." "glad?" "yes, that you feel as i do." "truly," she said, ignoring his reply, "you _do_ remind me of someone i have seen somewhere. oh, i know; it's that tramp printer of mr. udell's, i--why, what is the matter, mr. falkner? are you sick? let me call someone." "no, no," gasped dick. "i'll be all right in a moment. it's my heart. please don't worry." he caught up a basket of pictures. "here, let's look at these. i find nothing that has a more quieting effect than the things one finds on the center tables of our american homes." amy looked uneasy but began turning over the pictures in the basket. there were some commonplace photos of commonplace people, a number of homemade kodaks, one or two stray views of yellowstone park, the big trees of california, niagara falls, and several groups that were supposed to be amusing. "oh, here's a picture of that printer," she cried, picking up one which showed the interior of an old-fashioned printing office, with a washington hand-press and a shock-headed printer's devil sitting on a high stool, his face and shirt-front bespattered with ink. "that looks just like him. why,--why, mr. falkner, you've torn that picture! what _will_ helen mayfield say?" "awfully sorry," said dick, "i'll find her another. it was very awkward of me, i am sure." then in desperation, "but tell me more about this printer of whom i remind you; what was his name?" "oh, i don't know that," replied amy, "but he was very kind to me and sat up at night to design a cover for a little booklet i was having printed. i never saw him to thank him though, for he was out when i called the next day. i heard that mr. udell had a tramp working for him and i suppose it was he, for he acted very strangely--he may have been drinking. it is too bad for he must have been a splendid workman. there ought to be one of those books here," and she began turning over the things on the table. "yes, here it is." and she handed dick the pamphlet that had caused him so much trouble that night in the office. it is hard to say where the matter would have ended had not miss jameson, another member of the social committee, appeared just then, and ordered them to the parlor, where amy was wanted to play. after the company had listened to several instrumental pieces and one or two solos by different girls, one of the young men asked, "don't you sing, mr. falkner?" "of course he does," and all began calling for a song. a sudden thought struck dick, and stepping quickly to the piano, he played his own accompaniment and sang, in a rich baritone voice, a street song: "they tell me go work for a living, and not round the country to stamp; and then when i ask for employment, they say there's no work for a tramp." the song was by no means a classic one, but the manner in which dick rendered it made it seem so, and as he sang: "there's many a true heart beating, beneath the old coat of a tramp." a strange hush fell over the little audience, and when the song was finished a subdued murmur of applause filled the room, while eager voices called for more. dick responded with another selection and then declaring that he had done his share, left the instrument and seated himself by charlie's side. "good, old man," said that young gentleman, in a whisper, "but where in the world did you learn all that?" "dance hall and variety," whispered dick. "never thought i'd air that accomplishment at a church social." charlie's reply was lost in a call to the dining room, where light refreshments were served to the hungry young people by waiters from among their number; then turn about, and the waiters were waited upon; and through it all ran the laugh and jest of happy young folks, who thoroughly enjoyed each other's company, and who for one evening met on common ground. after supper, came games and more music, while a few of the more earnest ones, in an out-of-the-way corner, discussed the reading room and planned for its future. then came a call for everyone to sing, and with amy at the piano, they sang song after song until it was time to go. then the bustle of leave-taking--good nights--lovely time--my house next month--and dick found himself walking downtown, arm in arm with his friend. "well," said the latter, "how about it?" "thank you for a pleasant evening," replied dick. "but say, those folks don't know me, do they?" "some of them do; some don't. what does it matter?" "well, tell me, did those who know how i came to town, know that i would be there tonight?" "_no, sir,_" said charlie, emphatically. "what do you take me for, dick?" "forgive me," said dick. "i ought to have known better, only you see my experience with church people, and--well--i'm a bit sore i guess. i couldn't believe there were any like those. i didn't know, that's all," and with a "good-night," he turned down the street toward his humble lodging place, while charlie went on toward home. "yes, that's all," said the latter to himself. "dick didn't know; and that's what's the matter with hundreds of fellows just like him; they don't know what real christianity is like; they see so much of the sham; but he'll find out though, or i'm mistaken. my, what a worker he would make, with his experience and talents, if only once he got started right. he just made that old street song burn its way into the heart, and i felt like i wanted to be a brother to every poor, homeless chap in the world." meanwhile, dick had reached the office, and throwing off his coat, laid aside his collar, tie and cuffs. then seating himself in the rickety old chair, he tilted back as far as possible and fixed his feet as high as he could get them, against the big prouty press. five--ten--fifteen-minutes went by, dick sat without moving a muscle. the clanging bell of the eleven-thirty train on the "memphis" pulling into the depot, sounded plainly in his ear, but still he sat immovable. a night-hawk cab rattled over the brick pavement, and a drunkard yelled beneath the window; still dick held his place. so still that a little mouse that lived in one corner of the office, crept stealthily out, and glancing curiously with his bead-like eyes, at the motionless figure, ran, with many a pause, to the very legs of dick's chair. crash--as dick's feet struck the floor. the shaky old piece of furniture almost fell in ruins and the poor frightened mouse fled to cover. kicking the chair to one side, the young fellow walked to the window and stood with his hands in his pockets, looking into the night. then, in sullen tones, he addressed the lamp that twinkled in the bakery across the way: "i'm a fool. i know i'm a fool; a great big fool. i ought to have told her who i was. i ought to get out a poster and label myself _dangerous_, so people would know they were talking to a tramp. oh, but when she finds out, as she must--and her father--." here dick's imagination failed him, and he laughed again and again in spite of himself, as he thought of the tramp who had applied to adam goodrich for work, chatting with his beautiful daughter as an equal. "whew--but there'll be a hot time in the camp of the enemy when they learn the truth," and he took himself off to bed. chapter ix the opinions on the part of rev. cameron's flock regarding the proposed reading room, were numerous and varied. adam goodrich, in his usual pompous manner, gave it as his judgment that cameron would be running a free lodging house next, as though that were the greatest depth of infamy to which a poor preacher could sink, and mrs. goodrich declared that it would ruin the social influence of the church forever. amy was heart and soul with the movement, but prudently refrained from discussing the matter in the presence of her parents; while frank, though he attended all the meetings of the society and would not openly oppose their efforts for fear of being unpopular, lost no opportunity to secretly throw a stumbling block in their way, and made all manner of sneering allusions to the work when he thought it would not come to the ears of the young people. when at last the room was finished and ready to be occupied, the committee appointed met to select a manager. the church, with the usual good judgment shown by churches in such matters, had named elder wicks and deacon wickham, and the young people had selected charlie bowen and two young ladies, to represent the society. they met in the new rooms one evening and deacon wickham took the floor at once. "i hope our young friends won't take offense at what i am about to say, but you know i am one of the kind who always say just what i think, for i believe that if a man has anything on his mind, it had better come out. this business ought to be in the hands of the church board; you young folks have no scriptural rights to speak on the subject at all." the three young christians looked at uncle bobbie, whose left eye remained closed for just the fraction of a second, and the speaker wondered at the confident smile with which his words were received. "there's not one of you that has the proper qualifications for an elder or a deacon," he continued. "you girls have no right to have the oversight of a congregation, anyway, and charlie bowen here is not even the husband of one wife." "give him time, brother wickham; give the boy time," broke in uncle bobbie, with a chuckle, much to the delight of the girls, and the confusion of charlie. "you just wait; he may surprise you some day in his qualifications." but the deacon continued with a frown at the interruption, "as far as that goes, the whole thing is unscriptural and i was opposed to it at the first, as brother wicks here can tell you." uncle bobbie nodded. "but you've gone ahead in spite of what i and the scriptures teach, and you've got your reading rooms; and now i mean to see to it that you have a good brother, who is eminently qualified to teach, at the head of the concern; a good man who is thoroughly grounded in the faith, and who has arrived at years of discretion; a workman that needeth not to be ashamed of his handiwork, rightly dividing the word of truth. such a man could get the young christians together evenings and lay out their bible reading for them, spending an hour or two perhaps, each week, in explaining the more difficult passages. if i had time i would be glad to do the work myself, for there's nothing i like better than teaching. i don't know, i might possibly find time if the brethren thought best for me to take the work. i am always ready to do what the lord wants me to, and i promise you that i'd teach those young people the scriptures, and make them interested, too. why, when i was in bear city, down in oklahoma, i had a--" "but, brother wickham," interrupted uncle bobbie, who knew from experience that if the good deacon ever got started on his work in oklahoma they never would get to the business of the evening, "it strikes me you ain't got jist the right ide' of this. tain't to be a sunday school, ner a place to teach the bible, as i understand it, though i reckon it's in line with the teachin' of christ. it is--" "not to teach the bible?" ejaculated the astonished deacon. "what on earth can you teach in the church except the bible, and what kind of a reading room can you have in the lord's house i'd like to know?" "the ide', brother wickham," said the old elder, as gently as he could, "is to furnish some place where young men of the town can go and spend their time when they aint working. this room will be stocked with the latest books, magazines and papers; there will be tables with writin' material and sich stuff, if a feller wants to write to his girl, you know, and the room in there will be fixed with easy chairs and sofas for them that wants to talk er play games, er have a good time generally. seems to me what we want fer a manager is some young man who's got good boss sense, and who could make things pleasant, even if he don't know so much scripture." "and it's to be free to every loafer who wants to come in and use the place?" "yes, just as free as christ's invitation to come and be saved." "but you'll fill the church with a lot of trash who don't know anything about the bible, or the plan of salvation. how can you, when the scriptures say, have no fellowship with such?" "we'll save a few young men who are startin' fer hell by way of the saloons and bawdy houses." "no you won't. the gospel and the gospel alone, is the power of god unto salvation. god never ordained that men should be saved by reading rooms and such." "i believe i know just the man we want," said uncle bobbie, turning to the young people, when the deacon had at last subsided into an attitude of sullen protest. "who?" asked one of the young ladies, with the hint of a laugh in her eyes, as she looked at their stand-by. "that printer of udell's. he's a clean, strong young feller, and i believe would be glad of some sech place to spend his evenin's. of course he aint a christian, but--" "not a christian," cried wickham, starting to his feet again; "not a christian? and you propose to let an alien take charge of the lord's work? i wash my hands of the whole matter." "are you sure he will be all right?" asked the other girl on the committee. "sure," replied wicks, "if he will take it, and i think we can get charlie here to see to that." charlie nodded. "it will be a splendid thing for him," he said; and then he told them how dick spent his evenings alone in the office, rather than go to the only places open to him. "well," said uncle bobbie, "let's fix it that way. brother wickham, we have decided to ask richard falkner to take charge of the rooms." "i've got nothing to say about it, sir," answered the good deacon. "i don't know anything about it. i wash my hands of the whole matter." and so the work at the jerusalem church was established. it took no little power of persuasion on the part of charlie bowen, to bring his friend to the point of accepting the committee's offer, even when it was endorsed by the entire young people's society, and a large part of the congregation. but his arguments finally prevailed and dick consented to be at the rooms between the hours of seven and eleven every evening, the time when a strong, tactful man in authority would be most needed. the rooms were furnished by friends of the cause and were cheery, comfortable, homelike apartments, where everyone was made welcome. many a poor fellow, wandering on the streets, tired of his lonely boarding house, and sorely tempted by the air of cheerfulness and comfort of the saloons, was led there, where he found good books and good company; and at last, for what was more natural, became a regular attendant at the only church in the city which did not close its doors to him during the week. dick enjoyed the work, and in a short time had many friends among the young men. he treated everybody in the same kindly, courteous manner, and was always ready to recommend a book, to introduce an acquaintance, or to enter into conversation with a stranger. indeed he soon grew so popular among the young folks that george udell told miss wilson it seemed as though he had always lived in boyd city, he knew so many people, and so many knew him. and of course clara answered, "i told you so." what woman could resist such an opportunity? "didn't i say that he was no common tramp? you needn't tell me i don't know a man when i see him." the two were driving in the evening, on the road that leads south from town, down a hill, across a bridge, and along the bank of a good-sized creek, where the trees bend far over to dip the tips of their branches in the water, and the flowers growing rank and wild along the edges, nod lazily at their own faces reflected in the quiet pools and eddies. "you may know a man when you see him," replied george, letting the horse take his own time beneath the overhanging boughs, "but you take precious good care that you don't see too much of one that i could name." "who do you mean; mr. falkner?" replied clara, with a provoking smile, as she tried in vain to catch one of the tall weeds that grew close to the side of the road. "hang mr. falkner," returned udell impatiently. "you know what i mean, clara. what's the use of you and me pretending? haven't i told you ever since i was ten years old that i loved you, and would have no one else to be my wife? and haven't you always understood it that way, and by your manners toward me given assent?" the girl looked straight ahead at the horse's ears as she answered slowly, "if my manner has led you to have false hopes it is very easy to change it, and if accepting your company gives assent to all the foolish things you may have said when you were ten years old, you'd better seek less dangerous society." "forgive me dear, i spoke hastily," said george, in a much softer tone. "but it's mighty hard to have you always just within reach and yet always just beyond." the sun had gone down behind the ridge. the timbers of an old mining shaft, and the limbs and twigs of a leafless tree showed black against the tinted sky. a faint breath of air rustled the dry leaves of the big sycamores and paw-paw bushes, and the birds called sleepily to each other as they settled themselves for the coming night. a sparrow-hawk darted past on silent wings, a rabbit hopped across the road, while far away, the evening train on the "frisco" whistled for a crossing; and nearer, a farm boy called to his cattle. after a long silence, george spoke again, with a note of manly dignity in his voice, which made his fair companion's heart beat quicker. "clara, look at me; i want to see your eyes," he insisted. she turned her face toward him. "clara, if you can say, i do not love you as a woman ought to love her husband, i will promise you, on my honor, never to mention the subject to you again. can you say it?" she tried to turn her head and to hide the tell-tale color in her cheeks, but he would not permit it. "answer me," he insisted. "say you do not love me and i will never bother you again." at last the eyes were lifted, and in their light george read his answer. "all right," he said, picking up the whip, "i knew you could not lie; you do love me, and i'll never stop asking you to be my wife." he turned the horse's head toward the city. that same evening, adam goodrich, with his family and two or three neighbors, sat on the veranda of the goodrich home, enjoying the beauties of the hour, and passing the evening in social chat. in the course of the conversation, someone mentioned the rooms at the jerusalem church. adam grunted. "what a splendid thing it is for the young men," said one of the lady callers. "i don't see why more of the churches don't adopt the plan. i wish ours would." "yes," chimed in another, "and isn't that mr. falkner, who has charge of the rooms in the evening, a splendid fellow? my brother speaks of him so highly, and all the young men seem to think so much of him." "where is he from; st. louis, is it?" asked the first lady. "kansas city," said frank. "at least that's what _he_ says. he bummed his way into town last spring and got a job in that infidel udell's printing office. that's all anybody knows of him." "except that he has never shown himself to be anything but a perfect gentleman," added his sister. "amy," said mrs. goodrich, a note of warning in her voice. "i don't care, mamma, it's the truth. what if he _was_ out of money and hungry and ragged when he came to town? he was willing to work, and mr. udell says that he is a splendid workman, and--" but her father interrupted her. "well, what of it? no one knows anything about his family or how he lived before he came here. he's only a tramp, and you can't make anything else out of him. some folks are never satisfied unless they are trying to make gentlemen out of gutter snipes. if we let such fellows get a foothold, there won't be any respectable society after a while; it will be all stable boys and boot-blacks." later, when the visitors had said good-night and amy and her mother had entered the house, frank said, "father, i'll tell you one thing about that man falkner, you've got to watch him." "what do you mean?" asked adam. "i mean amy," replied the other, moving his chair nearer the old gentleman and speaking in a guarded tone. "he takes every chance he can to talk with her, and she is altogether too willing to listen." "pshaw," grunted the older man, "she never sees him." "that's where you are mistaken, father. they met first last spring in the printing office; and afterwards, when he had gotten in with that soft fool, charlie bowen, they met again at the young people's social. he was all dressed up in a new suit of clothes and of course amy didn't know him. they were together all that evening, and since then, though she has found out who he is, she talks with him at every opportunity. they meet at the society, at church, at picnics and parties, and sometimes in the printing office. i tell you you'd better watch him. he's doing his level best to get in with her, and just look how he's working everybody else. half the town is crazy over him." low spoken as were frank's words, amy heard every one, for she had not retired as her brother supposed, but was lying on a couch just inside the doorway of the darkened parlor. with burning cheeks, she rose cautiously and tiptoed out of the silent room. making her way upstairs and entering her own chamber, she closed and bolted the door, and then, throwing herself on the floor by the low seat of an open window, rested her head on her arm while she looked up at the stars now shining clear and bright. once she started impatiently and her eyes filled with angry tears. then she grew calm again, and soon the girlish face was worthy of a master's brush as she gazed reverently into the beautiful heavens, her lips moving in a whispered prayer; a softly whispered prayer for dick. and as she prayed, in the shadow of the catalpa trees, unseen by her, a man walked slowly down the street. reaching the corner, he turned and slowly passed the house again; crossing the street, he passed once more on the opposite side, paused a moment at the corner, and then started hurriedly away toward the business portion of the city. chapter x november, with its whispered promises of winter fun, was past, and the christmas month, with snow and ice, had been ushered in. usually in the latitude of boyd city, the weather remains clear and not very cold until the first of the new year; but this winter was one of those exceptions which are met with in every climate, and the first of december brought zero weather. indeed, it had been unusually cold for several weeks. then, to make matters worse, a genuine western blizzard came howling across the prairie, and whistled and screamed about the streets, from which it had driven everything that could find a place of shelter. the stores on broadway were vacant, save a few shivering clerks. in the offices, men sat with their feet on the stove and called to mind the biggest storms they had ever known; while street cars stood motionless and railway trains, covered with ice and snow, came puffing into the stations three or four hours behind time. in spite of the awful weather, george udell spent the evening at the wilson home on the east side. he had not seen clara for nearly two weeks and the hour was rather late when he arose to prepare for the long, cold walk to his boarding house. "and i must wait, clara?" he asked again, as they stood in the hallway, and the girl answered rather sharply, "yes, you must wait. i do wish you would be sensible, george." the printer made no reply, but paused for some time with his hand on the door-knob, as though reluctant to leave her in such a mood. then with an "alright, goodnight," he stepped out into the storm, his mind filled with bitter thoughts that had best be left unspoken. the man did not know how heavy was the heart of the girl who stood at the window watching long after his form had vanished into the night. the wind was terrific and the snow cut the printer's face like tiny needles, while he was forced again and again to turn his back to the blast in order to breathe, and in spite of his heavy clothing was chilled to the bone before he had gone three blocks. on broadway, he passed saloon after saloon, brilliant with glittering chandeliers and attractive with merry music, inviting all the world to share the good-fellowship and cheer within. he thought of his rooms, how cold and lonely they would be, and had half a mind to stop at the hotel for the night. for an instant he hesitated, then with a shake, "what folly," pushed on again. as he struggled along, fighting every inch of the way, with head down and body braced to the task, warm lights from the windows of many cozy homes fell across his path, and he seemed to feel the cold more keenly for the contrast. then through the storm, he saw a church, dark, grim and forbidding, half-hidden in the swirling snow, the steps and entrance barricaded with heavy drifts. a smile of bitter sarcasm curled his lip as he muttered to himself: "how appropriate; what a fine monument to the religious activity of the followers of christ," and he almost laughed aloud when he remembered that the sermon delivered there the sunday before was from the text, "i was a stranger and ye took me not in." suddenly he stopped and stood peering through the storm. in the light of an electric arc, which sizzled and sputtered on the corner, he saw a dark form half hidden in the snow piled about the doorway of the building. stepping closer, he reached out and touched it with his foot, then bending down, he discovered to his horror that it was the body of a man. george tried to arouse the fallen one and lift him to his feet, but his efforts only met with failure, and the other sank back again on his bed of snow. the printer studied a moment. what should he do? then his eyes caught a gleam of light from a house near by. "of course," he thought, "uncle bobbie wicks lives there." stooping again, he gathered the man in his arms, and with no little effort, slowly and painfully made his way across the street and along the sidewalk to mr. wicks's home. uncle bobbie was sitting before the fire, dozing over his sunday school quarterly, when he was aroused by the sound of heavy feet on the porch and a strange knock, as though someone was kicking at the door. quickly he threw it open, and udell, with his heavy burden, staggered into the room. "found him on the church steps," gasped the printer, out of breath, as he laid the stranger on a couch. "i'll go for a doctor," and he rushed out into the storm again, returning some thirty minutes later with dr. james at his heels. they found uncle bobbie, who had done all that was possible, sitting beside the still form on the couch. "you're too late, doc," he said. "the poor chap was dead before george left the house." the physician made his examination. "you're right, mr. wicks," he answered, "we can do nothing here. frozen to death. must have died early in the evening." the doctor returned to his home to get what sleep he could before another call should break his rest, and all that night the christian and the infidel sat together, keeping watch over the dead body of the unknown man. the next morning the coroner was summoned; the verdict was soon handed in, "death by exposure." or the body was found a church statement that there had been paid to the current expense fund, in the quarter ending august first, the sum of three dollars, but the name written with lead pencil was illegible. besides this, was a prayer-meeting topic-card, soiled and worn, and a small testament, dog-eared, with much fingering, but no money. a cheap christian endeavor pin was fastened to the ragged vest. there was nothing to identify him, or furnish a clew as to where he was from. the face and form was that of a young man, and though thin and careworn, showed no mark of dissipation. the right hand was marked by a long scar across the back and the loss of the little finger. the clothing was very poor. among those who viewed the body in the undertaking rooms where it lay for identification, was dick, and udell, who was with him, thought that he seemed strangely moved as he bent over the casket. george called his attention to the disfigured hand, but dick only nodded. then, as they drew back to make room for others, he asked in a whisper, "did they search thoroughly for letters or papers? sometimes people hide important documents in their clothing, you know." "no, there was nothing," answered george. "we even ripped out the linings." when they reached the open air dick drew a long breath. "i must hurry back to the office," he said. "i suppose you'll not be down to-day." "no, i must arrange for the funeral; you can get along i guess." "oh yes, don't worry about that," was the reply, and the young man started off down the street, but at the corner he turned, and walking rapidly, in a few moments reached the church where the body of the stranger was found. the steps and walks had been carefully cleaned and the snow about the place was packed hard by the feet of the curious crowd who had visited the scene earlier in the morning. dick looked up and down the street. there was no one in sight. stepping swiftly to the pile of snow which the janitor had made with his shovel and broom, he began kicking it about with his feet. suddenly, with an exclamation, he stopped and again glanced quickly around. then stooping, he picked up a long, leather pocketbook, and turning, walked hurriedly away to the office. the body was held as long as possible, but when no word could be had as to the poor fellow's identity, he was laid away in a lot purchased by the printer, who also bore the funeral expenses. when uncle bobbie would have helped him in this, george answered: "no, this is my work. i found him. let me do this for his mother's sake." the funeral was held in the undertaking rooms. dick falkner, uncle bobbie and his wife, and clara wilson, with george, followed the hearse to the cemetery. to-day, the visitor to mt. olive, will read with wonder, the inscription on a simple stone, bearing no name, but telling the story of the young man's death, and followed by these words, "i was a stranger and ye took me not in." the church people protested loudly when it was known how the grave was to be marked, but george udell answered that he wanted something from the bible because the young man was evidently a christian, and that the text he had selected was the only appropriate one he could find. the evening after the funeral, charlie bowen and dick sat alone in the reading room, for the hour was late and the others had all gone to their homes. charlie was speaking of the burial. "i tell you," he said, "it looks mighty hard to see a man laid away by strangers who do not even know his name, and that too, after dying all alone in the snow like a poor dog. and to think that perhaps a mother is watching for him to come home; and the hardest part is that he is only one of many. in a cold snap like this, the amount of suffering among the poor and outcast is something terrible. if only the bad suffered, one might not feel so." dick made no reply, but sat staring moodily into the fire. "i've studied on the matter a good bit lately," continued charlie. "why is it that people are so indifferent to the suffering about them? is udell right when he says that church members, by their own teaching, prove themselves to be the biggest frauds in the world?" "he is, so far as the church goes," replied dick; "but not as regards christianity. this awful neglect and indifference comes from a _lack_ of christ's teaching, or rather from a lack of the application of christ's teaching, and too much teaching of the church. the trouble is that people follow the church and not christ; they become church members, but not christians." "do you mean to say that the church ought to furnish a lodging place for every stranger who comes to town?" asked charlie. "i mean just this," answered dick, rising to his feet and walking slowly back and forth across the room, "there is plenty of food in this world to give every man, woman and child enough to eat, and it is contrary to god's law that the _helpless_ should go hungry. there is enough material to clothe every man, woman and child, and god never intended that the needy should go naked. there is enough wealth to house and warm every creature tonight, for god never meant that men should freeze in such weather as this; and christ surely teaches, both by words and example, that the hungry should be fed, the naked clothed, and the homeless housed. is it not the christian's duty to carry out christ's teaching? it is an awful comment on the policy of the church when a young man, bearing on his person the evidence of his christianity and proof that he supported the institution, dies of cold and hunger at the locked door of the house of god. that, too, in a city where there are ten or twelve denominations, paying at least as many thousand dollars for preachers' salaries alone each year." "but we couldn't do it." "the lodges do. there is more than enough wealth spent in the churches in this city, for useless, gaudy display, and in trying to get ahead of some other denomination, than would be needed to clothe every naked child in warmth to-night. you claim to be god's stewards, but spend his goods on yourselves, while christ, in the person of that boy in the cemetery, is crying for food and clothing. and then you wonder why george udell and myself, who have suffered these things, don't unite with the church. the wonder to me is that such honest men as you and mr. wicks can remain connected with such an organization." "but," said charlie, with a troubled look on his face, "would not such work encourage crime and idleness?" "not if it were done according to god's law," answered dick. "the present spasmodic, haphazard sentimental way of giving does. it takes away a man's self-respect; it encourages him to be shiftless and idle; or it fails to reach the worthy sufferers. whichever way you fix it, it kills the man." "but what is god's law?" asked the other. "that those who do not work should not eat," replied dick; "and that applies on the avenue as well as in the mines." "how would you do all this, though? that has been the great problem of the church for years." "i beg your pardon, but it has _not_ been the problem of the church. if the ministry had spent one-half the time in studying this question and trying to _fulfill_ the teaching of christ, that they have wasted in quarreling over each other's opinions, or in tickling the ears of their wealthy members, this problem would have been solved long ago. different localities would require different plans, but the purpose must always be the same. to make it possible for those in want to receive aid without compromising their self-respect, or making beggars of them, and to make it just as impossible for any unworthy person to get along without work." for some minutes the silence in the room was only broken by the steady tramp, tramp, as the speaker marched up and down. "dick," said charlie, "do you believe that anything could be done here?" dick started and looked sharply at his companion. "of course it could, if only the church would go about it in a businesslike way." charlie shook his head. "that's hopeless. the church will never move in the matter. brother cameron has preached again and again on those subjects and they do nothing." "but has your pastor presented any definite plan for work?" asked dick. "it's one thing to preach about it, and another thing to present a plan that will meet the need. that's the great trouble. they're all the time preaching about christianity and trying to live as they talk, in a sickly, sentimental fashion; when of all things in the world christianity is the most practical, or it is nothing." "the young folks would take it up, i am sure," said charlie. "say, will you suggest a plan to the society?" "i'm like the rest," said dick, with a slight smile. "i'm preaching when i have no remedy," and he began locking up for the night. "but," as they stepped out into the street, he added, "i'll not go back on my statement though. i believe it can be done." nothing more was said on the subject so much in the hearts of the young men, until the saturday before the regular monthly business meeting of the young people's society. then charlie broached the matter to dick as together they walked down the street at the close of their day's work. "no," said dick, "i have not forgotten, and i believe i have a plan that would meet the needs of the case as it is in this city." "will you go before the young people's society at their meeting next tuesday night, and explain your scheme?" dick hesitated. "i fear they would not listen to me, charlie," he said at last. and then added, as he rested his hand affectionately on the other's shoulder, "you see, old man, people here don't look at me as you do. they can't, or won't forget the way i came to town, and i fear they would not attach much weight to my opinion, even should they consent to hear me." "that's where you're wrong, dick, all wrong. i know there are some who look at things in that light, but they wouldn't do anything if paul himself were to teach them. but there are many who want only someone to lead the way. take myself for instance. i realize what's needed, and i honestly want to do something, but i don't know how to go at it; and dick, if this problem is ever solved, it will be through someone like you, who knows from actual experience; not from occasional slumming expeditions; whose heart is filled with love for men; who is absolutely free from ecclesiastical chains, and who is a follower of no creed but christ, a believer in no particular denomination." dick smiled at his friend's manner. "you too, have been doing a little thinking," he said quietly. "but had this come to you, that the man must also be a christian?" "yes, a christian so far as he is a believer in the truths that christ teaches; but not in the generally accepted use of that word; which is, that a man can't be a christian without hitching himself up in some denominational harness." "if you believe that, why do you wear the badge?" asked dick, drily. "because i believe that while the man who takes the initiative must owe allegiance to no particular congregation, the work must be carried on by the church; there are many christians who are thinking on these lines, and i hope that you will some day see that the church with all its shortcomings and mistakes, is of divine origin; and that she needs just such men as yourself to lead her back to the simplicity of christ's life and teaching. but that's not the question," he continued, as he saw a slight shadow cross the face of his companion. "the question is: will you go before the young people's society next tuesday night and submit your plan as a suggested way to do christ's work here in the city? you see, you'll not be going before the church, and i will give you such an introduction that there will be no danger of a mistaken notion as to your presence." the two walked on in silence until they reached the door of dick's restaurant. "won't you come in and eat with me?" he said. "not unless you need more urging," answered charlie, with a laugh, "for i have other fish to fry just now." "well," said dick, "i'll go." chapter xi needless to say that charlie bowen, who was the president of the young people's society at this time, took particular pains to notify each member that there would be a matter of unusual importance to discuss at the next meeting. and so, when he called the society to order at eight o'clock tuesday evening, in the lecture room of the church, almost the entire membership, including rev. cameron, was present. dick remained in the reading room, but it was understood between the two that he was to be called in at the proper time. after the regular routine business had been disposed of, the president stated that he wished to introduce a matter of great importance, which he felt sure would interest every christian present. he then called to their minds some of the teaching they had heard from their pastor, along lines of practical christianity; noticed briefly the condition of things in boyd city; and asked if they would not be glad to remedy such evils. the nodding heads and earnest faces told charlie of their interest. after recalling the death of the young man found by george udell, he told of his conversation with dick. "i am aware that mr. falkner makes no profession of christianity," he said, "but you know him and need no word from me to tell you of the strength of his character." he then explained how he had asked dick to speak to them, and after delicately stating the latter's objections, asked if they would receive him and listen to his ideas of christian work. at the close of charlie's talk, the society gladly voted to invite dick in, and three of the boys started to find him, when rev. cameron rose to his feet, and in a voice full of emotion, said: "my dear young people. wait just a moment. my heart is moved more than i can say, by the christian spirit you are showing. and now, before your invitation is carried to mr. falkner, let us bow our heads in prayer, that we may be guided by the holy spirit in listening to the things he may have to put before us, and in any discussion of this subject that may follow." a deep hush fell on the little band of young people as they followed their pastor's example, and it seemed as if a wonderful presence filled all the room. the thought flashed through cameron's mind, "this must be another step in the new era of christian work in this city." and then, in a few beautiful words, he voiced the prayer in the hearts of the young people, and the committee appointed went to call dick. they found him nervously pacing up and down the passageway between the reading room and the parlor. making known the wish of the society, they escorted him to the meeting in the other part of the building. he was greeted by smiling faces, nods of encouragement, and just a faint ripple of applause, that sprung from a desire on the part of the young people to let him know that they were glad to bid him welcome, and ready to give him their attention. the president stated simply that he had explained to the society the purpose of mr. falkner's visit, and that he could assure the latter he was most heartily welcome. at charlie's words, the ripple of applause became a wave, which in its strength, left no doubt on dick's mind as to their earnestness and interest. bowing his thanks he began, while both charlie and cameron wondered at his ease of manner, and the strange power of his simple, but well-chosen words. "i have no means of knowing what your president may have said by way of introduction of myself, or as a preface to my remarks, but judging from your faces, the manner in which you receive me, and my knowledge of him, i feel that i am safe in assuming that he has said all that is necessary, and that i may proceed at once with my plan. but let me add simply this: what i have to say to you is in no way new or startling. i claim no originality, for i have simply gathered from the works of better men that which seems to me best fitted for the needs of this particular city. and understand, farther, that i speak in no sense as a christian, but from the standpoint of one to whom has been given opportunities for study along these lines, i hope may ever be denied you. "as i understand it, the problem that we have to consider is, briefly, how to apply christ's teaching in our own town. let me suggest first: that there are in this city, as in every city, two classes who present their claims for assistance; the deserving and undeserving. any plan which does not distinguish between these two classes must prove a failure, because it would encourage the idle in their idleness, and so prove a curse instead of a blessing. it would make fraud profitable by placing a premium rather than a penalty on crime; and it would make the sufferings of the truly unfortunate much keener by compelling them to yield their self-respect as the price of their succor. the only test that can possibly succeed in distinguishing between these two classes is the test of work. "the first thing necessary would be a suitable building. this building should have sleeping rooms, dining room, sitting room, kitchen, store-room and a bath room. there should also be a large yard with an open shed in the rear. i would have the sleeping rooms small, and a single cot in each, for you know it is sometimes good for a man to be alone. it ought not to be hard to find twenty-five people in the church who would furnish a room each, at a cost of say three dollars. the reading room supplies could be donated by friends who would be glad to give their papers and magazines when they were through with them, just as your present room is supplied. now if you stop to think, in this mining city everyone burns coal, and kindling wood ought to find a ready sale. i believe the merchants would be glad to give away their old packing cases, boxes and barrels. these could be collected, hauled to the yard, there worked up into kindling and delivered to the customer. the whole establishment to be under the supervision of some man who, with his family, could occupy rooms in the building. all the work of the house, kitchen, dining room, care of the sleeping rooms, and all, must be done by the inmates. when a man applied for help he would be received on these conditions: that his time belonged wholly to the institution, and that he receive for his work only food and bed, with the privilege of bath and reading room of course. if he refused to comply with these conditions, or to conform to the rules of the institution, no food would be issued, nor would he be admitted. "this briefly is my plan. i would be glad to have you ask questions and make objections or suggestions, for i believe that would be the best way to thoroughly understand the matter." dick paused and one of the young people asked: "what would be the cost of the building and its furnishings?" "that i cannot say," replied dick. "it would depend of course upon how large an establishment you wished to conduct. i should think a house might be found in some convenient locality, which could be converted into the right thing, for i would not think of a large institution at the start. it would grow as fast as the people came to believe in it." "you spoke of a store-room--what for?" "let the people contribute clothing, which could be kept and issued by the superintendent in charge. i said store-room, that the material might always be on hand when needed." "would you receive women?" "no; they would require a separate institution with a different kind of employment." "would we not need women to do the housework?" "no, everything could be done by the men under the direction of the superintendent's wife." "would the merchants contribute boxes enough?" "that," with a bow and a smile, "is a matter for the society to look after. the workers at the institution would gather them up and haul them to the yard. old side-walks, fences, tumbled-down buildings, could also be used, so the supply need not run short, and the city would be much improved if these things were gathered up and utilized." "would the people buy the kindling-wood?" "that again, is the business of the society. every member should be a salesman. the kindling would be put up in bundles of uniform size, warranted to be dry and to give satisfaction and delivered at the door by the workers of course. it ought not to be difficult for you to secure a sufficient number of regular customers to insure the success of the business. you see, it is not a church-begging scheme, for it benefits every person connected with it, and every person pays for what he gets. the citizens would have the pleasure of feeling that they were assisting only the worthy sufferers, and the satisfaction of knowing that they were receiving their money's worth." "would the income be sufficient to pay all bills?" asked cameron. "the food, of course, could be of the plainest, and could be bought in quantities. twenty cents will feed a man a day. it is possible, of course, to live on less," dick added, with a whimsical smile, which was met with answering smiles from the company of interested young people. "now suppose you had for the start, one hundred regular customers, who would pay, each, ten cents per week for their kindling! that would bring you ten dollars per week, which would feed seven people. not a large thing i grant you, but a start in the right direction, and much more than the church is doing now. the other expenses would not be large, and i am confident that the institution would be self-supporting. but bear in mind that the society must own the grounds and building, so that there would be no rent. _that_ must be the gift of the people to the poor." "how would the superintendent and his wife be paid?" "they would receive their house rent, provisions, and a small weekly salary, paid either by the society, the church, or the institution. there are many men and women who would be glad to do such work." "would kindling-wood be the only industry?" "i believe other things would suggest themselves. i am only planning a start you know. i said kindling-wood because that seems to be the most practical thing for this particular city." "would not men impose on the institution by working just enough to get their food and remain idle the rest of the time?" "that," said dick, "is the greatest danger, but i believe it would be met in this way: you remember i said that the time of the inmates must be given wholly to the institution. the men could be kept busy at the housework, scrubbing and cleaning when not in the yard. then too, they could be hired out to do odd jobs of rough work for the citizens; the wages all to go to the institution. thus, if every man was kept busy eight hours each day, and received only his food and a place to sleep, there would be no temptation to remain longer than necessary. the institution would also act as an employment agency, and when a man was offered work of any kind he would no longer be permitted to remain in the home. much of this would necessarily be left to the discretion of the managers and directors." this question seemed to bring the matter to a close as far as dick was concerned, and after asking if there was anything more, and again calling attention to the fact that the greatest obstacle in the way was a suitable building, he thanked them for their attention and took his seat. then followed a warm discussion. several spoke enthusiastically in favor of the scheme. one or two thought it very good, but feared it would be impossible because of the building needed. a few offered amendments to the plan. finally a committee was appointed to see if a suitable building could be secured, and the meeting was adjourned. at once the young people crowded about dick, shaking his hand, thanking him, asking questions, making suggestions, with now and then a happy laugh or jest. much to charlie's delight, dick, for the time being, forgot himself and talked and laughed and prophesied with the rest about _our_ institution and the things we would do. but in the midst of it all, his manner suddenly changed, and making his way quickly to charlie's side he whispered, "good-night, old man, i must go." "so soon?" asked his friend in a tone of surprise. "yes," replied dick hurriedly, "i must." and charlie was left wondering at the pain in his face, which a moment before had been so bright, for he did not know that dick had heard frank goodrich saying to his sister, "come, we must go home. we can't afford to associate with that tramp," and that he had seen amy leaving the room on her brother's arm, without even acknowledging his presence by so much as a glance. the next morning bright and early, deacon wickham might have been seen knocking at the door of the parsonage. "why, good morning, brother," cried cameron, throwing wide the door and extending his hand. "what good fortune brought you out so early? come in. come in." "no good fortune, sir," replied the deacon, and seating himself very stiffly on the edge of the straightest-backed chair in the room, he glared with stern eyes at the pastor, who threw himself carelessly into an easy rocker. "no good fortune, sir; i came to inquire if it is true that you are encouraging that unscriptural organization in their foolish and world-wise plans." cameron put on a puzzled look. "what organization, and what plans?" he asked. "there," said the good deacon, with a sigh of great relief. "i told sister jones that there must be some mistake, for though you and i don't always agree, and lock horns sometimes on certain passages of the scriptures, i did not believe that you were so far from the teaching of the word as that." "as what?" asked cameron again, but this time with a faint glimmer of understanding in his voice. "please explain, brother wickham." "why, sister jones came over to my house early this morning and told me that at the meeting of the young people's society last night, that young upstart falkner, laid down plans for doing church work, and that you were there and approved of them. that rattle-headed boy of hers is all carried away." the preacher nodded, "well?" "i could not believe it of course, but she said, as near as i could gather, that you were going to have the church buy a house and keep all the tramps who came to boyd city. a more unscriptural thing i never heard of. were you at the meeting last night?" "yes, i was there," said cameron slowly. the official frowned again as he said sharply: "you'll do more good for the cause, brother cameron, if you spend your time calling on the members. there is deacon godfrey's wife hasn't been out to services for three months because you haven't been to see her; and you're ruining the church now by your teaching. you've got to build on a scriptural foundation if you want your work to last. all these people you've been getting in the last two years don't know a thing about first principles." the minister tried to explain: "the plan suggested last night by mr. falkner, who was there at the invitation of the society, was simply for an institution that would permit a man who was homeless, cold and hungry, to pay for food and lodging until he could do better. in short, to prevent deaths like that of the young man found frozen a few weeks ago." "you don't know anything about that fellow," said the deacon. "if he had followed the teaching of the scriptures he wouldn't have been in that fix. the word says plainly: 'he that provideth not for his own is worse than an infidel.' you don't know whether he was a christian or not. he may have never been baptized. indeed, i am ready to prove that he never was, for the scripture says that the righteous are never forsaken, nor their seed begging for bread. i've lived nearly fifty years now and i never went hungry and never slept out-doors either." cameron sat silently biting his lip; then looking his parishioner straight in the eye, said: "brother wickham, i cannot harmonize your teaching with christ's life and character." "my teaching is the scripture, sir; i'll give you book, chapter and verse," snapped the deacon. "christ taught and lived a doctrine of love and helpfulness toward all men, even enemies," continued cameron. "when i remember how he pointed out the hungry and naked and homeless, and then said: 'inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of these, ye did it not unto me,' i cannot help but feel sure in my heart that we are right, and i must tell you that mr. falkner's plan for doing just that work is the most practical and common-sense one i have ever heard. the only thing i find to wonder at is the stupidity of the church and myself, that we did not adopt it long ago." "then i am to understand that you support and encourage this unscriptural way of doing things?" "i most certainly have given my support to the young people in this effort; and as far as possible, will encourage and help them in their labor of love." "labor of love, fiddlesticks," said the deacon; "labor of foolishness. you'll find, sir, that it will be better to take my advice and the advice of the sacred writers, instead of going off after the strange teaching of an outcast and begging infidel." "stop!" said cameron, springing to his feet, and speaking in a tone that few people ever heard him use. "i beg of you be careful that you do not go too far. whatever his religious convictions may be, mr. falkner is neither an outcast nor a beggar; and although i am only your pastor, it might be well for you to remember that i am also a gentleman, and will allow no man to speak of my friends in any such language." "well, well," whined wickham hastily, holding out his hand, "the scriptures say that there must be love between brethren, and i want you to know that i bear you no ill will whatever, no ill will whatever; but i warn you, i wash my hands of the whole matter. i don't want to know anything about it." cameron took the proffered hand and replied, "that's the best thing you can do, brother wickham. you have discharged your duty faithfully as an officer in the church and are released from all responsibility whatever." "yes, yes," said the other, as he stood on the porch; "and don't let them call on me for any money. remember i wash my hands of the whole thing. how much did you say it would cost?" "i don't know yet, exactly." "well, you know i can't give anyway. i'm already doing more than my share in a scriptural way, and i must wash my hands of this." "yes," said cameron to himself, as he shut the door; "a certain roman governor washed his hands once upon a time." and then the pastor took himself to task for his uncharitable spirit. later in the day, rev. cameron had another visitor. old father beason, whose hair had grown white in the master's service. he had been with his congregation over twenty years and they would not give him up; for while his sermons may have lost some of their youthful fire, they were riper for the preacher's long experience, and sweeter for his nearness to the source of love. the old man met cameron's outstretched hand of welcome with a smile that, in itself, was a benediction. though identified with a different denomination, he was a close friend to the pastor of the jerusalem church, and always stood ready to draw from his wealth of experience for the benefit of his younger brother. when they were seated in cameron's cozy den with a basket of fruit between them, rev. beason began: "brother jim, what's this about the proposed work of your young people? suppose you tell me about it, if you don't mind. i've heard a good many things to-day, and i just thought i'd run over and get the straight of it." cameron laughed as he carefully selected a rosy-cheeked apple. "you're the second caller i've had to-day who needed straightening out. i've been wishing you would run in, and if you had not, i would have been over to see you this evening. this work is right along lines that you and i have talked over many times." and then he told the whole story. when cameron had finished, the older man asked a few questions, and then slowly nodding his head, repeated softly: "thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." "brother cameron, you know that i belong to a church that is noted for its conservative spirit, but i have been preaching more years than you have lived, and have been at it too long to be bound altogether by the particular belief of any particular people, and i want to say to you that if i were a younger man, i would take just your course exactly. there is no use, brother jim, of our flinching or dodging the question. the church is not meeting the problems of the day, and it's my candid opinion that ninety-nine out of every hundred preachers know it. but i'm too old to make the fight. i haven't the strength to do it. but my boy, do you go in to win, and may god's richest blessing rest upon you. and you'll stir this city as it never was stirred before. i only wish i were twenty years younger; i'd stand by you. but this needs young blood and i am an old, worn-out man. it is almost time that i was going home, and i dare not take up any work like this that will need years of patient labor to complete." he arose to his feet, and grasping cameron's hand, said, "good night, brother jim; we older men must turn our work, all unfinished, over to younger, stronger hands to complete. my boy, see that you keep that which is committed unto you, and don't, oh don't, be sidetracked by the opinions of men. the victory will be yours, through jesus christ, our lord. good-night jim, i thank god for this day." chapter xii the sun sank into the prairie and tinted the sky all red and green and gold where it shone through the rents in the ragged clouds of purple black. the glowing colors touching dull, weather-beaten steeples and factory stacks, changed them to objects of interest and beauty. the poisonous smoke from smelter and engine, that hung always over the town like a heavy veil, shot through with the brilliant rays, became a sea of color that drifted here and there, tumbled and tossed by the wind, while above, the ball of the newly painted flag-staff on the courthouse tower gleamed like a signal lamp from another world. and through it all, the light reflected from a hundred windows flashed and blazed in wondrous glory, until the city seemed a dream of unearthly splendor and fairy loveliness, in which the people moved in wonder and in awe. only for a moment it lasted. a heavy cloud curtain was drawn hurriedly across the west as though the scene in its marvelous beauty was too sacred for the gaze of men whose souls were dwarfed by baser visions. for an instant a single star gleamed above the curtain in the soft green of the upper sky; then it too vanished, blotted out by the flying forerunners of the coming storm. about nine o'clock, when the first wild fury of the gale had passed, a man, muffled in a heavy coat and with a soft hat pulled low over his face, made his way along the deserted streets. in front of the goodrich hardware and implement store, he stopped and looked carefully about as though in fear of some observer. then taking a key from his pocket, he unlocked the door and entered. walking quickly through the room to the office, as though familiar with the place, he knelt before the big safe, his hand upon the knob that worked the combination. a moment later the heavy door yielded to his hand. taking a bunch of keys from his pocket, he selected one without hesitation, and upon applying it, the cash box opened, revealing a large sum of money. catching up a package of bills, he placed it in his side coat pocket, and locking the cash box again, was closing the safe, when he paused as though struck with a sudden thought. the storm without seemed to be renewing its strength. the dashing of sleet and snow against the windows, the howling of the wind, the weird singing of the wires, and the sharp banging of swinging signs and shutters, carried terror to the heart of the man kneeling in the dimly lighted office. sinking on the floor, he buried his face in his hands and moaned aloud, "my god--what am i doing? what if i should fail?" again there came a lull in the storm; everything grew hushed and still, almost as if the very spirit of the night waited breathlessly the result of the battle fought in the breast of the tempted man. rising slowly to his knees, he swung back the heavy doors and once more unlocking the cash box reached out to replace the package of bills; but with the money before his eyes he paused again. then with a sudden exclamation, "i won't fail this time; i can't lose always," he quickly closed the safe, and with the money in his pocket, sprang to his feet and hurried out of the building, where the storm met him in all its fury, as though striving to wrest from him that which he had taken from another. but with set face and clenched fists, he pushed into the gale, and a few minutes later knocked at the door of a room on the top floor of a big hotel. he was admitted and greeted cordially by two men who were drinking and smoking. "hello frank," they exclaimed; "we thought you had crawfished this time sure. what makes you so late; it is nearly ten?" "oh, the old man had some work for me, of course. what a beastly night. where's whitley?" he tried to speak carelessly, but his eyes wavered and his hands trembled as he unbuttoned his heavy coat. "you're right; this storm's a ripper. jim will be back in a minute; he just stepped down to the corner drug-store to see a man. here he is now;" as another low knock sounded on the door, and the fourth man entered, shaking the snow from his fur-trimmed coat. "pile out of your duds, boys, and have a drink. good liquor hits the spot a night like this." whitley grasped the proffered glass eagerly and emptied it without a word, but frank refused. "you know i don't drink," he said, shortly; "take it yourself if you need it, and let's get to work." he drew a chair to the table in the center of the room. the others laughed as they took their places, and one said, as he shuffled a deck of cards: "we forgot you were a church member." and the other added, with a sneer, "maybe you'd like to open the services with a song and prayer." "you drop that and mind your own business," retorted young goodrich, angrily. "i'll show you tonight that you can't always have your own way. did you bring my papers with you?" the others nodded and one said, "whitley here told us you wanted a chance to win them back before we were obliged to collect. it's to be cash tonight though," added the other; "good cold cash, against the notes we hold." "for god's sake, shut up and play," growled frank in reply. "i guess there's cash enough," and he laid the package of bills on the table. four eyes gleamed in triumph. whitley looked at the young man keenly and paused with the cards in his hands. then he dealt and the game began. meanwhile adam goodrich and his wife were entertaining the whist club, of which they were enthusiastic members, for it was the regular weekly meeting; and though the weather was so rough not a few of the devoted lovers of the game were present. in the conversation that preceded the play, the young people's society, with dick falkner's plan of work, was mentioned. nearly all of the guests being members of different churches, expressed themselves quite freely, with a variety of opinions, until the host, with annoyance plainly expressed on his proud face and in his hard cold voice, said: "you must not think, ladies and gentlemen, that because i and my family are members of the jerusalem church, that we agree with rev. cameron in his outlandish ideas. we have never been accustomed to associating with such low characters as he delights in forcing us to meet in the congregation; and if he don't change his line of work some, he will drive all the best people to other churches." the guests all nodded emphatic approval and each silently resolved to send his pastor to interview the goodrich's without delay. adam continued: "as for that tramp printer and his fool plan, i say that it's just such stuff that causes all the discontent among the lower classes and makes them unfit to serve their betters, and that _my_ children shall have nothing to do with it. i have not brought them up to follow the lead of a vagabond and a nobody." amy's face flushed painfully and she lifted her head as though to speak, when mrs. goodrich silenced her with a look, and skilfully changed the subject by saying: "it's too bad frank won't be here to-night. he enjoys these evenings so much and plays so well. but he and mr. whitley are spending the evening with a sick friend. the dear boy is so thoughtful of others and is always ready to give up his own pleasures. and mr. whitley too; he will miss the game so much, and amy loses a strong partner." the company took the hint and talked of other things until the all-absorbing game began. and so, while the son played with his friend whitley, and the two professional gamblers at the hotel, played with fear in his face and a curse in his heart, to save himself from sure disgrace, his fond parents and beautiful sister at home, forgot his absence in their eager efforts to win with the cards the petty prize of the evening, a silver-mounted loving cup. one, two, three hours passed. the storm had spent its strength; mr. goodrich had won the coveted prize, and the guests of the evening had returned to their homes. the last of the pile of ills before frank was placed in the center of the table. the silence was unbroken save for the sound of the shuffling cards and the click of a whiskey glass as one of the men helped himself to a drink. suddenly young goodrich leaped to his feet with a wild exclamation: "tom wharton, you're a liar and a cheat!" as he spoke, a heavy chair whirled above his head and fell with a crashing blow upon the man who sat at his right. instantly all was confusion; the table was overturned; the cards, money and glasses scattered over the room. whitley and the other man stood in blank astonishment at the sudden outburst. frank leaped at his prostrate victim, with a chair again raised to strike, and had the second blow fallen, he would have been a murderer, for the intent to kill shone from his glittering eyes. but whitley, just in time, caught his arm, while the other drew a knife and stepped between the crazed man and his victim. "stop, you fool!" said whitley. "and you, jack, put up that knife and look after tom. this is a nice mess for us to be caught in." the gambler did as he was bid, but frank struggled in his friend's grasp. "let me go, jim. let me at him. i'm ruined anyway and i'll finish the man that did it before i go myself." but whitley was the stronger and forced him backward, while the other man was busy with his fallen partner. "ruined nothing," said jim in frank's ear. "i'll stand by you. you get out of this quick and go to my room. i'll come when i've settled with them." he unlocked the door and pushed frank into the hall, just as the man on the floor struggled to his feet. the two gamblers turned on whitley in a rage when they saw frank had escaped. standing with his back to the door, he let them curse a few minutes and then said calmly: "now if you feel better let's take a drink and talk it over." when he had them quiet again he continued, in a matter-of-fact tone: "suppose you fellows raise a row about this, what will you gain?" "we'll teach that young fool a lesson he won't forget soon," snarled the one who had fallen. "yes, and you'll pay big for the lesson," replied whitley quietly. "what do yon mean?" "i mean that if this gets out young goodrich is ruined and you won't get a cent on the paper you hold." wharton's friend nodded, "that's straight, tom," he said. "well," growled the other; "what of it, the old man won't pay it anywray." "yes he would," returned jim quickly, "if you didn't make it public; but i don't happen to want him to know about this little deal." "what's it to you?" "never mind what it is to me. i know what i'm doing, and i don't want this to get out." "how'll you help it?" "this way." he took a check-book from his pocket. "make the notes over to me and i'll add two hundred to the amount. go after frank and you get nothing. go to the old man and you get what the paper calls for. keep your mouth shut and sell me the notes and you get an extra hundred apiece. what do you say?" "i say yes," exclaimed jack, with an oath; "i'm no fool." and the other grumbled a surly "all right. but i'd like to get one crack at that kid's head." "you'll have to pass that little pleasure this time." said the other with a laugh. "write your check, whitley and let's get out of this. i'm sleepy." when whitley reached his room after settling with the two gamblers, he found frank pacing the floor, his face white and haggard. "sit down. sit down, old man; and take things easy. you're all right. look here." and he drew the notes from his pocket. frank sank into a chair. "what have you done?" he gasped. "how did you get those?" whitley laughed. "just invested a little of my spare cash, that's all," he said. "but i tell you i'm ruined. i can't pay a third of that in six years." "well, perhaps you won't have to." frank stared. "what do you mean?" "i mean amy," the other replied coolly. "you poor idiot, can't you see. i can't afford to have you disgraced before the world under the circumstances. if i wasn't in it, i'd let you go to thunder and serve you right. but a fine chance i'd have to marry your sister if she knew about this business tonight. if it wasn't for her i'd let you hang your fool self too quick, before i'd spend a dollar on your worthless carcass; but i've said that i would marry that girl and i will, if it costs every cent i've got, and you'll help me too." frank was silent for a time, completely cowed by the contempt in the other's voice, too frightened to protest. but at last he managed to say: "there's more than those notes." "i know that too," quickly returned whitley, with an oath. "how much did you steal from the old man's safe tonight?" "what--how--how do you know?" stammered the other. "saw you," returned whitley, shortly; and then added, as frank rose to his feet and began walking the floor again. "oh, for heaven's sake quit your tragedy and sit down. you make me tired. you're not cut out for either a gambler or a robber. you haven't the nerve." frank was silent, while the other went to a small cupboard and leisurely helped himself to a glass of whiskey; then lit a fresh cigar. "what can i do?" ventured frank at last, in a voice but little above a whisper. jim crossed the room, and unlocking a drawer in his desk, returned with a handful of bills. "you can put that money back in the safe before morning and keep your mouth shut." and then when frank attempted to grasp his hand, while stammering words of gratitude, he said, "no thanks," and put his own hands behind his back in a gesture that there was no mistaking. "be a good boy, frankie. listen with more care to your pastor's sermons; keep your young people's society pledge; read your bible and pray every day, and take part in all the meetings, and when i marry your sister i'll make you a present of these papers. but oh lord," he added, with a groan, "you'll make a healthy brother-in-law, you will." "how much did you say?" frank muttered the amount he had stolen. jim quickly counted it out and threw the bills on the table. "there you are. and now you better go quickly before you slop over again and i kick you." and turning his back he poured himself another glass of liquor while frank, with the money in his hand, sneaked from the room like a well-whipped cur. and over his head, as he crept stealthily down the street toward his father's store, the stars shone clear and cold in their pure, calm beauty, while the last of the storm-cloud on the far horizon covered the face of the bright new moon. chapter xiii the committee appointed by the society called on mr. wicks at his office, and found him deep in a letter to an old lady, whose small business affairs he was trying to straighten out. he dropped the matter at once when they entered, and, after shaking hands, as though he had not seen them for years, said: "now tell me all about it. to-be-sure, charlie here has had some talk with me, but i want to get your ide's." "our brightest idea, i think," said the leader, with a smile, "is to get your help." uncle bobbie laughed heartily. "i reckoned you'd be around," he said. "i'm generally kept posted by the young folks when there's anything to do. to-be-sure, i aint got much education, 'cept in money matters an' real estate, but i don't know--i reckon education is only the trimmings anyhow. it's the hoss sense what counts. i've seen some college fellers that was just like the pies a stingy old landlady of mine used t' make; they was all outside--to-be-sure, they looked mighty nice though. now tell me what ye want." when the young people had detailed to him dick's plan, and he had questioned them on some points, the old gentleman leaned back in his chair and thoughtfully stroked his face. then--"now i tell ye what ye do. mebbe i can handle the property end of this a little the best. to-be-sure, folks would talk with me when they might not listen to you; 'cause they'd be watchin' fer a chance to get me into a deal, you see; fer business is a sort of ketch-as-ketch-can anyhow you fix it. so jes' let me work that end an' ye get charlie here and some more to help, and drum up the store-keepers to find out if they'll let ye have their barrels and boxes. an' then go fer the citizens and see how many will buy kindlin'-wood. tell 'em about what it will cost--say ten cents a week fer one stove. to-be-sure, some will use more'n others, but give 'em an ide'. then we'll all come together again and swap reports, an' see what we've got." for the next few days, the young people went from store to store, and house to house, telling their plan, and asking the citizens to support it by their patronage. some turned them away with rudeness; some listened and smiled at their childish folly; some said they couldn't afford it; and some gave them encouragement by entering heartily into the scheme. with but few exceptions, the merchants promised the greater part of their boxes and barrels, and one man even gave them the ruins of an old cow shed, which he said he would be glad to have cleared away. meanwhile, uncle bobbie interviewed the business men, members of the church, and those who were not christians. he argued, threatened and plead, studied plans, consulted architects and contractors, figured and schemed, and, when besieged by the young people for results, only shook his head. "jes' hold your hosses and wait till the meetin'. it don't pay to fire a gun before ye load it." and none but charlie bowen noticed that the old gentleman's face grew grim whenever the subject was introduced, and the young man guessed that the outlook was not so promising as uncle bobbie would like. then one wednesday night, the society met again in the church. the weather was cold and stormy, but, as at the previous meeting, nearly every member was present. when the committee had made their report and it was known that the merchants and citizens would support the movement by their patronage and contributions, a wave of enthusiasm swept over the room while the call for mr. wicks was enforced by loud applause. uncle bobbie, who had been sitting by rev. cameron's side, arose and came slowly forward. turning, he faced the little company and his honest old eyes were wet as he said in a trembling voice: "i didn't want to come here tonight, young folks; i jes' tell ye i was ashamed to come; but i knew i ought to; and now i am ashamed that i didn't want to. i might have known better. fer i can see right now as i look into your faces, that brother cameron is right, and that what i have to tell won't make no difference." an ominous hush fell upon the company. "to-be-sure, we may have to wait a bit, but god will show a way, and we'll conquer this old devil of indifference yet." he paused and drew a long breath. "well, i found a big house that is for sale; jes' the thing we need; and it could be bought and fixed up in first-class shape fer about nine hundred dollars. i sold the property myself to mr. udell, fer fifteen hundred, 'bout a year ago; an' i want to tell you young folks, right now, that whether he's a christian er not, george udell is the whitest man in this city, and the fellow what says anythin' again him's got me to whip." the old gentleman paused and glared about him, without a thought of how his words sounded; but the young people, who knew him well, only answered with a clapping of hands, which was a tribute to uncle bobbie's heart and character, rather than to his unconscious recklessness of speech or love for the man whom he championed. but when he went on to say that of all the men he had interviewed, church members and all, only udell had met him half way, and had agreed to give the lot if they would raise the money to pay for the house, they applauded with a vim, the generosity of the printer. "just think," said uncle bobbie, "that among all the church members in this city, i couldn't raise two hundred dollars fer such a cause. one of 'em said no, because he'd jes' bought a new span of carriage hosses. huh! i told him he might ride to hell behind fine bosses but he'd not feel any better when he got there. 'nother said he'd jes' put five hundred dollars into the new lodge temple, and that he couldn't spend any more. i asked him if jesus was a member of his lodge, and he said he reckoned not. i said, well, we want to build a home for christ, and you say you can't. seems to me if i was you i wouldn't call christ my redeemer in prayer meeting so much. 'nother had just fixed his home. 'nother had just put in a new stock of goods; and so with 'em all. they all had some excuse handy, and i don't know what to do. i'm up a stump this time fer sure. we've got the material to work up; we've got the people to buy the goods; we've got the lot; and there we're stuck, fer we can't get the house. _i_ can't anyway. we're jes' like the feller that went fishin'; had a big basket to carry home his fish; a nice new jointed pole with a reel and fixin's, a good strong linen line, an' a nice bait box full of big fat worms, an' when he got to the river he didn't have no hook, and the fish just swum 'round under his nose an' laughed at him 'cause he couldn't touch 'em--and still i believe that god will show us the way yet, 'though mebbe not. perhaps taint fer the best fer us to do this; to-be-sure though i thought it was, and so did brother cameron; and so did you. but i don't know--" and the old man took his seat. after a long silence, one or two offered suggestions but could not help matters. rev. cameron was called for and tried to speak encouragingly, but it was hard work, and it seemed that the plans were coming to an inglorious end, when clara wilson sprang to her feet. "i'm not a bit surprised at this," she said, while the young people, forgetting the praise they had just bestowed upon george udell, thought that her rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes were caused by her excitement. "i don't wonder that the business men won't go into such a scheme. they haven't any faith in it. it isn't so much that they've not got the money or don't want to help, but it's because they don't trust the church. they have seen so many things started, and have supported so many, and still no real good comes of it, that they're all afraid. they put money into their lodges because they see the results there. i believe there has been more wealth put into the churches than has ever been put into lodges; but all we've got to show for it is fine organs, fine windows, and fine talk, while the lodges do practical work. we can't expect folks to take hold of our plan until we show what we are going to do. we are starting at the wrong end. we haven't done anything ourselves yet. i wish i was a man, i'd show you," with a snap of her black eyes. "yo're a pretty good feller if you ain't a man," chuckled uncle bobbie. this raised a laugh and made them all feel better. "that's all right; you can laugh if you want to," said clara, "but i tell you we can do it if we have a mind to. why, there is enough jewelry here tonight to raise more than half the amount. let's not give up now that we've gone so far. let's have a big meeting of the society, and have speeches, and tell what has been done, and see what we can raise. just make the people believe we are going to have this thing anyway. mr. president, i move you that we have an open meeting of the society one week from next sunday, and that a special committee be appointed to work up a good program." cameron jumped to his feet. "with all my heart, i second that motion." and before the president could speak, a storm of ayes was followed by prolonged applause. clara was promptly named chairman of the committee, and in a few minutes they were trooping from the building, out into the storm, but with warm hearts and merry voices. george udell had not been to call on miss wilson since the night he found the man frozen in the streets. indeed, he had not even spoken to her since the funeral. he had seen her though, once when she had met him on the street with several friends, and several times when he had glanced up from his work by the window as she had passed the office. all this was strange to clara. what could be the matter? george had never acted so before. she wanted to talk to him about the incident of that stormy night when they had parted so abruptly. she wanted him to know how proud she was that he had proven so kind in the matter of the funeral. "what a warm heart he has beneath all his harsh speeches," she thought; and could not help but contrast him, much to his credit, with many professed christians she knew. and then, mr. wicks had spoken, in the business meeting, of his generosity, and had talked so strongly of his goodness; no wonder her cheeks burned with pride, while her heart whispered strange things. when the young woman had said good-night to her companions, after the meeting, and had shut herself in her room, she asked again and again, was she right in always saying no? was she not unnecessarily cruel to the friend who had shown, and was showing himself, so worthy of her love? oh why was he not a christian? and when mrs. wilson crept into her daughter's room that night, to get an extra comfort from the closet, to put over the little boy's crib, she was much surprised to see a big tear, that glistened in the light of the lamp, roll from beneath the dark lashes, as her eldest child lay sobbing in her sleep. the next morning the girl was strangely silent and went about her work without the usual cheery whistle--for clara would whistle; it was her only musical accomplishment. but toward noon, after arousing from a prolonged spell of silent staring into the fire, during which her mother tried in vain to draw her into conversation, she suddenly became her own bright self again, and went about getting dinner in her usual manner. then when the dishes were washed, she appeared in her street dress and hat. "land sakes alive, child, you aint going out to-day, be you?" said mrs. wilson, her hands on her hips, in her usual attitude of amazement or wrath. "yes mother, i've got a little business down-town that i can't put off. i won't be gone long. is there anything that i can do for you?" "but look how it's snowing; you'll be wet through and catch your death sure. i wish to goodness you'd have more sense and try to take some care of yourself." "not the first time i've been wet. the walk will do me good." and soon the determined young lady was pushing her way through the snow and wind toward the business part of the city. the boy in the printing office had gone out on an errand and george and dick were both at the composing case, setting up a local politician's speech, which was to be issued in the form of a circular, when clara walked in, stamping her feet and shaking the snow from her umbrella and skirt. udell started forward. "great shade of the immortal benjamin f!" he shouted. "what in the name of all that's decent are you doing here?" and he placed a chair near the stove with one hand as he captured the umbrella with the other. "i'm going to get warm just now," clara replied, with an odd little laugh, and dick noticed that the wind, or cold, or something, had made her face very red. "come here and sit down," she commanded. "i want to talk business to you. don't stand there as though you had never seen me before." "well, it has been ages since i saw you," he declared, seating himself on the edge of the waste-box. "yes, all of twenty-four hours. i passed you yesterday and you looked me right in the face, and never even said 'howdy.' if you were anyone else, george udell, i'd make you wait awhile before you got another chance to do me that way." george drummed on the edge of the box and whistled softly. then looking anxiously toward dick, said: "how are you getting along with that stuff, old man?" "almost through," answered dick, with a never-to-be-forgotten wink. "but i believe i'll run off those dodgers on the big press, and let you finish the politics." "all right, i reckon that'll be better," answered udell; and soon the whir of the motor, and the stamp of the press filled the room. "we are awfully busy now," said udell, turning to clara again. "i ought to be at work this minute." "why haven't you been to see me, george?" persisted the girl, a strange light coming into her eyes. "there are so many things i want to talk to you about." "thought i'd let you come and see me awhile; turn about is fair play. besides, i don't think it would be safe in this cold weather. it's chilly enough business even in the summer time." clara held out manfully--or--womanly--"george udell; you knew very well that i would come here if you staid away from my home; and it's real mean of you, when you knew how bad i wanted to see you, to make me come out in all this snow." george looked troubled. "i'll take my death of cold, and then how'll you feel?--" george looked still more worried--"i've not felt very well lately anyway--" george looked frightened; "and i--came all the way--down here--just to see what was the matter." the printer looked happy. "and now you don't want me to stay, and i'll go home again." she moved toward her umbrella, udell got it first. whir--whir--went the motor, and clank--clank--clank--sounded the press. dick was feeding the machine and must necessarily keep his eyes on his work, while the noise prevented any stray bits of the conversation from reaching his ears. besides this, dick was just now full of sympathy. clara let go her end of the umbrella, and george, with an exaggerated expression of rapture on his face, kissed the place where her hand had held it. the young lady tried to frown and look disgusted. then for several moments neither spoke. at last clara said, "i wanted to tell you how proud and glad i am of the things you have been doing. you are a good man, george, to take care of that poor dead boy the way you did." "why, you see i had a sort of fellow-feeling for him," muttered the printer. "i had just been frosted myself." "and that young people's society business, it is just grand," went on clara. "only think, you have given more than all the church members even." udell grunted, "no danger of me losing on that offer. they'll never raise the rest." "oh yes we will. i'm chairman of the committee." and then she told him of the meeting, and how uncle bobbie had praised him. udell felt his heart thaw rapidly, and the two chatted away as though no chilly blast had ever come between them. "and yet, clara, with all your professed love for me, you won't allow me a single privilege of a lover, and i can have no hope of the future. it had better stop now." "very well, george; it can stop now if you like; but i never could have lived without talking it out with you and telling you how glad i am for your gift to the society." "look here, don't you go and make any mistakes on that line. i'm giving nothing to the society or the church. that bit of land goes to the poor, cold, hungry fellows, who are down on their luck, like dick here was. i tell you what though, clara, if you'll say yes, i'll add the house and enough to furnish it besides." the girl hesitated for just a moment. here was temptation added to temptation. then she pulled on her rubbers and rose to go. "no, george, no, i cannot. you know you would not need to buy me if i felt it right to say yes." "but i'm going to keep on asking you just the same," said george. "you won't get angry if i keep it up, will you?" "i--guess--not. i feel rather badly when you don't. i don't like to say no; but i would feel awful if you didn't give me a chance to say it. good-bye george." "good-bye dearest. you can't forbid me loving you anyway, and some day you'll take me for what i am." clara shook her head. "you know," she said. as the door closed, dick wheeled around from the press, holding out his ink-stained hand to george. "what's the matter?" said the other wonderingly, but grasping the outstretched hand of his helper. "i want to shake hands with a man, that's all," said dick. "why don't you join the church and win her?" "because if i did that i wouldn't be worthy of her," said george. "you have strange ideas for this day and age." "yes, i know; but i can't help it; wish i could." "you're a better man than half the church members." george shook his head. "it won't do, dickie, and you know it as well as i. that's too big a thing to go into for anything but itself. what is it mother used to say? no other gods before me, or something like that." and dick said to himself as he turned back to the press, "i have indeed, shaken hands with a man." chapter xiv the night was at hand when the young people were to hold their special meeting in the interest of the new movement. clara wilson had worked incessantly, and when at last the evening arrived, was calm and well satisfied. whether the effort proved a success or not, she would be content, for she had done her best. the incident of the man found frozen to death on the steps of the church, still so fresh in the minds of the citizens, the flying rumors about dick's visit to the society, and the plans of the young people, all served to arouse public curiosity to such a pitch that the place of meeting was crowded, many even standing in the rear of the room. after the opening services, which were very impressive but short, and the purpose of the society and the proposed plan of work had been fully explained, uncle bobbie told, in his simple way, of the work that had been done; how the young people had called on him; how they had gone from house to house, through the cold and snow; and how he had interviewed the business men, many of whom he saw in the audience. "to-be-sure," he said, "i don't suppose you understood the matter fully or you would have been glad to help; but we'll give ye another chance in a minute." then he told of the last business meeting; how they were encouraged when the reports came in that the citizens had responded so liberally; and how he had been forced to tell them that he had met with nothing but failure in his attempt to secure a house. "i just tell you, it made my old heart ache to see them young folks tryin' to do some practical work for christ, come up agin a stump like that. i wish you church members could have seen 'em and heard 'em pray. i tell you it was like heaven; that's what it was; with the angels weepin' over us poor sinners 'cause we won't do our duty." the old gentleman finished, amid a silence that was almost painful, while many were leaning eagerly forward in their seats. the great audience was impressed by the scheme and work so practical and christ-like. this was no theory, no doctrine of men, no dogma of a denomination. the pastor of the jerusalem church stepped to the front of the rostrum and raised his hand. without a word the people reverently bowed their heads. after a moment of silent prayer, the minister voiced the unuttered words of all, in a few short sentences: "god help us to help others," and then in clear, earnest tones began to speak. he recalled to their minds the saviour of men, as he walked and talked in galilee. he pictured the christ feeding the hungry and healing the sick. he made them hear again the voice that spake as never man spake before, giving forth that wonderful sermon on the mount, and pronouncing his blessing on the poor and merciful. again the audience stood with the master when he wept at the grave of lazarus, and with him sat at the last supper, when he introduced the simple memorial of his death and love. then walking with him across the brook kedron, they entered the shadows of the olive trees and heard the saviour pray while his disciples slept. "if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done." and then they stood with the jewish mob, clamoring for his blood; and later with the roman soldiery, grouped at the foot of the cross, where hung the brother of men, and heard that wonderful testimony of his undying love. "father forgive them, they know not what they do." then under the spell of cameron's speech, they looked into the empty tomb and felt their hearts throb in ecstasy, as the full meaning of that silent vault burst upon them. looking up they saw their risen lord seated at the right hand of the father, glorified with the glory that was his in the beginning; and then, then, they looked where the master pointed, to the starving, shivering, naked ones of earth, and heard with new understanding, those oft repeated words, "inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto me." "men and brethren," cried the pastor, stretching out his arms in the earnestness of his appeal, "what shall we do? shall there be no place in all this city where the least of these may find help in the name of our common master? must our brothers perish with cold and hunger because we close the doors of the saviour's church against them? these young people, led by a deep desire to do god's will, have gone as far as they can alone. their plan has been carefully studied by good business men and pronounced practical in every way. they have the promised support of the merchants in supplying material. they have the promised patronage of the citizens; and a man, not a professed christian, but with a heart that feels for suffering humanity has given the land. in the name of jesus, to help the least of these, won't you buy the house?" the deacons, with the baskets and paper and pencils, started through the congregation. in a moment mr. godfrey went back to cameron and placed something in his hand. the pastor, after listening a moment to the whispered words of his officer, turned to the audience and said: "at our last meeting, one of the young people made the remark that there were jewels enough on the persons of those present to pay half the amount needed. brother godfrey has just handed me this diamond ring, worth i should say, between forty and fifty dollars. it was dropped into the basket by a member of the young people's society. friends, do you need any more proof that these young folks are in earnest?" at last the offering was taken, and the deacons reported one thousand dollars in cash, and pledges, payable at once. "and perhaps," said the leader, "i ought to say, in jewelry also." and he held up to the gaze of the audience a handful of finger rings, scarf-pins, ear-rings and ornaments, and a gold watch, in the ease of which was set a tiny diamond. again for a moment a deep hush fell over the vast congregation as they sat awed by this evidence of earnestness. then the minister raised his voice in prayer that god would bless the offering and use it in his service, and the audience was dismissed. dick did not sleep well that night. something cameron had said in his talk, together with the remarkable gifts of the young people, had impressed him. he had gone to the church more from curiosity than anything, and had come away with a feeling of respect for christians, that was new to him. as he thought of the jewelry, given without the display of name or show of hands, he said to himself, "surely these people are in earnest." then, too, under the spell of cameron's talk, he saw always before him the figure of the christ as he lived his life of sacrifice and love, and heard him command, "follow thou me." in the meantime at the church he had seen people doing just that, following him; doing as he did; and the whole thing impressed him as nothing had ever done before. so, when he went to the office next morning and found udell strangely silent and apparently in a brown study, he was not at all surprised, and asked, "what's the matter, george? didn't you sleep well last night either? or did the thoughts of having been so generous with your property keep you awake?" "the property hasn't anything to do with it," answered udell. "it's what that preacher said; and not so much that either, i guess, as what those young folks did. i've been thinking about that handful of jewelry; if i hadn't seen it i wouldn't have believed it. say, do you know that a few sermons like those gold trinkets would do more to convert the world than all the theological seminaries that ever bewildered the brains of poor preachers?" "right you are, george, but is it true?" "is what true?" asked the other. "why, what cameron said about christ being the saviour of men, and all that." the printer paused in his work. "what do _you_ say?" he asked as last, without answering dick's question. "well," answered dick slowly, "i've tried hard for several years, to make an infidel of myself, because i couldn't stand the professions of the church, and their way of doing things. but that meeting last night was different, and i was forced to the conclusion, in spite of myself, that cameron spoke the truth, and that christ is what he claimed to be, the saviour of mankind, in the truest, fullest sense of the word. i'm sure of this. i have always wished that it were true, and have always believed that the christian life, as christ taught it, would be the happiest life on earth. but there's the rub. where can a fellow go to live the life, and why are you and i not living it as well as the people who have their names on the church books? must i join a company of canting hypocrites in order to get to heaven?" "seems to me that word is a little strong for those who put up their rings and stuff last night," said udell; "and anyway, i know one in the crowd who was in earnest." "you are right, george," returned dick. "i spoke harshly. i know there are earnest ones in the church, but i don't see how they stand it. but you're dodging my question. do you believe in christ as the saviour of men?" "folks say that i'm an infidel," answered george. "i don't care what folks say, i want to know what you think about it." "i don't know," said george. "sometimes, when i listen to the preachers, i get so befuddled and mixed up that there's nothing but a big pile of chaff, with now and then a few stray grains of truth, and the parson keeps the air so full of the dust and dirt that you'd rather he wouldn't hunt for the grain of truth at all. then i'm an infidel. and again i see something like that last night, and i believe it must be true. and then i think of clara, and am afraid to believe because i fear it's the girl and not the truth i'm after. you see, i want to believe so bad that i'm afraid i'll make myself believe what i don't believe. there, now you can untangle that while you run off that batch of cards. it's half-past eight now and we have not done a blessed thing this morning." he turned resolutely to his task of setting up another speech for the local politician. "george, what in the world does this mean?" asked dick, about two hours later, holding up a proof sheet that he had just taken from the form george had placed on the stone, and reading: "when patrick henry said, give me liberty or give me clara, he voiced a sentiment of every american church member." george flushed. "guess you'd better set up the rest of this matter," he said gruffly. "i'll run the press awhile." he laid down his stick and put the composing case between himself and dick as soon as possible. "that bloomin' politician must be crazy," said the boy, as he scrubbed wearily at an inky roller, with a dirty rag. "old pat. henry never said no such stuff as that, did he george?" "you dry up," was all the answer he received. all that week and the week following, dick's mind fastened itself upon the proposition: jesus christ is the son of god, and the saviour of men. at intervals during working hours at the office, he argued the question with udell, who after his strange rendering of the great statesman's famous speech, had relapsed into infidelity, and with all the strength of his mind, opposed dick in his growing belief. the evenings were spent with charlie bowen, in discussing the same question. and here it was charlie who assumed the affirmative and dick as stoutly championed udell's position. at last, one day when dick had driven his employer into a corner, the latter ended the debate forever, by saying rather sharply, "well, if i believed as you do, i'd stand before men and say so. no matter what other folks believed, did or said, if a man was so good as to give me all the things that you say christ has given to the world, i would stand by him, dead or alive. and i don't see why you can't be as honest with him as you are with men." and charlie clinched the matter that evening by saying, "dick, if i thought you really believed your own arguments, i wouldn't talk with you five minutes, for the doctrine you are teaching is the most hopeless thing on earth. but i can't help feeling that if you would be as honest with yourself as you are with others, you wouldn't take that side of the question. suppose you preach awhile from your favorite, shakespeare, taking for your text, 'this above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day. thou canst not then be false to any man.'" there were no more arguments after that, but dick went over in his mind the experience of the past; how he had seen, again and again, professed christians proving untrue to their christ. he looked at the church, proud, haughty, cold, standing in the very midst of sin and suffering, and saying only, "i am holier than thou." he remembered his first evening in boyd city, and his reception after prayer-meeting, at the church on the avenue, and his whole nature revolted at the thought of becoming one of them. then he remembered that meeting of the young people and the unmistakable evidence of their love, and the words of uncle bobbie wicks in the printing office that rainy night: "you'll find out, same as i have, that it don't matter how much the other fellow dabbles in the dirt, you've got to keep your hands clean anyway. and it aint the question whether the other fellow is mean or not, but am i living square?" and so it was, that when he went to church sunday evening, his heart was torn with conflicting emotions, and he slipped into a seat in the rear of the building, when the ushers were all busy, so that even charlie did not know he was there. cameron's sermon was from the text, "what is that to thee? follow thou me." and as he went on with his sermon, pointing out the evils of the church, saying the very things that dick had said to himself again and again, but always calling the mind of his hearers back to the words of jesus, "what is that to thee? follow thou me," dick felt his objections vanish, one by one, and the great truth alone remain. the minister brought his talk to a close, with an earnest appeal for those who recognized the evils that existed in the church, because it was not following christ as closely as it ought, to come and help right the wrongs, dick arose, went forward, and in a firm voice, answered the question put by the minister, thus declaring before men his belief in christ as the son of god, and accepting him as his personal saviour. as he stood there, the audience was forgotten. the past, with all its mistakes and suffering, its doubt and sin, came before him for an instant, then vanished, and his heart leaped for joy, because he knew that it was gone forever. and the future, made beautiful by the presence of christ and the conviction that he was right with god, stretched away as a path leading ever upward, until it was lost in the glories of the life to come, while he heard, as in a dream, the words of his confessed master, "follow: thou me." chapter xv george was busy in the stock room getting out some paper for a lot of circulars that dick had just finished setting up, when the door opened and amy goodrich entered. "good morning, mr. falkner," as dick left his work and went forward to greet her. "i must have some new calling cards. can you get them ready for me by two o'clock this afternoon? mamma and i had planned to make some calls and i only discovered last night that i was out of cards. you have the plate here in the office, i believe." "yes," said dick, "the plate is here. i guess we can have them ready for you by that time." "and mr. falkner," said the girl, "i want to tell you how glad i was when you took the stand you did sunday night." dick's face flushed and he looked at her keenly. "i have thought for a long time, that you would become a christian, and have often wondered why you waited. the church needs young men and you can do so much good." "you are very kind." said dick, politely. "i am sure that your interest will be a great inspiration to me, and i shall need all the help i can get. in fact, we all do, i guess." a shadow crossed the lovely face, and a mist dimmed the brightness of the brown eyes for a moment before she replied. "yes, we do need help; all of us; and i am sure you will aid many. will you enter the ministry?" "enter the ministry," replied dick, forgetting his studied coolness of manner. "what in the world suggested that? do i look like a preacher?" they both laughed heartily. "well no, i can't say that you do. at least i wouldn't advise you to go into the pulpit with that apron and that cap on; and the spot of ink on the end of your nose is not very dignified." dick hastily applied his handkerchief to the spot, while amy, like a true woman, stood laughing at his confusion. "but seriously," she added, after a moment, "i was not joking. i do think you could do grand work if you were to enter the field. somehow, i have always felt that you exerted a powerful influence over all with whom you came in touch. let me make a prophecy; you will yet be a preacher of the gospel." "i'm sure," said dick, "that if i truly came to believe it to be my work, i would not refuse. but that is a question which time alone can answer. do you remember the first time we met?" "indeed i do," the girl replied, laughing again. "it was right here, and you met with an accident at the same time." dick's face grew red again. "i should say i did," he muttered. "i acted like a frightened fool." "oh, but you redeemed yourself beautifully though. i have one of those little books yet. i shall always keep it; and when you get to be a famous preacher, i'll exhibit my treasure, and tell how the rev. mr. richard falkner sat up late one night to design the cover for me, when he was only a poor printer." "yes," retorted dick, "and i'll tell the world how i went to my first church social, and what a charming young lady i met, who told me how much i reminded her of someone she knew." it was amy's time to blush now, and she did so very prettily as she hurriedly said, "let's change the subject. i ought not to be keeping you from your work. mr. udell will be asking me to stay away from the office." "oh, we're not rushed today," said dick, hastily, "and i'll make up all lost time." "so you consider this lost time, do you?" with a quick little bow. "thank you, then it's surely time for me to go;" and she turned to leave the room, but dick checked her. "oh, miss goodrich, you know i did not mean that." something in his voice made her eyes drop as he added, "you don't know how much i enjoy talking with you; not that i have had many such pleasures though, but just a word helps me more than i can say." he stopped, because he dare not go farther, and wondered at himself that he had said even so much. "do you really mean, mr. falkner, that you care at all for my friendship?" "more than the friendship of any one in the world," he replied, earnestly. "why?" dick was startled and turned away his head lest his eyes reveal too much. "because," he said slowly, "your friendship is good for me and makes me want to do great things." "and yet, if i were not a member of the church you would not think that way." "i would think that way, no matter what you were," said dick. "you would still value my friendship if i should do some awful wicked thing?" she asked. "suppose i should leave the church, or run away, or steal, or kill somebody, or do something real terrible?" dick smiled and shook his head. "nothing you could ever do would make me change. but tell me," he added; "you're not thinking of giving up your church work, are you?" "why do you ask?" said she quickly. "you'll pardon me won't you, if i tell you. i can't help noticing that you are not so much at the meetings of the society as you were; and that--well--you don't seem--somehow--to take the interest you did. and you have given up your class at the south broadway mission." "how do you know that?" "i asked brother cameron if there was any place for me out there, and he said, yes, that your class was without a teacher now." "so you are to have my boys at the mission. oh, i am so glad." and her eyes filled. "don't let them forget me altogether, mr. falkner." "but won't you come back and teach them yourself?" "no, no; you do not understand; i must give it up. but you'll do better than i anyway, because you can get closer to them. you understand that life so well." "yes," he said, very soberly. "i do understand that life very well indeed." "oh, forgive me, i didn't mean to pain you." she laid her hand timidly on his arm. "i admire you so much for what you have overcome, and that's what makes me say that you can do a great deal, now that you are through with it. you must forget those things that are behind, you know." "yes," murmured dick, "those things _are_ behind, and i can do all things through him; but may i also have the help of thinking of you as my friend?" amy blushed again. "please notice," said dick, quietly, "i said of _thinking_ of you as my friend." the girl put out her hand. "mr. falkner, just as long as you wish, you may think of me as your friend. but i want you to pray for me, that i may be worthy your friendship, for i too, have my battles to fight." and she smiled. "good-bye. you were so funny when you fell off the stool that day, but i like you better as you are now." then suddenly the room grew dark and close, and as dick turned again to his work, he heard a voice within whispering, "only in your thoughts can she be your friend." adam goodrich was just coming out of the express office, which was in the same block as the printing establishment, when he saw his daughter leave the building and cross the street. all that day the incident persisted in forcing itself upon his mind, and that night, after the younger members of the family had retired, and he and mrs goodrich were alone, he laid aside his evening paper and asked, "what was amy doing at udell's place today?" "she went to have some calling cards printed. why, what made you ask?" "oh nothing. i saw her coming from the building, and i wondered what she was doing there, that's all." he picked up his paper again, but in a moment laid it down once more. "that fellow falkner joined the church last sunday night." "so frank told me," answered mrs. goodrich. "i do wish rev. cameron would be more careful. he gets so many such characters into the church. why can't he keep them out at the mission where they belong, and not force us to associate with them?" mr. goodrich spoke again. "i suppose he will be active in the young people's society now. does amy still take as much interest there as she did?" "oh no, not nearly as much as she used to. i have tried to show her that it was not her place to mix in that kind of work, and she's beginning to understand her position, and to see that she can't afford to lower herself and us, by running after such people. i don't understand where she gets such low tastes." "she don't get them from the goodrich's, i'm sure," answered adam. "you know _our_ family was never guilty of anything that could compromise their standing in society." "well, she will outgrow it all in time, i am sure. i have been as careful in her training as i could, mr. goodrich. it is a hard task to raise girls, and make them understand their position when they're amy's age; but she's taking up her social duties again now. we are to make some calls tomorrow, and thursday night, she has accepted an invitation to the card party at mrs. lansdown's; and mr. whitley has called frequently of late. i have great hopes, for she seems to be quite interested in him." "yes," agreed adam. "whitley is worth while; he is of a good family, and without doubt, the richest man in boyd city. it would be a great thing for us. it's time he was thinking about a wife too. he must be well on toward forty." "oh dear no; he can't be more than thirty-five; he was quite young when he went abroad, and you remember that was only five years ago." "well, well, it's no matter; he's young enough. but does she see much of that printer of udell's?" "why, of course not; what a question. she would have nothing to do with him." "but she has met him at the socials and in the society. he would naturally pose as a sort of hero, for he was the one who suggested that fool plan that cameron is working on; and now that he has joined the church, she must see more or less of him. i tell you, he's a sharp fellow. look how he has been quietly worming himself into decent society since he got hold of that reading room. there is no knowing what such a man will do, and amy naturally would be a good mark for him." "i'm sure i am doing the best i can," faltered mrs. goodrich; "but you'd better talk to her yourself; with mr. whitley so interested, we must be careful. i do wish she would be more like frank. he has never given us a moment's trouble." "yes," said the father, with no little pride manifest in his voice and manner. "frank is a goodrich through and through. amy seems to take more after your people." mrs. goodrich sighed. "i'm sorry, but i don't see how i can help it." the next day, after dinner, mr. goodrich found his daughter alone in the library, where she had gone with a bit of fancy work, which girls manage to have always about them. "frank tells me that mr. falkner has united with the church," he remarked, carelessly. "yes," said amy, "i am so glad. the church needs such young men, i think." "he is quite a shrewd fellow, isn't he?" continued her father. "he's very intelligent, i'm sure. you know it was he who proposed the plan for our new institution, and mr. wicks and brother cameron think it is very fine." "does he use good language in his conversation?" "oh yes sir, indeed. he is a very interesting talker. he has traveled so much, and read almost everything. i tell him i think he ought to preach." "hum. and will he, do you think?" "he said he would if he were convinced it was his work." "where did he live before he came here?" "oh, he has lived in nearly all the big cities. he was in kansas city last." "and what did his father do?" "his mother died when he was a little boy, and his father drank himself to death, or something. he won't talk about his family much. he did say though, that his father was a mechanic. i believe that he tells mr. udell more about his past than anyone." "and did udell tell you all this?" "no," answered amy, who suddenly saw what was coming. "how do you know so much about him then?" "he told me." "indeed. you seem to be on very good terms with this hero. how long were you at the printing office yesterday? i saw you leaving the building." amy was silent, but her burning cheeks convinced her father that he had cause to be alarmed. "did you talk with him when you were there?" "yes sir; he waited on me." "and do you think it is a credit to your family to be so intimate with a tramp who was kicked out of my place of business?" "oh father, that is not true--i mean, sir, that you do not understand--mr. falkner is not a tramp. he was out of work and applied to you for a place. surely that is not dishonest. and that he wanted to work for you ought not to be used against him. he has never in any way shown himself anything but a gentleman, and is much more modest and intelligent than many of the young men in boyd city who have fine homes. i am sure we ought not to blame him because he has to fight his own way in the world, instead of always having things brought to him. if you knew him better, you wouldn't talk so." she spoke rapidly in her excitement. "you seem to know him very well when you champion him so strongly that you call your own father a liar," replied adam, harshly. "oh papa," said amy, now in tears. "i did not mean to say that. i only meant that you were mistaken because you did not know. i cannot help talking to mr. falkner when i meet him in the young people's society. i have not been anywhere in his company, and only just speak a few words when we do meet. you wouldn't have me refuse to recognize him in the church, would you? surely, father, christ wants us to be helpful, doesn't he?" "christ has nothing to do with this case," said adam. "i simply will not have my daughter associating with such characters; and another thing, you must give up that mission business. i believe that's where you get these strange ideas." "i have already given up my work there," said amy, sadly. "mr. falkner has taken my class." "which is just the place for him. but don't you go there again. and if you have any printing that must be done at udell's, send it by frank, or someone. you understand, i forbid you to have any conversation whatever with that man. i'll see if such fellows are going to work themselves into my family." amy's face grew crimson again. "you must learn," went on the angry parent, "that the church is a place for you to listen to a sermon, and that it's the preacher's business to look after all these other details; that's what we hire him for. let him get people from the lower classes to do his dirty work; he shan't have my daughter. christianity is all right, and i trust i'm as good a christian as anyone; but a man need not make a fool of himself to get to heaven, and i'm only looking out for my own family's interest. if you wish to please me you will drop this young people's foolishness altogether, and go more into society. i wish you would follow frank's example. he is a good church member but he don't let it interfere with his best interests. he has plenty of friends and chooses his associates among the first families in the city. _he_ don't think it necessary to take up with every vagabond cameron chooses to drag into the church. remember, it must stop." and the careful father took his hat and left for the place on broadway, where on the shelves and behind the counters of his hardware store he kept the god he really worshipped. chapter xvi the year following dick's stand for christianity, an open air theater was established in the park on west fourth street, near the outskirts of the city, which was advertised by its enterprising manager as a very respectable place, well looked after by the police. it is true that the shows were but cheap variety and vulgar burlesque, and of course liquor, as well as more harmless drinks, was sold freely; and equally of course, the lowest of the criminal classes were regular attendants. but, with all that, there was something terribly fascinating in the freedom of the place. and all too often, on a sunday evening, while the pure, fragrant air of summer was polluted by the fumes of tobacco and beer, while low plays were enacted on the stage, and the sound of drunken laugh or shout went out, young men and women mingled, half frightened, in the careless throng. among a certain set of boyd city's gay young society people, to spend an evening at the park was just the thing to do; and often they might be seen grouped about the tables, sipping their refreshments, while laughing at the actors on the stage, or chatting and joking among themselves. on an evening in august, when our chapter opens, one such party was even gayer than usual, and attracted no little attention from the frequenters of the place, as well as the employes. waiters winked at each other and made remarks, as they hurried to and fro attending to the wants of their guests, while people with less wealth looked on in envy at the glittering show. the gentlemen were in evening dress, the ladies gowned in the latest fashion, jewels and trinkets flashed, eyes sparkled, cheeks glowed, as story and jest went round, while the ladies sipped their refreshing sodas and the men drank their wine. one of the younger girls seemed a little frightened for a moment as she caught the eye of a waiter fastened upon her in anything but a respectful glance, and gave the fellow such a look in return that he dropped a napkin in his confusion. "i tell you, bill," he said to his companion at the bar, where he had gone to get more drinks for the company, "that's a fast lot all right, but there's one in the bunch that can't go the pace." but the waiter was evidently mistaken, for that same girl, after a glance around which revealed to her that she and her companions were the center of all eyes, tossed her head as though getting rid of some unpleasant thoughts, and turning to her escort, with a reckless laugh, asked him why he kept the best for himself. "i don't think it fair, girls," she declared in a loud voice. "we have as good a right to that nice wine as the boys have. i move that we make them treat us as well as they treat themselves." "done," cried one of the men before the others could object, even had they so desired; and in a moment another bottle, with more glasses, was set before them. the girl who had proposed the thing only drank a little. something seemed to choke her when she lifted the glass to her lips, and she set it down again almost untasted. "ugh," she said, "i don't like it," and a laugh went around at her expense. "take it. take it. you must. you started it you know." "i can't," she protested. "here jim," to her companion, who had already taken more than was good for him. "you must help me out." and she handed him the glass. "glad to help a lady always," he declared. "notisch please, gen'lemen, i set y' good example. alwaysh come to the rescue of fair ones in trouble--" he drained the glass. "anybody else in trouble?" he said, looking around the table with a half tipsy grin. but the other girls had no scruples and drank their wine without a protest. at last the party discovered that it was time to go home, and indeed the garden was almost deserted. one of the girls proposed that they walk, it was such a beautiful night; and accordingly they set out, two and two; the men reckless with wine; the ladies flushed and excited; all singing and laughing. not far from the park entrance, the girl who had proposed the wine, and her companion, who was by this time more than half intoxicated, dropped a little behind the others and soon turned down a side street. "this is not the way, jim," she said, in a tone of laughing protest. "oh yesh 'tis. i know where'm goin'. come 'long." and he caught her by the arm. "nicesh place down here where we can stop and resht," and he staggered against her. "but i want to go home, jim," her tone of laughing protest changed to one of earnestness. "father will be looking for me." "hang father," said the other. "old man don't know. come on i tell you." and he tried to put his arm about her waist. the girl was frightened now in earnest. "stop sir," she said. "why? whash ze matter m' dear?" stammered the other. "whash ze harm--zash all--i'll take care you all right--ol' man never know." and again he clutched her arm. this was too much, and giving the drunken wretch a push, which sent him tumbling into the gutter, where cursing fiercely he struggled to regain his feet, the frightened girl, without pausing to see his condition, or listening to his calls and threats, fled down the street. when her companion had at last managed to stagger to the sidewalk and could look around by clinging to the fence, she was out of sight. he called two or three times, and then swearing vilely, started in pursuit, reeling from side to side. the frightened girl ran on and on, paying no heed to her course, as she turned corner after corner her only thought being to escape from her drunken and enraged companion. meanwhile, dick falkner was making his way home after a delightful evening at the parsonage, where he had talked with cameron on the veranda until a late hour. as he was walking leisurely along through the quiet streets, past the dark houses, enjoying the coolness of the evening and thinking of the things that he and cameron had been discussing, his ear caught a strange sound, that seemed to come from within a half finished house on north catalpa street, near the railroad. he paused a moment and listened. surely he was not mistaken. there it was again. the sound of someone sobbing. stepping closer and peering into the shadow, he saw a figure crouching behind a pile of lumber. it was a woman. "i beg your pardon, madam, but can i be of any help to you?" she started to her feet with a little cry. "don't be frightened," said dick, in a calm voice. "i am a gentleman. come, let me help you." and stepping into the shadow, he gently led her to the light, where she stood trembling before him. "tell me what--my god! amy--i beg your pardon--miss goodrich." "oh mr. falkner," sobbed the poor girl, almost beside herself with fear. "don't let that man come near me. i want to go home. oh, please take me home?" "there, there," said dick, controlling himself and speaking in a steady, matter-of-fact tone. "of course i'll see you home. take my arm, please. you need have no fear. you know i'll protect you." calmed by his voice and manner, the girl ceased her sobbing and walked quietly down the street by his side. dick's mind was in a whirl. "was he dreaming? how came she here at such an hour. who was she afraid of? by her dress, she had been to a social party of some kind; what did it all mean? but he spoke no word as they walked on together. "oh look," exclaimed amy, a few moments later, as they turned east on sixth street; "there he is again. oh mr. falkner, what shall i do? let me go." and she turned to run once more. dick laid his hand on her arm. "miss goodrich, don't you know that you are safe with me? be calm and tell me what you fear." something in his touch brought amy to herself again and she whispered: "don't you see that man standing there by the light?" she pointed to a figure leaning against a telephone pole. "well, what of it?" said dick. "he won't hurt you." "oh, but you don't understand. i ran away from him. he is drunk and threatened me." dick's form straightened and his face grew hard and cold. "ran away from him. do you mean that that fellow insulted you, miss goodrich?" "i--i--was with him--and--he frightened me--" gasped amy. "let's go the other way." but they were too late. amy's former escort had seen them, and with uncertain steps approached. "oh, here you are," he said. "thought i'd find you, my beauty." dick whispered to amy in a tone she dared not disobey. "stand right where you are. don't move. and you might watch that star over there. isn't it a beautiful one?" he deftly turned her so that she faced away from the drunkard. then with three long steps, he placed himself in the way of the half-crazed man. "who are you?" asked the fellow, with an oath. "none of your business," replied dick, curtly. "i'm that girl's friend. go to the other side of the street." "ho, i know you now," cried the other. "you're that bum printer of udell's. get out of my way. that girl's a lady and i'm a gentleman. she don't go with tramps. i'll see her home myself." dick spoke again. "you may be a gentleman, but you are in no condition to see anybody home. i'll tell you just once more; cross to the other side of the street." the fellow's only answer was another string of vile oaths, which however was never finished. in spite of herself, amy turned just in time to see a revolver glisten in the light of the electric lamp; then the owner of the revolver rolled senseless in the gutter. "miss goodrich, i told you to watch that star. don't you find it beautiful?" dick's voice was calm, with just a suggestion of mild reproach. "oh mr. falkner, have you killed him?" "killed nothing. come." and he led her quickly past the place where the self-styled gentleman lay. "just a moment," he said; and turning back, he examined the fallen man. "only stunned," he reported cheerfully. "he'll have a sore head for a few days; that's all. i'll send a cab to pick him up when we get down town." "mr. falkner," said amy, when they had walked some distance in silence. "i don't know what you think of finding me here at this hour, but i don't want you to think me worse than i am." and then she told him the whole story; how she had gone to the park with her friends to spend the evening; and how they had a few refreshments. dick ground his teeth; he knew what those refreshments were. then she told how her companion had frightened her and she had run until she was exhausted and had stopped to hide in the unfinished house. "oh, what must you think of me?" she said, at the point of breaking down again. "i think just as i always have," said dick simply. "please calm yourself, you're safe now." then to occupy her mind, he told her of the work the young people's society was doing, and how they missed her there and at the mission. "but don't you find such things rather tiresome, you know?" she asked. "there's not much life in those meetings seems to me; i wonder now how i ever stood them." "you are very busy then?" asked dick, hiding the pain her words caused him. "oh yes; with our whist club, box parties, dances and dinners, i'm so tired out when sunday comes i just want to sleep all day. but one must look after one's social duties, you know, or be a nobody; and our set is such a jolly crowd that there's always something going." "and you have forgotten your class at the mission altogether?" dick asked. "oh no, i saw one of the little beggars on the street this summer. it was down near the mission building, and don't you know, we were out driving, a whole party of us, and the little rascal shouted: 'howdy, miss goodrich.' i thought i would faint. just fancy. and the folks did guy me good. the gentlemen wanted to know if he was one of my flames, and the girls all begged to be introduced; and don't you know, i got out of it by telling them that it was the child of a woman who scrubs for us." dick said nothing. "could it be possible?" he asked himself, "that this was the girl who had been such a worker in the church." and then he thought of the change in his own life in the same period of time; a change fully as great, though in another direction. "it don't take long to go either way if one only has help enough," he said, half aloud. "what are you saying, mr. falkner?" asked amy. "it's not far home now," answered dick, and they fell into silence again. as they neared the goodrich mansion, amy clasped dick's arm with both her little hands: "mr. falkner, promise me that you will never speak to a living soul about this evening." dick looked her straight in the eyes. "i am a gentleman, miss goodrich," was all he said. then as they reached the steps of the house, she held out her hand. "i thank you for your kindness--and please don't think of me too harshly. i know i am not just the girl i was a year ago, but i--do you remember our talk at the printing office?" "every word," said dick. "well, has my prophecy come true?" "about my preaching? no; not yet." "oh, i don't mean that," with a shrug of her shoulders. "i mean about the other. do you still value my friendship?" dick hesitated. "the truth, please," she said. "i want to know." "miss goodrich, i cannot make you understand; you know my whole life has changed the last year." "yes." "but my feelings toward you can never change. i do value your friendship, for i know that your present life does not satisfy you, and that you are untrue to your best self in living it." the girl drew herself up haughtily. "indeed, you are fast becoming a very proficient preacher," she said, coldly. "wait a moment, please," interrupted dick. "you urged me to tell the truth. i desire your friendship, because i know the beautiful life you could live, and because you--you--could help me to live it," his voice broke. amy held out her hand again. "forgive me please," she said. "you are a true friend, and i shall never, never, forget you. oh, mr. falkner, if you are a christian pray for me before it is too late. good-night." and she was gone; just as her brother frank came up the walk. young goodrich stopped short when he saw dick, and then sprang up the steps and into the house, just in time to see his sister going up the stairway to her room. chapter xvii the day following amy's adventure with her drunken escort, and her rescue by dick falkner, frank goodrich had a long interview with his father, which resulted in adam's calling his daughter into his library that evening. without any preface whatever, he began, in an angry tone: "i understand, miss, that you have disobeyed my express commands in regard to that tramp printer, and that you have been with him again; and that too, late at night. now i have simply to tell you that you must choose between him and your home. i will _not_ have a child of mine keeping such company. you must either give him up or go." "but father, you do not know the circumstances or you would not talk so." "no circumstances can excuse your conduct; i know you were with him and that is enough." "indeed i have not disobeyed you; father, you do not understand; i was in mr. falkner's company only by accident, and--" "stop. don't add a falsehood to your conduct. i understand quite enough. your own brother saw you bidding him an affectionate good-night at one o'clock, on my doorstep. such things do not happen by accident. i wonder that you dare look me in the face after roaming the streets at that time of night with such a disreputable character." "father, i tell you you are mistaken. won't you please let me explain?" said amy, almost in tears. but the angry man only replied, "no explanation can be made. frank saw you himself and that's enough; no excuse can justify such conduct. i have only to repeat that i will not own you as my daughter if you persist in keeping such company." amy tried again to speak, but he interrupted her. "silence, i don't want to hear a word from you. go to your room." then the woman asserted herself and there were no tears this time, as she said respectfully, but firmly, "father, you _shall_ hear me. i am not guilty of that of which you accuse me. i was in other company, company of your own choosing, and to save myself from insult i was forced to appeal to mr. falkner, who brought me safely home. he is far more a gentleman than the men i was with, even though they are welcome at this home; and he is not. i--" adam turned fairly green with rage. "you ungrateful, disobedient girl. how dare you say that this miserable vagabond is a fit associate for you, and more worthy than the guests of my house? you must not think you can deceive me and clear yourself by any trumped-up lie of his teaching. you may have your tramp, but don't call me father. you are no daughter of mine." and he left the room. it is astonishing how little the proud man knew of the real nature of his child; a nature which rightfully understood and influenced, was capable of any sacrifice, any hardship, for the one she loved; but misunderstood or falsely condemned, was just as capable of reckless folly or despair. a nature that would never prove false to a trust, but if unjustly suspected, would turn to the very thing of which it stood accused. the next morning amy did not appear at breakfast and the mother went to her room; while mr. goodrich, impatient at the delay, stood with angry eyes awaiting their appearance. frank came in. "good morning, father," he said, glancing about with an assumed expression of surprise. "where is amy and mother? i thought i heard the bell." adam grunted some reply and the son picked up a week-old daily and pretended to be deeply interested. suddenly a piercing scream reached their ears, and a sound as of someone falling. with an exclamation of alarm, mr. goodrich, followed by his son, hurried from the dining-room and ran upstairs. the door of amy's apartment was open, and just inside prone upon the floor, lay mrs. goodrich, holding in her hand a piece of paper. adam, with the help of his son, lifted his wife and laid her upon the bed, which they noticed had not been occupied. for an instant the two stood looking into each other's face without a word, and then the older man said, "we must take care of mother first. call dr. gleason." under the advice of the physician, who soon came in answer to frank's telephone call, mrs. goodrich was removed to her own room, and in a short time regained consciousness, but fell to moaning and sobbing, "oh, amy--amy--my poor child--my baby girl--what have you done? i never thought that you would do a thing like this. oh, my beautiful girl--come back--come back--" and then when she became calmer, told them what they already knew; that she had found her daughter's room undisturbed, with a note addressed to herself on the toilet table, containing only a simple farewell message. "there, there, wife, she's gone," said adam, clumsily trying to soothe the mother's anguish, but finding that a tongue long accustomed to expressions of haughty pride and bigotry, could but poorly lend itself to softer words of comfort. "there, there, don't cry, let her go. that scoundrel printer is at the bottom of it all. somehow the girl does not seem to take after the goodrich's. madam, please try to control your feelings. you must not make yourself ill over this matter." mrs. goodrich, accustomed to obey, with a great effort, ceased the open expression of her grief. "there can be no doubt but that she has gone with that tramp," continued adam. "i shall do what i can to find her and give her one more chance. if she acknowledges her fault and promises to do better she may come home. if not, she shall never darken these doors again." "oh, mr. goodrich, don't say that," cried the mother. "think of that poor child on the streets all alone. perhaps you are mistaken." "_what_? am i to understand that you take her part against me?" "no, no," murmured the frightened woman. "i tell you, there can be no mistake. you saw them did you not, frank?" "yes, sir." "you hear that, mrs. goodrich? you will oblige me by not mentioning this matter again." and hurriedly leaving the room, adam went to his own private apartment, where, after he had turned the key in the door, he paced to and fro, the tears streaming down his cheeks. but in a few moments, while he made his preparations for going down the street, thoughts of the curious faces he must meet aroused the old pride and hardened his heart again. so that when he left the building, not a trace of his worthier feelings showed on his cold, proper countenance, except that to the keen observer, he looked a little older perhaps, and a trifle less self-satisfied. his first visit was to the store, where he spent an hour or two going over his correspondence, interviewing the head clerk and issuing his orders for the day. then taking his hat and cane, he left for the printing office. the boy was away on an errand, and george had stepped out for a few moments, so that dick was alone when mr. goodrich entered. thinking that it was the printer who had returned, he did not look up from his work until he was startled by the angry voice of his visitor. "well, sir, i suppose you are satisfied at last. where is my daughter?" "your daughter," said dick, who had not heard the news, "i'm sure, sir, that i do not know." "don't lie to me, you scoundrel," shouted adam, losing all control of himself. "you were with her last. you have been trying ever since you came here to worm yourself into the society of your betters. tell me what you have done with her." "mr. goodrich," said dick, forcing himself to be calm, "you must explain. it is true that i was with your daughter night before last, but--" he hesitated; should he explain how he had found amy?--"i left her safely at your door and have not seen her since." he finished. "is she not home?" adam only glared at him. "she did not sleep at home last night," he growled. dick's voice failed him for a moment. "then she must be stopping with some friend; surely there is no need for alarm." "i tell you she's gone," said the other furiously. "she left a letter. you are to blame for this. you i say; and you shall suffer for it." he shook his clenched fist at the young man. "if you have hidden her anywhere i'll have your life; you miserable, low-down vagabond. you have schemed and schemed until you have succeeded in stealing her heart from her home, and disgracing me." "adam goodrich, you lie," said dick, pale with mingled anxiety for the girl, and angry that her father should thus accuse him. "do you understand me? i say that you lie. that you are the most contemptible liar that i have ever known. your whole life is a lie." he spoke in a low tone, but there was something underlying the quiet of his voice and manner that contrasted strangely with the loud bluster of the older man, and made the latter tremble. this was a new experience for him, and something in the manly face of the one who uttered these hard words startled and frightened him. "you have forced your daughter to drop her church work, and have goaded her into the society of people whose only claim to respectability is their wealth. you value your position in the world more than your daughter's character, and you yourself are to blame for this. i tell you again, sir, that you are a liar. i do not know where your daughter is, but if she is on earth i will find her and bring her back to your home; not for your sake, but for hers. now go. get out. the very atmosphere is foul with your rotten hypocrisy." "whew!" whistled george a moment later, as he stepped into the room, having passed adam on the stairway. "what's the matter with his royal highness, dickie? he looks like he had been in a boiler explosion." but his expression changed when dick told him of the interview and apologized for driving a good customer from the office. "good customer!" he shouted; "good customer! a mighty bad customer. i say you'd better apologize for not throwing him into the street. i'll never set up another line for him unless it's an invitation to his funeral." for many days dick searched for the missing girl, bringing to bear all his painfully acquired knowledge of life, and the crooked ways of the world. though unknown to mr. goodrich, the detective from chicago, whom he employed, was an old companion of dick's, and to the officer only, he confided the full story of amy's visit to the park. but they, only learned that she had boarded the twelve-forty kansas city southern, for jonesville, and that a woman answering to her description had stopped there until nearly noon the next day, when she was seen in conversation with a man whose face was badly bruised on the under left side of the chin. the two had taken the same train east on the "frisco." they found also that her companion of that night at the park, james whitley, had hurriedly left boyd city on the morning train, over the "frisco," to jonesville, and had not returned, nor could his whereabouts be discovered. it was given out in public, among the society items of the whistler, that he had been called suddenly to the bedside of a sick friend; but dick and the detective knew better. gradually the interest on the part of the citizens subsided, and the detective returned to chicago to other mysteries, demanding his attention. adam goodrich refused to talk of the matter, and gave no sign of his sorrow, save an added sternness in his manner. but the mother's health was broken; while frank, declaring that he could not stand the disgrace, went for a long visit to a friend in a neighboring city. finally dick himself was forced to give up the search; but though baffled for a time, he declared to udell and his pastor, that he would yet bring amy home as he had promised her father. and while he went about his work as usual, it was with a heavy heart, and a look on his face that caused his friends who knew him best to pity. chapter xviii the summer passed and again the catalpa trees shed their broad leaves, while the prairie grass took on the reddish brown of early fall. jim whitley suddenly returned to boyd city and dick met him in the post-office. "not a word passed between them, but an hour later a note was put into jim's hand by a ragged boot-black. "george," said dick, that afternoon as they were locking up, "if you don't mind i believe i'll sleep in my old bed in the office to-night." udell looked at his helper in astonishment. "what in the world?" he began; then stopped. "i can't explain now, but please let me have my way and say nothing about it to anyone; not even clara." "why sure, old man," said the other heartily; "only i don't know why." he paused again; then in an anxious tone, "dickie, i know it's hard, and you've been putting up a great fight, but you're not going to let go now?" "no, no, it's not that, old man: i'll explain some day." and something in his face assured his friend that whatever it was that prompted his strange request, dick was still master of himself. late that night as udell passed the office on his way home, after spending the evening with miss wilson, he was astonished to see jim whitley entering the building. he stood watching for a moment; then fearing possible danger for dick, he ran lightly up the stairs. but as he reached out to lay his hand on the door latch, he heard a key turn in the lock and his friend's voice saying, "i thought you would come." george paused, and then with a shrug of his shoulder, and a queer smile on his rugged face, turned and went softly down to the street again. dick and his visitor faced each other in the dimly lighted office. "well," said whitley, with an oath, "what do you want?" "i want you to take your hand out of your pocket first," flashed dick; "that gun won't help you any tonight," and a heavy revolver in his own hand covered whitley's heart. his request was granted instantly. "now walk into the other room." they passed into the stock room, which was well lighted. the windows were covered with heavy paper; the long table was cleared and moved out from its place near the wall. dick closed the door and pointed to the table. "lay your gun there. be careful," as whitley drew his revolver. jim glanced once at the determined eyes and steady hand of his master and sullenly obeyed. "now sit down." crossing the room, he seated himself in the chair indicated, which placed him in the full glare of the light. dick took the other chair facing him, with the long table between them. placing his weapon beside the other, within easy reach of his hand, he rested his elbows on the table and looked long and steadily at the man before him. whitley was uneasy. "well," he said at last, when he could bear the silence no longer. "i hope you like my looks." "your figure is somewhat heavier, but shaving off your beard has made you look some years younger," replied dick, dryly. the other started to his feet. "don't be uneasy," said dick, softly resting his hand on one of the revolvers; "keep your seat please." "i never wore a beard," said the other, as he dropped back on his chair. "you are mistaken." "then how did you know the meaning of my note, and why did you answer it in person. you should have sent the right man." whitley saw that he had betrayed himself but made one more effort. "i came out of curiosity," he muttered. dick laughed--a laugh that was not good to hear. "i can easily satisfy you," he said; "permit me to tell you a little story." "the story begins in a little manufacturing town a few miles from liverpool, england, just three years ago today." beneath the unwavering eyes of the man leaning on the table whitley's face grew ghastly and he writhed in his chair. "an old man and his wife, with their two orphaned grand-sons, lived in a little cottage on the outskirts of the town. the older of the boys was a strong man of twenty; the other a sickly lad of eight. the old people earned a slender income by cultivating small fruits. this was helped out by the wages of the older brother, who was a machinist in one of the big factories. they were a quiet and unpretentious little family, devout christians, and very much attached to each other. "one afternoon a wealthy american, who was stopping at a large resort a few miles from the village, went for a drive along the road leading past their home. as his carriage was passing, the little boy, who was playing just outside the yard, unintentionally frightened the horses and they shied quickly. at the same moment, the american's silk hat fell in the dust. the driver stopped the team and the lad, frightened, picked up the hat and ran with it toward the carriage, stammering an apology for what he had done. "instead of accepting the boy's excuse, the man, beside himself with anger, and slightly under the influence of wine, sprang from the carriage, and seizing the lad, kicked him brutally. "the grandfather, who was working in his garden, saw the incident, and hurried as fast as he could to the rescue. at the same time, the driver jumped from his seat to protect the child, but before they could reach the spot, the boy was lying bruised and senseless in the dust. "the old man rushed at the american in impotent rage, and the driver, fearing for his safety, caught him by the arm and tried to separate them, saying, 'you look after the boy. let me settle with him.' but the old man was deaf and could not understand, and thought that the driver, also an american, was assisting his employer. in the struggle, the american suddenly drew a knife, and in spite of the driver's efforts, struck twice at his feeble opponent, who fell back in the arms of his would-be protector, just as the older brother rushed upon the scene. the american leaped into the carriage and snatched up the lines. the mechanic sprang after him, and as he caught hold of the seat in his attempt to climb in, the knife flashed again, cutting a long gash in his arm and hand, severing the little finger. with the other hand, he caught the wrist of the american, but a heavy blow in the face knocked him beneath the wheels, and the horses dashed away down the road. "the driver was bending over the old man trying to staunch the flow of blood, when several workmen, attracted by the cries of the helpless grandmother, who had witnessed the scene from the porch, came running up. ''e's one on 'em--'e's one on 'em,' cried the old lady. ''e 'eld my man while 'tother 'it 'im.' "the driver saw her mistake instantly, and realizing his danger as the man passed into the house with the body of the old man, he ran down the street and escaped. two days later, he read in a liverpool paper that the grandfather and boy were both dead, and that the dying statement of the old man, the testimony of the grandmother and the brother, was that both the strangers were guilty. "how the wealthy american made his escape from the country you know best. the driver shipped aboard a vessel bound for australia, and later, made his way home." when dick had finished his story, whitley's face was drawn and haggard. he leaped to his feet again, but the revolver motioned him back. "what fiend told you all this?" he gasped hoarsely. "who are you?" "i am the driver." whitley sank back in his chair; then suddenly broke into a harsh laugh. "you are a crazy fool. who would believe you? you have no proof." "wait a bit," replied dick, calmly. "there is another chapter to my story. less than a year after the tragedy, the invalid grandmother died and the young machinist was free to enter upon the great work of his life, the bringing to justice of his brother's murderer, or as _he_ believed, murderers. he could find no clue as to the identity of the obscure driver of the carriage, but with the wealthy american it was different, and he succeeded at last in tracing him to his home in this city. unfortunately though, the long search had left the young mechanic without means, and he arrived in boyd city in a penniless and starving condition, the night of the great storm winter before last. you are familiar with the finding of his body by george udell." again whitley sprang to his feet, and with an awful oath exclaimed, "how do you know this?" dick drew forth a long leather pocket-book, and opening it, took out a package of papers, which he laid on the table between the two revolvers. "there is the story, written by his own hand, together with the testimony of his grandfather and grandmother, his own sworn statement, and all the evidence he had so carefully gathered." whitley sprang forward; but before he could cross the room, both revolvers covered his breast. "stop!" the voice was calm and steady, but full of deadly menace. whitley crouched like an animal at bay. the hands that held the weapons never trembled; the gray eyes that looked along the shining barrels never wavered. slowly he drew back. "name your price," he said sullenly. "you have not money enough to buy." "i am a wealthy man." "i know it." he went back to his seat. "for god's sake, put down those guns and tell me what you want." "i want to know where you left miss goodrich." "what if i refuse to tell?" dick laid a pair of handcuffs upon the table. a cunning gleam crept into whitley's eyes. "you'll put them on yourself at the same time. the evidence is just as strong against you." "if it were not, i would have turned you over to the law long ago." "but you fool, they'll hang you." "that won't save you, and you'll answer to god for another murder." "you would not dare." "i am innocent; you are the coward." then whitley gave up and told how he had met amy in jonesville, and had taken her east to buffalo, new york, where he had left her just before returning to boyd city. "did you marry her?" asked dick. whitley shrugged his shoulders. "i am not looking for a wife," he said. "but was there no form of a ceremony?" persisted dick. again jim shrugged his shoulders. "it was not necessary." it was dick's turn to be agitated now; his hand played nervously on the handle of his revolver. but the other did not notice. "why did you leave her so soon?" "i had business of importance at home," with a sneer. slowly the man behind the table rose to his feet, his form trembling violently, his strong hands clinching and unclinching in his agitation. slowly he reached out and lifted the weapons of death from the table; slowly he raised them. the criminal sat as though fascinated; his face livid with fear. for a full minute the revolver covered the cowering victim; then suddenly dick's hand fell. "jim whitley," he said, in a voice that was strangely quiet. "if i were not a christian, you could not live a moment. now go!" he followed him from the room and watched him down the stairs; then returning, locked the door again, and throwing himself on the floor, wept as only a strong man can weep, with great shuddering sobs, until utterly exhausted, he fell into a stupor, where george found him in the morning. dick told his employer the whole story, and took the first train east. the same day, whitley left the city. chapter xix whitley's sudden return to boyd city, and his departure so soon after, revived some whispering gossip about amy's strange disappearance. and of course the matter was mentioned at the ministerial association, which still held its regular monday morning meetings. then, as was natural, the talk drifted to the much discussed topic, the low standard of morality in boyd city. old father beason said, "brethren, i tell you the condition of things in this town is just awful. i walked down broadway last saturday night, and i declare i could hardly get along. i actually had to walk out in the street, there was such a crowd, and nearly all of them young men and young women. i never saw anything like it; and there are all of these dives always open, and always full. candidly, brethren, what are we doing? i just tell you we are not doing one thing. we are not beginning to touch the problem. it costs just all we can scrape and dig to keep the churches, running, and so far as i know, only brother cameron here has even attempted any aggressive work. brethren, i wish we could put our heads together and formulate some plan that would stir this town and save our boys and girls, who are growing up in utter disrespect for christianity and the teaching of christ." "what we want here is a young men's christian association," exclaimed rev. hugh cockrell. "an association is the very thing for a town like this. you all know how it operates. it don't conflict with the work of the churches in the least. it furnishes parlor, sitting room, libraries, gymnasium, bath rooms, and all such things, at a very nominal cost to young men. as i have said in our meetings before, i think we ought to write to the state secretary and get him to come here and look over the situation." "that's all right, brother cockrell," said the big brother howell, rising to his feet and pushing his hands deep into his pockets; for the big minister was lots more of a man than he was a preacher, and put his hands into his pockets when he chose, without any closely buttoned, clerical cut coat to prevent him. "that's all right about the young men's christian association. it's a good thing; a splendid thing; and i'd like to see one started here in boyd city, but a dozen associations won't meet the needs of this place. those who could afford to pay the fee would enjoy the parlors and baths; those who could read might enjoy the books; and those who had worked in the mines digging coal all day, might exercise in the gymnasium, but what about the hundreds of young men who can't afford the fees, and don't want a parlor so much as a bite to eat, or a gymnasium so much as a bed, or a reading room so much as a job of work? we need something in this town that will reach out for the ignorant, fallen, hard-up, debauched, degraded men and women." father beason nodded emphatic approval. "i don't know, i'm sure," said the rev. jeremiah wilks, "what you brethren are going to do. if you hit on any plan to raise the money for all this, i'd like to know what it is. i'm going night and day now, trying to raise the debt on our new organ, and i've got to raise our benevolences yet; and besides this, my own salary is behind. i'm doing more work than any three preachers in the city. i tell you, the men who have got the money are going to hang on to it. there's mr. richman; i met him on the street yesterday; he was talking with a friend; and i stopped and said: good morning, brother richman--he's not a member of any church you know. i only called him brother to make him feel good you know. he said: good morning, reverend; kind of short; and then deliberately turned his back on me and went on talking with his friend. i didn't like to leave him like that, you know, for he's got a lot of money, i'm told. and you know we preachers never would get anything if we always quit like that; so i said, brother richman, i don't like to interrupt you, but can't you give me a little something this morning? i'm behind on our new organ, and on our benevolences and some other things, and my own salary is not all paid yet. i thought maybe you would help me a little. he looked at me a minute, then said with a sneer: 'i always like to know what returns i may expect for the money i invest. i'm no church member, that i have money to throw away. what do i get for it if i give you five dollars?' why, i said, you might be a christian some day. brother richman, i'd like mighty well to have you join my church. we'll all pray for you if you'd like to have us. and do you believe it, he just stood there and laughed and laughed; and the other fellow, he laughed too. yes, he did. well, i didn't know what to do you know, but i wanted that five dollars, so i said: but won't you help us a little, brother richman? it will be very acceptable. 'i tell you, mr. wilks,' he said; 'when you can show me that my money is doing some actual good among the poor people in this city, or that it's saving the young folks from the degrading influences here, i'll invest; and until then, i'll keep my money, and you can keep your prayers.' and do you know, he wouldn't give me a cent." the rev. jeremiah sat down with an air of mingled triumph and suffering, as much as to say, "see how gladly i bear persecution for the lord." "i understand that mr. richman gave to cameron's institution though," the big preacher remarked. "how is it brother cameron?" "yes," replied cameron, "he gave a hundred dollars unsolicited, and promised more if it were needed." there was silence for a moment; then the president said, "brother cameron, would you mind telling the association just how your work is conducted? i for one, would like to know more about it, and perhaps we could all adopt a similar plan. what would you suggest as a remedy for the existing conditions in this city?" "as far as our work goes, we have hardly touched the matter yet," replied cameron. "there is room for every church in the place; but what we need, i feel sure, is a united effort, and--" "brethren," interrupted the rev. dr. frederick hartzel, "i must beg that this useless discussion be stopped. so far as i can see, all of this is of no profit whatever. my time is altogether too valuable to waste in such foolish talk as this. i endeavor to put some thought into _my_ sermons, and i cannot take this valuable time from my studies. if the association persists in taking up the meetings with such subjects, instead of discussing some of the recent theological themes that are attracting the attention of the clergy everywhere, i must beg that i be given optional attendance. these new-fangled notions of uneducated young men may be all right for some, but you can't expect such men as myself to listen to them. i move that we adjourn." "brother cameron has the floor and i think the brethren would like to hear him," suggested the president. "brother president," said cameron, calmly, before the others could speak, for he saw the light of righteous indignation creeping into the eye of the big rev. howells; "if the brethren wish to talk with me of our work, they know that they are always welcome at my home; and i will be glad to discuss any plan for reaching those for whom our saviour died. i second rev. hartzell's motion to adjourn." and the meeting dismissed with prayer as usual, that god would fill their hearts with love, and help them to do their master's work, as he would have it done, and that many souls might be added to their number. that evening, lost in troubled thought, the young pastor of the jerusalem church sat alone before the fire, in his little study. once his wife knocked timidly and opening the door, said, "james, dear, it's time you're going to bed." "not now, fanny," he answered; and she, knowing well what that tone of voice meant, retired to her room, after seeing everything snug for the night. the cocks were crowing midnight; the fire burned lower and lower. once he impatiently hitched his chair a little closer, but made no other move, until, just as the clock chimed three, he arose stiffly to his feet and stood shivering with cold, looking at the blackened embers. then he made his way to his chamber, where he fell asleep like a man tired out with a hard day's work. all the next day he said nothing, but was silent and moody, and the following night sat once more alone in his study, thinking, thinking, thinking, until again the fire went out and he was cold. "fanny," he said, the following afternoon, entering the kitchen and putting his arm about his wife, as she stood at the table busy with her baking. "fanny, what can we do for the young people of boyd city? amy is only one of many. it is all the result of the do-nothing policy of the church, and of the goodrich type of christians, who think more of their social position than they do of the souls of their children, or the purity of their characters." "oh, james, you oughtn't to say that. mr. goodrich may not look at those things as you do perhaps, but we ought to remember his early training." "early training, bosh," answered the minister, losing his patience as even ministers will sometimes do. "you'd better say his lack of early training. i tell you, fanny, the true gentleman, whether he be christian or not, values character more than position, while the sham aristocrat is a sham in everything, and doesn't even know the real article when he sees it." "oh, here, here," cried mrs. cameron, "that's not the way for a preacher to talk." "preacher or no preacher, it's the truth," he replied excitedly. "let me forget that i belong to the class that has produced such a thing as this kind of religion, and remember that i am only a man. if the ministers in this city cared half as much for the salvation of souls and the teaching of christ, as they do for their own little theories and doctrines, the world could not hold such a churchified hypocrite as adam goodrich, and girls would not go wrong as that poor child did. the rev. hartzell, d. d., is the cause; and if you go down on fourth street, or east third you can see the effect; egotism, bigotry, selfishness, man-made doctrines and creeds in the pulpit; saloons and brothels on the street; church doors closed over a mawkish sentimentality, and men and women dying without shelter and without god. truly we need a preacher, with a wilderness training like john the baptist who will show us the way of the lord, rather than a thousand theological, hot-house posies, who will show us only the opinions of the authorities." and the rev. james tramped up and down the kitchen, speaking with all the vehemence of a political spellbinder, until his wife caught him by the coat and insisted that she wanted to be kissed. when that operation was successfully performed, she said, "now run away to your study, dear, and don't bother about this just now. you're excited." and the preacher went, of course. though expressing themselves as very much alarmed over the situation, and the condition of the churches, the members of the ministerial association went no farther in the matter than the discussions at their regular meetings and private talks from time to time. it would be hard to give a reason why this was so if cameron's criticism were not true; but so it certainly was. cameron, however, was much wrought up. he did not in the least mind the rev. hartzell's opinion of himself or his work, and cared not one whit that he had been prevented from expressing himself to his brethren. he did care, however, for the work itself, regardless of the preachers, and the train of thought which he had so often followed was stirred afresh in his mind by the incident. with his heart so full of the matter it was not at all strange that he should preach another of his characteristic sermons on what he called "applied christianity." his house was crowded, as it always was on sunday evenings, largely with young men and women, though many business men were in attendance. he introduced his subject by showing the purpose and duty of the church: that it was not a social club, not simply a place to see and be seen, not a musical organization, and not an intellectual battlefield; but that it was a place to build christ-like characters, and that the church had no excuse for living, save as it preached christ's gospel and did his work. then he asked, "is the church doing this?" and called attention to the magnificent buildings, expensive organs, paid choirs, large-salaried preachers, and in the same city hundreds and thousands of men and women who were going to eternal ruin. "did christ make a mistake when he said, 'and i, if i be lifted up, will draw all men unto myself?' or was it that men were lifting up themselves instead of the master?" he showed that the reason why more laborers and business men were not christians was because christianity had become, not a work, but a belief; that it had grown to be, not a life, but a sentiment; and that laborers and business men had not much place for beliefs and sentiments. "the church," said cameron, "must prove herself by her works as did christ, and her work must be the same as christ's." it caused a great deal of talk, of course. no preacher can branch out from the old, well-beaten paths, without creating talk. he was roundly scored by his brethren in the ministry, and accused of all sorts of sensationalism, but bore it all without a word, except to say, "i am glad if i can even stir you up enough that you will condemn me; though i cannot help but think that if you would spend the same energy in remedying the evils you well know exist, you would do more for christ and your fellow men." but to his wife he said, "fanny, i am convinced that if we ever have a practical working plan for helping the poor and needy, and for the protection of the boys and girls in this city, on a scale sufficient to at all meet the needs, it will come from the citizens and not from the preachers. the world really believes in christ, but has lost confidence in the church. and if some plan could be started, independent of the churches, but on a christian basis, i believe it would succeed." "well," said his wife, with a smile, "i think i know one preacher who will have a hand in it anyway, and i know you do not include the young people's society with the church." cameron jumped to his feet and walked rapidly up and down the room. "fanny," he said at last, facing his companion. and as he stood, with both hands in the side pockets of his short coat, and his feet braced wide apart, he looked so much a boy that the good wife laughed before she answered, "yes sir, please, what have i done?" "do you know that i am to speak at the regular union meeting of the young people next sunday night?" "yes sir," meekly. "and you know that the subject of the evening is 'beaching the masses.'" she nodded. "and do you know what i am going to do?" "no sir." "well, just wait and see," and planting a kiss on the upturned lips, he ran off to shut himself up in his study. the practical christian work of the home established by the young people of the jerusalem church, and the remarkable success of the reading rooms, was proving a great educational factor in the life of boyd city. the people were beginning to realize the value of such work, and the time was ripe for larger things. as has been said, cameron's sermon caused no little talk, while the preachers did not hesitate to help the matter along, and to keep the pot boiling by the fire of their criticism. it was a custom of the young people's societies in the city, to meet for union services once each month, at which time one of the pastors would speak on some topic of particular interest to young christians, dealing with social, civil, or political questions, from the standpoint of christianity, and this happened to be cameron's turn to deliver the address. the young pastor was a favorite generally, in spite of his somewhat questionable standing with the theologians; so when it was announced that he would speak, and that the subject was one upon which he was known to have strong ideas, the public looked forward to the meeting with more than usual interest. when the time came, the zion church, which was the largest in the city, was crowded to its utmost capacity. cameron began by reading from the twenty-fifth chapter of matthew, "inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have lone it unto me." then he said that as his talk was in no way to be a sermon, he felt free to give himself more liberty perhaps, than if he were in the pulpit; and that he would discuss the question not simply from the standpoint of christianity, but of good citizenship, and the best interests of the people as well. the audience settled itself at these words and waited breathlessly. the speaker then laid down the proposition, that the question of reaching the masses, did not have to do simply with those who called themselves christians, but with all society, all business, all government; in fact, with all that touched mankind. he showed how the conditions of the least of these gave rise to bad conditions everywhere, and bred crime, anarchy and animalism; and how that the physical, moral and intellectual life of all men is concerned. then he took his hearers from street to street in their own city, bidding them to look at the young men and women on the corners, in the saloons and wine rooms, and asked, without any reference to christianity in any way, "what will be the legitimate fruit of such sowing? what influence are we throwing about our boys and girls, and upon what foundation are we building our social, business and municipal life?" then turning to christians, he reviewed the grand work that the church had done in the past, in moulding the lives of men and nations; and plead that she prove true to the past by rising to the present and meeting the problems of to-day. he called upon them in the name of their common master, to put their minds to this question and to rest not from their study until a practical solution had been found. he urged, too, that those standing outside the church with idle hands, content to criticize and condemn, were not doing even so much as the institution with which they refused to stand identified. "i can see no difference," he said, "and before god, i believe there is none, between an idle church member and a do-nothing man of the world. they both stand on the same plane, and that plane is the plane of death." then, after an earnest appeal that the teaching of jesus be applied, that the worth of souls be judged by the price paid on calvary, and that all men, within and without the church, unite for the common cause, humanity; he turned suddenly to the chairman and said: "mr. president, because of these things regarding the church, which all men know to be true; because of these things regarding our city, which all men know to be true; for the sake of christ and his gospel, for the sake of our country and our laws, for the love of our boys and girls, i suggest that each society in this union appoint a committee of three from their membership, each of these committees to add to itself one good business man who believes in the teaching of christ, but who is not connected with any church; the joint committee to meet in council for the purpose of formulating some plan to meet the needs of this city along the lines of our subject this evening." at this strange and unexpected ending of cameron's address, the audience sat astonished. then, from all over the house, voices were heard murmuring approval of the plan. rev. jeremiah wilks was the first to speak. "i'm heartily in favor of the suggestion," he said. "i think it's a good thing. it will get some of our moneyed men interested in the church and it will do them good. i've often told our people that something like this ought to be done, and i know the preachers of the city will be glad to take hold of the matter and help to push it along. i'll bring it before our ministerial association. you can count on me every time." "but, mr. president," said a strange gentleman, when rev. wilks had resumed his seat, "is it the idea of the gentleman who suggests this plan, that the movement be under the control of or managed by the ministers?" a painful hush fell over the audience. the president turned to cameron, who answered, "it is certainly _not_ my idea that this matter be placed in the hands of the ministers; whatever part they have in the movement must be simply as christian citizens of this community, without regard to their profession." the audience smiled. rev. frederick hartzel was on his feet instantly: "ladies and gentlemen, i must protest. i do not doubt but that your young brother here means well, but perhaps some of us, with more experience, and with more mature thought, are better able to handle this great question. such a plan as he has proposed is preposterous. a committee without an ordained minister on it, thinking to start any movement in harmony with the teaching of christ is utter folly. it is a direct insult to the clergy, who, as you know, compose the finest body of men, intellectually and morally, in the country. i must insist that the regularly ordained ministers of the city be recognized on this committee." rev. hugh cockrell agreed with hartzel, in a short speech, and then uncle bobbie wicks obtained a hearing. "i don't reckon that there's much danger of brother hartzel's amendment goin' through, but i just want a word anyhow. to-be-sure, you all know me, and that i'm a pretty good friend to preachers." the audience laughed. "i aint got a thing in the world agin 'em. to-be-sure, i reckon a preacher is as good as any other feller, so long as he behaves himself; but seein' as they've been tryin' fer 'bout two thousand years to fix this business, an' aint done nothin' yet, i think it's a mighty good ide' to give the poor fellers a rest, and let the christians try it fer a spell." "you've got to recognize the church, sir," cried hartzel; and uncle bobbie retorted: "well, if we recognize christ, the church will come in all right, i reckon;" which sentiment so pleased the people that cameron's suggestion was acted upon. and thus began the movement that revolutionized boyd city and made it an example to all the world, for honest manhood, civic pride and municipal virtue. chapter xx when amy goodrich went to her room after the scene with her brutal father, wounded pride, anger at his injustice, and reckless defiance filled her heart. mrs. goodrich had heard the harsh words and quietly followed her daughter, but the door was locked. when she called softly for admittance, amy only answered between her sobs, "no, no, mamma; please go away. i want to be alone." but the girl did not spend much time in weeping. with a look of determination upon her tear-stained face, she caught up a daily paper that was lying where she had dropped it that morning, and carefully studied time-cards. then removing as far as possible the evidence of her grief, she changed her dress for a more simple and serviceable gown, and gathering together a few necessary articles, packed them, with her jewelry, in a small satchel. she had finished her simple preparations and was just writing the last word of her brief farewell message, when mrs. goodrich came quietly to the door again. amy started to her feet in alarm when she heard the low knock, and then as she listened to her mother's voice softly calling her name, the hot tears filled her eyes once more, and she moved as though to destroy the note in her hand. but as she hesitated, her father's words came back: "you may have your tramp, but don't call me father. you are no daughter of mine," and a cruel something seemed to arrest her better impulse and force her to remain silent. mrs. goodrich, when she received no answer to her call, thought that her daughter was sleeping, and with a sigh of relief, went to her own room. a little later, the father came upstairs and retired. then frank returned home, and the trembling listener heard the servants locking up the house. when all was still, and her watch told her that it was a few minutes past midnight, she carefully opened the door, and with her satchel in her hand, stole cautiously down the stairs and out of the house. hurrying as fast as she could to broadway, she found a cab, and was driven to the depot on the east side. as amy stepped from the vehicle beneath the electric light and paused a moment to give the driver his fare, a man came out of a saloon on the corner near by. it was mr. whitley. he recognized the girl instantly, and springing to one side, drew back into the shadow of the building, where he waited until she went to the ticket office. then going quickly to the open window of the waiting room, he heard her ask for a ticket to jonesville. after the train had pulled in and he had watched her aboard, he entered the cab that had brought her to the station, and was driven to his hotel. the next morning whitley was the first to learn from frank goodrich, of amy's quarrel with her father, and the reason. without a word of what he had seen, he made hurried preparation and followed her on the next train. at jonesville, he easily made the rounds of the hotels and carefully examined the registers, but amy's name was on none of them. concluding that she must be at the home of some friend, he had placed his own name on the last book he examined, and seated himself to think over the situation, when he heard a bell-boy say: "that girl in number sixteen wants a 'frisco' time-table." whitley lounged carelessly up to the counter and again glanced over the register. number sixteen was occupied by a miss anderson. catching the eye of the clerk, he placed his finger on the name and winked. "when did she get in?" he asked, in a low tone, at the same time slipping a gold-piece beneath the open page. "on the one-thirty from the west, last night," the fellow replied, in the same cautious manner, as he whirled the book toward him and deftly transferred the coin to his own pocket, without attracting the attention of the landlord who stood near by. "i believe i'll go to my room and clean up," said whitley, a moment later. "show this gentleman to number fifteen," promptly called the clerk, and whitley followed the boy who had answered miss anderson's call upstairs. when he had placed the heavy grip on the floor, the boy turned to see whitley holding out a dollar bill. "did you get a look at the lady in number sixteen, when you went up with that time-card?" "course i did." "can you describe her?" "you bet, mister; she's a daisy too." and as he folded the bill and carefully placed it in his vest pocket, he gave an accurate description of amy. whitley, dismissed the boy and seated himself to watch through the half-closed door, the room across the hall. he had not long to wait. amy stepped out into the corridor and started toward the stairway. in an instant whitley was by her side. the girl gave a start of surprise and uttered a frightened exclamation. "don't be frightened, miss goodrich, i have very important news for you from home. step into the parlor please." too bewildered to do other than obey, she followed him. "i have been searching for you all day," he said, as he conducted her to a seat in the far corner of the empty room. amy tried to look indignant and started to reply when he interrupted her. "wait a moment, please, miss goodrich, and hear me, before you condemn. when your father discovered this morning, that you had left home, he came at once to me and told me the whole story. i tried to explain to him that it was i, and not falkner, who had been with you, but he would not listen; and in spite of my pleading, declared that you should never enter his home again. i am sorry, but he is very angry and i fear will keep his word, for a time at least. he even accused me of telling falsehoods to shield you, and insisted that i should forget you forever and never mention your name in his hearing again. i learned at the depot that you had purchased a ticket to this city, and took the first train, hoping to find and offer you any assistance that might be in my power to give. a girl in your position needs a friend, for you cannot go home just now." in spite of herself, amy was touched by the words spoken with such seeming truth and earnestness, but her heart was filled with anger at her father, and her face was hard and set as she replied coldly: "i thank you, but you might have saved yourself the trouble. i have no wish to go home." "indeed, i do not see how you can feel differently under the circumstances," admitted the other with apparent reluctance; "but have you thought of the future? what can you do? you have never been dependent upon yourself. you know nothing of the world." amy's face grew white. seeing his advantage, whitley continued, drawing a dark picture of a young woman without friends or means of support. at last, as he talked, amy began to cry. then his voice grew tender. "miss goodrich--amy--come to me. be my wife. i have long loved you. i will teach you to love me. let me comfort and protect you." the girl lifted her head. "you dare ask that after what happened the other night?" "god knows how i regret that awful mistake," he replied earnestly. "but you know i was not myself. i am no worse than other men, and--" he hesitated--"you must remember that it was through you that i drank too much. i could not refuse when you gave me the glass. i never was intoxicated before. won't you forgive me this once and let me devote my life to righting the wrong?" amy's eyes fell. the seeming justice and truth of his words impressed her. again the man saw his advantage and talked to her of the life his wealth would help her to live. she would be free from every care. they would travel abroad until her father had forgotten his wrath, and could she doubt that all would be well when she returned as his wife? amy hesitated, and again he pointed out the awful danger of her trying to live alone. as he talked, the girl's utter helplessness overcame her, and rising to her feet she faltered, "give me time to think; i will come to you here in an hour." when she returned she said: "mr. whitley, i will marry you; but my people must not know until later." whitley started toward her eagerly, but she stepped back. "not now. wait. we will go east on the evening train and will take every precaution to hide our course. we will travel in separate cars as strangers, and while stopping at hotels will register under assumed names, and will not even recognize each other. when we reach new york, i will become your wife." whitley could scarcely conceal his triumph; that she should so fully play into his hand was to him the greatest good luck. with every expression of love he agreed to everything; but when he would embrace her she put him away--"not until we are married;" and lie was compelled to be satisfied. for a while longer they talked, completing their plans. then drawing out his pocket-book he said: "by-the-way, you will need money." but she shook her head: "not until i have the right. here are my jewels; sell them for me." he protested and laughed at her scruples. but she insisted. and at last, he took the valuables and left the hotel. going to a bank where he was known, he drew a large sum of money, and returning, placed a roll of bills in her hand. thinking that it was the price of her rings, she accepted it without the slightest question. that night, he bought a ticket for chicago, over the wabash from st. louis, taking a chair car, while she purchased one for a little town on the alton, and traveled in a sleeper. but at st. louis, they remained two days, stopping at a hotel agreed upon, but as strangers. then they again took tickets for different stations, over another road, but stopped at detroit. it was here that amy's suspicions were aroused. she was sitting at dinner, when whitley entered the dining room with two traveling men who seemed to be well acquainted with him. the trio, laughing and talking boisterously, seated themselves at a table behind her. recognizing whitley's voice, she lifted her eyes to a mirror opposite, and to her horror, distinctly saw him point her out to his friends. amy's dinner remained untasted, and hiding her confusion as best she could, she rose to leave the room. as she passed the table where whitley and the men were eating, the two drummers looked at her in such a way that the color rushed to her pale cheeks in a crimson flame. later, at the depot, she saw them again, and was sure, from whitley's manner, that he had been drinking. once more aboard the train, the girl gave herself up to troubled thought. worn out by the long journey under such trying circumstances, and the lonely hours among strangers at the hotels, and now thoroughly frightened at the possible outcome when they reached new york, the poor child worried herself into such a state that when they left the cars at buffalo, whitley became frightened, and in spite of her. protests, registered at the hotel as her brother and called in a physician. the doctor at once insisted that she be removed to a boarding place, where she could have perfect rest and quiet, and with his help, such a place was found; whitley, as her brother, making all arrangements. for three weeks the poor girl lay between life and death, and strangely enough, in her delirium, called not once for father or mother or brother, but always for dick, and always begged him to save her from some great danger. whitley was at the house every day, and procured her every attention that money could buy. but when at last she began to mend, something in her eyes as she looked at him, made him curse beneath his breath. day after day she put him off when he urged marriage, saying "when we get to new york." but at last the time came when she could offer no excuse for longer delay, and in a few firm words she told him that she could not keep her promise, telling him why and begging his forgiveness if she wronged him. then the man's true nature showed itself and he cursed her for being a fool; taunted her with using his money, and swore that he would force her to come to him. that afternoon, the landlady came to her room, and placing a letter in her hand, asked, "will you please be kind enough to explain that?" amy read the note, which informed the lady of the house that her boarder was a woman of questionable character, and that the man who was paying her bills was not her brother. with a sinking heart, amy saw that the writing was jim whitley's. her face flushed painfully. "i did not know that he was paying my bills," she said, slowly. "then it is true," exclaimed the woman. "he is not your brother?" amy was silent. she could find no words to explain. "you must leave this house instantly. if it were not for the publicity i would hand you over to the police." she went to a cheap, but respectable hotel, and the next morning, whitley, who had not lost sight of her, managed to force an interview. "will you come to me now?" he asked. "you see what you may expect from the world." her only reply was, "i will take my own life before i would trust it in your hands." and he, knowing that she spoke the truth, left her to return to boyd city. a few days later, when dick falkner stepped from the cars at buffalo, and hurried through the depot toward the hack that bore the name of the hotel where whitley had left amy, he did not notice that the girl he had come so far to find, was standing at the window of the ticket office, and while the proprietor of the hotel was explaining why miss wheeler had left his house, the west-bound train was carrying amy toward cleveland. whitley had written a letter to the landlord, explaining the character of the woman calling herself miss wheeler, and had just dropped it in the box, when dick met him in the post office on the day of jim's arrival home. with the aid of the buffalo police, dick searched long and carefully for the missing girl, but with no results, and at last, his small savings nearly exhausted, he was forced to return to boyd city, where he arrived just in time to take an active part in the new movement inaugurated by rev. cameron and the young people's union. in cleveland, amy sought out a cheap lodging house, for she realized that her means were limited, and began a weary search for employment. day after day she went from place to place answering advertisements for positions which she thought she could fill. walking all she could she took a car only when her strength failed, but always met with the same result; a cold dismissal because she could give no references; not a kind look; not an encouraging word; not a helpful smile. as the days went by, her face grew hard and her eyes had a hopeless, defiant look, that still lessened her chances of success, and gave some cause for the suspicious glances she encountered on every hand, though her features showed that under better circumstances she would be beautiful. one evening as she stood on the street corner, tired out, shivering in the sharp wind, confused by the rush and roar of the city, and in doubt as to the car she should take, a tall, beautifully dressed woman stopped by her side, waiting also for a car. amy, trembling, asked if she would direct her. the lady looked at her keenly as she gave the needed information, and then added kindly, "you are evidently not acquainted in cleveland." amy admitted that she was a stranger. "and where is your home?" "i have none," was the sad reply. "you are stopping with friends, i suppose?" amy shook her head and faltered, "no, i know no one in the city." the woman grew very kind. "you poor child," she said, "you look as though you were in distress. can't i help you?" tears filled the brown eyes that were lifted pleadingly to the face of the questioner, and a dry sob was the only answer. "come with me, dear," said the woman, taking her kindly by the arm. "this is my car. come and let me help you." they boarded the car, and after a long ride, entered a finely furnished house in a part of the city far from amy's boarding place. the woman took amy to her own apartments, and after giving her a clean bath and a warm supper, sat with her before the fire, while the girl poured out her story to the only sympathetic listener she had met. when she had finished, the woman said, "you have not told me your name." "you may call me amy. i have no other name." again the woman spoke slowly: "you cannot find work. no one will receive you. but why should you care? you are beautiful." amy looked at her in wonder, and the woman explained how she had many girls in her home, who with fine dresses and jewels, lived a life of ease and luxury. at last the girl understood and with a shudder, rose to her feet. "madam, i thank you for your kindness; for you _have_ been kind; but i cannot stop here." she started toward the door, but the woman stopped her. "my dear child; you cannot go out at this time of night again, and you could never find your way back to your lodging place. stay here. you need not leave this room, and you may bolt the door on this side. tomorrow you may go if you will." amy could do nothing but stay. as she laid her tired head on the clean pillow that night, and nestling in the warm blankets watched the firelight as the flames leaped and played, she heard the sound of music and merry voices, and thought of the cold, poorly-furnished bed-room, with coarse sheets and soiled pillows, at her lodging place, and of the weary tramp about the streets, and the unkind faces that refused her a chance for life. what would the end be when her money was gone, she wondered; and after all, why not this? the next morning, when she awoke, she could not for a moment, remember where she was; then it all came back, just as a knock sounded on the door. "who is it?" she called. "your coffee, miss," came the answer, and she unlocked the door, admitting an old negro woman with a neat tray, on which was set a dainty breakfast. later, when she was dressed, madam came. "and do you still feel that you must go?" she asked. "yes, yes, i must. don't tempt me." the woman handed her a card with her name and address. "well, go, my dear; and when you are driven to the street, because you have no money and are cold and hungry, come to me if you will, and earn food and clothing, warmth and ease, by the only means open to you." then she went with her to the street and saw that she took the right car. as amy said good-bye, the tears filled her eyes again, and oh, how lonely and desolate the poor girl felt, as she shivered in the sharp air, and how hopelessly she again took up her fight against the awful odds. but the end came at last as madam had said it would. without money, amy was turned from her boarding place. one awful night she spent on the street, and the next day she found her way, half frozen, and weak from hunger, to madam's place. chapter xxi that frank goodrich had managed to keep himself free from all appearance of evil since the night he so nearly became a thief, was not because of any real change in his character. he gambled no more. not from a matter of principle, but because he feared the results, and he accepted whitley's sarcastic advice about religious services, not because there was any desire in his heart for a right life, but because he felt it was good policy. like many others, he was as bad as he dared to be; and while using the church as a cloak to hide his real nature, was satisfied if he could keep the appearance of respectability. in short, he was a splendid example of what that old satanic copy-book proverb, "honesty is the best policy" will do for a life if it be lived up to in earnest. he was not a little alarmed over his sister's conduct, because he feared that whitley, in a spirit of revenge, would demand payment of the notes; which could only mean his open disgrace and ruin. and his feelings reached a climax two weeks after dick's return when he received a curt note from jim saying: "you will remember that i promised to surrender those notes of yours upon certain conditions. those conditions now can never be met, and it becomes necessary for us to make other arrangements. you will meet me with a horse and buggy at freeman station tomorrow night, ten-thirty. wait for me at the crossroads south of the depot. if anyone learns of our meeting it will be all up with you." freeman station was a little cluster of houses near the great hay farms twelve miles from boyd city, and the drive was not one to be made with pleasure; but there was no help for it, and about dusk frank set out. it had been raining steadily for several days and the mud was hub deep, while in many places the road was under water. once he was obliged to get out, and by the flickering light of his lantern, to pick his way around a dangerous washout. several times he was on the point of giving up and turning back, but thoughts of whitley's anger drove him on, and he at last reached the place, several minutes after the train had passed on its way across the dark prairie. as he stopped at the corner, whitley appeared by the side of the buggy, and clambered in without a word. taking the lines from frank, he lashed the tired horse with the whip and they plunged forward into the night. once or twice frank tried to open a conversation with his companion, but received such short replies that he gave up and shrank back in the corner of the seat in miserable silence. after nearly an hour, whitley brought the horse to a standstill, and jumping out of the buggy, began to unhitch. against the dark sky, frank could see the shadowy outlines of a house and barn. "where are we?" he asked. "at my place, nine miles south of town," whitley answered. "help me put up the horse, can't you?" frank obeyed. "no, don't take the harness off," said jim again; "you'll want him before long." and then he led the way to the house. taking a key from its hiding place beneath one corner of the step, he unlocked the door and entered; and while frank stood shivering with the cold and wet, found a lamp and made a light. the room where they stood was well carpeted and furnished, and upon the table were the remains of a meal, together with empty bottles and glasses, and lying on the chair was a woman's glove. frank looked around curiously. he had heard rumors of whitley's place in the country, but this was his first visit. "well," said jim shortly, "sit down while i build a fire and get something to drink; things are not very gay here to-night, but we'll do the best we can." when the room was warm and they had removed their wraps and outer clothing, and jim had partaken freely from a supply of liquor on the sideboard, he stretched himself in an easy chair and spoke more pleasantly. "well, i suppose you are ready to pay those notes, with the interest." frank moved uneasily. "you know i can't," he muttered. "i thought from your letter, that we might make other arrangements. amy, you know, might come.--" "oh, cut that out," interrupted whitley, with an oath; "your esteemed sister is out of this deal for good." then, as he lit his cigar, "we might fix things in another way though, if you only had the nerve." "how?" asked frank, eagerly. "that printer of udell's has some papers in his possession that i want. get them for me and i'll turn over your notes and call it square." frank looked at his companion in wonder. "what do you mean?" he said at last. "just what i say. can't you hear?" "but how does that tramp happen to have any papers of value to you?" "that is, most emphatically, none of your business, my friend. all you have to do is to get them, or--" he paused significantly. "but will he give them up?" whitley looked at him a few minutes in amused contempt, then said, mockingly, "oh yes; of course he will be glad to favor us. all you need to do is to put on your best sunday school manners and say sweetly: 'mr. falkner, mr. whitley would like those papers that you have in the long leather pocket-book tied with a shoe-string.' he'll hand them over instantly. the only reason i have taken all this trouble to meet you out here to-night is because i am naturally easily embarrassed and don't like to ask him for them myself." frank was confused and made no reply, until whitley asked: "where does the fellow live now?" "i don't know, but he's in old man wicks' office every evening; has a desk there, and works on some fool association work." whitley nodded. "then you will find the papers in uncle bobbie's safe." "but how am i to get them?" "i don't know; you can't buy them. you can't bluff him. and he won't scare. there's only one other way i know." "you mean that i must steal them?" gasped frank. whitley looked at him with an evil smile. "that's rather a hard word for a good christian, isn't it? let's say, obtain possession of the documents without mr. falkner's knowledge. it sounds better." "i'm no thief," snapped frank. jim lifted his eyebrows as he skillfully flipped the ashes from his cigar. "oh, i see; you did not rob the old gentleman's safe that night. i saved you from committing murder. you only negotiated a trifling loan with your loving parent. you'll be telling me next that you didn't gamble, but only whiled away a leisure hour or two in a social game of cards. but, joking aside, i honestly believe, frank goodrich, that you are more kinds of a fool than any man i have ever had the pleasure to know. the case in a nutshell is this: i must have those papers. i can't go after them myself. you've got to get them for me." "i won't," said frank, sullenly. "i can't." "you can, and you will," retorted the other, firmly; "or i'll turn those notes over to my lawyer for collection, inside of twenty-four hours, and the little story of your life will be told to all the world. my young christian friend, you can't afford to tell _me_ that you won't." for another hour they sat before the fire, talking and planning, and then frank drove alone, through the mud and rain, back to the city, reaching his home just before day. a few nights later, as dick sat at his work in mr. wicks' office, a rubber-tired buggy drove slowly past close to the curbing. through the big front window, dick could be seen plainly as he bent over his desk, just inside an inner room, his back toward the door, which stood open. a burly negro leaped to the sidewalk without stopping the carriage. so absorbed was dick with the task before him, that he did not hear the outer door of the office open and close again; and so quickly did the negro move that he stood within the room where dick sat before the latter was aware of his presence. when dick did raise his head, he looked straight into the muzzle of a big revolver. "don't move er ye'r a goner," growled the black giant; and reaching out with his free hand he swung to the door between the rooms, thus cutting off the view from the street. dick smiled pleasantly as though his visitor had called in the ordinary way. "what can i do for you?" he asked, politely. "yo jest move 'way from dat 'ar desk fust; den we kin talk. i don' 'spect you's got a gun handy, an' we don' want no foolin'." dick laughed aloud as though the other had made a good joke. "all right, boss; just as you say." and leaving his chair he seated himself on the edge of a table in the center of the room. but the negro did not notice that he had placed himself so that a heavy glass paper-weight was just hidden by his right leg. "better take a seat yourself," continued dick cordially. "might as well be comfortable. how are the wife and babies?" the negro showed his teeth in a broad grin as he dropped into the revolving chair dick had just vacated. "dey's well, tank yo' kindly sah." then as he looked at the young man's careless attitude and smiling face, he burst forth, admiringly: "dey done tole me as how yo' wor' a cool cuss an' mighty bad to han'le; but fo' god i nebber seed nothin' like hit. aint yo' skeered'?" dick threw up his head and laughed heartily. "sure i'm scared," he said. "don't you see how i'm shaking? i expect i'll faint in a minute if you don't put up that gun." the negro scowled fiercely. "no yo' don't. yo' kan't come dat on dis chile. dat gun stay pinted jus' lak she is; an' hit goes off too ef yo' don' do what i says, mighty sudden." "just as you say," replied dick, cheerfully. "but what do you want me to do?" "i wants yo' to unlock dat air safe." "can't do it. i don't know the combination." "huh," the negro grunted. "yo' kan't gib me no such guff es dat. move sudden now." "you're making a mistake," said dick, earnestly. "i have only desk room here. i don't work for mr. wicks, and have no business with the safe. besides, they don't keep money there anyway." "taint money i'm after dis trip, mistah; hit's papers. dey's in a big leather pocket-book, tied with er sho' string." like a flash, dick understood. the papers were in the safe, but as he said, he did not know the combination. "papers?" he said, in a tone of surprise, in order to gain time. "yes sah, papers; dat yo' keeps in dar." he nodded toward the safe. "i wants em quick." the hand that held the revolver came slowly to a level with the dark face. "shoot if you want to," said dick, easily, "but i'm telling you the truth. i don't know how to open the safe." the negro looked puzzled, and dick, seeing his advantage instantly, let his hand fall easily on his leg, close to the paper weight. "besides," he said carelessly, "if its my papers you want, that's my desk behind--" he checked himself suddenly as though he had said more than he intended. the negro's face lighted at what he thought was dick's mistake, and forgetting himself, half turned in the revolving chair, while the muzzle of the revolver was shifted for just the fraction of a second. it was enough. with the quickness of a serpent, dick's hand shot out, and the heavy weight caught the negro above the right ear, and with a groan he slid from the chair to the floor. when the black ruffian regained consciousness, dick was still sitting on the edge of the table, calmly swinging his feet, but in his hand was his visitor's weapon. "well," he said, quietly, "you've had quite a nap. do you feel better? or do you think one of these pills would help you?" he slowly cocked and raised the revolver. "don't shoot. don't shoot, sah." "why not?" said dick, coldly, but with the smile still on his face. that smile did the business. oaths and threats the black man could understand; but a man who looked deliberately along a cocked revolver, with a smile on his face, was too much for him. he begged and pleaded for his life. "tell me who sent you here?" "mistah goodrich." dick was startled, though his face showed no surprise. "the old gentleman?" "'no sah, mistah frank." "how did he know that i had any papers?" "i don' know sah; he only said as how he wanted dem; an' he's er waitin' 'round de cornah in de kerrige." this was a new feature in the situation. dick was puzzled. at last he stepped to the phone and, still covering the negro with the revolver, he rang up central and called for mr. wicks' residence. when the answer came, he said easily, "excuse me for disturbing you, mr. wicks, but i have a man here in the office who wants to get into your safe, and i need you badly. you had better come in the back way." "i'll be with you in a shake," was the reply; "hold him down till i get there." and a few minutes later the old gentleman knocked at the door. dick admitted him and then burst into a hearty laugh at his strange appearance; for in his haste, uncle bobbie had simply pulled on a pair of rubber boots and donned an overcoat. with the exception of these articles, he was in his nightshirt and cap. in his hand, he carried a pistol half as long as his arm; but he was as calm as dick himself, though breathing hard. "to-be-sure," he puffed, "i'm--so--plagey--fat--can't hurry--worth cent--wind's no good--have to take--to smokin' agin--sure." dick explained the situation in a few words; "i wouldn't have called you sir, if young goodrich were not in it. but--but--you see--i don't know what to do," he finished, lamely. "to-be-sure," said uncle bobbie, "i know. to-be-sure. sometimes a bad feller like him gets tangled up with good people in such a way you jist got t'er let 'em alone; tares an' wheat you know; tares and wheat. to-be-sure christianity aint 'rithmetic, and you can't save souls like you'd do problems in long division, ner count results like you'd figger interest. what'd ye say?--suppose you skip down to the corner and fetch him up here." dick glanced at the negro. "never you mind him," said the old gentleman, with a fierce scowl. "your uncle'll shoot the blamed head off him if he so much as bats an eye; he knows it too." and he trained the long gun on the trembling black. dick slipped out of the back door and soon returned holding frank firmly by the collar. as they entered, uncle bobbie said to the negro, "now's yer chance, bill; git out quick 'fore we change our minds." and the astonished darkey bolted. "now frank," said the old gentleman kindly, when dick had placed his prisoner in a chair, "tell us all about it." and young goodrich, too frightened almost to speak above a whisper, told the whole miserable story. "too bad; too bad," muttered uncle bobbie, when frank had finished. "to-be-sure, taint no more'n i expected; gamblin' church members ain't got no call to kick if their children play cards fer money. what'll we do, dick?" dick was silent, but unseen by frank, he motioned toward the door. [illustration: "too bad, too bad, muttered uncle bobbie."] uncle bobbie understood. "i reckon yer right," he said, slowly, "tares an' wheat--tares an' wheat. but what about them notes?" "i'll fix whitley," replied dick. frank looked at him in wonder. "air you sure you can do it?" asked uncle bobbie; "'cause if you can't--" "sure," replied dick; "i'll write him a line tonight." then to frank: "you can go now, sir, and don't worry about jim whitley; he will never trouble you by collecting the notes." frank, stammering some unintelligible reply, rose to his feet. "wait a bit young man," said uncle bobbie, "i want to tell ye somethin' before ye go. to-be-sure, i don't think ye'll ever be a very _bad_ citizen, but you've shown pretty clearly that ye can be a mighty mean one. an' i'm afraid ye'll never be much credit to the church, 'cause a feller's got to be a _man_ before he can be much of a christian. pieces of men like you don't count much on either side; they just sort o' fill in. but what ye want to do is to quit tryin' so blamed hard to be respectable and be _decent_. now run on home to yer maw and don't tell nobody where ye've been to-night. mr. falkner he will look after yer friend whitley." chapter xxii the sun was nearly three hours high above the western hilltops in the mountain district of arkansas, as a solitary horseman stopped in the shadow of the timber that fringed the edge of a deep ravine. it was evident from the man's dress, that he was not a native of that region; and from the puzzled expression on his face, as he looked anxiously about, it was clear that he had lost his way. standing in the stirrups he turned and glanced back over the bridle path along which he had come, and then peered carefully through the trees to the right and left; then with an impatient oath, he dropped to the saddle and sat staring straight ahead at a lone pine upon the top of a high hill a few miles away. "there's the hill with the signal tree beyond simpson's all right," he said, "but how in thunder am i to get there; this path don't go any farther, that's sure," and from the distant mountain he turned his gaze to the deep gulch that lay at his feet. suddenly he leaned forward with another exclamation. he had caught sight of a log cabin in the bottom of the ravine, half hidden by the bushes and low trees that grew upon the steep banks. turning his horse, he rode slowly up and down for some distance, searching for an easy place to descend, coming back at last to the spot where he had first halted. "it's no go, salem," he said; "we've got to slide for it," and dismounting, he took the bridle rein in his hand and began to pick his way as best he could, down the steep incline, while his four-footed companion reluctantly followed. after some twenty minutes of stumbling and swearing on the part of the man, and slipping and groaning on the part of the horse, they stood panting at the bottom. after a short rest, the man clambered into the saddle again, and fording a little mountain brook that laughed and sang and roared among the boulders, rode up to the clearing in which the cabin stood. "hello!" he shouted. there was no answer, and but for the thread of smoke that curled lazily from the mud and stick chimney, the place seemed deserted. "hello!" he called again. a gaunt hound came rushing from the underbrush beyond the house, and with hair bristling in anger, howled his defiance and threats. again the horseman shouted, and this time the cabin door opened cautiously and a dirty-faced urchin thrust forth a tousled head. "where's your father?" the head was withdrawn, and a moment later put forth again. "he's done gone ter th' corners." "well, can you tell me the way to simpson's? i don't know how to get out of this infernal hole." again the head disappeared for a few seconds, and then the door was thrown wide open and a slovenly woman, with a snuff stick in one corner of her mouth, came out, followed by four children. the youngest three clung to her skirts and stared, with fearful eyes, at the man on the horse, while he of the tousled head threw stones at the dog and commanded him, in a shrill voice, to "shet up, dad burn ye kinney, shet up. he's all right." "wanter go ter simpson's at the corners, do ye?" said the woman. "wal, yer right smart offen yer road." "i know that," replied the stranger, impatiently; "i've been hunting turkeys and lost my way. but can't i get to the corners from here?" "sure ye kin. jes' foller on down the branch 'bout three mile till ye come out on the big road; hit'll take ye straight ter th' ford below ol' ball whar' the lone tree is. simpson's is 'bout half a quarter on yon side the creek." the man thanked her gruffly, and turning his horse, started away. "be you'ns the feller what's stoppin' at sim's ter hunt?" she called after him. "yes, i'm the man," he answered, "good-evening." and he rode into the bushes. catching the oldest urchin by the arm, the woman gave him a vigorous cuff on the side of the head and then whispered a few words in his attentive ear. the lad started off down the opposite side of the ravine at a run, bending low and dodging here and there, unseen by the stranger. the hunter pushed on his way down the narrow valley as fast as he could go, for he had no time to spare if he would reach his stopping-place before night, and he knew that there was small chance of finding the way back after dark; but his course was so rough and obstructed by heavy undergrowth, fallen trees and boulders, that his progress was slow and the shadow of the mountain was over the trail while he was still a mile from the road at the end of the ravine. as he looked anxiously ahead, hoping every moment to see the broader valley where the road lay, he caught a glimpse of two men coming toward him, one behind the other, winding in and out through the low timber. while still some distance away, they turned sharply to the left, and as it seemed to him, rode straight into the side of the mountain and were lost to sight. checking his horse, he watched for them to come into view again, and while he waited, wondering at their strange disappearance, the men urged their mules up a narrow gulley that was so hidden by the undergrowth and fallen timber as to escape an eye untrained to the woods and hills. after riding a short distance, they dismounted, and leaving the animals, quickly scaled the steep sides of the little cut and came out in an open space about two hundred yards above the trail along which the solitary horseman must pass. dropping behind the trunk of a big tree that lay on the mountain side, uprooted by some gale and blackened by forest fires, they searched the valley below with the keen glance of those whose eyes are never dimmed by printed page or city lights. dressed in the rude garb of those to whom clothes are a necessity, not a means of display, tall and lean with hard muscles, tough sinews and cruel stony faces, they seemed a part of the wild life about them; and yet withal, there was a touch of the mountain grandeur in their manner, and in the unconscious air of freedom and self-reliance, as there always is about everything that remains untouched by the conventionality of the weaker world of men. "'bout time he showed up, aint it, jake?" said one as he carefully rested his rifle against the log and bit off a big piece of long green twist tobacco. "hit's a right smart piece ter ol' josh's shack an' th' kid done come in a whoop," returned the other, following his companion's example. "he can't make much time down that branch on hoss back an' with them fine clothes of his, but he orten ter be fur off." "d'ye reckon he's a durned revenoo sure, jake?" "dunno, best be safe," with an ugly scowl. "simpson 'lows he's jes' layin' low hisself, but ye can't tell." "what'd sim say his name war?" "jim whitley," returned the other, taking a long careful look up the valley. "an' whar' from?" "sim say st. louie, or some place like that. sh--thar' he comes." they half rose and crouching behind the log, pushed the cocked rifles through the leaves of a little bush, covering the horseman below. "if he's a revenoo he'll sure see th' path ter th' still," whispered the one called jake; "an' if he turns ter foller hit into th' cut drap him. if he goes on down th' branch, all right." all unconscious of the rifles that wanted only the touch of an outlaw's finger to speak his death, the stranger pushed on his way past the unseen danger point toward the end of the valley where lay the road. the lean mountaineers looked at each other. "never seed hit," said one, showing his yellow teeth in a mirthless grin; "an' i done tole cap las' night, hit was es plain es er main traveled road an' orter be kivered." "mebbe so," replied the other; "an' then agin he mighter ketched on an' 'lows ter fool us." the other sprang up with an oath. "we uns aint got no call ter take chances," he growled; "best make sure." and with his rifle half raised, he looked anxiously along the trail, but the stranger had passed from view. a few minutes longer they waited and watched, discussing the situation; then returning to the mules, they rode out of the little gully and on down the branch in the direction the object of their suspicion had taken. just across the road from the mouth of the ravine down which the hunter had come, was a little log cabin, and in the low doorway an old woman sat smoking a cob pipe. "howdy liz," said one of the men, "seed anythin'?" "yep," returned the woman. "he done ast th' way ter simpson's. 'low'd he'd been huntin' turkey an' lost hisself. i done tole him he orter git someone ter tromp 'roun' with him er he might git killed." she laughed shrilly and the two men joined in with low guffaws. "reckon yer right, liz," said one. "jake, why don't ye hire out ter him." jake slapped his leg. "by gum," he exclaimed, "that thar's a good ide'. i shor' do hit. an' i'll see that he don't find nothin' bigger'n turkey too; less'n he's too durned inquisitive; then i'll be--." he finished with an evil grin. "you all tell cap i've done gone ter hunt with mistah whitley ef i don't show up." and beating his mule's ribs vigorously with his heels, he jogged away down the road, while his companion turned and rode back up the little valley. jim whitley, enraged at frank's failure to rescue the papers held by dick, and alarmed by the latter's letter telling him of young goodrich's confession, had come into the wild backwoods district to await developments. he was more determined now than ever, to gain possession of the evidence of his crime, and in his heart was a fast-growing desire to silence, once for all, the man whose steady purpose and integrity was such an obstacle in his life. but he could see no way to accomplish his purpose without great danger to himself; and with the memory of the gray eyes that had looked so calmly along the shining revolvers that night in the printing office, was a wholesome respect for the determined character of the man who had coolly proposed to die with him if he did not grant his demands. he feared that should dick find amy and learn the truth, he would risk his own life rather than permit him to go unpunished, and so he resolved to bury himself in the mountains until chance should reveal a safe way out of the difficulty, or time change the situation. the afternoon of the day following his adventure in the little valley, whitley sat on the porch of the post office and store kept by his host, telling his experience to a group of loafers, when the long mountaineer called jake, rode up to the blacksmith shop across the street. leaving his mule to be shod, the native joined the circle just in time to hear the latter part of whitley's story. "lookin' fer turkey, war ye mister?" asked jake, with a wink at the bystanders. "yes, have you seen any?" replied jim. "sure, the bresh's full of 'em ef ye know whar' ter hunt." the company grinned and he continued: "i seed signs this mo'nin' in th' holler on yon side ol' ball, when i war' huntin' my mule. an' thar's a big roost down by th' spring back of my place in th' bottoms." whitley was interested. "will you show me where they are?" he asked. "might ef i could spar' th' time," replied jake slowly; "but i've got my craps ter tend." another grin went the rounds. "jake's sure pushed with his craps," remarked one; "raises mo' corn, 'n 'ary three men in arkansaw," remarked another, and with this they all fired a volley of tobacco juice at a tumble bug rolling his ball in the dust near by. needless to say, the conversation resulted in whitley's engaging the moonshiner for seventy-five cents a day, to hunt with him; and for the next two weeks they were always together. all day long the native led the way over the hills and through the deep ravines and valleys, taking a different course each day, but always the chase led them away from the little ravine that opened on the big road. when whitley suggested that they try the country where he had lost his way, his guide only laughed contemptuously, "ain't ye killin' turkey every trip. ye jist foller me an' i'll sure find 'em fer ye. ain't nothin' over in that holler. i done tromped all over thar' huntin' that dad burned ol' mule o'mine, an' didn't see nary sign. thay's usen' 'round th' south side th' ridge. ye jist lemme take ye 'round." and jim was forced to admit that he was having good luck and no cause to complain of lack of sport. but he was growing tired of the hills and impatient to return to the city, while his hatred of the man whom he feared, grew hourly. jake, seeing that his employer was fast growing tired of the hunt, and guessing shrewdly, from his preoccupied manner, that hunting was not the real object of his stay in the mountains, became more and more suspicious. his careless, good-natured ways and talk changed to a sullen silence and he watched whitley constantly. one morning, just at daybreak, as they were walking briskly along the big road on their way to a place where the guide said the game was to be found, take stopped suddenly, and motioning jim to be silent, stood in a listening attitude. whitley followed his companion's example, but for a minute could hear nothing but the faint rustle of the dead leaves as a gray lizard darted to his hiding place, and the shrill scream of a blue-jay calling his sleepy mates to breakfast. then the faint thud, thud, thud, of a galloping horse came louder and louder through the morning mist. evidently someone was riding rapidly toward them. "whitley was about to speak, when the other, with a fierce oath and a threatening gesture, stopped him. "git inter th' bresh thar' quick an' do's i tell ye. don't stop t' plaver. git! an' gimme yer gun." too astonished to do anything else, jim obeyed, and hastily thrusting the rifle under a pile of leaves by a log near by, the moonshiner forced his companion before him through the underbrush to a big rock some distance from the road. the sound of the galloping horse came louder and louder. "stand thar' behin' that rock 'n if ye stir i'll kill ye," whispered jake; and taking a position behind a tree where he could watch jim as well as the road, he waited with rifle cocked and murder written in every line of his hard face. nearer and nearer came the galloping horse. whitley was fascinated and moved slightly so that he could peep over the rock. a low hiss from jake fell upon his ear like the warning hiss of a serpent, and half turning, he saw the rifle pointing full at him. he nodded his head, and placing his finger upon his lips to indicate that he understood, turned his face toward the road again, just as the horse and his rider came into view. the animal, though going freely, was covered with dust and dripping with sweat, which showed a creamy lather on his flanks, and where the bridle reins touched his neck. the rider wore a blue flannel shirt, open at the throat, corduroy trousers, tucked in long boots, and a black slouch hat, with the brim turned up in front. at his belt hung two heavy revolvers, and across the saddle he held a winchester ready for instant use. he sat his horse easily as one accustomed to much riding, but like the animal, he showed the strain of a hard race. whitley was so wrought up that all these details impressed themselves upon his mind in an instant, and it seemed hours from the moment the horseman appeared until he was opposite the rock, though it could have been but a few seconds. the watcher caught one glimpse of the rider's face, square jawed, keen eyed, determined, alert, stained by wind and weather. "crack!" went the rifle behind whitley. like a flash the weapon of the rider flew to his shoulder. "crack!" and the bark flew from the tree within an inch of jake's face. whitley saw the spurs strike and the rider lean forward in his saddle to meet the spring of his horse. "crack!" jake's rifle spoke again. a mocking laugh came back from the road as the flying horseman passed from sight. then, "i'll see you later," came in ringing tones, and the thud, thud, thud, of the galloping horse died away in the distance. the mountaineer delivered himself of a volley of oaths, while whitley stood quietly looking at him, his mind filled with strange thoughts. the man who could deliberately fire from ambush with intent to kill was the man for his purpose. "who is he?" jim asked at last, when the other stopped swearing long enough to fill his mouth with fresh tobacco. "a revenoo, an' i done missed him clean." he began to curse again. "he came near getting you though," said the other, pointing to the mark of the horseman's bullet. "yas, hit war' bill davis. aint nary other man in the hull dad burned outfit could er done hit." he looked with admiration at the fresh scar on the tree. "but what is he doing?" asked whitley. jake looked at him with that ugly, mirthless grin. "mebbe he's huntin' turkey too." whitley laughed, "i guess he was goin' too fast for that," he said; but his companion's reply changed his laughter to fear. "thar's them that better be a follerin' of him mighty sudden." "what do you mean?" "i mean you, mister. the boys has had ther' eye on ye fer sometime. we know yer huntin's all a blind, an' now bill davis he's come in. i aint right shor' myself er i'd a kep' mum an' he'pped 'em take ye." whitley turned pale. "do you mean that the people here think i'm a revenue agent looking for moonshiners?" "that's about hit, mister, an' they'll be fer takin' ye out ter night shor'." the fellow's meaning was too clear to be mistaken, and for some time whitley remained silent. he was thinking hard. at last he said: "jake, i'll tell you something. the boys are mistaken. i'm not here to get anybody into trouble, but because i'm in a hole myself." "as how?" asked jake, moving nearer and speaking in a lower tone. "i won't tell you how unless you'll help me; and if you will, i'll pay you more money than you can make in this business in a thousand years." the moonshiner's eyes gleamed. "bill davis is sure after us an' that thar' means trouble every time," he said slowly. "ye heard him say as how he'd see me agin, an' i never knowed him ter miss befo'." he looked at the bullet mark on the tree again. "tell ye what, mister whitley, i'll chance her; but we ain't got no time ter talk now. we gotter git away from here, fer some er the boys 'll be along purty quick. we'll just mosey 'round fer a spell an' then go back ter th' corners. i'll send th' boys off on er hot chase en' fix sim so's ye kin git erway t'-night, an' ye come ter my shack; hit's on th' river below that hill with the lone tree on top, jes' seven mile from th' corners. ye can't miss hit. i'll be thar an' have things fixed so's we kin light out befo' th' boys git back." they reached simpson's in time for dinner and jake held a long whispered conversation with that worthy, while jim sat on the porch after the meal. as jake passed him on his way to the mule that stood hitched in front of the blacksmith shop as usual, he said, in the hearing of those near: "hit's all right fer to-morrow, is hit, mister whitley? an' we'll go over tother side sandy ridge?" the words "all right" were accompanied by a wink that whitley understood. "yes," he answered carelessly, "i'll be ready. i want to rest this afternoon and get a good sleep tonight. i'll be with you in the morning." jake rode off, and all the rest of the day whitley felt that he was the mark for many scowling glances, while many whispered words were passed between the gaunt natives as they slouched in and out of the post office. later, when the loafers had seemingly disappeared, simpson came, and leaning carelessly against the door post within a few feet of whitley, said, in a low voice: "they's a watchin' ye from th' shop yonder; be keerful an' don't let on. yer hoss is tied in th' bresh down th' road a piece. ride easy fer th' first mile." jim rose slowly to his feet, and stretching his arms above his head, yawned noisily. "guess i'll turn in," he said. and then as he passed simpson, he put a roll of bills into his hand. the landlord stepped out on the porch and took the chair whitley had just left, while that gentleman slipped quietly out by the back door and crept away to his horse. an hour later, whitley knocked at the door of the cabin on the river bank and was admitted by jake. "did ye make hit all right?" the mountaineer asked, as jim entered. the other nodded. "simpson is sitting on the front porch and i'm supposed to be in bed." jake chuckled. "cap an' th' boys air way up th' holler after bill davis, an' i'm in the bresh er watchin' you. now let's git down ter biz right sharp." whitley soon told enough of his story, omitting names and places, to let his companion understand the situation. when he had finished, jake took a long pull from a bottle, and then said slowly: "an' ye want me ter put that feller what holds th' papers out o' yer' way?" whitley nodded. "it'll pay you a lot better than shooting government agents, and not half the risk." "what'll ye give me?" "you can name your own price?" the outlaw's face glittered and he answered in a hoarse whisper, "i'll do hit. what's his name, an' whar'll i find him?" "richard falkner. he lives in boyd city--" slowly the man who had just agreed to commit a murder for money rose to his feet and stepped backward until half the width of the room was between them. the other, alarmed at the expression in his companion's face, rose also, and for several minutes the silence was only broken by the crackling of the burning wood in the fireplace, the shrill chirp of a cricket and the plaintive call of a whip-poor-will from without. then with a look of superstitious awe and terror upon his thin face, the moonshiner gasped, in a choking voice, "boyd city--richard falkner--mister, aint yo' mistaken? say, ar' ye right shor'?" whitley replied, with an oath, "what's the matter with you? you look as though you had seen a ghost." the ignorant villain started and glanced over his shoulder to the dark corner of the cabin; "thar' might be a ha'nt here, shor' 'nough," he whispered hoarsely. "do yo' know whar' ye air, mister?" then as whitley remained silent, he continued: "this here's th' house whar' dickie falkner war' borned; an' whar' his mammy died; an'--an' i'm jake tompkins; me 'n his daddy war' pards." whitley was dazed. he looked around the room as though in a dream; then slowly he realized his situation and a desperate resolve crept into his heart. carefully his hand moved beneath his coat until he felt the handle of a long knife, while he edged closer to his companion. the other seemed not to notice, and continued, as though talking to himself: "little dickie falkner. him what fed me when i war' starvin', an' gimme his last nickel when he war' hungry hisself; an' yo' want me ter kill him."--he drew a long shuddering breath. "mister, yo' shor' made 'er bad mistake this time." "i'll fix it though," cried whitley; and with an awful oath he leaped forward, the knife uplifted. but the keen eye of the man used to danger, had seen his stealthy preparation, and his wrist was caught in a grasp of iron. the city-bred villain was no match for his mountain-trained companion and the struggle was short. keeping his hold upon whitley's wrist, jake threw his long right arm around his antagonist and drew him close, in a crushing embrace. then, while he looked straight into his victim's fear-lighted eyes, he slowly forced the uplifted hand down and back. whitley struggled desperately, but his left arm was pinned to his side and he was held as in a circle of steel. in vain he writhed and twisted; he was helpless in the powerful grasp of the mountaineer. slowly the hand that held the knife was forced behind him. he screamed in pain. the glittering eyes that looked into his never wavered. jake's right hand behind his back, touched the knife, and whitley saw that evil, mirthless grin come on the cruel face, so close to his own. the grip on his wrist tightened. slowly his arm was twisted until his fingers loosened the hold of the weapon, and the handle of the knife was transferred to the grasp of the man who held him. then there were two quick, strong thrusts, a shuddering, choking cry, and the arms were loosed as the stricken man fell in a heap on the cabin floor, on the very spot where years before, the dying mother had prayed: "oh lord, take ker' o' dick." "you--have--killed--me--" "i reckon that's about hit, mister." "tell--falkner--i--lied--amy--is--pure--and tell--" but the sentence was never finished. chapter xxiii after several weeks of careful investigation and study of the conditions and needs of boyd city, along the lines suggested by rev. cameron in his address before the young people's union, a plan to meet these conditions was at last fixed upon, the main points of which were as follows: that a society or company be organized and incorporated to furnish places of recreation and education for young men and women; the place to be fitted with gymnasium, library, reading rooms, social parlors, a large auditorium and smaller class-rooms for work along special lines. there should also be a department where men out of employment might earn something to eat and a place to sleep, by working in wood-yards, coal mines, factories, or farms connected with the institution; and a similar place for women. it also provided for a medical dispensary and hospital for the care of the sick. the whole institution was to be under the charge of some christian man who should deliver an address on the teachings of christ every sunday afternoon in the large auditorium. besides this, bible classes could be organized by different workers as they chose, with this restriction, that no teaching of any particular sect or denomination should be allowed, and only the life and laws of jesus christ should be studied. classes in other studies, such as pertain to the welfare or the government of the people, could be organized for those who wished, all educational work being under the supervision of directors elected by the society. every department of the institution was to be free to the public at all hours. to make this possible, the funds of the society would be raised from the sale of shares, for which the holder was to pay annually twenty-five dollars. members of the association were entitled to one vote in the society for every four shares. it was expected that the department for the needy would be self-supporting. the purpose and plans of the society were to be fully set forth in a little pamphlet, and placed in the hands of every citizen. the people were to be urged to co-operate with the institution by refusing absolutely to give any man, able to work, either food, clothing or lodging, on the ground that he could obtain the needed help by paying for it in labor at the institution; and that they further assist the work by contributing clothing, by employing laborers, and using the products of the institution as far as possible. the office of the superintendent was to be in direct communication with the police station, and anyone applying for help and refusing to work, when it was offered, would be turned over to the authorities to be dealt with for vagrancy. the hope was expressed that the city would co-operate with the institution by contributing liberally for the building fund, and by using the workers in their street-cleaning department. when the time came to hear the committee's report, the opera house was crowded as it seldom was for any political speech or theatrical display. the young people from the various societies occupied the front seats on the floor of the house; and back of them, in the dress circles and galleries, were the general public, while on the rostrum were the leading business men, bankers, merchants, and the city officials, together with the committee. "look there, bill," said a saloon keeper, who had come to watch his interest, "look at that. blast me if there aint banker lindsley; and see them reporters. and there's the editor of the whistler. say, this aint no bloody church meeting; there aint a preacher on the stage. them fellers mean business. we've got to watch out if they keep on this tack. and would you look at the people?" "come on out of here," growled his companion, a gambler; "we don't want any truck with this outfit." "i'm going to stay and see what they propose doing," said the other. "get a grip on yourself and wait." just then the assembly was called to order, and the two men dropped into seats near the rear entrance. the president stated the object of the meeting and reviewed the action of the previous one at the zion church, where cameron had spoken, strongly emphasizing the fact that this was not a meeting of the young people's societies only, but that every one present was to have a share in it, and all should feel free to express themselves either by voice or ballot. "mr. richard falkner, the chairman of the committee, will make the report, and at their request, will speak for a few moments on the subject." as dick arose from his place in the rear of the stage and stepped forward, the saloon keeper turned to his companion, and in a loud whisper said, "say, aint he that bum printer of udell's?" the other nodded and then replied, as his companion began to speak again, "shut up, let's hear what he is going to say." as dick came slowly forward to the front of the rostrum, and stood for a moment as though collecting himself, the audience, to a man almost, echoed the thought that the saloon keeper had so roughly expressed. "could it be possible that this was the poor tramp who had once gone from door to door seeking a chance to earn a crust of bread?" and then as they looked at the calm, clear-cut, determined features, and the tall, well-built figure, neatly clothed in a business suit of brown, they burst into involuntary applause. a smile crept over dick's face as he bowed his handsome head in grateful acknowledgment. and then he held up his hand for silence. instantly a hush fell over the audience, and in a moment they were listening, with intense interest, to the voice of the once tramp printer. "our president has already detailed to you an account of the meeting preceding this. you understand that i am but the mouthpiece of the council appointed at that time, and that i do but speak their will, their thoughts, their aims, as they have voiced them in our meetings." he then told of the methods adopted by the committee, of the help they had received, and how they had at last decided upon the report which he was about to submit; then carefully detailed the plan, enlarging upon the outlines as he proceeded. drawing upon the mass of information gathered in the few weeks, he painted the city in its true colors, as shown in the light of their investigation; and then held out the wonderful promises of the plan for the future. as he talked, dick forgot himself, and forgot his audience. he saw only the figure of the christ, and heard him say, "inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye did it unto me." while his hearers sat lost to the surroundings under the magic spell of his eloquence; an eloquence that even his most intimate friends never dreamed that he possessed. charlie bowen was enraptured. clara wilson wept and laughed and wept again. uncle bobbie could only say, "i jing," and "to-be-sure," while george udell sat in wonder. could this splendid man who, with his flashing eye and glowing face, with burning words and graceful gestures, was holding that immense audience subject to his will, could this be the wretched creature who once fell at his feet fainting with hunger? "truly," he thought, "the possibilities of life are infinite. the power of the human soul cannot be measured, and no man guesses the real strength of his closest friend." as dick finished and turned to resume his seat by the side of mr. wicks, a perfect furor of applause came from the people. in vain the chairman rapped for order; they would not stop; while on the rostrum men were crowding about the young orator, standing on chairs and reaching over each other's shoulders to grasp his hand. at last, the president turned to dick. "mr. falkner, can you stop them?" dick, with face now as pale as death, and lips trembling with emotion, came back to the front of the stage. "i thank you again and again, for your kindness and the honor you show me, but may i further trespass upon that kindness by reminding you that this matter will never be met by clapping hands or applauding voices. too long in the past have we applauded when our hearts were touched, and allowed the sentiment to die away with the echo of our enthusiasm. shall it be so this time? men and women, in the name of jesus of nazareth, the christ who died on calvary, what will you do for the least of these, his brethren?" as he again took his seat, the gambler, who with his friend had been sitting drinking in every word of dick's speech, sprang to his feet and cried, in a loud, clear voice, "mr. president." upon being recognized by the chair, who knew him and called him by name, every head turned, for all knew of chris chambers, the most notorious gambler in the city. said chambers, "i came here to-night out of curiosity, to see if this movement in any way threatened my business as a professional gambler. i have, as most of you know, for the last five years, been conducting my place in your city, in open violation of your laws. to-night, for the first time, i see myself in the true light, and as a testimony of my good faith, and as evidence of the truth of my statement, when i say that i will never again take money from my fellow men but in honest business, i wish to make the motion that the report of this committee be accepted, that the plan be approved, and that the committee be discharged with the hearty thanks of the citizens of boyd city." the motion was seconded and carried. then came the critical moment. for a full minute there was a pause. "what is the will of the meeting?" said the chairman, calmly, but with a silent prayer. there was a buzz of conversation all over the house. every man was asking his neighbor, "what next?" for a short time it looked as if things were at a standstill, but upon the stage men were putting their heads together, and soon banker lindsley shouted: "mr. chairman." instantly the people became quiet and all turned toward boyd city's leading financier. "i am requested to ask all those who wish to become charter members of an association as suggested in the report of the council, to meet here on the stage at once, and i move that we adjourn." the president, after calling attention of the audience to the importance of answering mr. lindsley's request, immediately put the question, and the assembly was dismissed. among the first to push his way to the front was the stalwart form of the gambler, chambers, and the stage was soon crowded with business men and not a few women. mr. lindsley looked around. "where's falkner?" he said. no one knew. and when dick could not be found, mr. lindsley called the company to order. the editor of the whistler was chosen to preside, with mr. conklin the express agent, for secretary. then a committee on constitution and by-laws was appointed, and the company adjourned to meet in the commercial club rooms the next wednesday night. but where was dick? unnoticed by the audience while their attention was diverted toward mr. lindsley, he had slipped from the rear of the stage and had made his way by the back stairs to the street. a half hour later, some of the people, on their way home from the meeting, noticed a tall figure, dressed in a business suit of brown, standing in the shadow of the catalpa trees on the avenue, looking upward at a church spire, built in the form of a giant hand, and at the darkened stained-glass window, in which was wrought the figure of the christ holding a lamb in his arms. later, they might have seen the same figure walking slowly past a beautiful residence a few blocks farther up the street, and when opposite a corner window, pausing a moment to stand with bared head, while the lips moved softly as though whispering a benediction upon one whose memory filled the place with pleasure and with pain. about one o'clock on the following wednesday, uncle bobbie wicks dropped into the printing office. udell had not returned from dinner. "good afternoon, mr. wicks," said dick, looking up from his work, "take a seat. you want to see a proof of those letter-heads, i suppose. jack, take a proof of that stuff of mr. wicks'." uncle bobbie sank, puffing, into a chair. "i jing. wish't i didn't get so fat. quit smokin' about a month ago. wife, she wanted me to. to-be-sure, i don't care nothin' fer it nohow. mighty mean habit too. where's your pipe?" dick smiled. "oh, i haven't any now." "uh! took to smokin' segars, i reckon." "no," said dick, "i don't smoke at all." "oh." uncle bobbie looked long and thoughtfully at his young friend. "to-be-sure, i don't, _much_.--but i told wife this mornin' i'd have to begin agin if i don't quit gettin' so plaguey fat. d' ye reckon it'd make me sick?" dick laughed. "you look rather fleshy," he said, encouragingly. "well, you're a good deal fatter yourself, than you were when i first seen you," said uncle bobbie, looking him over with a critical eye. "yes," admitted dick, "i guess i am; these are my fat years you know. i'm getting to look at those lean ones as a very bad dream." dick's young helper handed them a proof-sheet, and after looking over the work for a few moments, mr. wicks said: "that new association meets t'-night, don't it?" dick nodded; and the old gentleman continued carelessly, as he arose to go, "stop fer me when you go by, will you? an' we'll go down t'gether." "but i'm not going," said dick, quickly. uncle bobbie dropped back in his seat with a jar and grasped the arms of his chair, as though about to be thrown bodily to the ceiling. "not goin'," he gasped; "why, what's the matter with you?" and he glared wildly at the young man. "nothing particularly new is the matter," said dick, smiling at the old gentleman's astonishment. "my reason is that i cannot become a member of the association when it is organized, and so have no right to attend the meeting to-night. i may go in after a time, but i cannot now." "why not?" said mr. wicks, still glaring. "because i haven't the money." uncle bobbie settled back in his chair with a sigh of relief. "oh, is that all? to-be-sure, i thought mebbe you'd got your back up 'bout somthin'." "yes, that's all," said dick quietly, and did not explain how he had spent everything in his search for the wealthy hardware merchant's daughter. but perhaps uncle bobbie needed no explanation. "well, let me tell you, you're goin' anyhow; and you're goin' t' have votin' power too. be a pretty kettle o' fish if after that speech of your'n, you weren't in the company. be like tryin' to make a cheese 'thout any milk." "but i haven't the money and that's all there is about it. i will go in as soon as i can." "well, ye can borrow it, can't you?" "borrow. what security can i give?" "aint ye'r christianity security enough?" dick laughed at him. "is that the way men do business in boyd city?" "well, ye kin laugh if you want to, but that's 'bout th' best security a feller can have in th' long run. anyhow, it's good 'nough fer me. i'll lend you a hundred fer a year. to-be-sure," he added hastily, as he saw dick's face, "you'll have to pay me th' same interest i can git from the other fellers. i've got th' money to loan, and its all th' same to me whether i loan it to you or some other man." "suppose i die, then what?" asked dick. "well, if christ goes on yer note i reckon it'll be good sometime," muttered uncle bobbie, half to himself, as he took a check-book from his pocket and filled it out. "i'll fix up th' papers this afternoon. don't forget t' stop fer me." when dick and uncle bobbie reached the rooms of the commercial club that evening, they found them filled with a large company of interested citizens, and when the opportunity was given, over two hundred enrolled as members of the association. mr. lindsley, the banker, was elected president, with mr. wallace, a merchant, for vice president. then, with great enthusiasm, the unanimous ballot of the association was cast for mr. richard falkner as secretary, while to dick's great delight, uncle bobbie was given the place of treasurer. the papers of the city gave a full and enthusiastic account of the new movement, and when the citizens saw that the association was really a fact, with men at its head who were so well qualified to fill their respective positions, they had confidence in the plan, and began straightway to express that confidence by becoming members. a prospectus setting forth the object of the association, together with its plans and constitution, was gotten out by the secretary, and sent to the citizens. the papers continued to speak well of the plan, and finally, through the influence of the strong business men interested, the commercial club endorsed the movement, and through the influence of that body, the city appropriated five thousand dollars to the building fund, and one thousand a year, for five years. with such backing as it now had, the association began preparation for active work. a fine building site was purchased and dick was sent to study different plans and institutions that were in operation for similar work in several of the large cities. "well, good-bye old man," said udell, when dick ran into the office on his way to the depot. "i can see right now that i'll lose a mighty good printer one of these days." dick shook his head as he grasped his employer's hand, and with hope shining in his eyes, replied: "you know why i am glad for this chance to go east again, george." and his friend answered, "right as usual, dickie; god bless you. if clara was somewhere way out there in the big world without a friend, i-i reckon i'd go too." chapter xxiv amy was kindly received by madam when she reached her house after that terrible night on the streets of cleveland, and under the woman's skillful treatment, rapidly regained her strength and beauty. never doubting that whitley had made it impossible for her ever to return to boyd city, she felt that she was dead to the kindly world she had once known, and looked upon the life she was entering as her only refuge from the cruel world she had learned to know. several of the girls proved very pleasant and sympathetic companions. little by little she grew accustomed to her surroundings and learned to look upon the life they led from their point of view; and when the time came for her to join the company in the parlor she accepted her lot with calm resignation. when she had carefully dressed in a silken evening gown provided by madam, she made her way alone down to the wine rooms. the scene that met her eye was beautiful and fascinating. the apartment was large and brilliantly lighted; the furniture, appointments and pictures were of the finest, with rare bits of statuary half-hidden in banks of choicest flowers. upon the floor were carpets and rugs, in which the foot sank as in beds of moss; and luxurious chairs and couches invited the visitor to ease and indolence. from behind silken curtains came soft strains of music, and deft waiters glided here and there, bearing trays of expensive wines and liquors. seated at the card tables, drinking, laughing and playing, were the wealthy patrons of the place, and mingling with them, the girls, all of exceptional grace and beauty, dressed in glittering evening costume; but not one eclipsed the radiant creature who stood with flushed cheeks and shining eyes hesitating on the threshold. madam, moving here and there among her guests, saw amy as she stood in the doorway, and went to her at once. leading the girl to a little alcove at one end of the room, she presented her to a middle-aged man who was seated by himself and seemed to be waiting for someone. amy did not know that he was waiting for her. as the three stood there chatting, a servant came quietly to madam's side and whispered in her jeweled ear. "certainly," she answered, "tell them to come in." then turning, she stepped to a table and rapping with her fan to attract attention, cried, "the salvation army people want to hold a prayer meeting here, what do you say?" there was a babble of voices, shrieks of feminine laughter, and an oath or two from the men. some shouted, "let them come." others protested until madam stopped the clamor by saying sharply: "of course they shall come in. you know it is my custom never to refuse these people. i respect and admire them. they believe in their own teaching and live what they preach; and i want it understood that they shall not be insulted in this house. jake--" a huge ex-prize fighter stepped into the room from a side door. "you all know jake, gentlemen," continued madam, with a smile; "and if you are not acquainted with him you can easily obtain an introduction by making some slighting remark, or offering an insult to these salvation soldiers. here they come; remember." as the little band of men and women filed slowly in, everybody rose at a sign from madam, and gathered about the soldiers, who took their position in the center of the room; all except the girl in the alcove, who turned her back to the group and stood partly screened by the lace drapery of the archway. the visitors opened their service with a song, rendered with much good taste and feeling. not loud and martial as on the street, but soft, low and pleading. many eyes glistened and many lips trembled when the song came to a close; and as the singers dropped to their knees, not a few heads involuntarily bowed. one after another, the little band prayed, pleading with god to be kind and merciful to the erring; asking the father, in the name of jesus, to pity and forgive. truly it was a picture of great contrasts--of brightest lights and deepest shadows--almost as when the son of god prayed for his enemies, and wept because they were his enemies. three out of the six had offered their prayers and the fourth began to speak: "our father and our god,"--at the first word, uttered in a clear, manly, but subdued tone, the girl behind the curtain started violently; and as the prayer continued slowly, in that voice so full of manly truth and vigor, she raised her head and the rich blood colored neck and cheek. little by little the hard look in her eyes gave way to mingled wonder, doubt and awe; then the blood fled back to the trembling heart again, leaving her face as white as the marble figure near which she stood; and then, as though compelled by a power superior to her own will, she turned slowly, and stepped from her hiding place into full view. as if stricken dumb, she stood until the prayer was finished. the captain gave the signal and the little company rose to their feet. "o god!" the young soldier who had prayed last, sprang forward; but he was not quick enough, for before he could cross the room, with a moan of unutterable anguish, the girl sank to the floor. "god help us, she's dead," cried dick. and dropping on one knee, he supported the senseless girl in his arms. all was confusion in an instant. men and women crowded about their companion, and the salvationists looked at one another in pity, surprise and wonder. then madam spoke: "girls be quiet. gentlemen make way. amy is not dead. bring her in here." the stalwart prize-fighter touched dick on the shoulder and the latter, with the lovely form still in his arms, followed as in a dream, to madam's own private apartments. a doctor came, in answer to a hurried call, and after no little effort the color slowly returned to the cheeks and the long, dark lashes began to tremble. the physician turned to dick. "leave us now; she must not see you at first." dick looked at madam. "may i have a few words privately with you?" the woman nodded; and with the army captain, they retired to another room, leaving amy in charge of the doctor and one of the salvation lassies. then dick told madam and the captain the whole story of amy's life and home, how she had gone away because of her father's mistake, how whitley had deceived her, and how they had searched for her in vain. then as he told of the mother's broken health, and the sorrowing friends, though he made no mention of himself, they could not but read as he spoke of others, something of his own trouble. tears gathered in madam's eyes, and when the tale was finished, she said: "somehow i have always felt that amy would never remain with us." and then she told of the poor girl's bitter experience alone in the great city, and how as a last resort, she had accepted her present situation. "she is more refined and gentle than the others," continued madam, "and in my heart, i have always hoped that she would leave here. but what could she do? she had no friends; and we can't afford to have any feelings in this wretched business. oh sir, this life is a very hell on earth, and bad as i am, i would never lay a straw in any girl's way who wanted to get out of it. i am glad, glad, that you came in time. you know, captain, that i have never opposed your work; and have seen you take several girls from my place without protest. but i can't be expected to look after them myself." they discussed the situation for some time, and finally madam said again, "mr.--; i don't know your name, and i don't want to; you wear that uniform and that's enough for me--just let amy remain here for a day or two. one of the salvation girls will stay with her, and can do more for her than you. she shall have my own room and no one shall see her. then when she is strong enough, you may come and take her if she will go; and i am sure she will. she will be as safe here as in her father's home." the captain nodded. "madam has passed her word, sir," he said. "you come with me and arrange for the future while your friend is getting strong again. our sarah will remain with her and keep us posted." dick yielded; and after hearing from the doctor that amy was resting easier, they bade madam goodnight and passed out into the room where again the music played, jewels sparkled, wine flowed, and the careless laugh and jest were heard. with a shudder of horror dick muttered, "my god, amy in such a place." and yet--another thought flashed through his mind, that brought a flush of shame to his cheek. "but amy--" and again the strong man trembled, weeping like a child. never, though he lived to be an old man, could dick look back upon that night and the days following, without turning pale. how he lived through it he never knew. perhaps it was because he had suffered so much in his checkered career that he was enabled to bear that which otherwise would have been impossible. and the consciousness of the great change in his own life led him to hope for amy, when others would have given up in despair. on his tour of study and investigation for the association, he had presented his letters to the salvation army people, and had been warmly welcomed by them, as is everyone who manifests a desire to help humanity. every kindness and courtesy was shown him, and at the invitation of the captain, he had gone with them on one of their regular rescue trips. he had donned the uniform of the army, for greater convenience and safety; for the blue and red of these soldiers of the cross is received and honored in places where no ordinary church member, whatever be his professed purpose, would be admitted. while dick and his friends planned for amy's future, sarah, the salvation girl, remained by her bedside caring for her as a sister. not one hint of reproach or censure fell from her lips; only words of loving kindness, of hope and courage. at first the poor girl refused to listen, but sobbing wildly, cried that her life was ruined, that she could only go on as she had started, and begged that they leave her alone in her disgrace and sin. but sarah herself could say, "i know sister, i have been through it all; and if jesus could save me he can save you too." so at last love and hope conquered; and as soon as she was strong enough, she left the place and went with sarah to the latter's humble home. there dick called to see her. "mr. falkner," she said, sadly, after the pain and embarrassment of the first meeting had passed off a little. "i do not understand; what makes you do these things?" and dick answered, "did i not tell you once that nothing could make me change; that nothing you could do would make me less your friend? you might, for the time being, make it impossible for me to help you, but the desire, the wish, was there just the same, and sought only an opportunity to express itself. and besides this," he added gently, "you know i'm a christian now." amy hung her head. "yes," she said slowly, "you are a christian. these salvation soldiers are christians too; and i--i--am--oh, mr. falkner, help me now. be indeed my friend. tell me what to do. i cannot go back home like this. i do believe in christ and that he sent you to me. i'm so tired of this world, for i know the awfulness of it now; and these good people have taught me that one can live close to christ, even in the most unfavorable circumstances." dick told her of their plan; how his friend, the captain, had arranged for her to live with his brother on a farm in northern missouri, and that they only wanted her consent to start at once. would she go? "but how can i? i have no money, and i have never been taught to work." "miss goodrich," answered dick, "can you not trust me?" amy was silent. "you must let me help you in this. thank god, i can do it now. prove to me that you are still my friend, by letting me make this investment for christ. will you?" the next day they bade good-bye to the sturdy soldiers of the cross who had been so true to them, and started on their westward journey. dick saw amy safe in her new home, and then with a promise that she would write to him regularly, and an agreement that he would send her letters and papers addressed to the people with whom she lived, he left her; satisfied that she was in kind hands, and that a new life was open before her. but when dick was once more aboard the train, alone with his thoughts, without the anxiety for amy's immediate welfare upon his mind, the struggle of his life began. he loved amy dearly; had loved her almost from the moment she came into george udell's printing office three years ago; loved her in spite of the difference in their position, when he was only a tramp and she was the favored daughter of wealth; when he was an unbeliever and she was a worker in the church; loved her when he saw her losing her hold on the higher life and drifting with the current; loved her when she left home, and as he thought, honor behind. and he was forced to confess, in his own heart, that he loved her yet, in spite of the fact that their positions were reversed; that he was an honored gentleman, respected and trusted by all, while she, in the eyes of the world, was a fallen woman with no friend but himself. but what of the future? dick's dreams had always been that he would win such a position in the world as would enable him, with confidence, to ask her to share his life. but always there had been the feeling that he never could be worthy. and with the dark picture of his own past before him, he knew he had no right to think of her as his wife. but now there was no question as to his position. but what of hers? could he think of taking for a wife, one whom he had seen in that house at cleveland? on the one hand, his love plead for her; on the other, the horror of her life argued against it. again his sense of justice plead, and his own life came before him like a horrid vision as it had done that morning when he learned of his father's death. he saw his childhood home, smelt the odor of the fragrant pines upon the hills, and heard the murmur of the river running past the cabin. again he heard his drunken father cursing in his sleep, and caught the whisper of his mother's dying prayer; and again he crept stealthily out of the cabin into the glory of the morning, with a lean hound his only companion. slowly and painfully he traced his way along the road of memory, recalling every place where he had advanced; every place where he had fallen; going step by step from the innocence of boyhood to the awful knowledge of the man of the world. he had fought, had fallen, had conquered and risen again; always advancing toward the light, but always bearing on his garment the smell of the fire, and upon his hands the stain of the pitch. and now, because he was safe at last and could look back upon those things, should he condemn another? would not amy also conquer, and when she _had_ conquered, by what right could he demand in her that which he had not in himself? christ would as freely welcome her as he had welcomed him. christianity held out as many glorious hopes for her as for him. her past might be past as well as his. why should he not shut the door upon it forever, and live only in the present and future? and then his mind fell to picturing what that future, with amy by his side, might be. they were equals now, before god and their own consciences. what should he care for the world? and so the fight went on in the battle-ground of his inner life, until the whistle blew a long blast for the station, and looking from the window of the car, he saw the smelter smoke and dust of boyd city. chapter xxv john barton and his wife, anna, with whom amy was to make her home for a while, could fully sympathize with the girl in her sad position, though one would never dream that the quiet, reserved john knew more of life than of his pigs and cattle, or that his jolly-faced, motherly companion had ever been beyond the quiet fields that surrounded her simple dwelling. years before, they had been rescued from the world in which amy had so nearly perished, by the same kind hand that had been stretched out to her, the salvation army; and now well on in middle life, happy and prosperous, they showed scarce a trace of the trouble that had driven them to labor on a farm. as hired help, they had gained their experience, and by ceaseless industry and careful economy, had at last come to own the place where they now lived. with no child of her own, mrs. barton took a mother's place in amy's life from the first, and was very patient with the girl who had never been taught to do the simplest household task. amy returned the loving kindness full measure, and, determined to be a help to those who so much helped her, advanced rapidly in the knowledge of her homely duties. dressed in the plain working garb of a farm girl, with arms bare and face flushed by the heat of the kitchen, one would scarcely have recognized in her the beautiful young woman who moved with boyd city's society leaders, or the brilliant novice who stood hesitating at the entrance to a life of sin in madam's wine-rooms; and certainly, one would never have classed the bright eyes, plump cheeks, and well-rounded figure, with the frightened, starving, haggard thing that roamed about the streets of cleveland a few short months before. but great as was the change in amy's outward appearance, the change within was even greater. she was no longer the thoughtless, proud, pleasure-loving belle that her parents had trained; nor was she the hard, reckless, hopeless creature that the world had made. but she was a woman now, with a true woman's interest and purpose in life. the shallow brilliance of the society girl had given place to thoughtful earnestness, and the dreary sadness of the outcast had changed to bright hopefulness. one warm day in june, mrs. barton laid the last neatly ironed garment on the big pile of clothes nearby, and noisily pushing her irons to the back of the stove, cried, "thank goodness, that's the last of that for this week." and "thank goodness, that's the last of that," exclaimed amy, mimicking the voice of her friend as she threw out the dishwater and hung the empty pan in its place. anna wiped the perspiration from her steaming face. "come on; let's get out of this inferno for a while and do our patching in the shade. i shall melt if i stay here a minute longer." and the two were soon seated in their low chairs on the cool porch, with a big basket of mending between them. "hello, there's our man back from town already," suddenly exclaimed anna a few minutes later, as her husband drove into the barnyard; then with a mischievous twinkle in her blue eyes, she called, "hurry up, john, amy wants her letter." john smiled in his quiet way as he came up to the porch and handed the girl an envelope with the boyd city postmark. then the old people both laughed at the other's pretty confusion when anna, rising, said in her teasing voice, "come on hubby, i'll fix your dinner. we've kept it warm. can't you see the selfish thing wants to be alone with her treasure?" but when mrs. barton returned to her mending, after a long talk with her husband, her jolly face wore an expression of seriousness that was unusual, and she failed to notice that amy's hands were idle and her work was lying untouched in her lap as she sat looking wistfully far away across the sunlit meadows and pastures. both took up their tasks in silence and plied their needles with energy, while their thoughts were far away; but one thought of a great city in the far-away east; the other of a bustling mining town in the nearer west. at last anna spoke with a little sigh: "amy dear, i suppose you will be leaving us one of these days before long." the girl answered with a loving smile: "are you so tired of me that you are going to send me out into the world again?" "no, no, dear. you have a home with john and me as long as you live. surely you know that, don't you, amy dear?" there was a wistful note in the kind voice, and dropping the stocking she was darning, anna leaned forward and placed her hand on the arm of amy's chair. a rush of tears was her answer, as the girl caught the toil-stained hand and carried it passionately to her lips. "of course i know. mother forgive me; i was only 'funnin' as little jimmie clark says." "but i am not 'funnin,'" replied the other. "i'm awfully in earnest." there seemed to be a hidden meaning in her words and amy looked at her anxiously. "i do not understand why you think that i should leave you," she said earnestly. "because--because--i--this life must be so degrading to you. you could live so differently at home. you must feel this keenly." amy looked at her steadily. "that is not your reason, mother," she said gently. "you know that a woman degrades herself when she does nothing useful, and that i count my present place and work, far above my old life at home. why just think"--with a quiet smile--"john said last night that he couldn't tell my biscuits from yours. and wasn't the dinner all right to-day? and isn't that a beautiful patch?" she held up her work for inspection. the other shook her head, while she smiled in answer. "i know, dear girl, you do beautifully; but that's not it. there is your father and mother and brother; you know you can't stay away from them always." amy's face grew troubled, while her hand nervously sought the letter hidden in her bosom. "you do not understand, mother," she replied slowly; "my people do not want me to come home. my father said i should not, until--until--" she hesitated. "but your father has surely forgotten his anger by this time, and when he sees you he will be glad to forgive and take you back." the brown eyes looked at her in startled surprise. "when he sees me?" but the other continued hurriedly, "and there are the letters you know." amy's face grew rosy. "why the letters?" she murmured in a low voice. "because he loves you, dear, don't you see?" "he has never told me so." "not in words perhaps." amy was silent. "he will come for you one of these days and then you will go with him." the girl sadly shook her head, and turning her face, looked away across the fields again, where silent, patient john sturdily followed his team. the shadow of the big sycamore was stretching across the barn lot almost to the gate, where the cows stood watching for the boy to come and let them in; a troop of droning bees were paying their last visit for the day to the peach-tree, that flung its wealth of passionate blossoms almost within reach of the porch, and over the blue distant woods the last of the feathery banks of mist hung lazily, as though tangled in the budding branches, reluctant to say good-night. suddenly leaving her chair, amy threw herself on the floor and burying her face in the older woman's lap, burst into tears. anna's own eyes were wet as she softly smoothed the brown hair of the girl she had taken to her mother's heart. "you do love him, don't you dear?" and amy answered, between her sobs, "because i love him so, i must never see him again. he--he--is so strong and good and true--he must not care for one who would only bring reproach upon his name." "i know, dear girl, and that is why you must go home; take your own place in the world again and then the way is clear." amy lifted her head. "oh, if i only could--but you do not know--my going home would only widen the distance between us. my father--" she paused again, her quivering lips could not form the words. "amy, i am sure you are mistaken; you must be. when you meet your father it will all come right, i know." again there seemed to be a hidden meaning in her words. "when i meet my father?" amy repeated slowly. anna grew confused. "yes--i--we--you know john has been trying to sell for a long time; we want to go back to cleveland; and to-day he learned that a buyer was coming from boyd city to--" amy's face grew white as she rose, trembling, to her feet. "my father," she gasped--"coming here?" anna took the frightened girl in her arms--"there, there, dear, don't be afraid. all will be for the best, i am sure. john and i will stand by you and you shall go with us if you wish. but i am sure your father will be glad to take you home with him; and you ought to go; you know you ought; not for your family's sake alone, but for his, you know." and so they talked as the shadows grew, until in the twilight john came from the field with his tired team, when they went into the house to prepare the evening meal. * * * * * adam goodrich had by no means forgiven his beautiful daughter for the blow dealt his pride, though one would not easily detect from his manner that there was anything but supreme self-satisfaction in the life of this worthy member of the jerusalem church. mrs. goodrich's health was broken, but she still remained the same society-loving, fashion-worshipping woman, who by her influence and teaching had ruined her child. it never occurred to the mother that amy's conduct was the legitimate outcome of her training or associates, but she looked at it always as a weakness in the girl; and frank, true son of his father, never mentioned his sister but with a curl of his lip, and lived his life as though she had never existed. the family still attended church once each week, still contributed the same amount to the cause, and still found fault with cameron for his low tastes and new-fangled methods; while they laughed at the new association as a dream of fools and misguided enthusiasts. adam had long wanted to add a good farm to his possessions, and after some correspondence with the agent who had advertised the barton property, he boarded the train one bright day, to pay a visit of inspection to his contemplated purchase. reaching the little city of zanesville in the evening, he spent the night at a hotel. in the morning he called upon the agent, and the two were soon whirling along the road behind a pair of wiry little ponies. the drive of eight or ten miles passed very pleasantly between the real estate man and his prospective customer in such conversation as gentlemen whose lives are spent in the whirl of the money world indulge in between moments of activity. at last they neared the farm, and bringing the ponies to a walk, the agent began pointing out the most desirable features of the property: the big barn, the fine timber land in the distance, the rich soil of a field near by, the magnificent crop of corn, the stream of water where cattle stood knee-deep lazily fighting the flies, and the fine young orchard just across the road from the house. "yes, the building is old"--as they drove up in front of the big gate; "but it is good yet, and with just a little expense, can be converted into a model of modern convenience and beauty." as they drove into the yard and got out to hitch the ponies, mrs. barton came to the door. "just come right in, mr. richards, john is over in the north field; i'll go for him." "oh no, mrs. barton, i'll go. this is mr. goodrich, who wishes to look at the farm. mr. goodrich, just wait here in the shade and i'll go after mr. barton." "i believe," said adam, "if you don't mind, i'll walk through the orchard until you return." "certainly, certainly," said both the agent and the farmer's wife; and the woman added, nervously, "just make yourself at home, mr. goodrich; you'll find the girl out there somewhere. dinner will be ready in about an hour." leisurely crossing the road, adam paused at the orchard gate, to watch some fine young shoats that were running about with their mother nearby. from the pigs, his gaze wandered about the farm buildings, the fields, and the garden. turning at last to enter the orchard, he saw a young woman, clad in the homely every-day dress of a country girl; her face hidden beneath a large sun-bonnet of blue gingham. she was gathering apple blossoms. something in her manner or figure struck him as being familiar, and with his hand on the gate, he paused again. as he stood watching her all unconscious of his presence, she sprang lightly from the ground in an effort to reach a tempting spray of blossoms, and at her violent movement the sun-bonnet dropped from her head, while a wealth of brown hair fell in a rippling mass to her waist. then as she half turned, he saw her face distinctly, and with a start of surprise and astonishment, knew her as his daughter. under the first impulse of a father's love at seeing his child again, adam stepped forward; but with the gate half open, he checked himself and then drew back, while the old haughty pride, that dominant key in his character, hardened his heart again; and when he at last pushed open the gate once more, his love was fairly hidden. when amy first caught sight of her father advancing slowly toward her beneath the blossom-laden trees she forgot everything and started quickly toward him, her face lighted with eager welcome, ready to throw herself in his arms and there pour out her whole tearful story and beg his love and forgiveness. but when she saw his face, she dared not, and stood with downcast eyes, trembling and afraid. "so this is where you hide yourself, while your family faces your shame at home," began adam, coldly. "tell me who brought you here and who pays these people to keep you." the girl lifted her head proudly. "no one pays them sir; i am supporting myself." the man looked at her in amazement. "do you mean that your position here is that of a common servant?" "there are worse positions," she replied sadly. "the people here are very kind to me." "but think of your family; you are a disgrace to us all. what can i tell them when i go back and say that i have seen you?" "tell them that i am well, and as happy as i ever expect to be." she pressed her hand to her bosom where a letter was hidden. "but what will people say when they know that my daughter is working on a farm for a living?" "they need never know unless you tell them." then the man lost all control of himself; that this girl who had always yielded to his every wish, without so much as daring to have a thought of her own, should so calmly, but firmly, face him in this manner, enraged him beyond measure. he could not understand. he knew nothing of her life since that night he had refused to listen to her explanation, and in his anger taunted her with being the plaything of dick falkner, and then, because her face flushed, thought that he had hit on the truth and grew almost abusive in his language. but amy only answered, "sir, you are mistaken now, as you were when you drove me from home; mr. falkner had nothing to do with my leaving boyd city." "you are my daughter still," stormed adam, "and i will force you to leave this low position and come home to us. you cannot deceive me with your clever lie about supporting yourself. what do you know about a servant's work? that cursed tramp printer is at the bottom of all this, and i'll make him suffer for it as i live. i will force you to come home." amy's face grew pale, but she replied quietly, "oh no, father, you will not do that, because that would make public my position you know. i have no fear of your proclaiming from the housetops that your daughter is a hired girl on a farm." "but father," she said, in softer voice, as adam stood speechless with rage; "father, forgive me for this, for i know that i am right. let me stay here and prove that i am not useless to the world, and then perhaps i will go to you. in the meantime, keep my secret and no one shall know that your claim on society has teen lessened because your daughter is learning to do a woman's work." just a shade of bitter sarcasm crept into her voice, but adam did not notice, for he saw the agent and the farmer coming. "very well," he said hurriedly, "you have chosen your path and must walk in it. but you cannot expect me to acknowledge a servant as my daughter." and turning his back, he went to meet the men, while amy slipped off to the house with her blossoms. mrs. barton needed no word to tell her of the result of the interview from which she had expected so much, and with a kiss and a loving word, permitted the girl to go upstairs, where she remained until mr. goodrich had left the place. after completing the purchase of the farm, adam wrote his daughter from the office of the agent in zanesville: "the place where you are living now belongs to me, and the bartons must give possession at once. if you will promise never to speak to that man falkner again, you may come home and be received into your old place, but on no other terms will i acknowledge you as my daughter. refuse and you are thrown on the charity of the world, for you cannot remain where you are." amy carried the letter to her friends, together with her reply, and they, by every argument of love, tried to induce her to go with them back to cleveland; but she refused in tears. and when she would not be persuaded, they were compelled to leave her. with many expressions of love, they said good-bye, and departed for their old home in the eastern city; but before going, they arranged with a kind neighbor to give her a place in their already crowded home until she could find means of support. upon dick's return from his cleveland trip, he had thrown himself into his work with feverish energy, while in his heart the struggle between love and prejudice continued. but as the weeks went by and amy's letters had come, telling of her life on the farm, and how she was learning to be of use in the world; and as he had read between the lines, of her new ideas and changed views of life, his love had grown stronger and had almost won the fight. then a letter came, bidding him good-bye, and telling him that she was going away again, and that for her sake, he must not try to find her; that she was deeply grateful for all that he had done, but it was best that he forget that he had ever known her. dick was hurt and dismayed. it seemed to him that she had given up, and the devil, doubt, ever ready to place a wrong construction upon the words and deeds of mortals, sent him into the black depths of despair again. "i never saw such a man," declared george udell to clara wilson, one evening, as they caught a glimpse of him bending over a desk in mr. wicks' office, "he works like a fiend." "like an angel, you'd better say," replied clara. "didn't i tell you that he was no common tramp?" "yes, dear, of course; and you never made a mistake in your life; that is, never but once." "when was that?" asked clara curiously. "when you said 'no' to me night before last. won't you reconsider it, and--" "where do you suppose amy goodrich is now?" interrupted the young lady. "do you know, i have fancied at times, that mr. falkner learned something on his trip last fall, that he has not told us?" george opened his eyes. "what makes you think that?" "oh, because; somehow he seems so different since he returned." but george shook his head. "i thought so too for a while," he replied; "but i talked with him just the other day, and i'm afraid he's given up all hope. he works to hide the hurt. but i'll tell you one thing, girlie, if anything could make a christian of me, it would be dick's life. there's something more than human in the way he stands up against this thing." then dick received another letter, from a post office in texas. "dere dikkie: i take my pen in hand to let u no that ime wel an hoape u ar the same. jim whitly is ded he don tried to nife me an i fixed him. he wanted to hire me to kil u fer some papers an we was in you ol caben kross the river from the still. he said ter tel u thet he lied to u an that amy is pure. i don't no what he means but thot u ort ter no. i skipped--burn this. your daddys pard. "jake thompson." the association building was finished at last, and the pastor of the jerusalem church sat in his little den looking over the morning mail. there were the usual number of magazines, papers, and sample copies of religious periodicals, with catalogues and circulars from publishing houses; an appeal to help a poor church in nebraska whose place of worship had been struck by lightning; a letter from a sister in missouri, asking for advice about a divorce case; one from a tinware man in arkansas, who inquired about the town with a view of locating; and one that bore the mark of the association, which informed him, over the signature of the secretary, that he had been unanimously called to take charge of the new work. cameron carried the letter, in triumph, to the kitchen. "well," said the little woman; "didn't i tell you that one preacher would have a hand in whatever work was started here? of course you'll accept?" "i don't know," cameron answered. "we must think about it." a day later he called for a consultation with elder wicks, and uncle bobbie said: "to-be-sure, it's mighty hard for me to advise you in a thing like this; for as a member of the church, i'm bound to say stay; and as a member of the association, i say, accept. i jing! i don't know what to do." and for a few moments, the old gentleman thoughtfully stroked his face; then suddenly grasping the arms of the chair fiercely, he shouted: "as a christian, i say, accept, an' i reckon that settles it." and so cameron became the manager of the new work; and his first recommendation to the directors was that they send their secretary away for a vacation. and indeed dick, poor fellow, needed it, though at first he flatly refused to go. but dr. jordan came down on him with the cheerful information that he would die if he didn't, and uncle bobbie finished matters by declaring that he had no more right to kill himself by over work, than he had to take rough on eats, or blow his head off with a gun; "and besides," added the old gentleman, "you aint paid me that hundred dollars yet. to-be-sure, the note aint due for sometime; but a fellow has got to look after his own interest, aint he?" the first address delivered by cameron in the auditorium of the association building, was from the text, "ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." the audience room was crowded, and the young minister had never appeared to better advantage, or declared the teaching of his master with greater freedom, earnestness and vigor; and to the astonishment of the people, who should come forward at the close of the service, to declare his belief in, and acceptance of christ as the son of god, but the so-called infidel printer, george udell. chapter xxvi in southwestern missouri, in the white oak district, there are many beautiful glens and sheltered valleys, where a sturdy people have tamed the wildness of nature and made it obedient to their will. the fields lie fertile and fruitful on either bank of murmuring streams, clear to the foot of the hills where the timber grows. always a road winds down the valley, generally skirting the forest, and the farmhouses are nearly all built of logs, though more modern and finished dwellings are fast taking the place of the primitive mansions. every few miles, one may see little school-houses, most often made of good lumber and painted white, with heavy shutters and a high platform in front. for the ozark settler takes great pride in his school-house, which is also a church and a political rallying point, and meeting-place for the backwoods "literary;" and though he may live in a rude log hovel himself, his hall of education must be made of boards and carefully painted. to this romantic region dick falkner went to spend his vacation, during the latter part of october, the loveliest season of the year in that section of the country. mr. cushman, who was a successful farmer living in the white oak district, and an old friend of uncle bobbie's, gladly welcomed the young man, of whom his old partner, wicks, had written so highly. when dick left the train at armourdale, a little village in the lead and zinc field, he was greeted at once by his host, a bluff, pleasant-faced, elderly gentleman, whom he liked at first sight, and who was completely captivated by his guest before they had been together half an hour. oak springs farm, which was to be dick's home for the next month, took in the whole of a beautiful little glen, and many acres of timber-land on either side. crane creek had its source, or rather one of its sources, within a hundred feet of the house, where a big spring bubbled from beneath the roots of a giant oak, and the water went chattering and laughing away to the south and east. three-quarters of a mile from oak springs, just over the ridge in another hollow, another stream gushed bright and clear, from beneath another ancient oak and went rushing away to join its fellow brook a mile distant, where the little glens broadened into a large valley, through which the creek hurried onward to the great river, miles away in the heart of the wilderness. it was all very beautiful and restful to the young man, wearied and worn by the rush and whirl of the city, and stifled with the dust and smoke from factory and furnace. the low hills, clothed with foliage, richly stained by october's brush; the little valley lying warm in the sunlight, was a welcome change to the dead monotony of the prairie, where the sky shut down close to the dull brown earth, with no support of leafy pillars. and the mother quail, with her full-grown family scurrying to cover in the corner of the fence; the squirrel scolding to his mate in the tree-tops, or leaping over the rustling leaves, and all the rest of the forest life, was full of interest when compared to the life of busy men or chattering sparrows in the bustling mining town. though mr. cushman and his wife had raised a large family of boys and girls, only one, a daughter, remained with them on the farm. the others had, one by one, taken their flight from the home nest, to build home nests of their own in different parts of the great world wilderness. kate was a hearty, robust, rosy-cheeked country lass of eighteen, the youngest of the flock; her father's chum, with all his frank, open ways; and her mother's companion, with all her loving thoughtfulness. and, best of all, she possessed the charming freshness, innocence and purity of one who had never come in touch with those who, taught by the world she had never known, were content to sham her virtues as they tried to imitate the color of her cheek. dick sank to rest that night with a long sigh of relief, after meeting the mother and daughter and enjoying such a supper as one only finds on a prosperous farm. and strangely enough, the last picture on his mind before he fell asleep, was of a little school-house which he had seen just at sunset, scarcely a quarter of a mile up the valley; and he drowsily wondered who taught the children there; while a great owl, perched in an old apple-tree back of the chicken house, echoed his sleepy thoughts with its "whoo! whoo!" with a whoop and hallo and whistle, the noisy troop of boys and girls came tumbling out of the doorway of the white oak school, their dinner pails and baskets on their arms, homeward bound from the irksome duties of the day. the young teacher, after standing a few moments in the doorway, watching her charges down the road and out of sight in the timber across the valley, turned wearily back, and seating herself at a rude desk in the rear of the room, began her task of looking over the copybooks left by the rollicking youngsters. had she remained a moment longer in the door-way she would have seen a tall, well-dressed gentleman coming leisurely up the hill. it was dick. he had been roaming all the afternoon over the fields and through the brown woods. he came slowly up the road, and crossing the yard, stood hesitating at the threshold of the building. the teacher, bending low, did not see him for a moment; but when she raised her head, she looked straight into his eyes. dick would have been dull indeed had he failed to interpret that look; and amy would have been more than dull had she failed to see the love that shone in his glance of astonishment and pleasure. for an instant, neither spoke; then, "i have found you again," said dick, simply. "i hope you will forgive me, miss goodrich; i assure you the meeting is entirely by accident. i stopped for a drink of water." "please help yourself, mr. falkner," said the girl, with a little choke in her voice. "there it is." and she pointed to a wooden pail and tin dipper near the door. "i am spending my vacation in the ozarks; or rather, i came here to rest." he paused awkwardly. "i--i did not dream of your being here, or of course i should not have come, after your letter. forgive me and i will go away again." he turned to leave the room, but with his foot on the threshold, paused, and then walked back to the desk where the girl sat, leaning forward with her face buried in her arms. "there's just one thing though, that i must say before i go. are you in need of any help? if so, let me be of use to you; i am still your friend." the brown head was raised and two glistening eyes proudly pleading looked at dick. through a mist in his own eyes he saw two hands outstretched and heard a voice say, "i do need your help. don't go. that is--i mean--leave me here now and to-morrow call, and i will tell you all. only trust me this once." dick took the outstretched hands in his and stood for a moment with bowed head; then whispered softly, "of course i will stay. shall i come at this hour to-morrow?" amy nodded, and he passed out of the building. had dick looked back as he strode swiftly toward the timber, he would have seen a girlish form in the door holding out her hands; and had he listened as he climbed the fence, he might have heard a sweet voice falter, "oh dick, i love you. i love you." and just as he vanished at the edge of the woods, the girl who was more than all the world to him, fell for the second time in her life, fainting on the floor. all the forenoon of the next day, dick wandered aimlessly about the farm, but somehow he never got beyond sight of the little white school-house. he spent an hour watching the colts that frolicked in the upper pasture, beyond which lay the children's playground; then going through the field, he climbed the little hill beyond and saw the white building through the screen of leaves and branches. once amy came to the door, but only for a moment, when she called the shouting youngsters from their short recess. then recrossing the valley half a mile above, he walked slowly home to dinner along the road leading past the building. how he envied the boys and girls whose droning voices reached his ears through the open windows. while dick was chatting with his kind host after dinner, as they sat on the porch facing the great oak, the latter talked about the spring and the history of the place; how it used to be a favorite camping ground for the indians in winter; and pointed out the field below the barn, where they had found arrowheads by the hundreds. then he told of the other spring just over the ridge, and how the two streams came together and flowed on, larger and larger, to the river. and then with a farmer's fondness for a harmless jest, he suggested that dick might find it worth his while to visit the other spring; "for," said he "the school-marm lives there; and she's a right pretty girl. sensible too, i reckon, though she aint been here only since the first of september." when the farmer had gone to his work, dick walked down to the spring-house, and sitting on the twisted roots of the old oak, looked into the crystal water. "and so amy lives by a spring just like this," he thought, "and often sits beneath that other oak, perhaps, looking into the water as i am looking now." a blue-jay, perched on a bough above, screamed in mocking laughter at the dreamer beneath; an old drake, leading his family in a waddling row to the open stream below the little house, solemnly quacked his protest against such a willful waste of time; and a spotted calf thrust its head through the barn-yard fence to gaze at him in mild reproach. in his revery, dick compared the little stream of water to his life, running fretted and troubled, from the very edge of its birthplace; and he followed it with his eye down through the pasture lot, until it was lost in the distance; then looking into the blue vista of the hills, he followed on, in his mind, where the stream grew deeper and broader. suddenly, he sprang to his feet and walked hastily away along the bank of the creek. in a little while, he stood at the point of land where the two valleys became one, and the two streams were united, and with a long breath of relief, found that the course of the larger stream, as far as he could see, was smooth and untroubled, while the valley through which it flowed was broad and beautiful. at the appointed time, dick went to the school-house, and with amy, walked through the woods toward the farm where she lived, while she told him of her life since last they met; of her father's visit and his threats, and of her fear that he would force her to go home. the farm had been sold the day after adam was there, and how through her friends, she had obtained her present position in the school. she told of her pride and desire to wipe out alone, the disgrace, as alone she had fallen. she longed to be of use in the world. as she talked, dick's face grew bright. "this is good news indeed," he said. "i'm so glad for your sake." then, with a smile, "i see you do not need my help now that you can be of so much help to others." "but won't you help me plan for the future?" said amy, trying to hide the slight tremble in her voice. "won't you tell me what is best to do? i have thought and thought, but can get no farther than i am now." "let us say nothing about that for a time," replied dick. "we will talk that over later." and so it came about that the farmer's advice, spoken in jest, was received in earnest; and for four happy weeks the two lived, unrestrained by false pride or foolish prejudice; walking home together through the woods, or wandering beside the little brooks, talking of the beauties they saw on every hand, or silently listening to the voices of nature, but at last the time came when they must part, and dick gave his answer to her question. "you must go home," he said. "but you know what that means," answered amy. "i will be forced to give up my church work and be a useless butterfly again; and besides, the conditions father insists upon--." she blushed and hesitated. "yes," said dick, "i know what it means for me, your going home. but you need not again be a useless butterfly as you say. write your father and tell him of your desire; that you cannot be content as a useless woman of society. he will ask you to come home, i am sure. and when your present term of school is finished, you can take your old place in the world again. you will find many ways to be of use to others, and i know that your father will learn to give you more liberty." "and the past?" asked amy, with a blush of shame. "is past," said dick, emphatically. "no one in boyd city knows your story, nor need they ever know." "one man there can tell them," answered the girl, with averted face. "you are mistaken," said dick, quietly. and then, as gently as he could, he told her of whitley's death. but of his connection with him and the real cause of the fight in the cabin, he said nothing. it was hard for dick to advise amy to go home, for as she was then, they were equals. if she went back to boyd city, all would be changed. but he had fought over the question in his own mind and the right had conquered. amy agreed with him that it was best, and added, "i have felt all along that i ought to do this after a while, but i wished to see you again first, and had you not happened to find me, i should have written to you later." and so it was settled. no word of love was spoken between them. dick would not permit himself to speak then, because he felt that she ought not to be influenced by her present surroundings; and even had he spoken, amy would not have listened, because she felt her work could only be complete when she had returned to her old position and had proved herself by her life there. and so they parted, with only a silent clasping of hands, as they stood beside the brook that chattered on its way to join the other; though there was a world of love in both the gray eyes and the brown; a love none the less strong because unspoken. upon dick's return to the city, he took up his work again with so light a heart that his many friends declared that he had entirely recovered his health, and their congratulations were numerous and hearty. during the holidays, there was some gossip among the citizens when it was announced in the daily whistler, that miss goodrich would soon return to her home. the article stated that she had been living with some friends in the east, finishing her education, and the public accepted the polite lie with a nod and a wink. mrs. goodrich, though her mother heart was glad at the return of her child, received the girl with many tearful reproaches; and while amy was hungering for a parent's loving sympathy and encouragement, she could not open her heart to the woman who mourned only the blow dealt her family pride and social ambition. adam was formal, cold and uncompromising, while frank paid no more attention to his sister than if she were a hired servant in the house. only the girl's firm determination, awakened womanhood, patience and christian fortitude enabled her to accept her lot. but in spite of the daily reproaches, stern coldness and studied contempt, she went steadily forward in her purpose to regain the place she had lost; and somehow, as the weeks went by, all noticed a change in amy. her father dared not check her in her work, for something in the clear eyes, that looked at him so sadly, but withal so fearlessly, made him hesitate. it was as though she had spoken, "i have been through the fire and have come out pure gold. it is not for you to question me." and though she attended to her social duties, her influence was always for the good, and no one dared to speak slightingly of religious things in her presence; while the poor people at the mission learned to love the beautiful young woman who visited their homes and talked to them of a better life, and never failed to greet them with a kindly word when they met her on the street. of course dick could not call at her home. he knew well that it would only provoke a storm; nor did amy ask him to. they met only at church or at the mission; and nothing but the common greetings passed between them. no one ever dreamed that they were more than mere acquaintances. but they each felt that the other understood, and so were happy; content to wait until god, in his own way, should unite the streams of their lives. chapter xxvii it was about nine o'clock in the evening, and dick was in his office at the association building, writing some letters pertaining to the work, when the door opened, and to his great astonishment, amy entered hurriedly, out of breath and very much excited. "i beg your pardon for interrupting you, mr. falkner," she began, as soon as she could speak; "but i must tell you." and then she broke down, sinking into a chair and crying bitterly. dick's face was very grave, and stepping to the window he drew the curtain, then turned the key in the door. "now what is it, miss goodrich? please be calm. you know you have nothing to fear from me." amy brushed away her tears, and looking up into his face, "i'm not afraid of you," she said. "but--but--, our secret is out." dick nodded that he understood, and she continued: "you know that frank has been at armourdale the last few weeks, looking after papa's interests in the mines there, and--and he came home this afternoon?" "yes, i know," said dick calmly. "i was in the sitting-room and he and father were in the library. i--i did not mean to listen, but the door was open and i heard them speak your name." "yes," said dick again. "frank met mr. cushman and spent several days at the farm where they are prospecting, and--and of course learned that we were together there. father believes the awfullest things and threatens to kill you; he is so angry. i--i'm afraid for you--and--and i slipped away because i--i thought you ought to know." the poor girl finished with a sob and buried her face in her hands. dick thought rapidly for a few moments. he remembered that he had never told amy how her father had accused him of taking her away at first, and he saw now how that belief would be strengthened by her brother's story. then as his heart bitterly rebelled at the thought of such a misunderstanding, and of the danger to amy, his mind was made up instantly. "miss goodrich," he said; "can you let me talk to you plainly?" she nodded and grew quiet. "i have known all along that these things would come out sooner or later. i have foreseen that the whole story must be told, and have prayed that the time might be put off until your life could give the lie to the thought that the past was not passed forever, and now i thank god that my prayers have been answered. no harm can come to you now for your christianity is no vain trifle, but a living power that will help you to bear the reproach that must come. had this happened before you were strong, it would have driven you back again. but now you can bear it. but miss goodrich--amy--i don't want you to bear this alone. won't you let me help you? you know that i love you. i have told you so a thousand times, though no word has been spoken. and i know that you return my love. i have seen it in your eyes, and i have waited and waited until the time should come for me to speak. that time is here now. amy, dearest, tell me that you love me and will be my wife. give me the right to protect you. let us go to your father together and tell him all. he dare not refuse us then." the beautiful girl trembled with emotion. "you must not. oh, you must not," she said. "don't, don't tempt me." she buried her face in her hands again. "you--you cannot take for your wife one who has been what i have." "amy dear, listen," said dick. "you and i are christians. we each have fallen; but christ has forgiven and accepted both. god has only one love for each, one saviour for each, one forgiveness for each. there is only one promise, one help, one heaven for us both. darling, don't you see that we are equal? i cannot reproach you for your past, because i too, have been guilty. you, in your heart of hearts, must recognize this great truth. won't you forget it all with me?" the girl lifted her face and looked into his eyes long and searchingly, as though reading his very soul. had there been anything but love in dick falkner's heart then, he would have argued in vain. but he returned the look unflinchingly, then-- "amy listen. on the soul that has been pardoned in the name of jesus christ, there is no spot. won't you put your past beneath your feet as i put mine in the dust, and come to me upon the common ground of christ's love and forgiveness? come, because we love each other, and for the good we can do." the brown eyes filled with tears again; the sweet lips trembled, as holding out her hand she replied, "oh dick, i do love you. help me to be strong and true and worthy of your love. i--i--have no one in all the world but you." a few minutes later, dick said, "i must take you home now." "no, no," she answered, hurriedly; "the folks will think that i am calling on some of the neighbors, even if they miss me at all. i often run out of an evening that way. it is not late and i'm not afraid." "listen to me, dearest," he answered. "you must not see your father alone until i have told him everything. i will go up to the house with you now, and we will settle this matter once for--" a loud knock at the door interrupted him. amy trembled in alarm. "don't be frightened dear. no harm can come to you from this visit now. thank god you have given me the right to speak for you." the knock was repeated. "step in here," he said, leading her to a chair in the next room, "and be a brave girl now. it's just some fellow on business. he'll be gone in a moment." and leaving her with the door partly closed, he stepped across the room just as the knock came the third time. dick threw open the door, and without waiting for an invitation, adam goodrich stepped across the threshold. to say that dick was astonished but faintly expressed his feelings, though not a muscle of his face quivered, as he said: "good evening, sir, what can i do for you?" "you can do a good deal," said adam. "but first lock that door; we want no visitors here to-night." without a word, dick turned the key again. "now sir, i want to know first, is it true that you were with my daughter in the ozark mountains this summer? don't try to lie to me this time. i'll have the truth or kill you." "i have never lied to you, sir," answered dick; "and have no desire to do so now. it is perfectly true i did meet you daughter last summer while on my vacation." "i knew i was right," raved adam. "i knew you led her away from home. oh, why did you ever come to this city? why did i ever see you? here." and he frantically tore a check-book from his pocket. "fill this out for any amount you choose and go away again. oh, i could kill you if i dared. you have ruined me forever--you--" "stop sir," said dick; and when adam looked into his face, he saw again that nameless something which compelled him to obey. "you have said quite enough," continued dick, calmly, "and you are going to listen to me now. but first, i want to beg your pardon for the language i used when you called on me before."--he heard a slight rustle in the next room--"when you accused me of taking your daughter from her home; i told you that you were a liar. i beg your pardon now. i was excited. i know that you were only mistaken. you would not have listened to me then, nor believed me, had i told you what i knew. but the time has come when you _shall_ listen, and be forced to know that i speak the truth." adam sat as though fascinated. once he attempted to answer, but a quick "silence, sir, you _shall_ hear me," kept him still, while dick detailed the whole story, omitting nothing from the evening when he had rescued amy from her drunken escort, to the day he had said good-bye in the ozark mountains. when he had finished, the old gentleman sat silent for a moment. "can it be possible," thought dick, "that i have misjudged this man, and that he is grateful for the help that i have given amy?" but no; dick had not misjudged him. there was not a thought of gratitude in adam goodrich's heart. thankfulness for his daughter's salvation from a life of sin had no part in his feelings; only blind rage, that his pride should be so humbled. leaping to his feet, he shouted, "the proof, you miserable scoundrel; the proof, or i'll have your life for this." dick remained perfectly calm. "you shall have the proof," he said, quietly, and turning, stepped to the next room, coming back an instant later with his arm encircling amy's waist. adam sprang forward. "you here at this hour alone? go home at once. drop her, you ruffian," turning to dick. the latter stood without moving a muscle, and goodrich started toward him. "stop," said dick, still without moving; and again the older man was forced to obey that stronger will. "father," said amy. "i am going to marry mr. falkner. i heard you and frank talking in the library, and when you said that you would kill him i came to warn him, and--and--his story is every word true. oh papa, don't you see what a friend he has been to me? you forced me to the society that ruined me, and he saved me from an awful life. i love him and will be his wife, but i can't be happy as i ought, without your forgiveness. won't you forgive us papa?" never in his life had it been dick's lot to see a face express so much, or so many conflicting emotions, love, hate, pride, passion, remorse, gratitude, all followed each other in quick succession. but finally, pride and anger triumphed and the answer came; but in the expression of the man's face rather than in his words, dick found the clue to his course. "you are no longer a daughter of mine," said adam. "i disown you. if you marry that man who came to this town a common tramp, i will never recognize you again. you have disgraced me. you have dragged my honor in the dust." he turned toward the door. but again dick's voice, clear and cold, forced him to stop. "sir," he said; "before god, you and not this poor child, are to blame. by your teaching, you crippled her character and made it too weak to stand temptation, and then drove her from home by your brutal unbelief." adam hung his head for a moment, then raised it haughtily. "are you through?" he said with a sneer. "not quite," answered dick. "listen; you value most of all in this world, pride and your family position. can't you see that by the course you are taking, you yourself proclaim your disgrace, and forfeit your place in society. no one now but we three, knows the story i have just related to you; but if you persist in this course the whole world will know it." he paused, and adam's face changed; for while his nature could not forgive, pity, or feel gratitude, such reasoning as this forced its way upon his mind, a mind ever ready to cheat the opinions of men. "what would you suggest?" he asked coldly. "simply this," answered dick. "do you and amy go home together. no one shall ever know of this incident. live your life as usual, except that you shall permit me to call at the house occasionally. gradually the people will become accustomed to my visits, and when the time comes, the marriage will not be thought so strange. but remember, this woman is to be my wife, and you shall answer to me if you make her life hard." "very well," answered adam, after a moment's pause; "i can only submit. i will do anything rather than have this awful disgrace made public. but understand me sir; while you may come to the house occasionally, and while you force me to consent to this marriage by the story of my daughter's disgrace, i do not accept you as my son, or receive the girl as my daughter; for my honor's sake, i will appear to do both, but i shall not forget; and now come home." "good-night, dearest, be brave," whispered dick. and then as he unlocked and opened the door, he could not forbear smiling at adam and wishing him a good-night, with pleasant dreams. chapter xxviii mother gray and her husband were sitting before a cheery fire in their little parlor, at the institution for helping the unemployed. the cold november rain without came beating against the window panes in heavy gusts, and the wind sighed and moaned about the corners of the house and down the chimney. "winter's coming, wife," said mr. gray, as he aroused himself and stirred the fire. "we'll not be having such an easy time as we did this summer. when cold weather gets here in earnest the poor will begin calling on us." "yes, but that's the time people need kindling wood the worst, so there will be enough to feed them," answered the good wife brightly, as she too aroused and began knitting with great vigor. "i fear we are going to have a hard winter this year, mother; my old bones begin to complain a little now; but thank god, we're sure of a comfortable home and enough to eat. what we'd a done without this place is more than i know, with joe away and me not able to do heavy work in the mines. if maggie were only with us." and the old man wiped a tear from his eyes. "yes, father, but maggie is better off than we. it's joe that hurts my heart. to think that he may be hungry and cold like some of the poor fellows we fed here last spring. hark. isn't that someone knocking at the door?" she dropped her knitting to listen. the old man arose and stepped into the next apartment, which was used as a kind of reception hall and office. a faint rapping sounded more clearly from there; and crossing the room, he opened the door, and in the light streaming out, saw a woman. "come in," he cried, reaching forth and taking her by the arm. "come in out of the rain. why, you're soaked through." "oh please sir, can i stay here all night? they told me this was a place for people to stop. i'm so hungry and tired." and indeed she looked it, poor thing. her dress, though of good material and nicely made, was soiled with mud and rain. beneath the sailor hat, from which the water ran in sparkling drops, her hair hung wet and disheveled; her eyes were wild and pleading; her cheeks sunken and ashy pale; while the delicately turned nostrils and finely curved, trembling lips, were blue with cold. beyond all doubt, she had once been beautiful. mr. gray, old in experience, noted more than all this, as he said, "we are not allowed to keep women here, but it's a little different in your case, and i'll see my wife. sit down and wait a minute." he gave her a chair and went back to the sitting-room, returning a moment later with mother gray at his heels. "my poor dear," said the good woman, "of course you must stay here. i know, i know," as the girl looked at her in a questioning manner. "anyone can see your condition; but bless your heart, our master befriended a poor woman, and why should not we?" and soon the girl was in the other room and mrs. gray was removing her hat and loosening her clothing. "father," whispered the old lady, "i think you had better go for dr. jordan. he'll be needed here before morning." when the doctor returned with mr. gray, the patient, dry and clean, was wrapped in the soft blankets of mother gray's own bed, with one of maggie's old night-dresses on, and hot bricks at her tired feet. but warmth and kindness had come too late. the long, weary tramp about the streets of the city, in the rain; the friendless shutting of doors in her face; the consciousness that she was a mark for all eyes; and the horror of what was to come, with the cold and hunger, had done their work. when the morning sun, which has chased away the storm clouds, peeped in at the little chamber window, dr. jordan straightened up with a long breath, "she will suffer no more pain now, mother, until the end." "and when will that be, doctor?" "in a few hours, at most; i cannot tell exactly." "and there is no hope?" asked mrs. gray, smoothing the marble brow on the pillow, as she would have touched her maggie. "absolutely no hope, mother," said the physician, who knew her well. "ah well, tis better so," murmured the old lady. "this world is not the place for such as she. christ may forgive, but men won't. the man alone can go free. and the little one too--surely god is good to take them both together. will she come to, do you think, doctor, before she goes?" "yes, it is probable that she will rally for a little while, and you may find out her name perhaps. there was no mark on her clothing, you say?" "not the sign of a mark, and she would tell me nothing; and see, there is no wedding ring." they were silent for some time, and then: "she is awakening," said the doctor. the blue eyes opened slowly and looked wonderingly about the room. "mother," she said, in a weak voice, "mother--who are you?--" looking at the doctor and mrs. gray. "where am i?" and she tried to raise her head. "there, there, dear; lie still now and rest. you have been sick you know. we are your friends and this is the doctor. your mother shall come when you tell us where to send for her." the poor creature looked for a full minute into the kind old face above her, and then slowly the look of wonder in her eyes gave place to one of firmness, pain and sorrow, and the lips closed tightly, as though in fear that her secret would get out. "oh honey, don't look like that, don't. tell us who you are. have you no mother? i know you have. let us send for her at once, that she may come to you." the lips parted in a sweet, sad smile. "i'm going to die then? you would not look so if i were not. oh, i am so glad, so glad." and in a moment she was sleeping like a child. "poor girl," muttered doctor jordan, wiping his own eyes. very sharp professional eyes they were too. "i fear you will have to take her mother's place. i must go now, but i will look in again during the day. don't have any false hopes; there is nothing to be done, save to make the end easy." for an hour the stranger slept, with a smile on her lips; and then opened her eyes again. but there was no pain, no fear in them now; only just a shadow of trouble, as she asked in a whisper, "where is it?" the woman, with one hand smoothed back the hair from the forehead of her patient, and with the other pointed upward; the troubled shadow passed from the eyes of the young mother, and she slept again. later in the day, the doctor called, and once more she awoke. "i thank you, doctor," she said, in a weak voice; but shook her head when he offered her medicine. "but, dear child, it is only to relieve you from any pain." she answered, "you said i must go; let me go as i am. oh, this world is cold and harsh. god knows that i do not fear to die. christ, who welcomed little children, has my babe, and he knows that in my heart i am innocent." "but won't you tell us of your friends?" "no, no," she whispered. "i have no friends but you and god; and i have doubted even his love until you told me that he would take me." nor could any argument prevail upon her to change her mind; her only answer was a shake of the head. that evening, just after dusk, she whispered to her kind nurse, who sat by the bedside, "won't you tell me your name, please?" "they call me mother gray." "and may i call you that too?" "yes honey, of course you may," answered the old woman. "of course you may." "and why do you cry, mother?" as the tears rolled down the wrinkled face. "are you not glad that god is good to me? oh, i forgot, you are afraid for me. you don't understand." and she turned her face away. "is there anything i can do for you, dear? brother cameron is coming to see you just as soon as he gets home. would you like to talk to him?" "brother cameron--brother cameron--i have no brother," she answered, turning to mother gray again. "who is he?" "brother cameron is our pastor; a minister you know." the lips parted in a scornful smile, and the eyes flashed with a spark of fire that must have once been in them. "oh, a church member; no, i beg of you, don't let him come here; i want nothing to do with him." "but, my dear, he is a good man." "yes i know," said the girl. "i have met these good church people before." "but honey, i'm a church member." "you are a _christian_, mother; i love christ and his people; but a man can't prove himself a christian simply by being a church member. but i am tired. forgive me if i pain you, mother, but i cannot see the minister. he is a good man, a christian perhaps, but he can do me no good now; and i would rather die alone with you. the church has driven me from its doors so many, many times. it was always so cold and unfeeling. they bestow their pity on the dead bodies of people, and by their manner, freeze the souls of men." exhausted with the effort of so long a speech, she dropped into a stupor again. later, after rev. cameron had come and gone without seeing her, she suddenly opened her eyes and whispered, "mother, i have been thinking; would you be happier in knowing that i'm not afraid to die?" the good old woman tightened her grasp on the white hand she held, and made no other answer but to bow her gray head and press her lips to the forehead of the girl. "i know you would; and i'll tell you." "i lived--" she was interrupted by a low knock at the door and a sweet voice calling gently: "may i come in, mother gray?" it was amy, who had come at cameron's request. the sufferer half rose in her bed. "who is it?" she gasped. "i--i--know that voice." "there, there, dearie," returned the nurse, gently pushing her back on the pillows. "there, there, lie down again; it's only miss amy." "yes, come in," she called; and miss goodrich softly pushed open the door and entered. "i thought perhaps i could help you, mother gray," she said, as she removed her hat and arranged a beautiful bunch of flowers on a little stand in the center of the room. then turning to the sufferer, she was about to speak again when she paused and her face grew as white as the colorless face upon the pillow. the wide eyes of the dying girl stared back at her in doubting wonder, while the trembling lips tried to whisper her name. the next instant, amy had thrown herself on her knees, her arms about the wasted form upon the bed. "oh kate; kate;" she cried. "how did this happen? how came you here?" it was kate cushman, from oak springs farm. mother gray quickly recovered from her surprise, and with the instinct of a true nurse, calmed amy and soothed the patient. "there, there, my dears," she said. "god is good--god is good. let us thank him that he has brought you together. you must be brave and strong, miss amy. this poor dear needs our help. yes, yes, dear, be brave and strong." amy controlled herself with an effort, and rising from her knees, sat down on the edge of the bed, still holding kate's hand, while she assisted mother gray to soothe her. when she grew more quiet, amy said, "we must send for your father and mother at once; they can--" "no, no, you must not--you shall not--they do not know--in mercy, don't tell them--it would kill them. promise; oh promise me you will never tell them how i died. in pity for them, promise me." mother gray bowed her gray head, while the tears streamed down her wrinkled cheeks. "yes, yes, dearie, we'll promise. it's better that they do not know until it's all over; and they need never know all." and whispering to amy, she added, "the poor child can't last but a little longer." reassured, the sufferer sank back again with a long sigh, and closed her eyes wearily, but a moment later, opened them once more to look at amy. "i'm so glad you're here," she said feebly; "but i can't bear to have you think that i am all bad." and then in whispered, halting words, with many a break and pause, she told her story; a story all too common. and amy, listening with white horror-stricken face, guessed that which mother gray could not know, and which the sufferer tried to conceal, the name of her betrayer. "and so we were married in secret, or i thought we were," she concluded. "i know now that it was only a farce. he came to visit me twice after the sham ceremony that betrayed me, and i never saw him again until last night. oh god, forgive him; forgive him, i--i loved him so." the poor wronged creature burst into a fit of passionate sobbing that could not be controlled. in vain did mother gray try to soothe her. it was of no use. until at last, exhausted, she sank again into a stupor, from which she roused only once near morning, and then she whispered simply, "good-bye mother; goodbye miss amy. don't let father know." and just as the day dawned in all its glory, her soul, pure and unstained as that of her babe, took its flight, and the smile of innocent girlhood was upon her lips. when amy reached home early in the forenoon, she met her brother in the hallway, just going out. "you look like you'd been making a night of it," he said, with a contemptuous sneer. "been consoling some wanderer i suppose." the young woman made no reply, but stood with her back to the door, her eyes fixed on his face. "well, get out of my way," he said roughly; "can't you see i want to go out?" amy spoke--"i have been at the institution all night. kate cushman and the baby are both dead. go look at your work." frank started as though she had struck him; and then as she stepped aside, he fairly ran from the house as though in fear of his life. chapter xxix in the little country village of anderson, where the southern branch of the "memphis" joins the main line, a group of excited citizens were standing in front of the doctor's office. "you're right sure it's small-pox, are you, doc?" "there's no doubt of it," answered the physician. "who is he?" "he won't tell his name, but jack lane says it's frank goodrich. he came in day before yesterday on the 'memphis,' from boyd city, where they have just lost a case or two of the worst form." an angry murmur arose from the little group of men. "what you goin' to do, doc?" asked the spokesman. "i've sent to pleasantville for that nigger who has had the disease, and he'll be in as soon as he can get here. we must find some place out of town for the fellow to stay, and let old jake take care of him." jim boles spoke up. "thar's a cabin on my west forty, that's in purty good shape. a couple of us could fix her up in an hour or two; it's way back from the road, a good bit over a mile i reckon--in heavy timber too." "i know the place," said another. "we run a fox past there last winter, and found him denned in that ledge of rocks 'bout half a quarter on yon side." "that's it," said another. "it's sure out of the way all right." "well," said the doctor, "three or four of you go over there and fix up the cabin as comfortable as possible, and i'll have the negro take him out as soon as he comes." the cabin, which was built by some early settler, had long ago been abandoned, and was partly fallen into decay. tall weeds grew up through the ruins where the pole stable had stood; the roof and one side of the smoke-house had fallen in; and the chinking had crumbled from between the logs of the house; while the yard was overgrown with brush and a tangle of last season's dead grass and leaves, now wet and sodden with the late heavy rain. deep timber hid the place from view, and a hundred yards in front of the hovel a spring bubbled from beneath a ledge of rock, sending a tiny stream trickling away through the forest. jim boles and his helpers had just finished patching up the cabin roof and floor, after first building a huge fire in the long unused fireplace, when they heard the rattle of a wagon, and between the trees, caught a glimpse of a scrawny old horse, harnessed with bits of strap and string, to a rickety wagon, that seemed about to fall to pieces at every turn of the wheel. upon the board, used for a seat, sat an old negro, urging his steed through the patches of light and shadow with many a jerk of the rope lines, accompanied by an occasional whack from the long slender pole. behind the negro was a long object wrapped in blankets and comforters. "hullo!" shouted the colored man, catching sight of the cabin and the men. "am dis yar de horspital fer de small-pox diseases? dey dun tol' me ter foller de road; but fo' gawd, all de's yar roads look erlike ter me in dis yer place. nevah seed sich er lonsom ol' hole in all ma' bo'n days. reckon dars any hants in dat air ol' shack?" "no, this cabin is all right," shouted one of the men; "but you stay where you are till we get away." and they began gathering up their tools and garments. "all right, sah; all right, sah," grinned the negro. "you'uns jes clar out ob de way fer de amblance am er comin'. we dun got de right ob way dis trip, shor'." and so frank goodrich was established in the old log house, with the colored man to nurse him. a place was fixed upon where the doctor and citizens would leave such things as were needed, and jake could go and get them. three days passed, and then by bribes and threats and prayers, frank persuaded the negro to walk to pleasantville in the night and post a letter to rev. cameron, begging the minister to come to him, telling him only that he was in trouble and warning him to keep his journey secret. what fiend prompted young goodrich to take such a course cannot be imagined. but let us, in charity, try to think that he was driven to it by the fright and horrors of his condition. mrs. cameron was away in the far east visiting her parents, and when the minister received the letter, he made hurried preparations, and telling dick that he might be gone several days, left the city that evening. at a little way-station named in the letter, he found the negro, with his poor old horse and rickety wagon waiting him. "is you de parson?" asked the colored man. "yes, i am a minister," cameron answered, wondering much at the appearance of the darkey and his strange turn-out. and as he climbed up to the board seat, he questioned his guide rather sharply, but the only answer he could get was: "mistah goodrich dun tol' me ter hol' ma tongue er he'd hant me, an' i'm shor goin' t' do hit. golly, dis yere chile don't want no ghostes chasin' ob him 'roun'. no sah. i'se done fotch yo' t' mistah goodrich en he kin tell yo' what he's er mind ter." needless to say, all this did not add to cameron's peace of mind, and the moments seemed hours as the poor old horse stumbled on through the darkness of the night. at last they entered the timber, and how the negro ever guided his crippled steed past the trees and fallen logs and rocks was a mystery; but he did; and at last they saw the light of the cabin. "dar's de place, sah. dis yere's de horspital. we dun got yere at las'." and the colored jehu brought the horse to a stand-still near the tumbled down smoke-house. "go right in, s'ah; go right in. nobody dar but mistah goodrich. i put eway ol' mose." and he began fumbling at the ropes and strings that made the harness. cameron, burning with impatience and curiosity, stepped to the door of the cabin and pushed it open. by the dim light of a dirty kerosene lantern, he could see nothing at first; but a moaning voice from one end of the room, drew his attention in the right direction. "is that you, brother cameron?" he stepped to the side of the cot. "why frank, what are you doing here; and what is the matter?" "i'm sick," answered the young man, in a feeble voice. "i wanted to see you so bad. i'm awful glad you came." "but why are you here in this miserable place? i do not understand." "small-pox," muttered the sick man. "folks in town are afraid. the nigger takes care of me. he has had it." the minister involuntarily started back. "oh brother cameron, don't leave me here alone," cried frank. "i can't die like this." for one brief moment cameron trembled. he saw his danger and the trap into which he had fallen. he thought of his work and of his wife, and took one step toward the door; then stopped. "oh, i can't die alone," said the voice again. then with a prayer to his god for help, the minister made up his mind. "why of course i'll not leave you, frank," he said cheerily, resuming his seat. "you know that surely." and so this man of god wrote his friends in the city that he would be detained a few days, and stayed by the side of the wretched sufferer in the old cabin in the lonely woods. the disease was not slow in its work, and before many hours had passed, it was clear to cameron that the end was approaching. frank also realized that death was not far distant, and his awful fear was pitiful. "brother cameron," he whispered hoarsely, as he held his pastor's hand, while the old negro crouched by the fire-place smoking his cob pipe. "i must tell you--i've lived an awful life--people think that i'm a christian--but i've lived a lie--" then with a look that made cameron shudder, and in a voice strong with terror, he screamed, "o god, i shall go to hell. i shall go to hell. save me, brother cameron, save me. i always said that you were a good fellow. why do you let me die here like a dog? don't you know that i want to live? here you cursed nigger, go fetch a doctor. i'll haunt you if you don't. do as i say." the colored man chattering in fright, dropped his pipe in the ashes, and half rose as though to leave the room, but sank back again with his eyes fixed on rev. cameron, who was bending forward, his hand on the forehead of the dying man. "god knows all, frank," said the minister. "yes," muttered the other, "god knows all--all--all." then in a scream of anguish again, "he has been watching me all the time. he has seen me everywhere i went. he is here now. look! don't you see his eyes? look! brother cameron; look you nigger!--look there--" he pointed to one corner of the cabin. "oh, see those awful eyes, watching--watching--i have fooled men but i couldn't fool god. _don't. don't._--oh, christ, i want to live. save me--save me--" and he prayed and plead for jesus to heal him. "you know you could if you wanted to," he shouted, profanely; as though the saviour of men was present in the flesh. then to cameron again, "i must get out of here. don't you hear them coming? let me go i say," as the minister held him back on the bed. "let me go. don't you know that i can't look god in the face? i tell you, i'm afraid." for a moment he struggled feebly and then sank back exhausted; but soon began to talk again; and the minister heard with horror the dark secrets of his life. suddenly he ceased muttering, and with wide-open eyes, stared into the darkness. "look there, brother cameron," he cried, hoarse with emotion. "amy; don't you see her? she disgraced the family you know; ran away with that low-down printer. but see! look! who is that with her? oh god, it's kate--kate--yes, kate, i'll marry you. it can't be wrong, you know, for you love me. only we must not marry now for father would--look cameron--" his voice rose in a scream of fear. "she's got smallpox. drive her out, you nigger; take her away to that cabin in the woods where you kept me. sh'-- don't tell anyone, cameron, but she wants me to go with her. she's come to get me. and there's--there's--my god, look--yes--yes-- kate, i'm coming--" and he sank back on the bed again. the negro was on his knees trying to mumble a prayer, while the minister sat with bowed head. the lantern cast flickering shadows in the corners of the room, and the firelight danced and fell. a water bug crawled over the floor; a spider dropped from the rude rafters; and from without came the sound of the wind among the bare branches of the trees, and the old horse feeding on the dead grass and mouldy leaves about the cabin. suddenly the sick man spoke once more. "no sir, i will never disgrace you. i am as proud of our family as yourself. i am--home--day--" the sentence trailed off into a few unintelligible words in which only "mother" and "amy" could be distinguished. and then, with a last look about the cabin, from eyes in which anguish and awful fear was pictured, he gasped and was gone. the next day, the old negro dug a grave not far from the house, and at evening, when the sun was casting the last long shadows through the trees, the colored man and the minister lowered the body of the rich man's son, with the help of the rope lines from the old harness, to its last resting place. a few moments later, the darkey came around to the front of the house. "ready to go, sah?" "go where?" asked cameron. "why, go home ob course. i reckoned you'd be mighty glad ter get away from dis yer place." "i'm not going anywhere," the minister answered. "you may unhitch the horse again." the old man did as he was told; then scratching his woolly head, said to himself, "i golly. neber thought ob dat. i'll sure hab ter take care ob him next." in the days which followed, cameron wrote long letters to his wife, preparing her, with many loving words, for what was, in all probability, sure to come before she could reach home again. he also prepared an article for the whistler, telling of frank's death, but omitting all that would tend to injure the young man's character. to adam goodrich only, he wrote the awful truth. other letters containing requests in regard to his business affairs, he addressed to dick falkner and uncle bobbie wicks, and one to the president of the association, in which he made several recommendations in regard to the work. all of these, except the one to his wife, he placed in the hands of the negro to be mailed after his death, if such should be the end. then when the symptoms of the dread disease appeared, he calmly and coolly began his fight for life. but his efforts were of no avail; and one night, just before the break of day, he called the old colored man to his bedside and whispered, with a smile, "it's almost over, uncle jake; my master bids me come up higher. good-bye; you have been very kind to me, and the good father will not forget you." and so talking calmly of the master's goodness and love, he fell asleep, and the old negro sat with a look of awe and reverence on his dusky face, as the glorious sunlight filled the cabin and the chorus of the birds greeted the coming of the day. much that passed in the weeks following, cannot be written here. mrs. cameron's grief and anguish were too keen, too sacred, to be rendered in unsympathetic print. but sustained by that power which had ennobled the life of her husband, and kept by the promises of the faith that had strengthened him, she went on doing her part in the master's work, waiting in loving patience the call that would unite them again. a month after the news of cameron's death reached boyd city, the president of the association called on dick and spent an hour with him talking of the work. before leaving, he said: "mr. falkner, in rev. cameron's letter to me, he strongly recommended that you be called to take the place left vacant as director of the association. with your consent, i will announce that recommendation at our next meeting. but first, i would like to know what answer you would give." dick asked for a week to think over the matter, which was granted. and during that time he consulted elder wicks. uncle bobbie only said, as he grasped his young friend by the hand, "behold, i have set before you an open door." and dick bowed his head in silent assent. the same day, late in the afternoon, george udell was bending over some work that he was obliged to finish before going home. his helper had gone to supper, and the boy, a new one in the office, was cleaning up preparatory to closing for the night. "don't clean that press, jim," said the printer, suddenly. "what's the matter; don't you know that it's time to quit?" asked the tired youngster, a note of anxiety in his voice. "you can quit," replied george, "but i am going to run off some of this stuff before i go." and he proceeded to lock up the form. with a look of supreme disgust on his ink-stained countenance, the other removed his apron and vanished, as though fearing his employer might change his mind. at the foot of the stairs, the apprentice met clara wilson. "he's up there," he said with a grin, and hurried on out of the building, while the young lady passed slowly to the upper floor. the stamping of the press filled the room, and the printer, his eyes on his work, did not hear the door close behind the girl; and only when she stood at his elbow did he look up. the machine made three impressions on one sheet before he came to his senses; then he turned to the young lady inquiringly. "i--i--thought i'd stop and ask you to come over to the house this evening; mother wants to see you." "hum--m--m, anything important?" asked george, leaning against the press. "you see i'm pretty busy now." he shut off the power and stepped across the room as the phone rang. "hello--yes, this is udell's--i'm sorry, but it will be impossible--we close at six you know. come over first thing in the morning--can't do it; it's past six now, and i have an important engagement to-night. all right. good-bye." "oh, if you have an engagement i will go," said clara, moving toward the door. "you needn't be in a hurry," said george, with one of his queer smiles. "my engagement has been put off so many times it won't hurt to delay it a few minutes longer. and besides," he added, "the other party has done all the putting off so far, and i rather enjoy the novelty." the young lady blushed and hung her head, and then--but there--what right have we to look? it is enough for us to know that udell's engagement was put off no longer, and that he spent the evening at the wilson home, where the heart of clara's mother was made glad by the announcement she had long wished to hear. "law sakes," snapped the old lady; "i do hope you'll be happy. goodness knows you ought to be; you've waited long enough." and for just that once, all parties interested were agreed. charlie bowen is in an eastern college fitting himself for the ministry. his expenses are paid by mr. wicks. "to-be-sure," said uncle bobbie, "i reckon a feller might as well invest in young men as any other kind o' stock, an' the church needs preachers who know a little about the business of this world, as well as the world what's comin'. i don't know how my business will get along without the boy though, but i reckon if we look after christ's interests he won't let us go broke. to-be-sure, college only puts the trimmins' on, but if you've got a christian business man, what's all _man_ to begin with, they sure do put him in shape; an' i reckon the best 'aint none too good for god. but after all, it's mighty comfortin' for such old, uneducated sticks as me to know that 'taint the trimmings the good father looks at. ye can't tell a preacher by the long words in his sermon, no more 'n you can tell a church by the length of its steeple." five years later, two traveling men, aboard the incoming "frisco" passenger, were discussing the business outlook, when one pointed out of the window to the smoke-shrouded city. "that town is a wonder to me," he said. "why?" asked his fellow-drummer, who was making his first trip over that part of the road. "what's the matter with it? isn't it a good business town?" "good business town," ejaculated the other, "i should say it was. there's not a better in this section of the country. but it's the change in the character of the place that gets me. five years ago, there wasn't a tougher city in the whole west. every other door on broadway was a joint, and now--" "oh yes, i've heard that," interrupted the other, with a half sneer; "struck by a church revival or something, wasn't they? and built some sort of a salvation army rescuing home or mission?" "i'm not sure about the church revival," returned the other slowly, "though they do say there are more church members there now than in any other city of its size in the country. but i'm sure of one thing; they were struck by good, common-sense business christianity. as for the rescue home, i suppose you can call it that if you want to; but it's the finest block in the business portion of the city; and almost every man you meet owns a share in it. but here we are; you can see for yourself; only take my advice, and if you want to do business in boyd city, don't try to sneer at the churches, or laugh at their association." and indeed the traveling man might well wonder at the change a few years had brought to this city in the great coal fields of the middle west. in place of the saloons that once lined the east side of broadway and the principal streets leading to it, there were substantial buildings and respectable business firms. the gambling dens and brothels had been forced to close their doors, and their occupants driven to seek other fields for their degrading profession. cheap variety and vulgar burlesque troops had the city listed as no good, and passed it by, while the best of musicians and lecturers were always sure of crowded houses. the churches, of all denominations, had been forced to increase their seating capacity; and the attendance at high school and business college had enlarged four-fold; the city streets and public buildings, the lawns and fences even, by their clean and well-kept appearance, showed an honest pride, and a purpose above mere existence. but a stranger would notice, first of all, the absence of loafers on the street corners, and the bright, interested expressions and manners of the young men whom he chanced to meet. and does this all seem strange to you, reader, as to our friend, the traveling man? believe me, there is no mystery about it. it is just the change that comes to the individual who applies christ's teaching to his daily life. high purpose, noble activity, virtue, honesty and cleanliness. god has but one law for the corporation and the individual, and the teaching that will transform the life of a citizen will change the life of a city if only it be applied. the reading-room and institution established by the young people of the jerusalem church had accomplished its mission, and was absorbed into the larger one established by the citizens, where boys and girls, men and women, could hear good music, uplifting talk, and helpful entertainment; where good citizenship, good health, good morals, were all taught in the name of jesus. the institution was free in every department; visitors were restricted only by wholesome rules that in themselves were educational. co-operating with the city officials, it separated the vicious from the unfortunate, and removed not only the influence of evil, but the last excuse for it, by making virtue a pleasure, and tempting the public to live wholesomely. and as the traveling man testified, it paid from a business standpoint; or as uncle bobbie wicks tells his customers from other towns, "folks come to boyd city to live 'cause they 'aint 'fraid to have their boys 'n girls walk down the street alone." and after all, that's about the best recommendation a place can have. and perhaps the happiest couple in all that happy, prosperous city, as well as the best-loved of her citizens, is the young manager of the association, mr. richard falkner, and his beautiful wife, amy. but dick will soon leave his present position to enter a field of wider usefulness at the national capitol. for the people declared, at the last election, that their choice for representative was "that printer of udell's." and before they leave for their washington home, dick and amy will pay still another visit to a lonely spot near the little village of anderson. there, where the oaks and hickorys cast their flickering shadows on the fallen leaves and bushes, and the striped ground-squirrel has his home in the rocks; where the redbird whistles to his mate, and at night, the sly fox creeps forth to roam at will; where nature, with vine of the wild grape, has builded a fantastic arbor, and the atmosphere is sweet with woodland flowers and blossoms, not far from the ruins of an old cabin, they will kneel before two rough mounds of earth, each marked with a simple headstone, one bearing no inscription save the name and date; the other this: "inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me." the end. distributed proofreaders canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net [illustration] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ the happy average by brand whitlock author of "her infinite variety," "the th district, etc." illustrated by howard chandler christy a. l. burt company publishers new york ------------------------------------------------------------------------ copyright, the bobbs-merrill company october ------------------------------------------------------------------------ the happy average chapter i a young man's fancy "come on, old man." lawrence led the way with a jaunty step that was intended to show his easy footing with the carters. but marley lagged behind. even if calling on girls had not been such a serious business with him, he could not forget that he was just graduated from college and that a certain dignity befitted him. he wished lawrence would not speak so loud; the girls might hear, and think he was afraid; he wished to keep the truth from them as long as possible. he had already caught a glimpse of the girls, or thought he had, but before he could make sure, the vague white figures on the veranda stirred; he heard a scurrying, and the loose bang of a screen door. then it was still. lawrence laughed--somehow, as marley felt, derisively. the way from the sidewalk up to the carters' veranda was not long, of course, though it seemed long to marley, and marley's deliberation made it seem long to lawrence. they paused at the steps of the veranda, and lawrence made a low bow. "good evening, mrs. carter," he said. "ah, captain, you here too?" marley had not noticed the captain, or mrs. carter; they sat there so quietly, enjoying the cool of the evening, or such cool as a july evening can find in central ohio. "my friend, mr. marley, mrs. carter--glenn marley--you've heard of him, captain." marley bowed and said something. the presentation there in the darkness made it rather difficult for him, and neither the captain nor his wife moved. lawrence sat down on the steps and fanned himself with his hat. "been a hot day, captain," he said. "think there's any sign of rain?" he sniffed the air. the captain did not need to sniff the air to be able to reply, in a voice that rumbled up from his bending figure, that he had no hope of any. "mayme's home, ain't she?" asked lawrence, turning to mrs. carter. "i'll go see," said mrs. carter, and she rose quickly, as if glad to get away, and the screen door slammed again. "billy was in the bank to-day," lawrence went on, speaking to captain carter. "he said your wheat was ready to cut. did you get foose all right?" "yes," said the captain, "he'll give me next week." "do you have to board the threshers?" "no, not this year; they bring along their own cook, and a tent and everything." "je-rusalem!" exclaimed lawrence. "things _are_ changing in these days, ain't they? harvesting ain't as hard on the women-folks as it used to be." "no," said the captain, "but i pay for it, so much extra a bushel." his head shook regretfully, but he would have lost his regrets in telling of the time when he had swung a cradle all day in the harvest field, had not mrs. carter's voice just then been heard calling up the stairs: "mayme!" "whoo!" answered a high, feminine voice. "come down. there's some one here to see you." mrs. carter turned into the parlor, and the tall windows that opened to the floor of the veranda burst into light. "she'll be right down, john," said mrs. carter, appearing in the door. "you give me your hats and go right in." "all right," said lawrence, and he got to his feet. "come on, glenn." mrs. carter took the hats of the young men and hung them on the rack, where they might easily have hung them themselves. then she went back to the veranda, letting the screen door bang behind her, and lawrence and marley entered the parlor. marley took his seat on one of the haircloth chairs that seemed to have ranged themselves permanently along the walls, and lawrence went to the square piano that stood across one corner of the room, and sat down tentatively on the stool, swinging from side to side. marley glanced at the pictures on the walls. one of them was a steel engraving of lincoln and his cabinet; another, in a black oval frame, portrayed captain carter in uniform, his hair dusting the strapped shoulders of a coat made after the pattern that seems to have been worn so uncomfortably by the heroes of the civil war. there was, however, a later picture of the captain, a crayon enlargement of a photograph, that had taken him in civilian garb. this picture, in its huge gilt frame, was the most aggressive thing in the room, except, possibly, the walnut what-not. marley had a great fear of the what-not; it seemed to him that if he stirred he must topple it over, and dash its load of trinkets to the floor. presently he heard the swish of skirts. then a tall girl came in, and lawrence sprang to his feet. "hello, mayme. what'd you run for?" he said. he had crossed the room and seized the girl's hand. she flashed a rebuke at him, though it was evident that the rebuke was more out of deference to the strange presence of marley than for any real resentment she felt. "this is my friend, mr. marley, miss carter," lawrence said. "you've heard me speak of him." marley edged away from the what-not, rose and took the hand the girl gave him. then miss carter crossed to the black haircloth sofa and seated herself, smoothing out her skirts. "didn't know what to do, so we thought we'd come out and see you," said lawrence. "oh, indeed!" said miss carter. "well, it's too bad about you. we'll do when you can't find anybody else to put up with you, eh?" "oh, yes, you'll do in a pinch," chaffed lawrence. "well, can't you find a comfortable seat?" the girl asked, still addressing lawrence, who had gone back to the piano stool. "i'm going to play in a minute," said lawrence, "and sing." "well, excuse _me_!" implored miss carter. "do let me get you a seat." lawrence promptly went over to the sofa and leaned back in one corner of it, affecting a discomfort. "can't i get you a pillow, mr. lawrence?" miss carter asked presently. "or perhaps a cot; i believe there's one somewhere in the attic." "oh, i reckon i can stand it," said lawrence. marley had regained his seat on the edge of the slippery chair. "where's vinie?" asked lawrence. "she's coming," answered miss carter. "taking out her curl papers, eh?" said lawrence. "she needn't mind us." miss carter pretended a disgust, but as she was framing a retort, somehow, the eyes of all of them turned toward the hall door. a girl in a gown of white stood there clasping and unclasping her hands curiously, and looking from one to another of those in the room. "come in, lavinia," said miss carter. something had softened her voice. the girl stepped into the room almost timidly. "miss blair," said miss carter, "let me introduce mr. marley." the sudden consciousness that he had been sitting--and staring--smote marley, and he sprang to his feet. embarrassment overpowered him and he bowed awkwardly. lawrence had been silent, and his silence had been a long one for him. seeming to recognize this he hastened to say: "well, how's the world using you, vinie?" the girl smiled and answered: "oh, pretty well, thank you, jack." it grated on marley to hear her called vinie. lavinia blair! lavinia blair! that was her name. he had heard it before, of course, yet it had never sounded as it did now when he repeated it to himself. the girl had seated herself in a rocking-chair across the room, almost out of range, as it were. he was rather glad of this, if anything. it seemed to relieve him of the duty of talking to her. he supposed, of course, they would pair off somehow. the young people always did in macochee. he supposed he had been brought there to pair off with lavinia blair. he liked the thought, yet the position had its responsibilities. somehow he never could forget that he could not dance. he hoped they would not propose dancing. he always had a fear of that in making calls, and all the calls he made seemed to come to it soon or late; some one always proposed it. marley was aware that lawrence and mayme carter had resumed the exchange of their rude repartee, though he did not know what they had said. they kept laughing, too. lavinia blair seemed to join in the laughter if not in the badinage. marley wished he might join in it. jack lawrence was evidently funnier than ever that night; mayme carter was convulsed. now and then lawrence said something to her in a tone too low for the others to hear, and these remarks pushed her to the verge of hysterics. marley had a notion they were laughing at him. meanwhile lavinia blair sat with her hands in her lap, smiling as though she were amused. marley wondered if he amused her. he felt that he ought to say something, but he did not know what to say. he thought of several things, but, as he turned them over in his mind, he was convinced that they were not appropriate. so he sat and looked at lavinia blair, looked at her eyes, her mouth, her hair. he thought he had never seen such a complexion. mayme carter had snatched her handkerchief back from lawrence, and retreated to her end of the sofa. there she sat up stiffly, folded her hands, and, though her mirth still shook her spasmodically, she said: "now, jack, behave yourself." lawrence burlesqued a surprise, and said: "i'll leave it to vine if i've done anything." marley wondered how much further abbreviation lavinia blair's name would stand, but he was suddenly aware that he was being addressed. miss carter, with an air of dismissing lawrence, said: "you have not been in macochee long, have you, mr. marley?" marley admitted that he had not, but said that he liked the town. when lawrence explained that marley was going to settle down there and become one of them, miss carter said she was awfully glad, but warned him against associating too much with lawrence. this embarrassed marley, if it did not lawrence, and he immediately gave the scene to lawrence, who guessed he would sing his song. to do so he went to the piano, and began to pick over the frayed sheets of music that lay on its green cover. to forestall him, however, miss carter rushed across the room and slid on to the piano stool herself, saying breathlessly: "anything to stop that!" she struck a few vagrant chords, and marley, glad of a subject on which he could express himself, pleaded with her to play. at last she did so. when she had finished, lawrence clapped his hands loudly, and stopped only when a voice startled them. it was mrs. carter calling through the window: "play your new piece, mayme!" miss carter demurred, but after they had argued the question through the window, the daughter gave in, and played it. the music soothed lawrence to silence, and when miss carter completed her little repertoire, his mockery could recover itself no further than to say: "won't you favor us, miss blair?" when lavinia blair declined, he struck an imploring attitude and said: "oh, please do! we're dying to hear you. you didn't leave your music at home, did you?" marley heard the chairs scraping on the veranda, and the screen door slammed once more. then he heard captain carter go up the stairs, while mrs. carter halted in the doorway of the parlor long enough to say: "you lock the front door when you come up, mayme." mayme without turning replied "all right," and when her mother had disappeared she said: "it's awful hot in here, let's go outside." marley found himself strolling in the yard with lavinia blair. the moon had not risen, but the girl's throat and arms gleamed in the starlight; her white dress seemed to be a cloud of gauze; she floated, rather than walked, there by his side. they paused by the gate. about them were the voices of the summer night, the crickets, the katydids, far away the frogs, chirping musically. they stood a while in the silence, and then they turned, and were talking again. marley did most of the talking, and all he said was about himself, though he did not realize that this was so. he had already told her of his life in the towns where his father had preached before he came to macochee, and of his four years in college at delaware. he tried to give her some notion of the sense of alienation he had felt as the son of an itinerant methodist minister; for him no place had ever taken on the warm color and expression of home. he explained that as yet he knew little of macochee, having been away at college when his father moved there the preceding fall. it was so easy to talk to her, and as he told her of his ambitions, the things he was going to do became so many, and so easy. he was going to become a lawyer; he thought he should go to cincinnati. "and leave macochee?" said lavinia blair. marley caught his breath. "would you care?" he whispered. she did not answer. he heard the crickets, the katydids, the frogs again; there came the perfume of the lilacs, late flowering that year; the heavy odor of a shrub almost overpowered him. "my father is a lawyer," lavinia said. they had turned off the path, and were wandering over the lawn. the dew sparkled on it; and marley became solicitous. "won't you get your feet wet?" he asked. the girl laughed at the idea, but she caught up her skirts, and they wandered on in the shade of the tall elms. marley did not know where they were. the yard seemed an endless garden, immense, unknown, enchanted; the dark trees all around him stood like the forest of some park, and the lawn stretched away to fall over endless terraces; he imagined statues and fountains gleaming in the heavy shadows of the trees. the house seemed lost in the distance, though he felt its presence there behind him. once he saw the twinkle of a passing light in an upper story. he could no longer hear the voices of mayme and lawrence, but he caught the tinkling notes of a banjo, away off somewhere. its music was very sweet. they strolled on, their feet swishing in the damp grass, then suddenly there was a rush, a loud barking, and a dog sprang at them out of the darkness. lavinia gave a little cry. marley was startled; he felt that he must run, yet he thought of the girl beside him. he must not let her see his fear. he stepped in front of her. he could feel her draw more closely to him, and he thrilled as the sense of his protectorship came to him. he must think of some heroic scheme of vanquishing the dog, but it stopped in its mad rush, and lavinia, standing aside, said: "why, it's only sport!" they laughed, and their laugh was the happier because of the relief from their fear. "we must have wandered around behind the house," said lavinia. "there's the shed." they turned, and went back. the enchantment of the yard had departed. marley seemed to see things clearly once more, though his heart still beat as he felt the delicious sense of protectorship that had come over him as lavinia shrank to his side at the moment the dog rushed at them. nor could he ever forget her face as she smiled up at him in the little opening they came into on the side lawn. the young moon was just sailing over the trees. as they approached the veranda, lawrence's voice called out of the darkness: "well, where have you young folks been stealing away to?" chapter ii wade powell marley halted at the threshold and glanced up at the sign that swung over the doorway. the gilt lettering of the sign had long ago been tarnished, and where its black sanded paint had peeled in many weathers the original tin was as rusty as the iron arm from which it creaked. yet macochee had long since lost its need of the shingle to tell it where wade powell's law office was. it had been for many years in one of the little rooms of the low brick building in miami street, just across from the court house; it was almost as much of an institution as the court house itself, with which its triumphs and its trials were identified. marley gathered enough courage from his inspection of the sign to enter, but once inside, he hesitated. then a heavy voice spoke. "well, come in," it said peremptorily. wade powell, sitting with his feet on his table, held his newspaper aside and looked at marley over his spectacles. marley had had an ideal of wade powell, and now he had to pause long enough to relinquish the ideal and adjust himself to the reality. the hair was as disordered as his young fancy would have had it, but it was thinner than he had known it in his dreams, and its black was streaked with gray. the face was smooth-shaven, which accorded with his notion, though it had not been shaven as recently as he felt it should have been. but he could not reconcile himself to the spectacles that rested on powell's nose, and pressed their bows into the flesh of his temples--the eagle eyes of the wade powell of his imagination had never known glasses. when wade powell slowly pulled his spectacles from his nose and tossed them on to the table before him, he bent his eyes on marley, and their gaze, under their heavy brows, somewhat restored him, but it could not atone for the disappointment. perhaps the disappointment that marley felt in this moment came from some dim, unrealized sense that wade powell was growing old. the spectacles, the gray in his hair, the wrinkles in his face, the looseness of the skin at his jaws and at his throat--where a fold of it hung between the points of his collar--all told that wade powell had passed the invisible line which marks life's summit, and that his face was turned now toward the evening. there was the touch of sadness in the indistinct conception of him as a man who had not altogether realized the ambitions of his youth or the predictions of his friends, and the sadness came from the intuition that the failure or the half-failure was not of the heroic kind. the office in which he sat, and on which, in the long years, he had impressed his character, was untidy; the floor was dirty, the books on the shelves were dusty and leaning all awry; the set of the ohio reports had not been kept up to date; one might have told by a study of them at just what period enterprise and energy had faltered, while the gaps here and there showed how an uncalculating generosity had helped a natural indolence by lending indiscriminately to other lawyers, who, with the lack of respect for the moral of the laws they pretended to revere, had borrowed with no thought of returning. two or three pictures hung crookedly on the walls; the table at which powell sat was old and scarred; its ink-stand had long ago gone dry and been abandoned; a cheap bottle, with its cork rolling tipsily by its side, had taken the ink-stand's place. the papers scattered over the table had an air of hopelessness, as though they had grown tired, like the clients they represented, in waiting for powell's attention. the half-open door at the back led into a room that had been, and possibly might yet be, used as a private office or consulting room, should any one care to brave its darkness and its dust; but as for wade powell, it was plain that he preferred to sit democratically in the outer office, where all might see him, and, what was of more importance to him, where he might see all. the one new thing in the room was a typewriter, standing on its little sewing-machine table, in the corner of the room. there was no stenographer nor any chair for one; marley imagined powell, whenever he had occasion to write, sitting down to the machine himself, and picking out his pleadings painfully, laboriously and slowly, letter by letter, using only his index fingers. and this somehow humbled his ideal the more. marley almost wished he hadn't come. "what's on your mind, young man?" said wade powell, leaning back in his chair and dropping his long arm at his side until his newspaper swept the floor. marley had seated himself in a wooden chair that was evidently intended for clients, and he began nervously. "well, i--" here he stopped, overcome again by an embarrassment. a smile spread over wade powell's face, a gentle smile with a winning quality in it, and his face to marley became young again. "tell your troubles," he said. "i've confessed all the young men in macochee for twenty-five years. yes--thirty-five--" he grew suddenly sober as he numbered the years and then exclaimed as if to himself: "my god! has it been that long?" he took out his watch and looked at it as if it must somehow correct his reckoning. for a moment, then, he thought; his gaze was far away. but marley brought him back when he said: "i only want--i only want to study law." "oh!" said powell, and he seemed somehow relieved. "is that all?" to marley this seemed quite enough, and the disappointment he felt, which was a part of the effect wade powell's office had had on him, showed suddenly in his face. powell glanced quickly at him, and hastened to reassure him. "we can fix that easily enough," he said. "have you ever read any law?" "no," said marley. "been to college?" marley told him that he had just that summer been graduated and when he mentioned the name of the college powell said: "the methodists, eh?" he could hardly conceal a certain contempt in the tone with which he said this, and then, as if instantly regretting the unkindness, he observed: "it's a good school, i'm told." he could not, however, evince an entire approval, and so seeming to desert the subject he hastened on: "what's your name?" "glenn marley." "oh!" wade powell dropped his feet to the floor and sat upright. "are you preacher marley's son?" marley did not like to hear his father called "preacher," and when he said that he was the son of doctor marley, powell remarked: "i've heard him preach, and he's a damn good preacher too, i want to tell you." marley warmed under this profane indorsement. he had always, from a boy, felt somehow that he must defend his father's position as a preacher from the world, as with the little world of his boyhood and youth he had always had to defend his own position as the son of a preacher. "yes, sir, he's a good preacher, and a good man," powell went on. he had taken a cigar from his pocket and was nipping the end from it with his teeth. he lighted it, and leaned back comfortably again to smoke, and then in tardy hospitality he drew another cigar from his waistcoat pocket and held it toward marley. "smoke?" he said, and then he added apologetically, "i didn't think; i never do." marley declined the cigar, but powell pressed it on him, saying: "well, your father does, i'll bet. give it to him with wade powell's compliments. he won't hesitate to smoke with a publican and sinner." marley smiled and put the cigar away in his pocket. "i don't know, though," powell went on slowly, speaking as much to himself as to marley, while he watched the thick white clouds he rolled from his lips, "that he'd want you to be in my office. i know some of the _brethren_ wouldn't approve. they'd think i'd contaminate you." marley would have hastened to reassure powell had he known how to do so without seeming to recognize the possibility of contamination; but while he hesitated powell avoided the necessity for him by asking: "did your father send you to me?" he looked at marley eagerly, and with an expression of unfounded hope, as he awaited the answer. "no," replied marley, "he doesn't know. i haven't talked with him at all. i have to do something and i've always thought i'd go into the law. i presume it would be better to go to a law school, but father couldn't afford that after putting me through college. i thought i could read law in some office, and maybe get admitted that way." "sure," said powell, "it's easy enough. you'll have to learn the law after you get to practising anyway--and there isn't much to learn at that. it's mostly a fake." marley looked at him in some alarm, at this new smiting of an idol. "i began to read law," powell went on, "under old judge colwin--that is, what i read. i used to sit at the window with a book in my lap and watch the girls go by. still," he added with a tone of doing himself some final justice, "it was a liberal education to sit under the old judge's drippings. i learned more that way than i ever did at the law school." he smoked on a moment, ruminating on his lost youth; then, bringing himself around to business again, he said: "how'd you happen to come to me?" "well," said marley, haltingly, "i'd heard a good deal of you--and i thought i'd like you, and then i've heard father speak of you." "you have?" said powell, looking up quickly. "yes." "what'd he say?" "well, he said you were a great orator and he said you were always with the under dog. he said he liked that." powell turned his eyes away and his face reddened. "well, let's see. if you think your father would approve of your sitting at the feet of such a gamaliel as i, we can--" he was squinting painfully at his book-shelves. "is that blackstone over there on the top shelf?" marley got up and glanced along the backs of the dingy books, their calfskin bindings deeply browned by the years, their red and black labels peeling off. "here's blackstone," he said, taking down a book, "but it's the second volume." "second volume, eh? don't see the first around anywhere, do you?" marley looked, without finding it. "then see if walker's there." marley looked again. "walker's _american law_," powell explained. "i don't see it," marley said. "no, i reckon not," assented powell, "some one's borrowed it. i seem to run a sort of circulating library of legal works in this town, without fines--though we have statutes against petit larceny. well, hand me swan's _treatise_. that's it, on the end of the second shelf." marley took down the book, and gave it to powell. while marley dusted his begrimed fingers with his handkerchief, powell blew the dust off the top of the book; he slapped it on the arm of his chair, the dust flying from it at every stroke. he picked up his spectacles, put them on and turned over the first few leaves of the book. "you might begin on that," he said presently, "until we can borrow a blackstone or a walker for you. this book is the best law-book ever written anyway; the law's all there. if you knew all that contains, you could go in any court and get along without giving yourself away; which is the whole duty of a lawyer." he closed the book and gave it to marley, who was somewhat at a loss; this was the final disappointment. he had thought that his introduction into the mysteries of the noble profession should be attended by some sort of ceremony. he looked at the book in his hand quite helplessly and then looked up at powell. "is that--all?" he said. "why, yes," powell answered. "isn't that enough?" "i thought--that is, that i might have some duties. how am i to begin?" "why, just open the book to the first page and read that, then turn over to the second page and read that, and so on--till you get to the end." "what will my hours be?" "your hours?" said powell, as if he did not understand. "oh, just suit yourself." marley was looking at the book again. "don't you make any entry--any memorandum?" he asked, still unable to separate himself from the idea that something formal, something legal, should mark the beginning of such an important epoch. "oh, you keep track of the date," said powell, "and at the end of three years i'll give you a certificate. you may find that you can do most of your reading at home, but come around." marley looked about the office, trying to imagine himself in this new situation. "i'd like, you know," he said, "to do something, if i could, to repay you for your trouble." "that's all right, my boy," said powell. then he added as if the thought had just come to him: "say, can you run a typewriter?" "i can learn." "well, that's more than i can do," said powell, glancing at his new machine. "i've tried, but it would take a stationary engineer to operate that thing. you might help out with my letters and my pleadings now and then. and i'd like to have you around. you'd make good company." "well," said marley, "i'll be here in the morning." he still clung to the idea that he was to be a part of the office, to be an identity in the local machinery of the law. as he rose to go, a young man appeared in the doorway. he was tall, and the english cap and the rough scotch suit he wore, with the trousers rolled up over his heavy tan shoes, enabled marley to identify him instantly as young halliday. he was certain of this when powell, looking up, said indifferently: "hello, george. raining in london?" "oh, i say, powell," replied halliday, ignoring a taunt that had grown familiar to him, "that zeller case--we would like to have that go over to the fall term, if you don't mind." "why don't you settle it?" asked powell. halliday was leaning against the door-post, and had drawn a short brier pipe from his pocket. before he answered, he paused long enough to fill it with tobacco. then he said: "you'll have to see the governor about that--it's a case he's been looking after." "oh, well," said powell, with his easy acquiescence, "all right." halliday had pressed the tobacco into the bowl of the pipe and struck a match. "then, i'll tell old bill," he said, pausing in his sentence to light his pipe, "to mark it off the assignment." marley watched halliday saunter away, with a feeling that mixed admiration with amazement. he could not help admiring his clothes, and he felt drawn toward him as a college man from a school so much greater than his own, though he felt some resentment because halliday had never once given a sign that he was aware of marley's presence. his amazement came from the utter disrespect with which halliday referred to judge blair. old bill! marley had caught his breath. he would have liked to discuss halliday with powell, but the lawyer seemed to be as indifferent to halliday's existence as halliday had been to marley's, and when marley saw that powell was not likely to refer to him, he started toward the door. as he went powell resumptively called after him: "i'll get a blackstone for you in a day or two. be down in the morning." marley went away bearing swan's _treatise_ under his arm. he looked up at the court house across the way; the trees were stirring in the light winds of summer, and their leaves writhed joyously in the sun. the windows of the court house were open, and he could hear the voice of some lawyer arguing a cause to the jury. marley thought of judge blair sitting there, the jury in its box, the sleepy bailiff drowsing in his place, the accustomed attorneys and the angry litigants, and his heart began to beat a little more rapidly, for the thought of judge blair brought the thought of lavinia blair. and in the days to come, when he should be arguing a cause to a jury, as that lawyer, whose voice came pealing and echoing in sudden and surprising shouts through the open windows, was arguing a cause now, would lavinia blair be interested? he had imagined that a day so full of importance for him would be marked by greater ceremonials, and yet while he was disappointed, he was reassured. he had solved a problem, he had done with inaction, he had made a beginning, he was entered at last upon a career. as all the events of the recent years rushed on him, the years of college life, the decisions and indecisions of his classmates, their vague troubles about a career, he felt a pride that he had so soon solved that problem. he felt a certain superiority too, that made him carry his head high, as he turned into main street and marched across the square. it required only decision and life was conquered. he saw the years stretching out prosperously before him, expanding as his ambitions expanded. he was glad that he had tackled life so promptly, that he had come so quickly to an issue with it; it was not so bad, viewed thus close, as it had been from a distance. he laughed at the folly of all the talk he had heard about the difficulty of young men getting a start in these days; he must write to his fraternity fellows at once, and tell them what he had done and how he was succeeding. they would surely see that at the bar he would do, not only himself, but them, the greatest credit, and they would be proud. chapter iii greenwood lake the girls, flitting about with nervous laughter and now and then little screams, had spread long cloths over the table of plain boards that had served so many picnic parties at greenwood lake; the table-cloths and the dresses of the girls gleamed white in the amber light that streamed across the little sheet of water, though the slender trees, freshened by the morning shower that threatened to spoil the outing, were beginning to darken under the shadows that diffused themselves subtly through the grove, as if there were exudations of the heavy foliage. lawrence, in his white ducks, stood by the table, assuming to direct the laying of the supper. his immense cravat of blue was the only bit of color about him, unless it were his red hair, which he had had clipped that very morning, and his shorn appearance intensified his comic air. marley, sitting apart on the stump of a small oak, could hear the burlesque orders lawrence shouted at the girls. the girls were convulsed by his orders; at times they had to put their dishes down lest in their laughter they spill the food or break the china; just then marley saw mayme carter double over suddenly, her mass of yellow hair lurching forward to her brow, while the woods rang with her laughter. the other men were off looking after the horses. lavinia moved quickly here and there, smiling joyously, her face flushed; though she laughed as the others did at lawrence's drollery, she did not laugh as loudly, and she did not scream. just now she rose from bending over the table, and brushed her brown hair from her brow with the back of her hand, while she stood and surveyed the table as if to see what it lacked. when she raised her hand the sleeve of her muslin gown fell away from her wrist and showed her slender forearm, white in the calm light of evening. marley could not take his eyes from her. she ran into the pavilion, her little low shoes flashed below her petticoats, and he grew sad; when she reappeared, all her movements seemed to be new, to have fresh beauties. then he suspected that the girls were laughing at him and he felt miserable. he thought of himself sitting alone and apart, an awkward, ungainly figure. he longed to go away, yet he feared that, if he did, he would not have the courage to come back. he shifted his position, only to make matters worse. then suddenly his feeling took the form of a rage with lawrence; he longed to seize lawrence and kick him, to pitch him into the lake, to humiliate him before the girls. he thought he saw all at once that lawrence had been making fun of him, surreptitiously; that was what had made the girls laugh so. there was some little consolation in the thought that lavinia did not laugh as much as the others; perhaps, if she did not care to defend him, she at least pitied him. and then he began to pity himself. the whole evening stretched before him; pretty soon he would have to move up to the table, and sit down on the narrow little benches that were fastened between the trees; then after supper they would begin their dancing and when that came he did not see what he could do. the only pleasure he had had that afternoon had been on the way out; he had been alone with lavinia, and the four miles of pleasant road that lay between the town and greenwood lake were too short for all the happiness marley found in them. he could feel lavinia again by his side, her hands folded on the thin old linen lap-robe. he could not recall a word they had said, but it seemed to him that the conversation had flowed on intimately and tranquilly; she had been so close and sympathetic; and he would always remember how her eyes had been raised to his. the fields with the wheat in shock had swept by in the beauty of harvest time; the road, its dust laid by the morning shower, had rolled under the wheels of the buggy softly, smoothly and noiselessly; the air had been odorous with the scent of green things freshened by the rain, and had vibrated with the sounds of summer. then suddenly his reverie was broken. the men were gathering about the table with the girls; all of them looked at him expectantly. "here, you!" called lawrence. "do you think we're going to do all the work? come, get in the game, and don't look so solemn--this ain't a funeral." they all laughed, and marley felt his face flame, but he rose and went over to the table, halting in indecision. "run get some water," ordered lawrence, imperatively waving his hand. "mayme," he shouted, "hand him the pitcher! step lively, now. the men-folks are hungry after their day's work. has any one got a pitcher concealed about his person? what did you do with the pitcher, glenn? take it to water your horse?" they were laughing uproariously, and marley was plainly discomfited. but lavinia stepped to his side, a large white pitcher in her hand. "i'll show you," she said. they started away together, and marley felt a protection in her presence. a little way farther he suddenly thought of the pitcher, which lavinia still was bearing, and he took it from her. as he seized the handle their fingers became for an instant entangled. "did i hurt you?" he asked. "oh, no!" she assured him, and as they walked on, out of the sight of the laughing group behind them, an ease came over him. "do you know where the well is?" he asked. "oh, yes," she answered. "it's down here. i could have come just as well as not." "i'm glad to come," he said; and then he added, "with _you_." they had reached the wooden pump behind the pavilion. the little sheet of water curved away like a crescent, following the course of the stream of which it was but a widening. its little islands were mirrored in its surface. the sun was just going down, the sky beyond the lake was rosy, and the same rosy hue now suffused everything; the waters themselves were reddened. it was very still, and the peace of the evening lay on them both. lavinia stood motionless, and looked out across the water to the little ohio hills that rolled away toward the west. she stood and gazed a long time, her hands at her sides, yet with their fingers open and extended, as if the beauty of the scene had suddenly transfixed her. marley did not see the lake or the sun, the islands or the hills; he saw only the girl before him, the outline of her cheek, the down on it showing fine in the pure light, the hair that nestled at her neck, the curve from her shoulder to her arms and down to her intent fingers. at last she sighed, and looked up at him. "isn't it all beautiful?" she said solemnly. "beautiful?" he repeated, as if in question, not knowing what she said. just then they heard lawrence hallooing, and marley began to pump vigorously. he rinsed out the pitcher, then filled it, and they went back, walking closely side by side, and they did not speak all the way. mayme carter, who, as it seemed, had a local reputation as a compounder of lemonade, had the lemons and the sugar all ready when marley and lavinia rejoined the group, and lawrence, as he seized the pitcher, said: "i see that, between you, you've spilled nearly all of the water, but i guess mayme and i'll have to make it do." the others laughed at this, as they did at all of lawrence's speeches, and then they turned and laughed at marley and lavinia, though the men, who as yet did not feel themselves on terms with marley, had a subtile manner of not including him in their ridicule, however little they spared lavinia. the supper was eaten with the hunger their spirits and the fresh air had given them and marley, placed, as of course, by lavinia's side, felt sheltered by her, as he felt sheltered by all the talk that raged about him. he wished that he could join in the talk, but he could not discover what it was all about. once, in a desperate determination to assert himself, he did mention a book he had been reading, but his remark seemed to have a chilling effect from which they did not recover until lawrence, out of his own inexhaustible fund of nonsense, restored them to their inanities. he tried to hide his embarrassment by eating the cold chicken, the ham and sardines, the potato chips and pickles, the hard-boiled eggs and sandwiches that went up and down the board in endless procession, and he was thankful, when he thought of it, that lawrence seemed to forget him, though lawrence had forgotten no one else there. he seemed to note accurately each mouthful every one took. "hand up another dozen eggs for miss winters, joe," he called to one of the men, and then they all laughed at miss winters. when the cake came, lawrence identified each kind with some remark about the mother of the girl who had brought it, and tasted all, because, as he said, he could not afford to show partiality. the fun lagged somewhat as the meal neared its end, but lawrence revived it instantly and sensationally by rising suddenly, bending far over toward lavinia in a tragic attitude and saying: "why, vine, child, you haven't eaten a mouthful! i do believe you're in love!" the company burst into laughter, but they suddenly stopped when they saw marley. his face showed his anger with them, and he made a little movement, but lavinia smiled up at lawrence, and said: "well, jack, it's evident that _you're_ not." and then they all laughed at lawrence, and the girls clapped their hands, while marley, angry now with himself, tried to laugh with them. when they stopped laughing lawrence produced his cigarettes, and tossing one to marley in a way that delicately conveyed a sense of intimacy and affection, he said: "when you girls get your dishes done up we'll be back and see if we can't think up something to entertain you," and then he called marley and with him and the other men strolled down to the lake. chapter iv moonlight the dance was proposed almost immediately. marley had hoped up to the very last minute that something, possibly a miracle, would prevent it, but scarcely had the men finished their first cigarettes before howard was saying: "well, let's be getting back to the girls. they'll want to dance." howard spoke as if the dancing would be a sacrifice on the part of the men to the pleasure of the girls, but they all turned at once, some of them flinging their cigarettes into the water, as if to complete the sacrifice, and started back. when they reached the pavilion, payson and gallard took instruments out of green bags, payson a guitar and gallard a mandolin, and lawrence, bustling about over the floor, shoving the few chairs against the unplastered wooden walls, was shouting: "tune 'em up, boys, tune 'em up!" the first tentative notes of the strings twanged in the hollow room, and lawrence was asking the girls for dances, scribbling their names on his cuff with a disregard of its white polished linen almost painful. "i'll have to divide up some of 'em, you know, girls," he said. "jim and elmer have to play, and that makes us two men shy. but i'll do the best i can--wish i could take you all in my arms at once and dance with you." the girls, standing in an expectant, eager little group, clutched one another nervously, and pretended to sneer at lawrence's patronage. marley was standing with lavinia near the door. he was trying to affect an ease; he knew by the way the other girls glanced at him now and then that they were speculating on his possibilities as a partner; he tried just then to look as if he were going to dance as all the other men were, yet he felt the necessity of confessing to lavinia. "you know," he said contritely, "that i don't dance." she looked up, a disappointment springing to her eyes too quickly for her to conceal it. she was flushed with pleasure and excitement, and tapping her foot in time with the chords payson and gallard were trying on their instruments. marley saw her surprise. "i ought not to have come," he said; "i've no business here." the look of disappointment in lavinia's eyes had gone, and in its place was now an expression of sympathy. "it makes no difference," she said. and then she added in a low voice: "i'll not dance either; there are too many of us girls anyway." "oh, don't let me keep you from it," said marley, and yet a joy was shining in his eyes. she turned away and blushed. "i'll give you all my dances," she said; "we can sit them out." "but it won't be any fun for you," protested marley. and just then lawrence came up. "say, glenn," he said, "if you don't want to dance i'll take lavinia for the first number." the guitar and mandolin, after a long preliminary strumming to get themselves in tune, suddenly burst into _the georgia campmeeting_, and the couples were instantly springing across the floor. "come on, vine," said lawrence, his fingers twitching. and lavinia, eager, trembling, alive, casting one last glance at marley, said "just this one!" and went whirling away with lawrence. marley moved aside, awkwardly, when the couples, sweeping in a long oval stream around the little room, whirled past him. lavinia danced with a grace that almost hurt him; she was laughing as she looked up into lawrence's face, talking to him as they danced. marley felt a gloom, almost a rage, settle on him. he looked up and down the room. at the farther end, through the door by which the musicians sat swinging their feet over their knees in time to the tune they played, he could see the man who kept the grounds at the lake, looking on at the dance; his wife was with him, and they smiled contentedly at the joy of the young people. marley could not bear their joy, any more than he could bear the joy of the dancers, and he looked away from them. glancing along the wall he saw a girl, sitting alone. it was grace winters; she was older than the others, and she sat there sullenly, her dark brows contracted under her dark hair. marley felt drawn toward her by a common trouble, and he thought, instantly, that he might appear less conspicuous if he went and sat beside her. as he approached, her sallow face brightened with a brilliant smile of welcome and she drew aside her skirts to make a place for him, though there was no one else on all that side of the room. marley sat down. "it's warm, isn't it?" he said. "yes," miss winters replied, "almost too warm to dance, don't you think?" marley tried to express his acquiescence in the polite smile he had seen the other men use before the dance began, but he did not feel that he carried it off very well. "i should think you'd be dancing, mr. marley," miss winters said. "i hear you are a splendid dancer. don't you care to dance this evening?" "i can't dance," said marley, crudely. he was looking at lavinia, following her young figure as it glided past with lawrence. miss winters turned away. her face became gloomy again, and she said nothing more. marley was absorbed in lavinia, and they sat there together silent, conspicuous and alone, in a wide separation. marley thought the dance never would end. it seemed to him that the dancers must drop from fatigue; but at last the mandolin and guitar ceased suddenly, the girls cried out a disappointed unisonant "oh!" and then they all laughed and clapped their hands. lavinia and lawrence were coming up, glowing with the joy of the dance. "oh, that was splendid, jack!" lavinia cried, putting back her hair with that wave of her hand. lawrence's face was redder than ever. he leaned over and in a whisper that was for lavinia and marley together he said: "lavinia, you're the queen dancer of the town." and then he turned to miss winters. "grace," he said, distributing himself with the impartiality he felt his position as a social leader demanded, "you've promised me a dance for a long time. now's my chance." "why certainly, jack," miss winters said, with her brilliant smile, and then she took lawrence's arm and drew him away, as if otherwise he might escape. "take me outdoors!" said lavinia to marley. "those big lamps make it _so_ hot in here." marley was glad to leave, and they went out on to the little piazza of the pavilion. lavinia stood on the very edge of the steps, and drank in the fresh air eagerly. "oh!" she said. "oh! isn't it delicious!" the darkness lay thick between the trees. the air was rich with the scent of the mown fields that lay beyond the grove. the insects shrilled contentedly. marley stood and looked at lavinia, standing on the edge of the steps, her body bent a little forward, her face upturned. she put back her hair again. "let's go on down!" she said, a little adventurous quality in her tone. she ran lightly down the steps, marley after her. "won't you take cold?" he asked, bending close to her. she looked up and laughed. they were walking on, unconsciously making their way toward the edge of the little lake. marley felt the white form floating there beside him and a happiness, new, unknown before, came to him. they were on the edge of the little lake. before them the water lay, dark now, and smooth. a small stage was moored to the shore and a boat was fastened to it. they could hear the light lapping of the water that barely stirred the boat. presently lavinia ran out on to the stage. she gave a little spring, and rocked it up and down; then smiled up at marley like a child venturing in forbidden places. marley stepped carefully on to the stage. "isn't it a perfect night?" lavinia said, looking up at the dark purple sky, strewn with all the stars. marley looked at her white throat. "the most beautiful night i ever knew!" he said. he spoke solemnly, devoutly, and lavinia turned and gazed on him. marley touched the boat with the toe of his shoe. "we might row," he said almost timidly. "could we?" inquired lavinia. "if we may take the boat." "oh, of course--anybody may. can you row?" marley laughed. he had rowed in the college crew on the old olentangy at delaware. his laugh was a complete answer to lavinia. she approached the boat, and marley bent over and drew it alongside the stage. "get in," he said. it was good to find something he could do. he helped her carefully into the boat, and held it firmly until she had arranged herself in the stern, her feet against the cleats, and her white skirts tucked about her. then he took his seat, shipped the oars and shoved off. he swept the boat out into the deep water, and rowed away up the lake. he rowed precisely, feathering his oars, that she might see how much a master he was. they did not speak for a long time. first one, then the other, of the little islands swept darkly by; the water slapped the bow of the boat as marley urged it forward. the lights of the pavilion on the shore twinkled an instant, then went out behind the trees. they could hear the distant mellow thrumming of the guitar and the tinkle of the mandolin. "are you too cool?" he asked presently. "oh, no, not at all!" said lavinia. "hadn't you better take my coat?" marley persisted. the idea of putting his coat about her thrilled him. "you'll need it," she said. "no, i'll be warm rowing." she shook her head, and smiled. they drifted on. still came the distant strumming of the guitar and the tinkle of the mandolin. marley thought of the young people dancing, and then, noting lavinia's silence, he asked, out of the doubt that was his one remaining annoyance: "wouldn't you rather be back there dancing?" "no, no!" she answered softly. "i'm ashamed of myself." "why?" she started a little. "because i can't dance!" there was guilt in his tone. "you mustn't feel that way about it," lavinia said. "it's nothing." "isn't it?" "no. it's easy to learn." "i never could learn." lavinia was still, and marley thought she assented to this. but in another moment she spoke again. "i--" she began, and then she hesitated. marley stopped rowing and rested on his oars. the water lapped the bows of the boat as it slackened its speed. "i could teach you," lavinia went on. "could you?" marley leaned forward eagerly. "i'd like to." she was trailing one white hand in the water. "will you?" "yes," she said. "we can do it over at mayme's--any time. she'll play for us." marley felt a great gratitude, and he wondered how he could pour it forth upon her. "you are too good to me," he exclaimed. then, suddenly, a change came over the dark surface of the waters. a mellow quality touched them; they seemed to tremble ecstatically, then they broke into sparkling ripples; the air quivered with a luminous beauty and a light flooded the little valley. marley and lavinia turned instinctively and looked up, and there, over the tops of the trees, black a moment before, now rounded domes of silver, rose the moon. they gazed at it a long time. finally marley turned and looked at lavinia. her white dress had become a drapery, her arms gleamed, her eyes were lustrous in the transfiguration of the moonlight. he could see that her lips were slightly parted, and her fingertips, dipped in the cool water over the gunwale of the boat, trailed behind them a long narrow thread of silver. they looked into each other's eyes, and neither spoke. they drifted on. at last, marley said: "lavinia!" she stirred. "do you know--" he began, and then he stopped. "don't you know," he went on, "can't you see, that i love you?" he rested his arms on the oars, and leaned over toward her. "i've loved you ever since that first night--do you remember? i know--i know i'm not good enough, but can't you--can't i--love you?" he saw her eyelids fall, and as she turned and looked over the side of the boat, she put forth her hand, and he took it. they were awakened from the dream by a call, and after what seemed to marley a long time, he finally remembered the voice as lawrence's. "we must go back," he said reluctantly. "how long have we been gone?" "i don't know," said lavinia. he heard her sigh. marley pulled the boat in the direction whence came the hallooing voice; he had quite lost all notion of their whereabouts. but presently they saw the lights of the pavilion, and then the dark figures of the men, and the white figures of the girls on shore. as they pulled up and marley sprang out of the boat to the landing stage, lawrence said: "well, where have you babes been?" marley helped lavinia out of the boat. "we've been rowing," he said. "we thought you'd been drowned," said lawrence. marley and lavinia drove home together in silence. in the light of the moon, the road was silver, and the fields with their shocks of wheat were gold. chapter v the serenade "i don't know what ails lavinia," said mrs. blair to her husband as he sat on the veranda after dinner the next day. the judge laid his paper in his lap, and looked up at his wife over his glasses. "isn't she well?" he asked. "m--yes," replied mrs. blair, prolonging the word in her lack of conviction, "i guess so." "don't you know?" the judge demanded in some impatience with her uncertainty. "she says she feels all right." "well, then, what makes you think she isn't?" "oh, i don't know," replied mrs. blair, "she seems so quiet, that's all." "lavinia is not a girl given to excitement or demonstration," said the judge, lapsing easily into the manner of speech he had cultivated on the bench. "no, that's so," assented mrs. blair. "but she's always cheerful and bright." "is she gloomy?" "no, i wouldn't exactly call it that, but she seems preoccupied--rather wistful i should say, yes--wistful." she seemed pleased to have found the right word. "oh, she's all right. that picnic last night may have fatigued her. i presume there was dancing." "yes." "i don't know that we should let her go out that way." the judge took off his glasses and twirled them by their black cord while he gazed across the street, apparently at some dogs that were tumbling each other about in the chenowiths' yard. the judge had a subconscious anxiety that they would get into mrs. chenowith's flower beds. "you and i used to go to them; they never hurt us," argued mrs. blair. "no, i suppose not. but then--that was different." mrs. blair laughed lightly, and the laugh served to dissipate their cares. she went to the edge of the veranda and pulled a few leaves from the climbing rose-vine that grew there, and the judge put on his glasses and spread out his paper. "i'll take her out for a drive this afternoon," said mrs. blair, turning to go indoors. "she'll be all right," said the judge, already deep in the political columns. that night at supper, the judge looked at lavinia closely, and after a while he said: "you're not eating, lavinia. don't you feel well?" lavinia turned to her father and smiled. "oh, i'm all right." her smile perplexed the judge. "you look pale," he said. mrs. blair glanced warningly at him the length of the table. "my girl's losing her color," he forged ahead. lavinia dropped her eyelids, and a look of pain appeared in her face, causing it to grow paler. "please don't worry about me, papa," she said. mrs. blair divined lavinia's dislike of this personal discussion. she tried to catch her husband's eye again, but he was looking at lavinia narrowly through his glasses. "did you go riding this afternoon?" he asked as if he were examining a witness whom counsel had not drawn out properly. "yes," mrs. blair hastened to say. "we drove out the ludlow a long way." "she was riding last night, too," said connie. "who with?" demanded chad, turning to connie with the challenge he always had ready for her. "who with?" retorted connie. "why, glenn marley, of course. who else?" "well, what of it?" demanded chad. "what's it to you?" "oh, children, children!" protested mrs. blair, wearily. "do give us a little peace!" "well, she began it," said chad. connie was eating savagely, but she whirled on chad, speaking with difficulty because her mouth was filled with food: "you shut up, will you?" chad laughed with a contempt almost theatrical, waved his hand lightly and said: "run away, little girl, run away." mrs. blair asked the judge why he did not correct his children, and though the sigh he gave expressed the hopelessness, as it seemed to him, of bringing the two younger members of his train into anything like decorous behavior, he laid his knife and fork in his plate. "this must cease," he said. "it is scandalous. one might conclude that you were the children of some family in lighttown." "it is very trying," said mrs. blair, acquiescing in her husband's reproof. "they are just like fire and tow." she said this quite impersonally and then turned to connie: "if you can't behave yourself, i'll have to send you from the table." "that's it!" wailed connie. "that's it! blame everything on to me!" mrs. blair looked severely at her, and connie's face reddened. she glanced angrily at her mother and began again: "well, i--" the judge rapped the table smartly with his knuckles. "now i want this stopped!" he said. "and right away. if it isn't i'll--" he was about to say if it wasn't he would clear the room, as he was fond of saying whenever the idle spectators in his court showed signs of being human, but he did not finish his sentence. chad was subdued and decorous, and connie drooped her head, and began to gulp her food. her eyes were filling with tears and the tears began to fall, slowly, one by one, splashing heavily into her plate. lavinia was trembling; she tried to control herself, tried to lift her glass, but when she did, her hand shook so that the water was likely to spill. this completed the undoing of her nerves, her eyes suddenly flooded with tears, and she snatched her handkerchief from her lap, rose precipitately, and hurried from the room, dropping her napkin as she went. they heard her going up the stairs, and presently the door of her room closed. connie had followed lavinia with her misty eyes as she left the table and now she too prepared to leave. she felt a sudden pity springing from her great love of her older sister, and her great pride in her, and she felt a contrition, though she tried to convict chad, as the latest object of her fiery and erratic temper, by glowering at him. "i'll go to her," she said, "_i_ can comfort her!" "no, stay where you are," said her mother. "just leave her alone." the evening light of the summer day flooded into the dining-room; outside a robin was singing. in the room there was constraint and heavy silence, broken only by the slight clatter of the silver or the china. but after a while the judge spoke: "did lavinia go to the picnic with young marley?" he asked. he regretted instantly that he had revived the topic that had given rise to the difficulty, but as it lay on the minds of all, it was impossible, just then, to escape its influence. "i believe so," said mrs. blair. "he really seems like a nice young man." the judge scowled. "i don't know," he said. "he's in the office of wade powell--i suppose he is the one, isn't he?" he thought it unbecoming that a judge should show an intimate knowledge of the relations of young men who were merely studying law. "yes, sir," said chad, maintaining his own dignity. "everybody seems to speak well of him," said mrs. blair. "but i can't quite reconcile that with his selecting wade powell as a preceptor. i would hardly consider his influence the best in the world, and i would imagine that doctor marley would hold to the same opinion." judge blair spoke with a certain disappointment in doctor marley. he had gone to hear him preach once or twice, and found, as he said, an intellectual quality in his utterances that he missed in the sermons mr. hill had been preaching for twenty years in the presbyterian church. "perhaps he doesn't know wade powell," said mrs. blair. "doctor marley is comparatively a stranger here, you know." "yes, i presume that explains it. but--" he shook his head. he could not forgive any one who showed respect for wade powell. "powell has little business except a certain criminal practice, and now and then a personal injury case." "is there anything wrong in personal injury cases?" asked mrs. blair. the judge looked at his wife in surprise. "well, i suppose you know, don't you," he said, "that such cases are taken on contingent fees?" he spoke with the natural judicial contempt of the poor litigant. "of course, dear," she replied, "i shall not undertake to defend mr. powell. he's a wild sort." "yes; a drunkard, practically," said judge blair, "and an infidel besides. the moral environment there is certainly not one for a young man--" "is he really an _infidel_?" asked mrs. blair, abruptly dropping her knife and fork. "well," replied the judge with the judicial affectation of fairness, "he's at least a free-thinker. perhaps agnostic were the better word. that is one reason why i can not understand doctor marley's permitting his son to be associated with him. it seems to me to argue a weakness, or a lack of observation in the doctor, as it does a certain depravity of taste in his son." they discussed marley until the meal was done, and connie and chad had gone out of doors. judge blair followed his wife into the sitting-room. "i'm worried, i'll admit," said the judge. "what could it have been that so distressed her?" "oh well, the children's little quarrels were too much for her nerves." "i suppose so." they were silent and thoughtful, sitting together, rocking gently in their chairs as the twilight stole into the room. "it's too bad he's going to study law," the judge said after a while. he shook his gray head dubiously. "but you always say that about any one who's going to study law," mrs. blair argued. "you even said it about george halliday when his father took him into partnership." "well, it's bad business nowadays unless a young man wants to go to the city, and it's hard to get a foothold there." "but you began as a lawyer," she urged, as though he had finished as something else. "it was different in my day." "and you've always done well in the law," mrs. blair went on, ignoring his distinction. "oh yes," the judge said in a tone that expressed a sense of individual exception. "but i went on the bench just in time to save my bacon. there's no telling what might have become of us if i had remained in the practice." they were silent long enough for him to feel the relief he had always found in his salaried position, and then he said: "you don't suppose--" "oh, certainly not!" his wife hastened to assure him. "well, i think it would be well, perhaps, to watch her closely. i don't just like the notion." "but his father is--" "yes, but after all, we really know nothing about him." "that is true." "and then lavinia's so young." "yes." "i'd go to her." "after a while," mrs. blair said. they heard steps on the veranda, and then the voices of mr. and mrs. chenowith who had run across, as mrs. chenowith said, when mrs. blair met them in the darkness that filled the wide hall, to see how they all were. the chenowiths begged mrs. blair not to light the gas; they preferred to sit out of doors. the chenowiths remained all the evening. when they had gone, the judge drew the chairs indoors, while mrs. blair rolled up the wide strip of red carpet that covered the steps of the veranda. and when they had gone up to their room, mrs. blair stole across to lavinia, softly closing the door behind her. she found the girl stretched on her bed, her face buried in the pillows, which were wet with her tears. "what is troubling my little girl?" she asked. she sat down on the side of the bed, and lightly stroked lavinia's soft hair. the girl stirred, and drew herself close to her mother. mrs. blair did not speak, but continued to stroke her hair, and waited. presently lavinia cried out: "oh, mama! mama!" and then she was in her mother's arms, weeping on her mother's breast. "i've never kept anything from you before, mama," lavinia cried. "no," mrs. blair whispered. "can't you tell mama now?" and then with her mother's arms about her lavinia told her all. when she had finished she lay tranquilly. mrs. blair was relieved and yet her troubles had but grown the more complicated. she saw all the intricate elements with which she would have to deal, and she quailed before them, realizing what tact would be required of her. "the coming of love should be a time of joy, dear," she said presently. even in the darkness, she could see the white blur of lavinia's face change its expression. a smile had touched it. "it should, shouldn't it, mama?" "yes, indeed." "but i never kept anything from you before." mrs. blair laughed. "but you kept this only a day, dear. that doesn't count." "it was a long day." "i know, sweetheart." the mother kissed her, and they were silent a while. "i do love him so," said lavinia, presently. "and you'll love him too, mama, i know you will." "i'm sure of that, dear." "but what of papa?" mrs. blair felt the girl grow tense in her arms. "that will all come right in time," said mrs. blair. "will you tell him?" "not just now, dear. we'll have this for a little secret of our own. there's plenty of time. you are young, you know, and so is glenn." "i love to hear you call him glenn." mrs. blair remained with lavinia until she had tucked her into her bed. "just my little child," the mother whispered over the girl. "just my little child." "yes, always that," said lavinia. and her mother kissed her again and again, and left her in the dark. when mrs. blair rejoined her husband, he laid down the book he always read before retiring, and looked up with the question in his eyes. "she's just a little nervous and tired," mrs. blair said. "she'll be all right in the morning. i think it best not to notice her." "do you think we'd better have doctor pierce see her?" "oh, not at all!" mrs. blair laughed, and the judge, reassured, went back to his book. they were awakened from their first doze that night by voices singing. "it's some of the darkies from gooseville," said mrs. blair. "they're out serenading." "yes," said the judge. "it is sweet to fall asleep by." at the sound of the singing lavinia had crept from her bed and crouched in her white night-dress before the open window; the shutters were closed. she heard the melody from far down the street. the singing ceased, then began again, drawing nearer and nearer. presently she heard the fall of feet on the sidewalk before the house, and the low tones of voices in hurried consultation. and then a clear baritone voice rose, and she heard it begin the song: "oh the sun shines bright in my old kentucky home, 'tis summer, the darkies are gay." she knew the voice. her heart swelled and the tears came again and there alone in the fragrant night she opened her arms and stretched them out into the darkness. chapter vi love's arrears the days following the picnic had been no easier for marley than they had been for lavinia. as he looked back on that night, a fear took hold of him; the whole experience, the most wonderful of his life, grew more and more unreal. much as he longed to see lavinia again, he was afraid to go to her home; he wondered whether he should write her a note; perhaps she would think him false, perhaps she would think he had already forgotten her; the idea tormented him; he did not know what to do. he had seen her but once, and then at a distance; the blairs' well-known surrey had stopped in the middle of the square, and george halliday stood leaning into the carriage chatting with lavinia. marley had but a glimpse of lavinia's face, pink in the shadow of the surrey-top. as they drove away she had turned with a smile and a nod at halliday. the sight had affected marley strangely. he felt himself so weak and incapable in this affair that he longed to discuss it with some one, and on sunday afternoon he found his mother at her window with the _christian advocate_, which replaced, in her case, the nap nearly every one else took at that hour. "how old was father when you were married, mother?" he began. he spoke out of that curious ignorance of the lives of their parents so common to children; he had never been able to realize his parents as having separate and independent existences before his own. mrs. marley laid her paper by, and a smile came to her face. "he was twenty-two," she said. "just my age," observed marley. mrs. marley looked up hastily. "you're not thinking of getting married, are you, glenn?" she asked. "no." he said with a laugh. "my goodness! you're just a boy!" "but i'm as old as father was." "y--es," said mrs. marley, "but then--" "but then, what?" "that was different." marley smiled. "had father entered the ministry yet?" he said presently. "yes, we were married in his first year. he had been teaching school, and the fall he was admitted to the conference he was sent out to the gibsonburg circuit in green county. we were married in the spring." her face flushed, and she turned the pages of her paper with a dreamy deliberation. "ah, but your father was a handsome young man, glenn!" she said presently. "he's handsome yet," marley replied with the pride he always felt in his father. and then he asked: "did he have any money?" "yes," she said, and she laughed, "just a hundred dollars!" "a hundred dollars! well, he had nerve, didn't he? and so did you!" "we had more than that," said mrs. marley, solemnly. marley looked at his mother suddenly. her face seemed for an instant to be transfigured in the afternoon glow. he might have told her then; he was on the point of it, but a footfall on the brick walk outside caused him to look up, and he saw lawrence coming into the yard. lawrence beckoned him and he went out. "come on," said lawrence. "let's go out to carters'." marley looked a question at him, and the smile which lawrence never could repress long at a time was twitching at the corners of his large mouth. "she'll be there." "how do you know?" asked marley. lawrence smiled a little more significantly. when they got to the carters' they found mayme and lavinia together in the yard, strolling about in apparent aimlessness, yet with an expectancy in their manner that belied its quality of mere idleness. in the look lavinia gave him all of marley's perplexities vanished. lawrence stood by with a grin on his red face, and mayme carter's eyes danced. she and lawrence assumed almost immediately an elder, paternal manner, and looked on at the lovers' meeting as from far heights that were to be reached only after all such youthful experiences had long since become possible in retrospect alone. still smiling, they edged away, and left the lovers alone. "is it really true?" marley asked. lavinia colored a little as she smiled up at him. "and you are happy?" he asked. "so happy!" she said. and then all at once a cloud came over her eyes. she closed them an instant. "what is it?" he asked in alarm. "nothing." "tell me." "it's nothing." she was smiling again, as if to show that her happiness was complete. "see?" her eyes were blinking rapidly. "i'm glad," he said. as they turned and walked across the yard marley looked at her nervously. "do you know," he said, "that i couldn't remember what color your eyes were?" he spoke with all the virtue there is in confession. "what color are they?" she asked, suddenly closing her eyes. "they're blue," marley replied, saying the word ecstatically, as if it had a new, wonderful meaning for him. "connie says they're green." "connie?" "yes, don't you know? she's my younger sister." "oh." he did not know any of her family, and the baffling sense of unreality came over him again. "you'll know her," said lavinia, and added thoughtfully: "i hope she'll like you. then there's chad, my little brother." marley was growing alarmed at the intricacies of an introduction into a large family, the characters of which were as yet like the characters in the first few chapters of a novel, but he thought it would not reflect on him to admit that he did not know chad, seeing that he was merely a little brother. "he admires you immensely," said lavinia. "does he?" said marley, eagerly, instantly loving chad. "how does he know me?" "he says you were a football player at college." marley laughed a modest deprecation of his own prowess. "but i knew your voice," said lavinia. "did you? when did you hear it?" "as if you didn't know!" "honestly," he protested. "tell me." "why, that night that you serenaded me." he was regretting that she had outdone him in observation, but she suddenly looked up and said: "oh, glenn! what a beautiful voice you have!" it was the first time she had ever called him glenn, and it produced in him a wonderful sensation. they had come to a little bench, and, sitting there, they could only look at each other and smile. marley noticed that a little line of freckles ran up over the bridge of lavinia's nose. they were very beautiful, he thought, and yet he had never heard of freckles as one of the elements of a woman's beauty. then he leaned back and looked about the yard. he had always thought of it as it seemed that first night, enormous, enchanted, with wide terraces and fountains, and white statues gleaming through the green shrubbery. but now he saw no terraces, no statuary, no fountains, and no wide lawns; nothing but a cramped little yard crowded with bushes and trees, and surrounded by a weathered fence that had lost several pickets. he looked around behind the house where he had fancied long stables with big iron lamps over the doors, but now he saw nothing but an old woodshed and a barn on the rear end of the lot. the cracks in the barn were so wide that he could see the light of day between them as through a kinetoscope. he heard a horse stamping fretfully at the flies. "it was here," he said, "that i first saw you." he did not speak his whole thought. "yes," she answered. "i remember." "that was a wonderful night, the most wonderful of my life, except the one at the lake." he drew close to her. "i loved you at first sight," he whispered. "did you?" she looked at him in reverence. "yes,--from the very first moment. when you came into the room, i knew that--" "what?" "that you were the woman i had always loved and waited for; that i had found my ideal. and yet they say we never discover our ideals in this life!" he laughed at this philosophical absurdity. "what did you think then?" he asked. she cast down her eyes, and probed the turf with the toe of her little shoe. "i loved you then too." he gazed at her tenderly, rapturously. "isn't it wonderful?" he said presently, "this love of ours? it came to us all at once!" she looked at him suddenly. her short upper lip was raised. "it _was_ love at first sight, wasn't it?" "yes. we were intended for each other." they sat there, and went over that first night of their meeting and that other night at greenwood lake, finding each moment some new and remarkable feature of their love, something that proved its divine and providential quality, something that convinced them that no one before had ever known such a remarkable experience. they marveled at the mystery of it. but at last they must return to practical questions, and they resumed the account of their family relations. marley told lavinia about his father and mother, about his sister who had died, and then about his grandparents, and his uncles and aunts. he told her even of dolly, behind whom she had driven to greenwood lake, and of his father's love for fast horses, a love which sometimes drew upon his father the criticism parishioners ever have ready for their pastor. and he told her about his home, and how frequently his mother had to entertain transient ministers, and how the church laid missionary work upon her, until he feared the heathen would unwittingly break her down. he was not conscious of it, but he felt it necessary to bring up all at once the arrears of her knowledge of him and his family, of all his affairs. meeting as they had so strangely, so romantically, and falling in love at first sight, according to the prearrangement of the ages, they could excuse this otherwise strange ignorance of each other's lives. they bemoaned all the years they had been compelled to live without knowing each other, and their one quarrel with fate was that they had had to wait until so late in life before meeting; and yet they finally consoled themselves for this deprivation by discovering that they had really always known and loved each other. they were now able to compare strange experiences of soul and, in the new light they possessed, to identify them as communings of their spirits across time and space. "i've always believed somehow in the sweden-borgians," lavinia said, "but i never really understood before what they meant by affinities." they looked at each other in a silence that became somber, and was broken at last by lavinia. "i've told mama," she said. "you have?" marley gasped. "yes." "and she--?" "she was sweet about it. she will love you, i know." marley felt a sudden love for lavinia's mother. and then his fear returned at lavinia's sinister, "but--" "but what?" "she says we must wait." "oh!" marley said with a relief. he felt their present happiness so great that he could afford to waive any claim on the future. and yet he was troubled; he felt that somehow a depression lay on lavinia. he wondered what its cause could be. presently it came to him suddenly. "and your father?" he asked. "he doesn't know--yet." "will he--?" "he's very--" she hesitated, not liking to seem disloyal to her father. finally she said "peculiar," and then further qualified it by adding "sometimes." the sadness that lies so near to the joy in lovers' hearts came over them, and yet they found a kind of joy in that too. "i'll go to him, of course," marley said presently. "oh, you're so brave!" but this tribute did not tend to reassure marley. it rather suggested terrors he had not thought of. yet in the necessity of maintaining the manly spirit he forced a laugh. "of course," he continued, "i'll go to him. i meant to from the first." "but not just yet," she pleaded. "well," he yielded, not at all unwillingly, "it shall be as you say." he could not dispel her sadness, nor could he conquer his own. a little tremor ran through her, and he felt it electrically along his arm. "what is it, sweetheart?" he pleaded. "tell me, won't you? we must have no secrets, you know." "oh, glenn," she broke out, "i'm afraid!" she spoke with intuitive apprehension. "of what?" "our happiness!" he tried to laugh again. "do you think it will ever be?" she asked. "i know it," he said earnestly. "i have nothing but faith--our love is strong enough for anything!" "you comfort me," she said simply. lavinia spent the night with mayme carter, and the house sounded until long after midnight with the low, monotonous drone of their confidential voices. chapter vii an unnecessary opposition marley heard on monday evening that judge blair had gone to cincinnati, and the news filled him with a high if somewhat culpable joy. he found lavinia and her mother on the veranda, and lavinia said, with a grave simplicity: "mama, this is glenn." "i'm very glad to have you come," said mrs. blair, trying instantly to rob the situation of the embarrassment she felt it must have for the young man. marley could not say a word, but he put all his gratitude in the pressure he gave mrs. blair's hand. the light that came from the hall was dim, and though mrs. blair could see that marley was straight and carried himself well, his face was blurred by the shadows. she turned to lavinia. "will you bring out another chair, dear, or would you prefer to go indoors?" then, seeing an advantage in this latter alternative, she decided for them: "perhaps we'd better go in, i fear it's cool out here." she held back the screen door and lavinia whisked excitedly into the hall. mrs. blair led the way to the parlor and sent lavinia for a match. then, turning to marley, waiting there in the darkness, she said: "she has told me, glenn." marley felt something tender, maternal in her voice; the way she spoke his name affected him. "but she is young, very young; she is just a girl. we wish, of course, for nothing but her happiness, and you must be patient, very patient. it must not be, if it is to be, for a long time. what does your own mother think of it?" "i haven't told her." "you haven't!" "no. i felt i hardly had the right yet--not before i spoke to judge blair, you know. i think i shall speak to him just as soon as he gets home." he spoke impulsively; until that moment he had been thrusting the thought from him, but mrs. blair's manner led him into confidences. in the immediate fear that he had been precipitant, he looked to her for help; she seemed the sort of woman to wish to save others all the trouble she could, one whose life was full of sacrifices, none the less noble, perhaps, because she made so little of them herself. but a perplexity showed in her eyes and before she could reply, lavinia was back. with an intimate, domestic impulse lavinia pressed the match into marley's hand, and said: "you do it; i can't reach." marley groped with his upheld hand, and when lavinia guided him to the middle of the room, he lighted the gas. mrs. blair looked at him for a moment and lavinia, standing by, as if awaiting her decision, glowed with happiness. mrs. blair's smile completed the fond, maternal impression marley had somehow felt when she was standing by him in the darkness. her full matronly figure, even in the tendency to corpulence of her middle years, had preserved its graceful lines; and marley regretted the disappearance of this wholesome, cheerful woman as she passed out of the room. judge blair got home from cincinnati on sunday morning, worn by his work, and maddened by the din of the city to which he was so unaccustomed. walking up the familiar streets, he had been glad of their shade and that pervading sense of a sunday that still remains a sabbath in macochee. he had been a little piqued, at first, because his wife had not met him at the train, though she had not, to be sure, known that he was coming. she had gone to sunday-school, and connie gave him his breakfast--that is, she sat at the table with him, watching him eat and answering the questions he put to her about the happenings in macochee while he had been away. it was not strange that connie should talk mostly, after she yielded to the gnawing temptation to tell him at all, of the nightly visits marley had made to the house. she did this in a certain resentment she felt with lavinia, a resentment that came from an annoying jealousy she was beginning to have of marley, as if, in installing himself in her sister's heart, he had evicted all other affections from it. the judge, with his constant affectation of what he considered the judicial attitude of mind, tried to weigh connie's somewhat prejudiced evidence impartially, but he was troubled and annoyed that the peace he had been looking forward to all the week should be jeopardized immediately on his coming home. it was not until afternoon that he had an opportunity to question his wife, and he began with a severity in his attitude that had as its fundamental cause, as much as anything else, her failure to meet him at the train that morning, and her remaining to church after sunday-school. "what do you know about this business between lavinia and that young marley?" he asked. "it seems to have developed rapidly during my absence." "oh, connie has been talking to you, i suppose!" laughed mrs. blair. "you know that connie is apt to be sensational." judge blair eyed his wife narrowly. connie was his favorite child, though he would not, of course, admit as much, and he was ever ready to spring to her defense. "she has very bright eyes," he said. "oh, now, dear," said mrs. blair, "don't overestimate this thing. lavinia's nothing but a child." "that's just the point. has the young man been here much?" "yes, he was here quite often--several evenings, in fact." "humph! he seems to have taken advantage of the sunshine of my absence to make his hay." "don't do him an injustice. he didn't meet lavinia until just about the time you went away." "well, we'll see about it," said the judge, darkly. "now see here, will, don't make the matter serious by an unnecessary opposition; don't drive the children into a position where they will consider themselves persecuted lovers." mrs. blair had not until that instant thought of this argument, and she was so pleased with it, as justifying her own course with the children, as she had artfully called them, that she pressed it. "no, don't do that. just let them alone. they're as likely as not to outgrow it; that is, if there is anything between them to outgrow. they'll probably imagine themselves in love a dozen times before either of them is married." "don't talk of marriage!" said the judge, with a little shudder. mrs. blair, who had so well dispelled her own fears, could laugh at her husband's. "just let them alone," she said; "or leave it to me." "yes," said the judge peevishly, "leave it to you. you'd probably aid and abet them." and then, instantly regretting his ill humor, he added hastily: "you're so kind-hearted." mrs. blair kissed his white hair gently and gave his cheek a little pat. "you'd better take a nap," she said. chapter viii a judicial decision the judge refused to take a nap, though when he sat down on the veranda he did take one, lying back in his chair with one of the many sections of the sunday paper spread over his face. it was from this somewhat undignified posture that he was aroused by a step; he started up hastily. "i beg your pardon," said the young man, who stood on the steps twirling his straw hat round and round in his hands. the young man went on with an anxious smile: "this is judge blair, i presume? my name is marley--glenn marley." if marley had known that there were men then in the ohio penitentiary serving terms that were longer by years than they would have been had judge blair digested his breakfast, or been allowed to finish his afternoon nap, he would have chosen another hour to press his suit. but he had youth's sublime confidence, and its abiding faith in the abstract quality of justice. he had dreaded this moment, but it had forced itself upon his keen conscience as a duty, and when he heard that morning that judge blair had returned he resolved to have it out at once. "may i have a word with you?" he asked, advancing a little. the judge nodded, but slightly, as if it were necessary for him, as a fattening man advanced in middle life, to conserve his energies. his nod seemed to include not only an assent, however reluctant, but a permission as well, to take the other chair that stood, all ready to rock comfortably, on the veranda. marley took the chair but he did not rock, nor did he yield himself to it, but sat somewhat tensely on its very edge. "it's warm this afternoon, isn't it?" he said, trying to keep up his smile. he felt hopeless about it, but the thought, darting through his mind, that lavinia was near, braced his purpose. the judge sat hunched in his chair, with his short white hair tumbled rather picturesquely, and his chin low in his collar. his lips were set firmly, his brows contracted. he breathed heavily, and on his strong aquiline nose, marley could see tiny drops of perspiration. "i have come," said marley, "to speak to you, judge blair, on a matter of, that is, importance. that is, i have come to ask you if i might--ah--pay my addresses to your daughter." marley thought this form of putting it rather fine, and he was glad that that much of it, at least, was over. and yet, much as he liked this old-fashioned formula about paying his addresses, he instantly felt its inadequacy, and so nerved himself to do it all over. "i mean lavinia," he said hurriedly, as if to correct any error of identification he might have led the judge into. "i want to marry her." the judge, still breathing heavily, looked at marley out of his narrowed eyes. "you know," marley said, in an explanatory way, "i love her." he waited then, but the judge was motionless, even to the hand that hung at his side over the arm of his chair, still holding his paper. now and then, at what seemed to be long, unequal intervals, his eyelids fell slowly in heavy winks. "how long have you and lavinia known each other?" he asked finally. "i met her several weeks ago, out at captain carter's. but i did not see her again, that is to speak to her, until about a week ago. in one way i have known her, you might say, but a week; yet i feel that i have known her a long time, always, in fact. i--i--well, i loved her at first sight." marley dropped his face at this speech, for it seemed that he had made it too sentimental; he had a feeling that the judge so regarded it. he sat and picked at the braids of straw in his hat. "and have you spoken to her?" asked the judge. "oh yes!" said marley, looking up quickly. "and she--?" "she loves me." the judge closed his eyes as if in pain. then he stirred, the paper dropped from his fingers, and he drew himself up in his chair, as if to deal with the matter. "how old are you, mr. marley?" he inquired. "i am twenty-two," said marley, confidently, as if this maturity must incline the judge in his favor. "i cast my first vote for mckinley." he thought this, too, would help matters, and possibly it did. "you have completed your education?" "i graduated this summer from the ohio wesleyan." "and what are you doing now, or proposing to do?" "just now, i am studying law," he announced. "i'm going to make the law my profession." marley looked up with a high faith in this final appeal, but even that did not impress the judge as marley felt a tribute thus delicately implied should affect him. "you are reading with a preceptor, i take it?" "yes, sir, in mr. powell's office." judge blair looked at marley as if he were deciding what to do with him. after he had looked a while he gazed off across the street, drumming with his finger-tips on the arm of his chair. presently, without turning, and still gazing abstractedly into the distance--and in that instant marley remembered that he had seen the judge stare at the ceiling of the court room in exactly the same way while sentencing a culprit--he began to speak. "lavinia is yet very young, mr. marley," he said, "with no knowledge of the world, and, perhaps, little of the state of her own mind. you too, are young, very young, and as yet without an occupation. you are, it is true, studying law, but it will be three years before you can be admitted, and many years after that before you can command a practice that would warrant you in marrying. in this day, the outlook for the young lawyer is not encouraging. i do not think i would wish a son of mine to choose that profession; the great changes that have transpired, and are transpiring in our industrial development, have greatly reduced the chances of the young lawyer's success. the practice in the smaller county-seats, like our own, for instance, has almost entirely vanished. the settlement of titles to real estate, so lucrative a branch of the law in the early days of my own practice, has deprived the later practitioners of that source of revenue; the field of criminal law has become narrowed, unremunerative and almost disreputable. the corporation work can be handled by one or two firms in each town, and all that seems to be left is the prosecution of personal injury suits, and that is a work that hardly appeals to the man of dignity and self-respect. the large cities have a wider, i might say, the only field, but there the young lawyer must spend years of the hardest, most unremitting toil before he can come to anything like success." the judge paused. he had not intended to speak at such length, but the habit of the courts was on him, and once started, he found his own didacticism so pleasing to himself, that it was with reluctance that he paused at all. he might not have stopped when he did, but gone on almost indefinitely, as he did when he delivered what were always spoken of as his beautiful charges to juries, had he not recalled, with something like a pang of resentment, that the happiness of his own, instead of another's child, lay at the bottom of all this. he turned then to face marley. the young man was sitting there, his eyes wide, and his face long. the color that flamed in it when he first appeared, was now quite gone. it was gray and cold instead. "you will see, mr. marley," the judge resumed, "that you are hardly in a position to ask for my daughter's hand. of course," the judge allowed a smile to soften somewhat the fixity of his lips, "i appreciate your manliness in coming to me, and i do not want to be understood as making any reflections upon, or in the least questioning, your character, your worth, or the honor of your intentions. but in view of your youth and of lavinia's, and in view of your own, as yet, unsettled position in life, you must see how impossible it is that anything like an engagement should subsist between you. i say this because i wish only for lavinia's happiness. i may say that i am not unmindful of your happiness, too, and i esteem it my duty to reach the conclusions i have just presented to you." "and i--i can not even see her?" stammered marley, in his despair. "i have not said that," the judge said. "i shall always be pleased to extend to you the hospitality of my house, of course; but i would not consider it necessary for you to see her regularly, or intimately, and i certainly would not want you to monopolize her society to the exclusion of other young men with whom she has been in the habit of associating." marley sat there, after this long harangue, with his head downcast. he sat and turned his hat round and round. at last he did look up with an appeal in his eyes, but when he saw that the judge was sitting there, as he had at first, sunk in his chair, breathing heavily and looking at him out of those sluggish eyes, he arose. he stood a moment, and looked off across the street somewhere, anywhere. then he smote one hand lightly into the other, turned, and said: "well--good afternoon, judge blair." "good afternoon, mr. marley," the judge replied. he watched marley go down the walk and out of the gate. chapter ix a filial rebuke "father!" judge blair turned and saw lavinia standing in the wide front door. her face was red, her eyes were flashing, her arms hung straight and tense at her sides. the judge stirred uneasily in his chair. "oh!" she cried, rigidly clenching her little fists. "what have you done! you have sent him away!" "come here, my daughter," he said. lavinia moved toward him, halting each moment, then taking a few nervous steps forward. at last she stood before him, challenging, defiant. "sit down, lavinia, and listen," implored the judge. "you have sent him away!" she repeated. "you were harsh and cruel and unkind to him!" "lavinia!" cried the judge, flushing with the anger parents call by different names. there was now a peremptory quality in his tone. but the girl did not heed him. "oh, how could you!" she went on, "how could you! think how you must have wounded him! you not only reproached him with being poor, but you discouraged him as to his prospects! do you think i cared for that? do you think i couldn't have waited? do you think i can't wait anyhow? what had you when you proposed to mama? you were poor--you had no prospects; you had no more right--" "lavinia! lavinia!" the judge commanded, grasping the arms of his chair in an effort to rise. "you are beside yourself! you don't know what you are saying!" "and you pretended to be doing it all for my happiness, too! oh! oh! oh!" her anger vented itself impotently in these exclamations, and then her mother, white and alarmed, appeared in the doorway behind her. "lavinia," she said quietly. the girl trembled violently, then whirled about, pressed her hands to her face, and ran in, brushing by her mother in the doorway. mrs. blair glanced after her irresolutely. then she went to her husband. "be calm, dear," she said. the judge sank back in his chair and looked at her in amazement. "what has happened?" she drew the empty chair up and sat down in it. she leaned forward and took one of his hands, and pressed it between both of her own. she waited for the judge to speak. "i hardly know," he began. "i never heard lavinia break out so." "you must remember how excited and overwrought she is," mrs. blair exclaimed. "you must make allowances." "i didn't know the girl had such spirit," he continued. mrs. blair smiled rather wanly, and stroked her husband's hand. it was very cold and moist, and it trembled. "i had no idea it was so serious," he went on, as if summing up the catalogue of his surprises. "tell me how it all came about," said mrs. blair. "marley was here, first," the judge began. he had to pause, for he seemed to find it difficult to catch his breath. "it was a great surprise to me; it was very painful." the judge withdrew his hand and wiped his brow. then he gazed again as he had done before, across the street. mrs. blair, though eying him closely and with concern, waited patiently. "i didn't wish to wound him," the judge resumed, speaking as much to himself as to her. "i hope i said nothing harsh; he really was quite manly about it." he paused again. "i presume i may have seemed cold, unfeeling, unsympathetic," he went on; and then as if he needed to reassure and justify himself, he added, "but of course it was impossible, utterly impossible." after another pause, he drew a deep breath, and as if he had already outlined his whole interview with marley, continued: "and then lavinia appeared; she must have heard it all, standing there in the hall." the judge leaned heavily against the back of his big chair; his face was drawn, his wrinkles were deeper than they had been, and he wore an aspect of weariness and pain. his form, too, seemed to have shrunk, and he sat there in an almost helpless mass, limp and inert. "i am only afraid, dear," mrs. blair said quietly, "that we have taken this thing too seriously." "possibly," he said. "but it is serious, very serious. i don't know what is to be done." "we must have patience," mrs. blair counseled. "it will require all our delicacy and tact, now." "perhaps you had better go in to her," the judge said presently. "poor little girl; she is passing through the deep waters. and i tried to act only for her interest and happiness." mrs. blair arose. "she will see that, dear, in time." "i hope so," said the judge. mrs. blair went up to lavinia's room, and listened for a moment at the closed door. she heard a voice, low and indistinct, but she knew it for the voice of connie, and she could tell from its tone that the little girl was trying in her way to comfort and console her sister. so she stepped away, silently, almost stealthily, going on tiptoe. the judge sat on the veranda all the afternoon. he scarcely moved, and never once did he pick up the sunday paper. now and then he bowed, in his dignified way, to some acquaintance passing in the street. the chenowiths came out on to their front porch, evidently hot and stupefied from their sunday afternoon naps and ready now for the cool refreshment of the evening breeze they could usually rely on in macochee with the coming of the evening. the judge bowed to them, and he tried to put into his bow an indolent unconcern, lest the chenowiths should penetrate his manner and discover the trouble that lay on his heart. the chenowiths had gone to the end of their porch, and the judge could hear their laughter. he thought it strange and unnatural that any one should laugh. he decided that he would review this whole affair of lavinia's love calmly and judicially. he went back to the beginning of marley's visit, trying to see wherein he himself had been in the wrong, then he went over the hot scene with lavinia. he could not recover from his surprise at this; that lavinia, who was usually so gentle, so mild, so unselfish, should have given way to such anger was incomprehensible. he had always said that she had her mother's disposition. he could see her, all the time, distinctly, as she had stood there, in a rage he had never known her to indulge before, and yet, as he looked at the image of her that was in his mind, and recalled certain expressions, certain attitudes, certain tones of voice, it came over him all at once that she was exactly as her mother had been at her age, though he could not reconcile lavinia's mood with the resemblance. then he went back to his own days of courtship, with their emotions, their uncertainties, their doubts and illusions. they seemed a long way off. he was trying to think calmly and logically, but he found that he could not then control his mind, for suddenly he saw lavinia as a little girl, with her mother kneeling before her, shaking out and straightening her starched frock. and with this thought came the revelation, sudden, irresistible, that lavinia was no longer a child as, with the habit of the happy years, he had thought of her, up to that very afternoon, in fact, until an hour ago, and he bowed before the changes that hour had wrought. he accepted the conviction now that he himself had grown old. he forgot his purpose to probe to its first cause this unhappiness that had come to him; he saw that what he mourned was the loss of a child, the loss of his own youth. he glanced across at the chenowiths again, and they seemed remote from him, of another generation in fact, though but a few moments before he had looked on them as contemporaries. and then suddenly there came to him the fear that mr. chenowith might run over to chat with him, as was his habit, and the judge hastily rose, and almost surreptitiously went off the end of the porch and around into the side yard. under the new impression of age that he had grown into, he walked slowly, with a senile stoop, and dragged his feet as he went. he wandered about in the yard for a long while, looking at the shrubs and bushes and trees he had planted himself so long ago, when he was young. it occurred to him that here in this garden he would potter around, and pass his declining years. he remained in the yard until his wife came to call him in to the supper she had prepared, in the sunday evening absence of the hired girl, and with an effort he brought himself back from the future to the present. "how is she?" "oh, she's all right," said mrs. blair, in her usual cheery tone. "i didn't go to her, i thought it best to leave her alone." the judge looked at his wife, with her rosy face, and her full figure still youthful in the simple summer gown she wore. he looked at her curiously, wondering why it was she seemed so young; a width of years seemed all at once to separate them. mrs. blair noted this look of her husband's. she noted it with pity for him; he looked older to her. "i think it would be nice for you to take lavinia with you when you go to put-in-bay to the bar association meeting," she said. it seemed strange and anomalous to judge blair that he should still be attending bar association meetings. "i'll see," he said; and then he qualified, "if i go." "if you go?" his wife exclaimed. "why, you're down for a paper!" "so i am," said the judge. they turned toward the house, and the judge took his wife's arm, leaning rather heavily on it. "will!" she said, after they had gone a few steps in this fashion. "what is the matter with you! you walk like an old man!" she shook his arm off, and said: "hurry up now. the coffee will be getting cold." indoors, they passed connie going through the hall; she had just come down the stairs, and the sight of her girlish figure, and her short skirts just sweeping the tops of her shoes, gladdened the judge's heart, and he smiled. he could rely on connie, anyway, for sympathy. but the girl gave him a sharp reproachful stare from her dark eyes, and the judge felt utterly deserted. lavinia did not come down to her supper, though her mother, knowing she would want it later, kept the coffee warm on the back of the kitchen stove. chad had gone away with one of the weston boys. so the three, the judge, mrs. blair and connie, ate their supper alone. after supper, mrs. blair and connie went immediately to lavinia and the judge had a sense of exclusion from the mysteries that were enacting up there, an exclusion that seemed to proceed from his own culpability. he went to his library and tried to read, but he could only sit with his head in his hand, and stare before him. but finally he was aroused from his reveries by a stir in the hall, and glancing up he saw lavinia in the door. she came straight to him, and said: "forgive me, papa, if i was rude and unkind." he seized her in his arms, hugging her head against his shoulders, and he said again and again, while stroking her hair clumsily: "my little girl! my little girl!" chapter x put-in-bay the little steamer for the islands rolled out of sandusky bay with lavinia sitting by the forward rail. she had yielded to her father's wishes with an easy complaisance that made him suspicious, and yet, as he stood solicitously by, he was persistent in his determination to realize for her all the delights he had so extravagantly predicted for the journey. he tried to rouse her interest by pointing out johnson's island, but it did not possess for her, as the place where the confederate prisoners were confined during the war, the interest an old soldier was able to discover in it, and though he tried his best, with an effort at entertainment that was well-nigh pathetic, she only smiled wanly. he left her, after a while, her chin in her hands, looking over into the light green waters, watching the curve of the waves the steamer tossed away from its sharp prow. the lake was in one of its most smiling and happy moods, though they were then at a point where storms easily lash its shallow depths into billows that might satisfy the rage of the north atlantic. the lighthouse on the rocks at marblehead had a fascination for lavinia; it seemed waiting for her humor, and she watched it until the steamer had gone far on toward kelly's island, and left the lighthouse behind, a white spot gleaming in the sun. when they entered the little archipelago of the wine islands, with their waters a deeper green than those out in the lake and overcast in strange ways by mysterious shadows and cool weird reflections of the green of the islands all about, judge blair came back to her and asked if she had been seasick and how she had enjoyed the little journey. as she met him with her strange perplexing smile, he began to doubt her again; something assured him that she still clung to her purpose of love, and he found himself almost wishing that she had kept to her defiant temper of the sunday afternoon that now seemed so far away. when they had reached put-in-bay and bounded on the trolley across the island to the huge hotel, they had their dinner and lavinia perplexed the judge further by retiring to her room. she said she would rest, though she had persisted all the morning that she was not tired. as soon as she had closed the door on her father, leaving him in doubt and confusion, she began a long letter to marley. she described her trip in detail, jealous of every trifle of experience that had befallen her; she told him of the bridal couple she had seen board the train at clyde, and of the showers of rice that had been thrown by the laughing bridal party, though she omitted the lone father of the bride standing apart on the platform craning his head anxiously for another sight of his daughter, and trying to smile. but she gave him a sense of the romance that had stirred in her at the sight of the lighthouse on its lonely point of rocks and the stone towers that made the wine-cellars on kelly's island look like castles. after supper lavinia left her father to the pleasure of renewing acquaintance with the lawyers who thronged the lobby, and stole down to the rocks that marked the shelving shore of the island. she saw stately schooners, with white sails spread, and she watched, until its black banner of smoke was but a light wraith, a big propeller towing its convoy of grain barges across the far horizon. this calm serene passing of the life of the lakes soothed her, filled her with a thousand fancies, and stirred her emotions with deep, hidden hints of the mystery of all life. as she sat there and gazed, now and then tears came to her eyes. the waters were spread smoothly before her under the last reflection of the sun, the twilight was coming across the lake; and as the light followed the sun and the darkness crept behind, she looked toward the south in the direction, as she felt, of macochee, and thought of her home and of her mother, of connie and of chad, and then she thought of glenn. far out in the lake a cluster of yellow lights moved swiftly along--one of the big passenger steamers that nightly ply between detroit and buffalo, and she read in that moving girdle of light new meanings; then suddenly a fear seized her, a fear that was part of the ache in her heart, and she ran into the hotel and up to her room. then she took up her letter again and poured out all her new sensations, her longings, and her fears in a lengthy postscript. when she had finished, she began to address the envelope; and she wrote on it, with pride: "mr. glenn--" and then she paused. she did not know whether he spelt his name "marly," or "marley," or "marlay." she tried writing it each way, dozens of times, but the oftener she tested it the less able she was to decide. it was too ridiculous; she became exasperated with herself; then humiliated and ashamed. when she heard her father's step in the hall, she hastily locked her letter in her little traveling bag. the judge greeted her warmly; he was flushed and happy, and in the highest spirits. during the afternoon he had been meeting lawyers from all over ohio; the evening boats from cleveland and toledo had brought more of them to the island; they were all eminent, respectable, rich, the attorneys of big corporations. the judges of the supreme court and of the circuit courts were there, and the excitement had reached its height when the boat from cleveland brought an associate justice of the united states supreme court to deliver the chief address of the meeting. judge blair reveled in meeting all these distinguished men; he enjoyed the flattery in their way of addressing and introducing him. but his conscience smote him when he saw lavinia. he drew up a chair and sat beside her, holding his cigar at arm's length. it was an excellent cigar, better than he ordinarily smoked, and the thin thread of smoke that wavered up from it filled the room almost instantly with its delicate perfume. "did my little girl think her father had deserted her?" he said, speaking of her in the third person, after the affectionate way of parents. "he must pay better attention to her. she must come down and meet the lawyers; they will be delighted; a justice of the supreme court has just come on from washington! she will want to meet him!" the judge paused and twisted his head about for a puff at his cigar, and then waited for lavinia to glow at the prospect. but when she looked at him, and tried to smile again, he saw the glint of tears in her eyes. "why come, come, dear!" he said. "what's the matter? aren't you having a good time? never mind, when this meeting's over we'll go to detroit, and maybe up the lakes for a little trip. that'll bring the roses back!" he pinched her cheeks playfully, but she did not respond; she looked at him pleadingly. "why, lavinia," he cried, "you aren't homesick?" she winked bravely to stem the flood of tears and then nodded. "well!" he said, nonplussed. "you know, dear, we can't--" the tears were brimming in her blue eyes, and he left his sentence uncompleted to go on: "so you're homesick, eh? for mama, and connie?" she nodded, and he studied her closely for a moment, and then he could not resist the question that all along had been torturing him. "and for--?" she confirmed his fear, with quick decisive little nods. she got out her handkerchief and hastily brushed her tears away, and then with an effort to control herself, she looked at him and said, as if she were ready to have it all out then: "yes, father, i haven't treated him right. i came away without telling him." judge blair scowled and turned away, and bit the end of his cigar. then he sat and studied it. lavinia waited; she was ready for the final contest. presently the judge arose. "well, dear," he said. "well--we'll see; of course, we can't go back just yet--i have my address to read to-morrow, and besides, some of the boys are talking of me for president of the bar association. and i had thought, i had thought, that a little trip over to detroit, and maybe up to mackinac--" "father," said lavinia, looking at him now calmly, "i don't want to go to detroit or up to mackinac. i'll do, of course, as you say; i'll wait until the bar meeting is over, but i want to go home. you might as well know now, father--we might as well understand each other--it can be no other way." judge blair looked at his daughter a moment, and she kept her eyes directly and firmly in his. "oh well," he said with a sigh, "of course, dear, if you say. i'd like to stay until after the election though. will you?" "of course," she consented. chapter xi macochee marley had not learned of lavinia's departure until monday afternoon; he had the news from lawrence, who had it from the hackman who had taken judge blair and lavinia to the train; for whenever any of the quality go away from macochee they always ride to the station in the hack, though at other times they walk without difficulty all over the town. when marley reached the office, and found wade powell, as he usually found him, sitting with his feet on his table, smoking and reading a cincinnati paper, the lawyer looked up casually, but when he saw marley's expression he suddenly exclaimed: "hello! what's the matter?" marley shook his head. "something's troubling you," said powell. marley shook his head again, and powell looked at him as at a witness he was cross-examining. "i know better," he said. marley affected to busy himself at his desk, but after a while, he turned about and said: "something is troubling me, mr. powell; my--prospects." he had been on the point of confessing his real trouble, but with the very words on his lips, he could not utter them, and so let the conversation take another turn. "oh, prospects!" said powell. "i can tell you all about prospects; i've had more than any man in gordon county. when i was your age, opinion was unanimous in this community that my prospects were the most numerous and the most brilliant of any one here!" powell laughed, a little bitterly. "if i'd only been prudent enough to die then, glenn," he went on, "i'd have been mourned as a potential judge of the supreme court, senator and president." "it'll be three years before i can be admitted, won't it?" asked marley. "yes," said powell; "but that isn't long; and it isn't anything to be admitted." "well, it takes time, anyway," said marley, "and then there's the practice after that--how long will that take?" "well, let's see," said powell, plucking reflectively at the flabby skin that hung between the points of his collar. "let's see." his brows were twitching humorously. "it's taken me about thirty years--i don't know how much longer it'll take." powell smoked on for a few moments, and then added soberly: "of course, i had to fool around in politics for about twenty-five years, and save the people." "do you think," marley said, after a moment's silence that paid its own respect to powell's regrets, "that there's an opening for me here in macochee?" "no, glenn, i'll tell you. there's no use to think of locating in macochee or any other small town. the business is dead here. it's too bad, but it's so. when i began there was plenty of real estate law to do, and plenty of criminal law, but the land titles are all settled now--" "that's what judge blair said," interrupted marley. "so you've been to him, have you?" marley blushed. "well, not exactly," he said. "i heard him say that." "yes," mused powell. "well, he feathered his nest pretty well while they were being settled. but as i was saying--the criminal business has died out, or rather, it has changed. the criminals haven't any money any more, that is, the old kind of criminals; the corporations have it all now--if you want to make money, you'll have to have them for clients. of course, the money still goes to the criminal lawyer just as it used to." "i like macochee," said marley, his spirits falling fast. "well, it's a nice old town to live in," powell assented. "but the devil of it is how're you going to live? of course, you can study here just as well as anywhere; better than anywhere, in fact; you have plenty of time, and plenty of quiet. but as for locating here--why, it's utterly out of the question for a man who wants to make anything of himself and has to get a living while he's doing it--and i don't know any other kind that ever do make anything out of themselves." "i had hoped--" persisted marley, longing for powell to relent. "oh, i know," the lawyer replied almost impatiently, "but it's no use, there's nothing in it. no one with ambition can stay here now. the town, like all these old county-seats, is good for nothing but impecunious old age and cemeteries. it was nothing but a country cross-roads before the railroad came, and since then it's been nothing but a water-tank; if it keeps on it'll be nothing but a whistling-post, and the trains won't be bothered to stop at all. its people are industrious in nothing but gossip, and genuine in nothing but hypocrisy; they are so mean that they hate themselves, and think all the time they're hating each other. just look at our leading citizen, brother dudley, over there in his bank; he owns the whole town, and he thinks he's a bigger man than old grant. sundays he sits in his pew with a black coat on, squinting at the preacher out of his sore little eyes, and waiting for him to say something he can get the bishop to fire him for, and he calls that religion. mondays he goes back to his business of skinning farmers and poor widows out of their miserable little pennies, and he calls that business; does he ever look at a flower or a tree, or turn round in the street at the laugh of a child? he's the kind of man that runs this town, and he makes the rest of the people like it. well, he don't run me! god! if i'd only had some sense twenty years ago i'd have pulled out and gone to the city and been somebody to-day." it pained marley to hear powell berate macochee; he had never heard him rage so violently at the town, though he was always sneering at it. to marley the very name of macochee meant romance; he liked the name the indian village had left behind when it vanished; he liked the old high-gabled buildings about the square; he longed to identify himself with macochee, to think of it as his home. "but i'll tell you one thing," powell went on, his tone suddenly changing to one of angry resolution as he flung his feet heavily to the bare floor and struck his desk a startling blow with his fist, "i'll tell you one thing, i'm through working for nothing; they've got to pay me! i'm going to squeeze the last cent out of them after this, same as old dudley does, same as old bill blair did before he went on the bench; that's what i'm going to do. i'm getting old and i've got to quit running a legal eleemosynary institution." powell's eyes flamed, but a shadow fell in the room, and powell and marley glanced at the door. "well, what do you want?" said powell. an old woman, bareheaded in the hurry of a crisis, was on the threshold. "oh, mr. powell," she began in a wailing voice, "would you come quick!" "what for?" "charlie's in ag'in." "got any money?" demanded powell, in the angry resolution of a moment before. he clenched his fist again on the edge of his table. marley glanced at him in surprise, and then at the old woman. the woman hung her head and stammered: "well, you know--i hain't just now, but by the week's end, when i get the money for my washin'--" "oh, that's all right," said powell, getting to his feet, "that's all right. we won't talk of that now. i beg your pardon. we'll walk down to the calaboose and see the boy; we can talk it over with him and see what's to be done." he picked up his slouch hat and clapped it on his head. "what's he been doing this time?" he said to the old woman as they went out the door. marley watched them as they passed the open window and disappeared. a smile touched his lips an instant, and then he became serious and depressed once more. he had had no word from lavinia, and her going away immediately after his scene with judge blair confused him. he tried to think it out, but he could reach no conclusion save that it was all at an end. lavinia's sudden, unexplained departure proved that. and yet he could not, he would not, think that she had changed; no, her father had borne her away--that was it--forcibly and cruelly borne her away. for a long while he sat there finding a certain satisfaction in the melancholy that came over him, and then suddenly he was aroused by the boom of the town clock. the heavy notes of the bell rolled across to him, and he counted them--five. it was time to go. and powell had not returned. it was not surprising; powell often went out that way and did not come back, and, often, somehow to marley's chagrin, men and women sat and waited long hours in the dumb patience of the poor and then went away with their woes still burdening them. they must have been used to woes, they carried them so silently. marley was walking moodily down main street, feeling that he had no part in the bustling happiness of the people going home from their day's work, when, lifting his head, he saw mrs. blair in her surrey. instantly she jerked the horse in toward the curb and beckoned to him. "why, glenn! i'm so glad i met you!" she said, her face rosy with its smile. "i have something for you." she raised her eyebrows in a significant way and began fumbling in her lap. presently she leaned out of the surrey and pressed something into his hand. "just between ourselves, you know!" she said, with the delicious mystery of a secret, and then gathering up her reins, she clucked at her lazy horse. he looked after her a moment, then at the thick envelope he held in his hand. on it was written in the long anglican characters of a young girl, these words: "for glenn." chapter xii a conditional surrender judge blair and lavinia returned home saturday. "i guess it's no use," the judge said to mrs. blair when she had followed him up stairs, where he had gone to wash off the dust he had accumulated during the six hours the train had consumed in jerking itself from sandusky to macochee. "no, i could see how relieved she was to get home," replied mrs. blair, musing idly out of the window. she was not so sure that she was pleased with the result she had done her part to accomplish. "i guess you were right," the judge said. "i?" asked mrs. blair, suddenly turning round. "yes--in saying that it would be best not to dignify it by too much notice. that might only add to its seriousness." mrs. blair looked out of the window again. "of course," the judge went on presently, "i wouldn't want it considered as an engagement." "of course not," mrs. blair acquiesced. "you'd better have a talk with her," he said. she saw that he was seeking his usual retreat in such cases, and she was now determined not to take the responsibility. spiritually they tossed this responsibility back and forth between them, like a shuttlecock. "but wouldn't that make it look as if we were taking too much notice of it?" "well," the judge said, "i don't know. do just as you think best." "didn't you talk to her about it when you were away?" mrs. blair asked. "m-m yes," the judge said slowly. "and what did she say?" "nothing much, only--" "only what?" "only that she would not give him up." "oh!" mrs. blair waited, and the judge dawdled at his toilet. some compulsion she could not resist, though she tried, distrusting her own weakness, drove mrs. blair to speak first, and even then she sought to minimize the effect of her surrender. "of course, will," she said, "i want to be guided by you in this matter. it's really quite serious." "oh, well," he said, "you're capable of managing it." "you said you knew his father, didn't you?" she asked after a while. "slightly; why?" "i was just wishing that we knew more of the family. you know they have not lived in macochee long." "that's true," the judge assented, realizing all that the objection meant. "and yet," mrs. blair reassured him, though she was trying to reassure herself at the same time, "his father is a minister; that ought to count for something." "yes, it ought, and still you know they say that ministers' sons are always--" "but," mrs. blair interrupted, as if he were wholly missing the point, "ministers' families always have a standing, i think." they were silent, then, until mrs. blair began: "i suppose i really ought to call on mrs. marley." "why?" "well, it seems, you know--it seems to me that i ought." "but wouldn't that--?" "i considered that, and still, it might seem more so if i didn't, don't you see?" the judge tried to grasp the attenuated point, and expressed his failure in the sigh with which he stooped to fasten his shoes. then he drew on his alpaca coat, and just as he was leaving the room, his wife stopped him with: "but, will!" he halted with his hand on the door-knob. for an instant his wife looked at him in pleasure. he was rather handsome, with his white hair combed gravely, his ruddy face fresh from his shaving, and his stiff, white collar about his neck. "what did you say?" he asked, recalling her from her reverie of him. "oh!" she said; "only this--maybe he won't feel like coming around here any more. you know you practically sent him away." the judge gave a little laugh. "i guess that will work itself out. anyway i'll leave it to you--or to them." still smiling at his own humor, he turned the door-knob, and then hesitated. his smile had vanished. "she's so young," he said with a regret. "she's so young. how old did you say you were when we were married?" "eighteen," mrs. blair replied. "and lavinia can't be more than--" "why, she's twenty," said mrs. blair. "so she is," said the judge. "so she is. but then you--" mrs. blair had come close to him, and stood picking a bit of thread from his shoulder. "it was different with us, wasn't it, dear?" she said, looking up at him. he kissed her. chapter xiii summer the dust lay thick in ward street, sifting its fine powder on the leaves of the cottonwoods that grew at the weedy gutter. the grass in the yard grew long, and the bushes languished in the heat. judge blair's beans clambered up their poles and turned white; and connie's sweet peas grew lush and rank, running, as she complained, mostly to leaves. the house seemed to have withdrawn within itself; its green shutters were closed. in the evening dim figures could be seen on the veranda, and the drone of voices could be heard. at eleven o'clock, the deep siren of the limited could be heard, as it rounded the curve a mile out of town. after that it was still, and night lay on macochee, soft, vast, immeasurable. the clock in the court house tower boomed out the heavy hours. sometimes the harmonies of the singing negroes were borne over the town. and to marley and lavinia those days, and those evenings of purple shadows and soft brilliant stars, were but the setting of a dream that unfolded new wonders constantly. they were but a part of all life, a part of the glowing summer itself, innocent of the thousand artificial demands man has made on himself. lavinia went about with a new expression, exalted, expectant; a new dignity had come to her and a new beauty; all at once, suddenly, as it were, character had set its noble mark upon her, and about her slender figure there was the aureola of romance. "have you noticed lavinia?" mrs. blair asked her husband. "no, why?" he said, in the alarm that was ever ready to spring within him. "she has changed so; she has grown so beautiful!" one morning the judge saw a spar of light flash from her finger, and he peered anxiously over his glasses. "what's that, lavinia?" he asked, and when she stood at his knee, almost like a little girl again in all but spirit, he took her finger. "a ring," she said simply. "what does it mean?" "glenn gave it to me." "glenn?" "yes." "but i thought there was to be no engagement?" the judge looked up, as if there had been betrayal. but lavinia only smiled. the judge looked at her a moment, then released her hand. "i wouldn't wear it where any one could see it," he said. the summer stretched itself long into september; and then came the still days of fall, moving slowly by in majestic procession. with the first cool air, a new restless energy awoke in marley. all the summer he had neglected his studies; but now a change was working in him as wonderful as that which autumn was working in the world. he looked back at that happy, self-sufficient summer, and, for an instant, he had a wild, impotent desire to detain it, to hold it, to keep things just as they were; but the summer was gone, the winter at hand, and he felt all at once the impact of practical life. he faced the future, and for an instant he recoiled. lavinia was standing looking up at him. she laid her hand on his shoulder. "what is it, glenn?" "i was just thinking," he said, "that i have a great assurance in asking you to marry me." "what do you mean?" "why, dear, just this: i can't get a practice in macochee; i might as well look it in the face now as any time. i have known it all along, but i've kept it from you, and i've tried to keep it from myself. there's no place here for me; everybody says so, your father, wade powell, everybody. there's no chance for a young man in the law in these small towns. i've tried to make myself think otherwise. i've tried to make myself believe that after i'd been admitted i could settle down here and get a practice and we could have a little home of our own--but--" "can't we?" lavinia whispered the words, as if she were afraid utterance would confirm the fear they imported. "well--that's what they all say," marley insisted. "but papa's always talking that way," lavinia protested. "i suppose all old men do. they forget that they were ever young, and i don't see what right they have to destroy your faith, your confidence, or the confidence of any young man!" lavinia blazed out these words indignantly. it was consoling to marley to hear them, he liked her passionate partizanship in his cause. he longed for her to go on, and he waited, anxious to be reassured in spite of himself. he could see her face dimly in the starlight, and feel her figure rigid with protest beside him. "it's simply wicked in them," she said presently. "i don't care what they say. we can and we will!" "i like to have you put it that way, dear," said marley. "i like to have you say 'we'!" she drew more closely to him. "and you think we can?" he said presently. "i know it." "and have a little home, here, in one of these quiet streets, with the shade, and the happiness--" "yes!" "and it wouldn't matter much if we were poor?" "no!" "just at first, you know. i'd work hard, and we could be so happy, so happy, just we two, together!" "yes, yes," she whispered. "i love macochee so," marley said presently. "i just couldn't leave it!" "don't! don't!" she protested. "don't even speak of it!" chapter xiv one sunday morning it was sunday morning and marley sat in church looking at a shaft of soft light that fell through one of the tall windows. from gazing at the shaft of light, he began to study the symbols in the different windows, the cross and crown, the lamb, the triangle that represented the trinity, all the roman symbols that protestantism still retains in its decorations. then he counted the pipes in the organ, back and forth, never certain that he had counted them correctly. all about him the people were going through the service, but it had lost all meaning for marley, because he had been accustomed to it from childhood. having been reassured by lavinia, he felt that he should be happy, yet a strong sense of dissatisfaction, of uncertainty, flowed persistently under all his thoughts, belying his heart's assurance of its happiness. when doctor marley, advancing to the pulpit, buttoned his coat down before him, pushed aside the vase of flowers the ladies' committee always put in his way, and stood with his strong, expressive hand laid on the open bible, marley's thoughts fixed themselves for a moment in the pride and love he had always had for his father. there swept before him hundreds of scenes like this when his father had stood up to preach, and then suddenly he realized that his father had grown old: he was white-haired and in his rugged, smooth-shaven face deep lines were drawn--the lines of a beautiful character. he remembered something his father had said to the effect that the pulpit was the only place in which inexperienced youth was desired, showing the insincerity of what people call their religion, and then he remembered the ambitions he had dimly felt in his father in his earlier days; it had been predicted that his father would be a bishop. but he was not a bishop, and now in all probability never would be one; he was not politician enough for that. and marley wondered whether or not his father could be said to have been successful; he had come to know and to do high things, he had lived a life full of noble sacrifice and the finest faith in humanity and in god; but was this success? he heard his father's voice: "the text will be found in the third chapter of the lamentations of jeremiah." but marley never listened to sermons; now and then he caught a phrase, or a period, especially when his father raised his voice, but his thoughts were elsewhere, anywhere--not on the sermon. the men and women sitting in front of him kept shifting constantly, and he grew tired of slipping this way and that and craning his neck in order to see his father. and then the constant fluttering of fans hurt his eyes, and they wandered here and there, each person they lighted on suggesting some new train of thought. presently they fell on a girl in a white dress, and in some way she suggested lavinia. and instantly he felt that he should be perfectly happy when thinking of lavinia, but, as suddenly, came that subconscious uncertainty, that deep-flowing discontent. he went over his last conversation with lavinia, in which he had found such assurance, but now away from her he realized that he had lulled himself into a sense of security that was all false; and the conviction that macochee had no place for him, at least as a lawyer, came back. he tried to put it away from him, and think of something else. his eyes fell on old selah dudley, sitting like all pillars of the church, at the end of his pew. dudley's back was narrow, and rounded out between the shoulders so that marley wondered how he could sit comfortably at all; his head was flat and sheer behind, and marley could see with what care the old banker had plastered the scant hair across his bald poll--the only sign of vanity revealed in him, unless it were in the brown kid gloves he wore. marley looked at dudley with the feeling that he was looking at the most successful man in macochee, and yet he had a troubled sense of the phariseeism that is the essential element of such success. he remembered what wade powell had said; immediately he saw dudley in a new light; the old man sat stolid, patient and brutal, waiting for some heterodoxy, or something that could be construed as heterodoxy, theological or economic, like a savage with a spear waiting to pierce his prey, and glad when the moment came. but marley, seeing the young girl in the white dress, again thought of lavinia, who would be sitting at that very moment with her father and mother and connie and chad over in the presbyterian church. how long would it be before he could sit there beside her, as her husband? then with a flash it came to him that they would, in all likelihood, be married in that very church. instantly he saw the spectators gathered, he saw the pulpit and the chancel-rail hidden in flowers, he saw his father with his ritual in his hands, waiting; and then while the organ played the wedding march, lavinia coming down the aisle, her eyes lowered under her veil. his heart beat faster, he felt a wave of emotion, joyous, exciting. but there was much to do before that moment could come--the long days and nights of study; the examination looming like a mountain of difficulties, then months and years of waiting for a practice. he tried to imagine each detail of the coming of a practice, but he could not; he could not conceive how it was possible for a practice to come to any one, much less to him. there were many lawyers in macochee now, and all of them were more or less idle. there was certainly no need of more. judge blair and wade powell and every one had told him that, and suddenly he felt an impatience with them all, as if they were responsible for the conditions they described; they all conspired against him, men and conditions, making up the elements of a harsh, intractable fate. and marley grew bitter against every one in macochee; they all gossiped about him, they were all determined to drive him away; well, let them; he would go; but he would come back again some day as a great, successful lawyer, looking down on them and their little interests, and they would be filled with envy and respect. but what of lavinia? what right had he to ask her to marry him? what right had he to place her in the position he had? he realized it now, clearly, he told himself, for the first time. she had given up all for him. she would go out no more, she had foregone her parties, calls, picnics, dances, everything; in her devotion she had estranged her friends. he had given her parents concern, he had placed her in a false, impossible position. he must rescue her from it. but how? by breaking the engagement? he blushed for the thought. by going away quietly, silently, without a word? that would only increase the difficulty of her position. by keeping her waiting, year after year, until he could find a foothold in the world? even that was unfair. no, he could not give up lavinia and he could not go away from macochee, hence it followed that he must give up the law. he must get some work to do, and at once; something that would pay him enough to support a wife. he began to canvass the possibilities in macochee. he thought of all the openings; surely there would be something; there were several thousand persons in macochee, and they lived somehow. he did not wish to give up the law; not that he loved it so, but because he disliked to own himself beaten. but it was necessary; he could suffer this defeat; he could make this sacrifice. there was something almost noble in the attitude, and he derived a kind of morbid consolation from the thought. his father was closing the bible--sure sign that the sermon was about to end. there was another prayer, then a hymn, and while the congregation remained standing for the benediction, he heard his father's voice: "the peace of god which passeth all understanding--" the words had always comforted him in the sorrows he was constantly imagining, but now they brought no peace. in another moment the congregation was stirring joyously, in unconscious relief that the sitting was over. the hum of voices assumed a pleasant social air, as friend and acquaintance turned to greet one another. the people moved slowly down the aisle. he caught a glimpse of his father, smiling and happy--happy that his work was done--passing his handkerchief over his reddened brow and bending to take the hands of those who came to speak to him and to congratulate him. just then selah dudley gave his father his hand; the sight pleased marley; and suddenly an idea came to him. chapter xv a saint's advice on monday morning marley found dudley at his post in the first national bank. he halted at the little low gate in the rail that ran round dudley's desk until dudley looked up and saw him, and then marley smiled. dudley, conceiving it to be the propitiatory smile of the intending borrower, narrowed his eyes as he regarded him. "well?" he said. marley went in and sat down on the edge of the hard chair that was placed near dudley. "i wish to have a little talk with you, mr. dudley," he said. he waited then for dudley to reply, thinking perhaps he would be interested in the son of his pastor. dudley had turned his chair a little, and seemed to have sunk a little lower in its brown leather cushions, worn to a hard shine during the long years he had sat there. the lower part of him was round and full and heavy, while his shoulders were narrow and sloping, and his chest sunken, as if, from sitting there so many years, his vitals had settled, giving him the figure of a half emptied bag of grain. his legs were thin, and his trousers crept constantly up the legs of the boots he wore; the boots were blackened as far as the ankles, above the ankles they were wrinkled and scuffed to a dirty brown. marley noted these details hurriedly, for it was the face of the man that held him. a scant beard, made up of a few harsh, wiry hairs, partly covered the banker's cheeks and chin; his upper lip was clean-shaven, and his hair, scant but still black, was combed forward at the temples, and carefully carried over from one side of his head to the other, ineffectually trying to hide the encroaching baldness. his nose was large; his eyes narrow under his almost barren brows and red at the edges of the lids that lacked lashes. "what do you want?" said dudley, never moving, as if to economize his energies, as he economized his words and every other thing of value in his narrow world. marley did not know just what reply to make: this was a critical moment to him, and he must make no mistake. "i came," he began, "to--to ask you for a little advice." dudley, at this, settled a little more into his chair, possibly a little more comfortably; he seemed to relax somewhat, and his eyes were not quite so narrow as they had been. but he blinked a moment, and then cautiously asked: "what about?" "well, it's just this," marley began, smiling persistently; "you see i've begun the study of law; i had intended to be a lawyer." "we've got plenty o' lawyers," said dudley. "that's just the conclusion i have come to, and i was thinking somewhat of making a change. and so i thought i'd come and ask you, that is, your advice." dudley, still cautious, made no reply, and marley almost despaired of getting on easy terms. he began to wish he had not come; he might have known this, he said to himself, and his smile and the confidence with which he had come began to leave him. but he must make another effort. "you see, mr. dudley," he said, "i thought, as things are nowadays, i would have to wait years before i could really do anything in the law, and as i have my own way to make in the world, i thought, you know, i might get into something else." "what, for instance?" asked dudley. "well, i didn't exactly know; i had hardly thought it out,--that's why i came to you, knowing you to be a man of large affairs." dudley had an instant's vision of his bank, of his stocks, and of the many farms all over gordon county on which he held mortgages, but he checked his impulse; these very possessions must be guarded; people envied him them, and while this envy in one way was among the sources of his few joys, it nevertheless gave rise to covetousness which was prohibited by the tenth commandment. "so you want my advice, eh?" he asked, looking hard at marley. "yes, sir." "and that's all?" he asked suspiciously. "well--any suggestions," marley said. dudley still hesitated. he continued to study marley out of his little eyes. presently he inquired, as if by way of getting a basis to start on: "you been to college, ain't you?" "yes, sir," marley answered promptly; "i graduated in june." "how long was you there?" "why," marley replied in some surprise, "the full four years." "four years," dudley repeated. "how old?" "twenty-two." "well, that's that much time wasted. if a young man's going to get along these times, and make anything of himself, he has to start early, learn business ways and habits. he's got to begin at the bottom, and feel his way up." the banker was speaking now with a reckless waste of words that was surprising. "the main thing at first is to work; it ain't the money. now, when i come to macochee, forty-seven years ago, i hadn't nothing. but i went to work, i was up early, and i went to bed early; i worked hard all day, i 'tended to business, and i saved my money. that's it, young man, that's the only way--up early, work hard, and save your money." dudley leaned back in his chair to let marley contemplate him. "but what did you work at? at first, i mean." "why," said dudley, as if in surprise, "at anything i could get. i wan't proud; i wan't 'fraid o' work." marley leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and began twirling his hat in his hands. then, thinking the attitude lacking in respect, he sat up again. "then, i was careful of my habits," dudley went on. "i never touched a bit o' tobacco, nor tasted a drop o' liquor in my life." he paused, and then: "do you use tobacco?" he asked. "sometimes," marley hesitated to confess. "cigarettes?" "now and then." "humph! learned that at college, i suppose." marley made no reply. "well, you've started wrong, young man. that wan't the way i made myself. i never touched a drop of liquor nor tasted tobacco. i worked hard and god prospered me--yes, god prospered me." dudley's voice sank piously. "now, i'll tell you." he seemed to be about to impart the secret of it all. "when i was your age, i embraced religion, and i promised god that if he'd prosper me i'd give a tenth of all i made to the church; a tenth, yes, sir, a full tenth." the banker paused again as if making a calculation, and a trouble gathered for an instant at his hairless brows, but, as if by an effort, he smoothed them so that they became meek and submissive. and then he went on, as if he had found a species of relief: "but it was the best bargain i ever made. it paid; yes, it paid; i kep' my word, and the lord kep' his; he prospered me." he had folded his hands, and sat blinking at marley. "so my advice to you, young man, is to give up tobacco and all your other bad habits, to be up early in the morning, to work hard, and remember god in all your ways, and he shall direct thy paths." dudley stirred, and moved his swivel chair a little, as if it were time to resume work. but marley sat there. "that's my advice to you, young man," dudley repeated, "and it won't cost you a cent." he said this generously, at the same time implying a hint of dismissal. still marley did not move, and dudley eyed him in some concern. marley saw the look and forced a smile. "i thank you, mr. dudley," he said, "for your advice. i am sure it is good. i was wondering, though," he went on, with a reluctance that he knew impaired the effect of his words, "if you wouldn't have something here in your bank for me--" at this dudley suddenly seemed to shrink in size. his eyes became small, mere inflamed slits beneath his hairless brows, and he said: "i thought you said you wanted advice?" "well, i did," marley explained, "but i thought maybe--" he did not finish the sentence. he rose and stood, still twirling his hat in his hand. "and you have nothing, you know of nothing?" dudley slowly shook his head from side to side, once or twice, having resumed his economical habits. "good morning," marley said, and left. as he went out, the cashier and the assistant cashier looked at him through the green wire screen. then they lifted their heads from their tasks cautiously and exchanged surreptitious glances. chapter xvi love and a living marley was not surprised by the result of his visit to selah dudley. he made an effort to convince himself that there was truth in what dudley had said to him, even if he could not remember exactly what it was that dudley had said. he tried to put down the instinctive feeling of dislike he had for the old banker; he told himself that such a feeling was unworthy of him, if not unworthy of dudley, and in thinking the matter over he tried to clear himself of all suspicion of envy or jealousy of dudley's success. the whole town considered dudley its leading man, and marley tried so to consider him; and he tried to consider him in this light because he was a good man and not because he was a rich man, just as the town pretended to do. he wanted to talk about dudley with some one, but he did not want to talk about him with lavinia, because he felt a shame in his failure with dudley that he feared lavinia might share. he did talk with his father about him, but his father did not seem to be interested; he smiled his tolerant smile, but made no comment. and when marley pressed him for an opinion of dudley his father said: "they make broad their phylacteries." and that was all. however, marley found wade powell willing to talk of selah dudley, as he was willing to talk of almost anything. marley did not tell powell that he had been to dudley to ask for a position; he merely let it be understood that he had met the old man in the course of the day and talked with him casually. "by the way," he asked, as if the thought had just come to him, "how did selah dudley make his money?" "he didn't make it," powell answered. "he didn't? did he inherit it?" "no." "then how did he get it?" "he gathered it." "gathered it? i don't know what you mean." powell laughed. "you don't? well, there's a difference." "he wasn't in the army, was he?" "in the army! great god!" powell threw into his voice the contempt he could not find the word to express. "you think he'd risk his hide in the army? well, i should say not! though he would have been perfectly safe--" powell said it as a parenthetical afterthought--"no bullet could ever have pierced his hide, and he had no blood to shed." powell bit the end from his cigar and spat out the damp little pieces of tobacco viciously. "no, i'll tell you, glenn," he said, "he stayed at home and got his start, as he calls it, by skinning the poor. widows were his big game and he gathered a little pile that has been growing ever since. to-day he owns gordon county." "he seems to be a prominent man in the church," ventured marley. "he'll be a prominent man in hell," said powell, angrily. and then he added thoughtfully: "my one regret in going there myself is that i'll have to see him every day." the most curious effect of marley's visit to dudley, however, was one he did not observe himself. having been defeated in his plan to secure a place in the bank, he felt at first, with a certain consolation, that he still had the law to fall back on, and he returned to his studies. but he made little headway; once having decided to give up the law, the decision remained, and his mind was constantly occupied with schemes for securing a foothold in some other occupation. he considered, one after another, every possibility in macochee, and as fast as he thought of some opening, he went for it, but invariably to find it either no opening at all, or else, if it were an opening, one that closed at his approach. gradually he gave up his studies altogether, and sat idle, his book before him; but one day powell said to him: "say, glenn, you're not getting along very fast, are you?" marley started, and flushed with a sense of guilt. "well, no," he admitted. "what's the matter, in love?" marley blushed, from another cause this time, though the guilt remained in his face. but powell instantly was gentle. "i beg your pardon," he said, "i was just joking, of course; i didn't mean to be inquisitive. you mustn't mind my boorishness." marley looked at him gratefully and powell, to whom any show of affection was confusing, turned away self-consciously. but marley whirled his chair around toward powell. "i am in love," he said. "i've wanted to tell you, but i--you know who she is." "lavinia blair?" "yes. and that's what's troubling me," marley went on. "i want to get married, and i can't. i can't," he repeated, "the law's too slow; i've realized it for a long while, but i tried to keep the fact away, i tried not to see it. but now i have to face it. why," he said, rising to his feet, "it'll take a thousand years to get a practice in this town, and i'm not even admitted yet." he walked to and fro, his brows pinched together, his lower lip thrust out, his teeth nipping his upper one. powell glanced at him, but said nothing. he knew human nature, this lawyer, and the fact made every one in the county tremble at the thought of his cross-examinations; sometimes he carried too far his love of laying souls bare, and as often hurt as helped his cause. he never had been able to turn his knowledge to much practical account; in a city he would have had numerous retainers as a trial lawyer, though few as a counselor. in macochee he was out of place, and he chafed under a semi-consciousness of the fact. he waited, knowing that marley would burst forth again. "i'll have to get a job," marley said at that moment, bitterly, "and go to work; that's all." and then he laughed harshly. "humph, get a job--that's the biggest job of all. what can i get here in macochee, i'd like to know?" he halted and turned suddenly, fiercely, almost menacingly on powell, as if he were the cause of his predicament. "i've told you already it's no place for you," said powell, quietly. "but where'll i go?" marley held out his hands with a gesture that was pleading, pathetic. thus he waited for powell's reply. powell smoked thoughtfully for a moment and then began: "when i was going to the law school in cincinnati, there was a young fellow in my class--a great friend of mine. he was poor, and i was poor--god! how poor we were!" powell paused in this retrospect of poverty. "that was why we were such friends,--our poverty gave us a common interest. this fellow came from up in hardin county; he was tall, lean and gawky, the worst jay you ever saw. when we had graduated, i supposed he would go home, maybe to kenton--that was his county-seat. when we were bidding each other good-by--i'll never forget the day, it was june, hot as hell; and we had left the old law school in walnut street and were standing there by the tyler-davidson fountain in fifth street. i said, 'well, we'll see each other once in a while; we won't be far apart.' he looked at me and said, 'i don't know about that.' 'why?' i asked. 'well,' he said, 'i'm going to chicago.' i looked at him in surprise. he was out at the elbows then, and had hardly enough money to get home on. then the ridiculousness of it struck me, and i laughed. 'why, you'll starve to death there!' i said. he only smiled." powell paused, to whet marley's appetite, perhaps, for the foregone dénouement. "that jay," powell said, when he had allowed sufficient time to elapse, "that jay i laughed at is judge johnson, of the united states circuit court." the story saddened marley. with his faculty of conceiving a whole drama at once, he caught in an instant the trials judge johnson had gone through before he won to his station of ease and honor; he saw the privations, the sacrifices, the hardships, the endless strivings, plottings, schemings; it wearied and depressed him; his frightened mind hung back, clung to the real, the present, the known, found a relief in picturing the seeming security of a man like wade powell, in a town where he knew everybody and was known by everybody. he shrank from hearing more of the judge; he wished to stay with his thought in macochee. "how _do_ young men get a start in places like macochee?" he asked, and then he added in despairing argument: "they _do_ stay, they _do_ get along somehow, they make livings, and raise families; the town grows and does business, the population increases, it doesn't die off." "well," said wade powell, approaching the problem with the generalities its mystery demanded, "some of them marry rich women, but that industry is about played out now; the fortunes are divided up; some of them, most of them, are content to eke out small livings, clerking in stores and that kind of thing; about the only ones that get ahead any are traders; they barter around, first in one business, then in another; they run a grocery, then sell it out and buy a livery-stable; then they dabble in real estate a while; finally they skin some one out of a farm and then they go on skinning, a little at a time; by the time they're old, people forget their beginnings and they become respectable; then they join the church, like selah dudley." powell stopped a moment, then he began again. "the lawyers get along god knows how; the doctors, well, they never starve, for people will get sick, or think they're sick, which is better yet; then there are a few preachers who are supported in a poor way by their congregations. when a man fails, he goes into the insurance business." powell smoked contemplatively for a few moments. "sometimes," he resumed presently, "i feel as if i were tottering on the verge of the insurance business myself." marley looked at powell, who had relapsed into silence, his head lowered, his eyes fixed in the distance, and there was something pathetic in the figure, or would have been, but for the humor that saved every situation for powell. there was, however, something appealing, and something to inspire affection, too. marley's gaze recalled powell, and he glanced up with a smile. "i reckon you've gathered from my remarks," said powell, "that i consider success chiefly from a monetary standpoint, but i don't. the main business of life is living, and the trouble with the world is that it is too busy getting ready to live to find the time for life; it has tied itself up with a thousand chains of its own forging and it has had to postpone living from time to time until most people have put the beginning of life at the gateway of death; meanwhile they're busy gathering things, like magpies, and those that gather the most are considered the best; they have come to think that people are divided into two classes, good and bad; the good are those who own, the bad those who don't, and the good think their business is to put down the bad. now, here in gordon county, we have about everything a man needs; the spring comes and the summer, and the autumn and the winter; the rain falls and the winds blow and the sun shines, and i've noticed that lighttown gets about as much rain as main street, and gooseville about as much wind as scioto street; the sun seems to shine pretty much alike on the niggers loafing in market space and on old selah dudley and judge blair, bowing like christians to each other in the square. the trees are the same color wherever they grow, and i don't see any reason why people shouldn't be happy if they'd only let one another be happy. now, i would have lived, but i didn't have time. i thought when i began that i'd have to do as the rest were doing, get hold of things, and i saw that if i did, i'd have to get my share away from them; well, i made a failure of that, being too soft inside someway; that was all right too, but meanwhile i was wasting time, and putting off living--now it's too late." marley looked at him in perplexity, not knowing how to take him. "i know," he said presently. "but what am i going to do? i can live all right, but i have to do better than that; i want to get married." "married," mused powell, "married! well, i got married." marley was interested. he had never heard powell speak of his wife, and he feared what he was about to say; for that instant powell's standing in his estimation trembled. "and that was the only sensible thing i ever did." marley felt a great relief. "but i don't know that i did right by mary; i didn't do her any good, i reckon; still, she's borne up somehow; i wish i had a sky full of sunlight to pour over her." powell walked to his window, and looked across into the court-house yard where the leaves were falling slowly from the maple-trees. marley hoped that he would go on, and say more of his wife, but he was silent. presently he turned about. "well, glenn," he said; "i see you're stuck on staying in macochee, and i don't blame you; and you want to get married, and that's all right. maybe i can help you do it." "how?" said marley, eagerly. "i've got a scheme." "what is it?" "well, maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. i'd better wait till i see whether it will or not before i tell you." he stood and smiled at marley a moment, and then said: "you wait here." and he turned and left the office. marley watched powell's fine figure as he walked across the street toward the court house, a great love of the man surging within him. he felt secure and safe; a new warmth spread through him. at the door of the court house marley saw him stop and shake hands with garver, the sheriff. the two talked a moment, then turned and went down toward the big iron gate in main street, and disappeared. marley waited until noon and then he went home to his dinner. he returned, but powell did not come back to the office all the afternoon. chapter xvii the county fair marley did not see wade powell again for four days; a sunday intervened, and powell did not come back to the office until monday morning. he came in with a solemn air upon him, and a new dignity that made impressive the seriousness with which he set to work at the pile of papers on his desk, as if he were beginning a new week with new resolutions. he was freshly shaved, and his hair had been cut; it was shorter at the sides and, against his rough sunburnt neck, showed an edge of clean white skin. his newly cropped hair gave him a strange, brisk appearance; his black clothes were brushed, his linen fresh. he spoke to marley but a few times and then from the distant altitude of his new dignity. once he sent marley on an errand to snider's drug store to buy a large blank book; he said he was going to keep an office docket after that. he worked on his new docket half the morning, then he carried the docket and the bundle of papers over to marley's table, flung them down and asked marley if he would not continue the work for him. he explained the system he had devised for keeping a record of his cases; it was intricate and complete, but in many of his cases the numbers and in some instances the names of opposing parties were missing; powell told marley to go over to the court house and get the missing data from the clerk. "i've got to go out for a while," powell explained. then he hurried away; he seemed to be glad to escape from the office and the drudgery of the task he had set for himself. powell's absence weighed on marley; he was lonesome in the deserted office, and found himself wondering just where powell was at each moment; he pictured him with his companions, colonel devlin, marshall scarff, sheriff garver, old man brockton and doc hall; lately it had been rumored that george halliday had been admitted to the merry group, and that they played poker nightly in a room in the coleman block. then marley would picture to himself wade powell's wife; he had never seen her, but he had an idea of her appearance, formed from no description of her, but created out of his own fancy. he pictured her as a graceful little woman, with a certain droop to her figure; but try as he would, he could not see her face; it was a blur to him, yet it gave somehow a certain expression of sweetness and patience; sometimes, by an effort, he could see her brow, and the hair above it; the hair was dark, and parted in the middle with some gray in its rather heavy mass. marley could never discuss wade powell with any kind of satisfaction with lavinia. when he spoke of him, she would smile and affect an interest, but he could detect the affectation, and he could detect, also, a certain distance in her attitude toward wade powell or the thought of him, which he ascribed to the influence of judge blair's dislike. marley saw that lavinia never would accept wade powell, and he had ceased to mention him except in a casual manner. for some like reason he had ceased to mention wade powell at home; he found that he had many views which he could not share with those nearest him, and his inner life at that time was somewhat lonely and aloof. he had not told lavinia of wade powell's offer of assistance, nor had he spoken of it at home. in those four days he had thought much of it and built countless hopes upon it; he had thought of all the possibilities, and taken a fine delight in examining each one, working it out to its logical end in its effect upon lavinia and him and upon their fortunes. he was disappointed when wade powell failed to refer to the subject again; he would have liked to discuss the disappointment with lavinia; usually, out of her youthful optimism and faith in the life of which she was so innocent, she could reassure him; but of late he had had so many disappointments and had drawn so heavily on lavinia's resources of comfort and hope that he had grown wary, almost superstitiously wary, of making any further drafts. when monday came and powell did not renew the subject, nor even say what his scheme had been, marley concluded that powell had forgotten all about it, and so he relinquished the hope with a sigh, and tried to forget it himself. he took up his studies once more; but he made poor headway; he saw with chagrin that he had not read ten pages of law in as many days, and what he had read he could not remember. when he tried to review it, the words had no meaning for him, nor could he wrest any from them, even though he ground his elbows in the table with the book between them and dug his fists into his hair. that was the week of the gordon county fair. for a month every fence along the white pikes in the country had borne the bills, flaming from afar in red ink the date, "oct. - ." there were, too, lithographs everywhere--on boards at the monument, at the court house, on the town hall, on the covered bridge over mad river--lithographs picturing the exciting finish of a trotting race, and a sedate concourse of fat cattle. the fair opened monday, but it was understood that that day would be devoted to preparing and arranging the exhibits; the fair would not begin in earnest until tuesday; the big day would be thursday. marley was glad that fair week had come, for the chance of novelty which it offered, and, too, for the excuse it gave him; he would not study that week, but in the general festivity try to forget the problem that so oppressed him. he would have liked to go to the fair every day, but he could not, for the expense, insignificant as it seemed to be to every one else in the county, was not insignificant to him. he went, however, on wednesday with his father, who, with the love of horses he had inherited from the saddle-bag days of methodism, recklessly attended the races. marley thought that this visit would be his last, but on thursday morning he met lawrence in the square. "just the man i'm looking for!" said lawrence. he was brisk, alert, important, and had an official air which was explained when marley observed, on the lapel of his coat, the badge of blue ribbon that proclaimed an officer of the fair. "i have charge of the tickets this year," he said. "want to go? i'll pass you in." marley was glad enough to accept. "i'll have to go around to the office and tell powell," he said. "i was away all day yesterday." "oh, nonsense," replied lawrence, "that won't make any difference; he's been full for two days. this is his big time." marley had a pang as he saw with what small seriousness lawrence regarded his relation to the law; it reflected, doubtless, the common attitude of the community toward him and his efforts. "i've got to hurry," lawrence went on; "i've got a rig waiting here; you can ride out with me." it was one of the incomparable afternoons that autumn brings to ohio; the retreating sun was flashing in the high, blue sky; the air was fresh and marley felt it full of energy and hope. lawrence drove rapidly through the throng of hurrying vehicles that crowded the road to the fair-grounds, stirring up a cloud of dust that covered everything with its white powder. lawrence left him at the gate, being too full of business to engage in the weary search for pleasure, and marley set out alone across the scorched and trampled turf for the grand stand, black with people for the races. he could hear the nervous clamor of the bell in the judges' stand, the notes of the hand-organ at the squeaking merry-go-round, the incessant thumping of the bass drum that made its barbaric music for the side-show, and the cries of venders, dominating all the voices of the thousands bent in their silly way on pleasure. once, calling him back to the real, to the peace of the commonplace, he heard the distant tones of the town clock in the tower that stood, a mile away, above the autumnal trees. he pressed into the space between the grand stand and the whitewashed fence that surrounded the track; through the palings he could see the stoop-shouldered drivers, bent over the heavily breathing trotters they jogged to and fro; above him, in the grand stand, he could distinguish cries and laughs, now and then complete excited sentences, sometimes voices he knew. all around him the farmers, clumsy in their ready-made clothes and bearing their buggy whips as some insignia of office, solemnly watched the races and talked of horses. the sense of kinship with the crowd that had unerringly drawn marley left him the moment he was in the crowd, and a loneliness replaced the sense of kinship. he looked about for some one he knew. he began, here and there, to recognize faces, just as he had recognized voices in the din above him; he began to analyze and to classify the crowd, and he laughed somewhat cynically when he saw numbers of politicians going about among the farmers, shaking their hands, greeting them effusively, calling them by their christian names. then suddenly he saw wade powell. the crowd at the point where powell stood, nucleated with him as its center; by the way the men were laughing, and by the way powell was trying not to laugh, marley knew that he had been telling them one of his stories, and from the self-conscious, guilty expressions on certain of the faces, marley knew that the story was probably one that should not have been told. several countrymen hung on the edge of the group, not identifying themselves with it, yet anxious to have a look at wade powell, who enjoyed the fame of the county's best criminal lawyer. when powell saw marley he called to him, and when marley drew near, he introduced him, somehow mysteriously, almost surreptitiously, to the man at his elbow. powell's face was very red, and his eyes were brilliant. the mystery he put into his introduction was but a part of his manner. "this is mr. carman, of pleasant grove township, glenn," he said, bending over, as if no one should hear the name; and then he added, in a husky whisper: "he's our candidate for county clerk, you know." marley saw something strange, forbidding, in carman's face, but he could not tell what it was. it was a red, sunburnt face, closely shaven, with a short mustache burned by the sun; the smile it wore seemed to be fixed and impersonal. plainly the man had spent his days out of doors, though, it seemed, not healthfully, for his skin was dry and hardened, and his neck thin and wrinkled; he seemed to have known the hard work and the poor nourishment of a farm. marley wondered what was the matter with carman's face. but powell was drawing them aside. "come over here," he was saying, "where we can be alone." he led them to a corner of the little yard; no one was near; they were quite out of the crowd which was pressing to the whitewashed picket fence, attracted by the excitement of the race for which the horses were just then scoring. "now, jake," powell began, speaking to carman, "this is the young man i was talking to you about." carman, still smiling his dry meaningless smile, turned his face half away. "i reckon," powell went on, "that i might be able to do you some good, if i took off my coat." powell spoke with a pride in his own influence; marley had never known him to come so near to boasting before. carman was looking away; and powell, his own eyes narrowed, was watching him closely. once he winked at marley, and marley was mystified; he did not know what play was going on here; he looked from carman to powell, and back to carman again. there was some strange fascination about carman; marley felt a slight relief when he discovered that there was something peculiar about carman's eyes. "i haven't said anything to marley about the matter, jake," powell said. "maybe i'd better tell him. hell! he might not want it--i don't know." carman turned suddenly; his face had been in the shadow; now it came into the sunlight, and marley saw that while the pupil of carman's right eye contracted suddenly, the pupil of his left eye remained fixed; it was larger than the pupil of the right eye, which had shrunk to a pin-point in the sharp light of the sun. marley looked closely, the left eye seemed to be swimming in liquid; it almost hurt marley's eyes to look at it. "i've been telling carman, glenn," powell was explaining, "that if he is elected--and gets into the court house--" marley looked at powell expectantly. "i want him," powell went on, "to make you his deputy." marley saw it all in a flash; this was what powell had meant that day a fortnight ago; he felt his great affection for powell glow and warm; lavinia would appreciate powell after this. it meant salary, position, a place in which he might complete his law studies at his leisure; it meant a living, a home, marriage, lavinia! he looked all his gratitude at powell, who smiled appreciatively. carman had turned his face away again, he was still smiling, and plucking now at his chin; marley waited, and powell finally grew impatient. "well, jake, what do you say?" carman waited a moment longer, then slowly turned about. marley watched him narrowly, he saw the pupil of his right eye contract, the pupil of the watery left eye remained fixed; then, for the first time, carman looked steadily at marley and for the first time he spoke. "well," he said, and he stopped to spit out his tobacco, "you know i'm always ready to do a friend a good turn." powell looked carman over carefully a moment, and then he said, "all right, jake." just then there was a rush of hoofs, a shock of excitement, and they heard a loud yell: "go!" and they rushed to the fence of the whitewashed palings. chapter xviii the road to mingo lavinia sat rocking quietly back and forth, and stitched away with her colored silks on her tambourine frames, while marley told her of the fortune wade powell had brought them. he told the story briefly, and he tried to tell it simply; he did not comment on powell's kindness or generosity, but let his deeds speak for themselves in powell's behalf. when he had done, marley waited for lavinia's comment, but she rocked on a moment and then held her tambourine frames at arm's length to study the sweet pea she was making. when she had done so, she dropped her sewing suddenly into her lap, and looking up, said: "he thinks everything of you, doesn't he?" "i believe he likes me," marley said, as modestly as he could put it. "who could help it?" lavinia looked at marley, and he leaned over, and took her hands. "i am glad you can't, sweetheart," he said. "do you know," she went on, "i think it is because you have been kind and good to him--just as you are kind and good to every one. his life is lonely; he is an outcast, almost; no one cares for him, and he appreciates your goodness." pity was the utmost feeling she could produce for wade powell out of her kindly heart. but marley, though he could accept her homage to the full without embarrassment, could not acquiesce to this length, and he laughed at her. "nonsense, lavinia," he said. "you have the thing all topsy-turvy. it is wade powell who has been kind to me; it is he and not i who is good to every one. he has a heart brimful of the milk of human kindness. you have no idea, and no one has, of the good he does in a thousand little ways. he tries to hide it all; he acts as if he were ashamed of it, but there are hundreds of people in macochee who worship him, and would be ready to die for him, if it would help him any. don't think he has no friends! he has them by the score--of course, they are all poor; i reckon that's why they are generally unknown." "but isn't he cruel?" marley's eyes widened in astonishment. "i mean," lavinia said correctively, "isn't he kind of sarcastic?" "well," marley admitted, "he is that at times. i think he tries to hide his better qualities; i think he tries to cloak his finer nature with a rough garb. perhaps it is because he is really so sensitive. but he is, to my mind, a truly great man. he is a sort of tribune of the people." "but, glenn, what about his drinking?" "well, that's the trouble," marley said, shaking his head. "if he had let liquor alone he'd have been away up." lavinia was silent a moment, her brow was knit in little wrinkles. "glenn," she said presently, "i have been thinking." "well?" "that with your influence you might reform him--out of his liking for you, don't you know?" she raised her blue eyes. he laughed outright, and then took her face between his two hands. "you dear little thing!" he said, with the patronage of a lover. lavinia regained her dignity. "but couldn't you?" she demanded. "why, dear heart," marley said, "he would think it presumption. i wouldn't dare." lavinia shook her head in the hopelessness of the reformer, and took up her tambourine frames again with a sigh. "it's a pity," she said, relinquishing the subject with the hope, "it's such a pity." "but you haven't told me what you think of the scheme." "you know, dear, that whatever you think best i think best." marley was disappointed. "you don't seem to be very enthusiastic over the prospect," he complained. "i thought you'd be glad as i to know that i can at last make a place for myself in the world--and a home and a living for you." lavinia looked up. "i never had any doubt of that, glenn," she said simply. he saw the trust and confidence she had in him, a trust and a confidence he had never felt himself, and had never before been wholly aware of in her. he saw that she had never shared those fears which had so long oppressed him, and into his love there came a devout thankfulness. he felt strong, hopeful, confident, victorious. he had a sudden fancy that it would be like this when they were married; he would sit at his own hearth, with a fire crackling merrily, and the rain and wind beating outside--for the first time he could indulge such a fancy; it allowed him, now that his future was assured, to come up to it and to take hold of it; it became a reality. the judge was not at home that night. now and then marley could hear mrs. blair speak a word to connie and chad, over their lessons in the sitting-room; school had commenced, and connie having that year entered the high school had taken on a new dignity, in consequence of which she was treating chad with a divine patience that brought its own peace into the blair household. they talked for a long time of their plans. marley would take his new place in december when the new county clerk went into office, and he told lavinia all the advantages of the position. it would extend his acquaintance, it would give him a familiarity with court proceedings that otherwise he could not have acquired in years. he meant to study hard, and be admitted to the bar. they could have a little cottage and live simply and economically; he would save part of his salary, and when he hung out his shingle he would have enough money laid by to support them, modestly, until he could establish himself in a practice. he laid it all before her plainly, convincingly. he was charmed with the practicability of the plan, with its conservatism, its common sense. they might as well be married. "can't we?" he asked. he trembled as he asked; his happiness had never come so close before. lavinia dropped her embroidery frames into her lap and looked up at him. the question in her eyes was almost born of fear. "right away?" exclaimed lavinia. "well, almost right away," marley answered. "sometime this winter, anyway." "this winter! so soon?" "so soon!" marley repeated her words, almost in mockery. "but we mustn't be married in the winter," she said, "we've always planned to be married in june--our month, you know." "what's the use of waiting?" "but papa and mama--" this quick rushing to the parental cover, this clinging to the habit of years struck a jealousy through marley's heart. his face fell and he looked hurt. "can't we, dear?" he pleaded. lavinia looked at him, and she said shyly: "if you say so, glenn." they were solemn in their joy and made their plans in detail. they would be married quietly, lavinia said, and at home. doctor marley would perform the ceremony, and marley was touched by this recognition of his father. the fall worked a new energy in marley, and, with the assurance that his labors were now soon to bear fruit, he found that he could study better than ever before. he worked faithfully over his books every morning, and he worked so hard that he felt himself entitled to a portion of each afternoon. he would leave the office at four o'clock. lavinia would be waiting for him, and they would try to get out of sight before connie returned from school. she might be expected any moment to come slowly down ward street entwined with one of her school-girl friends. they did not like, somehow, to meet connie. the smile she gave them was apt to be disconcerting. they met smiles in the faces of others they encountered in their walks, but they were of a quality more kindly than connie's smile. they had walked one afternoon to the edge of town where ward street climbed a hill and became the road to mingo. at their feet lay the little fields, in the distance they could see a man plowing with two white horses; off to the right lay the water-works pond, gleaming in the afternoon sun. "what are you thinking of?" marley said. "i was thinking that it would be nice to live in the country." "i was thinking that very thing myself!" exclaimed marley. their eyes met, and they thrilled over this unity in their thoughts. it was marvelous to them, mysterious, prophetic. "some day i could buy a farm," marley said; "out that way." "yes," lavinia replied, "away off there, beyond those low trees. do you see?" she pointed, but marley did not look in the direction of the trees; he looked at her finger. it was so small, so round, so white. he bent forward, and kissed the finger. "oh, but you must look where i'm pointing," said lavinia. they drew closely together. marley took lavinia's hand and they stood long in silence. "we could have a country home there," marley said after a while, "with a hedge about it and stables and horses and dogs. it would be close to town; i could go in in the morning and out again in the afternoon." "and i could drive you in, and then come for you in the afternoon--when court adjourned." "oh, i would have a man to drive me," said marley. "but couldn't i ride in beside you?" "yes; you could sit beside me, on the back seat; we'd have an open carriage." "a victoria!" exclaimed lavinia. "it would be the only one in macochee!" "is that what they call them?" "victorias?" "yes." "you know, with a low seat behind and a high seat for the driver. you have a green cushion for your feet. you would look so handsome in one, glenn. you would sit very erect and proud, with your hands on a cane. you would have white hair then." "we would be old?" he asked in some dismay. "no, no," said lavinia, trying to reconcile her dreams, "not old exactly. but i dote on white hair. it's so distinguished for a lawyer with a country home. of course we'll have to get old sometime." "we'll grow old together, dear." "yes," she whispered, "and think of the long years of happiness!" they stood and gazed, looking down the long vista of years that stretched before them as smooth and peaceful as the white road to mingo. a subtile change was passing over the face of the road; shadows were stealing toward it, and it was growing gray. the trees that still were green were darkening to a deeper green, but the colors of those that had changed flamed all the brighter. the sun shone more golden on the shocks of corn, the sky was glowing pink in the west, the water-works pond was glistening as the sun's shafts struck it more obliquely. a fine powder hung in the peaceful air. "how beautiful the fall is!" said lavinia. "yes, i love it," said marley. "but do you know, dear, that i never liked it before? it always seemed sad to me. but you have taught me to love many things. you don't know all that you have done for me!" she stood in her blue dress, with her hands folded before her. marley looked at her hands, and at her white throat, and at her hair, its brown turned to a golden hue by the clear light; then he looked into her eyes. a sudden emotion, almost religious in its ecstasy, came over him. he bent forward. "oh!" he exclaimed. "do you know how beautiful you are! i worship you!" "don't, glenn," she said, "don't say that!" the reflection of a superstitious fear lay in her eyes. "why?" he said defiantly. "it's all true. you are my religion." "you frighten me," she said. marley laughed. "why!" he exclaimed, "there's nothing to fear. isn't our future assured now?" chapter xix waking carman was inducted into office the first monday in december, quietly, as the _republican_ said, as though it reflected credit on the new county clerk as a man who modestly avoided the demonstration that might have been expected under such circumstances. marley, in the hope of seeing his own name, eagerly ran his eyes down the few lines that were devoted to the occurrence, but his name was not there, the _republican's_ reporter, as he felt, being a man who lacked a sense of the relative importance of events. marley had taken no part in the campaign, though wade powell wished him to, and suggested every now and then that he speak at some of the meetings that were being held in the country schoolhouses. powell said it would be good practice for him in a profession where so much talking has to be done, and he found other reasons why marley should do this, as that it would extend his acquaintance, and give him a standing with the party; but, though marley was always promising, he was always postponing; the thought of standing up and speaking to the vast audiences his imagination was able to crowd into a little school-room filled him with fear, and he never could bring himself to consent to any definite time. besides this, he could not find an evening he was willing to spend away from lavinia. when election was over, he expected that he would hear from carman, but he had no word from him. several times he was on the point of mentioning the subject to wade powell, but somehow, with a reticence for which he reproached himself, he could not bring himself to do it. he watched the papers closely, but he found it quite as hard to find in them any information about carman as on any other subject, except, possibly, the banal personalities of the town as they related themselves to the coming and going of the trains. but at last, on the day it had occurred to the reporter to chronicle the fact that carman had been inducted into office, the little item struck marley sadly; he felt a sense of detachment from carman; he could not altogether realize that intimate relationship to carman in his new official position that he felt belonged to one who was to be carman's deputy. in his imagination he saw carman shambling about in the dingy room where the county clerk kept the records of the court, his knees unhinging loosely at each step, his shoulders bent, his hands in his trousers pockets, his right eye squinting here and there observantly, the left fixed, impervious to light and shadow, to all that was going on in the world. he wondered if carman, as he looked about, had been thinking in any wise of him or had seen him as a part of the place where his life was to be lived for the next three years. marley read the paper at supper time; in the evening he went to see lavinia. she too had read the paper. "i know," she said simply, and he was grateful for her quick intuition. "have you seen him?" "no." "are you going to?" "would you?" "why, certainly, at once." marley went to the court house the first thing in the morning. he feared he might have arrived too early, but carman had the virtue that goes farther perhaps than any other in the affections and approval of men, he rose early. he had been at his office since long before seven o'clock. marley found the new county clerk at his desk, obviously ready for business. the desk was clean, with a cleanness that was rather a barrenness than an order. the ink-wells, the pens, with their shining new steel points, the fresh blotters, all were laid on the clean pad with geometrical exactness. the pigeon holes were empty, but they were all lettered as if the mind of the new county clerk had grappled with the future, come off victorious, and provided for every possible emergency, though there were certain contingencies that had impressed him as "miscellaneous." carman looked up with the obliging expression of the new public official, but marley's heart instantly sank with a foreboding that told him he might as well turn about then and go. it was plain that carman saw nothing in the call beyond a mere incident of the day's work. marley took a chair near carman's desk. he looked at carman once, and then looked instantly away; the eye that lacked the power of accommodation was fixed on him, and it made him nervous. "do you remember me, mr. carman?" asked marley; and then fearing the reply he hastened to add: "i'm glenn marley; mr. powell introduced me to you out at the fair-grounds last fall." "yes, i remember," said carman. "i suppose you know what i came for?" carman's right eye widened somewhat in an expression of mild surprise. "you know," urged marley, "the clerkship." "what clerkship was that?" "why, don't you know? the chief clerkship, i reckon." "here?" "why, yes. don't you remember?" carman's right eye wore a puzzled look. "don't you remember?" "well, you've got me," said carman, with a little laugh of apology. "why, i understood," marley went on, "that in the event of your election i was to have a position here." "what as?" "why--as chief deputy." that right eye of carman's was fixed on him questioningly. "chief deputy?" he said finally. "here--in my office?" "why, yes," said marley. "don't you remember?" the question in the right eye had given way to a surprise that was growing in carman's mind, and spreading contagiously to a surprise, deeper and more acute, in marley's mind. the eye had something reproachful in its steady stare. marley leaned over impulsively. "why, surely you haven't forgotten--that day out at the fair-grounds, when mr. powell introduced me to you? i understood, i always understood that i was to have the place. i never mentioned it to you afterward, i didn't like to bother you, you know. i waited along, feeling that everything was all right. but when election was over--and afterward, when you took your office, and i didn't hear anything--i thought i'd come around and see you." despite the sinister left eye, marley leaned close to carman and waited. carman was long in bringing himself to speak. even then he did not seem to be sure of the situation he was dealing with. "you say you understood you was to have a job under me as chief clerk?" "why, yes," replied marley. "who'd you understand it from, me or wade powell?" "well--" marley hesitated, "i thought i understood it from you; i certainly understood it from mr. powell." "you say you got the idea from something i said out at the fair-grounds?" "yes, sir, at the fair-grounds." carman turned away and knitted his brows. "at the fair-grounds," he said presently, as though talking more to himself than to marley. "the fair-grounds, h-m. yes, i do remember--" marley's heart stirred with a little hope. "i do remember seeing you there, and talking to you. but i don't remember making you any promises. did you ask me?" "no; mr. powell did that." "and what did i say?" "well," marley answered, "i can't recall your exact words, but i got the impression, and so did mr. powell, i'm sure, that it was all right, i--i counted on it." "well, say, glenn," he said; "i'm awfully sorry, honest i am. i remember now, come to think of it, that wade did say something like that, and maybe i said something to lead you to think i'd do it; i don't say i didn't--i don't just remember. but i reckon you've banked more on what wade told you than on what i did. course, i reckon i didn't turn you down--a feller never does that in a campaign, you know. but wade takes a lot o' things for granted in this life." he smiled indulgently, as if powell's weaknesses were commonly known and understood. "i reckon you relied too much on what wade told you," carman went on. his right eye was fixed on marley, but marley did not return the look. he had turned half-way round and thrown his arm over the back of his chair. he looked out the window, his eyes vacant and sad. he was thinking of lavinia, of their hopes and plans, of the little home that had become almost a reality to them; the trees in the court-house yard held their gaunt limbs helplessly up against the cold december day; the ugly clouds were hurrying desperately across the sky; he thought of the little law office across the street, with the dusty law books lying on the table, and the hopelessness of it all overwhelmed him. but there beside him carman still was speaking: "it's like wade," he was saying. "i'm sorry, derned if i hain't." marley scarcely heard him. he was looking ahead. how many years-- "he hadn't ought to of done it," carman was going on; "no, sir, he hadn't ought." how many years, marley was thinking, would they have to wait now? would lavinia be lost with all the rest? ought he to ask her to wait any longer? but carman kept on: "i've got all my arrangements made now, you see." he swept his arm about the office where the few clerks were bending over the big records in which they were copying the pleadings they could not understand. marley did not see; he saw nothing but the ruin of all his hopes. it was still in there; the atmosphere held the musty odor of a public office; the clock ticked; once a stamping machine clicked sharply as a clerk marked a filing date on some document. and then a great disgust overwhelmed him, a disgust with himself for being so fatuous, so credulous. he had taken so much for granted, he had acted as a child, not as a man, and he felt a hatred for himself, he felt almost like striking himself. "i guess i've been a fool," he said suddenly, rising from his chair. "no, you haven't neither," said carman, "but wade powell has; he had no business--" marley did not wait to hear carman finish his sentence. shame and mortification were the final aspects of his defeat; he put on his hat, drew it down over his eyes and stalked away. carman looked at him as he disappeared through the lofty door. the pupil of his right eye widened as he looked, and when glenn had passed from his sight he turned to his desk, and began to rearrange the tools to which he was so unaccustomed. chapter xx heart of grace marley sighed in relief when he went up the steps of the blair house that evening. somehow he had got through the long, desolate day. he was sore from his great defeat, but the worst, at any rate, was over; the pang had been sharp, but now the pain had been dulled. he had spent the day in the office. wade powell had been in and out, but never once had he spoken of the clerkship, and marley was too deep in humiliation to mention it. his one consolation was in the fact that he had never told any one of his prospect, not even his own mother; it had been a secret which he and lavinia had shared luxuriously; though, as marley now looked back on their joy, he realized that what had kept him from telling any one was a prudent skepticism, a lack of faith in the possibility of human happiness, an inherited dread of the calamity that stalks every joy. lavinia flung the hall door wide for him before he could ring the bell. "what is the matter?" "how did you know anything was?" he asked. "why," she exclaimed, "i could tell the minute i heard your step. tell me--what is it?" marley, ever sensitive to atmospheres, instantly felt the peace of the household. the glow from the living-room, a quiet voice speaking a commonplace word now and then, told him that mrs. blair was there with connie and chad, and he knew the children were at their lessons; he caught the faint odor of a cigar, and he knew that judge blair was in his library reading peacefully of the dead and silent past, whose men had left all their troubles in the leaves of printed books; all round him life was flowing on, unconsciously, and normally; the tumult and strife in his own soul were nothing to the world. all this flashed on him in an instant--and there was lavinia, standing before him, her white brow knit in perplexity. "tell me," she was saying, "what it is." "well, i don't get the job, that's all." he felt a momentary savage pleasure in the pain he inflicted, justifying it in the thought that he eased his own suffering by giving it to another. then as quickly he repented, and felt ashamed. "is that all?" she said. she had come close to him, smiling in her sympathy, and then lifting a hand to his forehead. "don't do that," she said, as if she would erase the scowl. when they were seated he gave her the details of his meeting with carman, and with the recital of his disappointment its sharpness was repeated. he leaned over, his elbows on his knees, and clutched his hair in his fists. for an instant a kind of relief came to lavinia, a relief that a crisis in her life had been postponed, a crisis from which, instinctively, she had shrunk. her life could go on for a while as it had always gone on; change, which mortals dread, was delayed. then in another moment her sympathy went out to him; she was on the floor at his knees, her arms about him. "don't, dear, don't," she pleaded. "why, it is nothing. what does it matter? what does anything matter, so long as we have each other?" she stroked his hair, she called him by all her endearing names. she tried to take his hands from his face, that she might get him to look at her. but he resisted. "no," he said. "i'm no good; i'm a failure; i'm worse than a failure. i'm a fool, a poor, weak, silly fool." "hush, glenn, hush!" she whispered, as if he were uttering blasphemies. "you must not, you must not!" she shook him in a kind of fear. "look at me!" she said. "look at me!" he remained obdurate, slowly shaking his head from side to side. "look at me!" lavinia repeated. "don't you see--don't you see that--i love you?" a change came over him, subtile, but distinct. slowly he raised his head, and then he put his arms about her and held her close, and gradually a comfort stole over him,--a comfort so delicious that he felt himself hardly worthy, because he now saw that all through the day he had had a subconsciousness that it would come to him at evening, and that he had somehow exaggerated his own grief in order to make this certain comfort the sweeter when it came. it seemed to marley, after he and lavinia had sat there for a while, that he had come out of some nightmare; sanity returned, things assumed once more their proper proportions and relations to each other. he found himself smiling, if not laughing just yet, and with lavinia's hope and confidence the future opened to him once more. now and then, of course, his disappointment would roll over him as a great wave, and once he said ruefully: "but think of the little home we were going to have!" "but we're going to have it," lavinia replied, smiling on him, "we're going to have it, just the same!" "but we'll have to wait!" "well, we're young," said lavinia, "and it won't be so very long." "but i wanted it to be in the spring." "may be it will be, who knows?" lavinia could smile in this reassurance, now that she knew it could not be in the spring. they discussed their future in all its phases, with the hope that lavinia could so easily inspire in him; marley was to keep on with his law studies; there was nothing else now to do--unless something should turn up--there was always that hope. "and it will, you'll see," said lavinia. they discussed, too, carman and wade powell. marley thought that lavinia might return to her old severity with powell; when he expected her to do this, he was preparing to defend powell; when she did not, but was generous with him, and urged marley to reflect that he had done all he had done out of a spirit of kindness, marley was disposed to be severe with powell himself. carman, they agreed, had acted handsomely; they could not find cause to blame him. "no," said marley, "he treated me all right; i believe he was really sorry for me." and then, at the thought of carman's having pity for him, his rebellion flamed up again. "it's humiliating, that's what it is. wade powell had no business making a monkey of me in that way; though it doesn't take much to make a monkey of me; i had the job almost completed myself, just waiting for some one to come along and put the finishing touches on. and wade powell did that!" marley spoke in the sardonic humor the wounded and beaten spirit likes to employ in dealing with itself. but lavinia hushed him. "you just can not talk that way about yourself, glenn," she declared with her finest air of ownership. "i won't let you." "well, it's so humiliating," he said. "why, no, it can't be that," lavinia argued. "you can not feel humiliated. you have done nothing that need cause you any humiliation. we are the only ones who can humiliate ourselves; nothing but our own actions can humiliate us; no one else can." lavinia had a smiling little triumph in her own philosophy, but she quickly compromised it by an inconsistency. "besides, no one else knows about it." "no," marley agreed thoughtfully, and without noticing her inconsistency. "no one else knows anything about it. we have that to be thankful for, anyway." chapter xxi christmas eve lawrence was arranging for a grand ball in the odd fellows' hall, on christmas eve, and he had, as he came around to the office one day to assure marley, counted him and lavinia in. marley, glad enough to close the law-book he was finding more and more irksome, listened to lawrence's enthusiasm for a while, but said at last: "i'm afraid i can't go." "why not? lavinia will want to go; she always does." "i know that," marley admitted, "but i can't, that's all." lawrence looked at him intently for a moment. "say, glenn, what's the matter with you?" he said. "anything been going wrong lately? you look like you were in the dumps." marley shook his head with a negative gesture that admitted all lawrence had said. "you ain't fretting over that job, are you?" "what job?" marley looked up suddenly. "why, with carman." "how'd you know?" "oh, everybody knows about that," lawrence replied with a light air that added to marley's gloom; "but what of it? i wouldn't let that cut me up; come out and show yourself a little more! you don't want to keep lavinia housed up there, away from all the fun that's going on, do you? mayme and i were talking about it the other night; you and lavinia haven't been to a thing for months; it isn't right, i tell you." marley looked sharply at lawrence for a minute, and lawrence marking the resentment in his eyes, hastened on: "don't get mad, now; i don't mean anything. i'm only saying it for your good. i think you need a little shaking up, that's all." "lavinia can do as she likes," marley said with dignity. "i shall not hinder her; i never have." "well, don't get sore now, old man; i didn't mean to hurt your feelings. the holidays are here and you want to cut into the game; it's a time to forget your troubles and have a little fun; you've only got one life to live; what's the use of taking it so seriously?" marley looked at lawrence with a genuine envy for an instant, as at a man who never took anything in life very seriously; he looked at the new overcoat lawrence held over his knee, showing its satin lining; and then, reflecting that lawrence's father had left with his estate a block of bank stock which had given lawrence his position in the bank, marley's impatience with him returned and he said: "oh, it's easy enough for you to talk; if you were in my place you might find it different." "that's all right," lawrence went on, a smile on his freckled face. "you just come to the party; it'll cost you only five, and lavinia would like it. i know that. so do you." marley did know it; and he felt a new disgust with himself that remained with him long after lawrence had put on his new overcoat and left. he reproached himself bitterly, and he told himself that the best thing he could do would be to go away somewhere, and not tell lavinia, or anybody. "i'm only in her way, that's all," he thought as he opened his law-book, and bent it back viciously, so that it would stay open. ever since the fiasco of his plans as to a place with carman, he had been seeking consolation in a new resolution to keep on patiently in the law; but it was a consolation that he had to keep active by a constant contemplation of himself as a young man who was making a brave and determined fight against heavy odds. it was difficult to sustain this heroic attitude in his own eyes and at the same time maintain that modesty which he knew would become him best in the eyes of others. the approach of the holiday season, the visible preparations on every hand and the gay spirits everywhere apparent had isolated him more than ever, and he had felt his alienation complete whenever he went to see lavinia and found the whole blair family in an excitement over their own festival. marley would have liked to make lavinia handsome gifts, but his debts were already large, relatively, and he rose to heights of self-denial that made him pathetic to himself, when he decided that he could give her nothing. now that lawrence was getting up a ball to which he knew lavinia would like to go, as she had always gone to the balls that were not so frequent in macochee as lawrence wished they might be, he felt his humiliation deeper than ever. he put the matter honestly to lavinia, however, and she said promptly: "why, i wouldn't think of going." she looked up at him brightly, and then in an instant she looked down again. she relished the nobility of the attitude she had so promptly taken, but the woman in her prevailed over the saint, and told what a moment before she had determined not to tell: "i've already declined one invitation." she saw the look of pain come into marley's eyes, and instantly she regretted. "you have?" he said. "why, yes." she looked at him with her head turned to one side; her face wore an expression he did not like to see. it was on marley's lips to ask who had invited her, but his pride would not let him do that; somehow a sense of separation fell suddenly between them. he examined with deep interest the arm of his chair. "well," he began presently, "i wouldn't have you stay away on my account, you know." he looked up suddenly. "please don't stay away, lavinia. i'd like to have you go." there was contrition in her voice as she almost flew to reply: "why, you dear old thing, it was only george halliday who asked me; and when i told him i wouldn't go he was actually relieved; he said he didn't want to go himself; he hates our little functions out here, you know, and has ever since he came back from harvard. i suppose he was used to so much more in cambridge!" lavinia had a sneer in her tone, and it took on a shade of irritation as she added: "he asked me only because he was sorry for me." "yes, sorry for you," marley repeated bitterly. "that's another thing i've done for you." "please don't, dear," said lavinia, "don't let yourself get bitter. it'll be all right. we'll spend christmas eve here at home and have ever so much more fun by ourselves." mrs. blair told marley that she wished lavinia might go to the ball; her father wished it, too. mrs. blair told him that she could easily get george halliday to take her,--their lifelong intimacy with the hallidays permitted that. marley assured her that he wished lavinia to accept halliday's invitation, but that she would not do so. "i'd take her myself," he added, "only i can't dance, and--i have no money. i'd like to have her go, if it would give her pleasure." "i know you would, you dear boy," said mrs. blair, laying her hand on his shoulder in her affectionate way. mrs. blair urged lavinia to go, and so did marley, and when he saw that she was determined not to go, he urged her all the more strongly, because, now that he was sure of her position, he could so much more enjoy his own disinterestedness and magnanimity. they desisted when lavinia complained that they were making her life miserable. though marley could deny lavinia the dance, he found, after all, that he could not deny himself the distinction of giving her a christmas present. his heroic attitude gradually broke under the temptation of hoffman's jewelry store, glittering with its holiday display. marley already owed hoffman for lavinia's ring, but like most of the merchants in macochee, hoffman had to do business on an elastic credit, if he wished to do any business at all, and marley, after many pains of selection, did not have much difficulty in inducing hoffman to let him have the pearl opera-glasses he finally chose in the despair of thinking of anything better. the opera-glasses might have atoned for the deprivation of the ball, had marley been able to think of them with any comfort. the delight lavinia expressed in a gift she could never use in macochee, and the enthusiasm with which connie admired them, made him nervous and guilty. connie had temporarily foregone her claims to young-ladyhood, and was a child again for a little while. her excitement and that of chad should have made any christmas eve merry, but it was not a merry christmas eve for marley. as lavinia and he sat in the parlor they caught now and then, or imagined they caught, the strains of the orchestra that was playing for the dancers in the odd fellows' hall, and they were both conscious that life would be tolerable for them only when the music should cease and the ball take its place among the things of the past, incapable of further trouble in the earth. "it's very trying," said judge blair to his wife that night. "i wish there was something we could do." "so do i," his wife acquiesced. "i don't like to see lavinia cut off this way from every enjoyment. the strain must be very wearing." "i suppose it is very wearing with most lovers," said mrs. blair. "i don't see how they ever endure it; but they all do." "have you talked with her about it?" the judge put his question with a guarded look, and was not surprised when his wife quickly replied: "gracious, no. i'd never dare." "no, i presume not. i don't know who would, unless it might be connie." mrs. blair was silent for a while in the trouble that was all the more serious because they dared not recognize its seriousness, and then she asked: "couldn't you help him to something?" "i don't know what," the judge replied. "there's really no opening in a little town." "if you were off the bench and back in the practice--" "great heavens!" he interrupted her. "don't mention such a thing!" "i meant that you might take him in with you." "i'd be looking around for some one to take me in," the judge said. "i'm glad i haven't the problem to face." he enjoyed for a moment the snug sense he had in his own position and then he sighed. "he's young, he has that, anyway. he'll work it out somehow, i suppose, though i don't know how. as for us, all we can do is to have patience, and wait." "yes, that's all," said mrs. blair. "i don't believe in long engagements." "how long has it been?" he asked. "nearly a year now." "i thought it had been ten." mrs. blair laughed as she said: "connie was wishing this morning that he'd marry her and get it over with." chapter xxii an advertisement of destiny the first days of spring contrasted strongly with marley's mood. because of some mysterious similarity in the two seasons he found the melancholy suggestion of fall in this spring, just as, with his high-flown hopes, he had found some of the joyous suggestion of spring in the autumn before. but as failure followed failure, he began to feel more and more an alien in macochee; he had a sense of exile among his own kind, he was tortured by the thought that here, in a world where each man had some work to do and where, as it seemed, all men had suddenly grown happy in that work, there was no work for him to do. he was young, healthy, and ambitious; he had given years to what he had been taught was a necessary preparation, and then suddenly, just as he felt himself ready for life, he found that there was no place in life for him. as he went about seeking employment there was borne in on him a sense of criticism and opposition, and he was depressed and humiliated. by the end of the winter he disliked showing himself anywhere; he no longer stopped in the mcbriar house of an afternoon to watch lawrence and halliday at the billiards they played so well; he thought he detected a coolness in lawrence's treatment of him. he felt, or imagined, this coolness in everybody's attitude now, and finally began to suspect it in the blairs. "what's the matter?" asked powell, one morning. "you ain't sick, are you?" marley shook his head. "well, something ails you. i can see that." he waited for marley to speak. "is there anything i can do for you?" "no," said marley, "thank you. i've just been feeling a little bit blue, that's all." "what about?" "oh, i don't know. i'm kind o' discouraged. it seems to me that i'm wasting time; i'm not making any headway and then everybody in town is--" "i wouldn't mind that," said powell, divining the trouble at once. "they've had me on the gridiron for about forty years, and they never get tired of giving it a twist. it doesn't bother me much any more, and i don't see why you should let it bother you, especially as all they say about you is a damn lie." the speech touched marley, and he lost himself in an impulse of sympathy for powell, but he could not put his sympathy before powell in the way he would like and his mind soon returned to himself. "i've got to do something," he said. "i wish i knew what." "well," said powell, "you know what i've always told you. i know what i'd do if i were your age. of course--" powell did not finish his sentence. he was looking out the window again, lost in introspection. powell's reiteration of his old advice expressed the very thought that had been nebulous in marley's mind for days, and while he was conscious of it, he feared the consciousness, and struggled to prevent it from positing itself. but now that powell had voiced it for him, he could escape it no longer, and it filled him with a fear. he went about all the day with this fear appalling him; more and more under its perverse influence he felt himself an alien, and the people he met in the street seemed unreal and strange, outlandish persons whom he had never known. they came upon him as ghosts, or if they did something to prove their reality, he seemed to be some ghost himself. in the afternoon he received a note from lavinia; she said that she was going that evening with george halliday to a concert in the opera house. she did not want to go a bit, she said, but her mother, and especially her father, had urged her to go; arguing that she now went out so seldom that it must do her good, and besides, they had urged her so often that she felt it to be her duty in this instance; she had held out as long as she could, and then had yielded. marley tried to look upon the note reasonably; he could see the influence that had compelled lavinia to go, and he knew he had no right to blame her, and yet, try as he would, he could not escape a feeling of bitterness. when he went home at evening his mother instantly noticed his depression, and implored him for the reason. he did not answer for a while, that is, it seemed a while to mrs. marley, but at last he said: "mother, i've got to leave." "leave?" she repeated, pronouncing the word in a hollow note of fear. "yes, leave." "but what for?" "well, you know i'm no good; i'm making no headway; there's no place for me here in macochee; i've got to get out into the world and _make_ a place for myself, somewhere." "but where?" "i don't know--anywhere." marley moved his hand in a wide gesture that included the whole world, and yet was without hope of conquest. "but you must have some plans--some idea--" "well, i've thought of going to cincinnati; maybe to chicago." "but what will you do?" mrs. marley looked at him with pain and alarm. "do!" he said, his voice rising almost angrily. "why, anything i can get to do. anything, anything, sweeping streets, digging ditches, anything!" mrs. marley looked at her son, sitting there before her with his head bowed in his hands. in her own face were reflected the pain and trouble that darkened his, and yet she felt herself helpless; she vaguely realized that he was engaged in a battle that he must after all fight alone; she could not help him, though she wished that she knew how to impart to him the faith she had that he would win the battle, somehow, in the end. "poor boy!" she said at length, rising; "you are not yourself just now. think it all over and talk to your father about it." it was the first evening in months that marley had not spent with lavinia, and his existence being now so bound up with hers, he found that he could not spend the evening as the other young men in town spent their evenings. however, he went down to the mcbriar house and there a long bill hanging on the wall instantly struck his eye. the bill announced an excursion to chicago. it took away his breath; he stood transfixed before it, fascinated and yet repelled; he read it through a dozen times. the cheerful way in which the railroad held out this trip intensified his own gloom; he wondered how he might escape, but there was no way; it was plainly the revelation of his destiny, prophetic, absolute, final, and he bowed before it as to a decree of fate; he knew now that he must go. as he went home, as he walked the dark streets in the air that was full of the balm of the coming spring, he felt as one to whom a great sorrow had come. he thought of leaving macochee, of leaving his father and mother, and then, more than all, of leaving lavinia, and his throat ached with the pain of parting that, even now, before any of his plans had been made, began to assail him. his plans were nothing now; they had become the merest details; the great decision had been reached, not by him, but for him; the destiny toward which all the lines of his existence for months had been converging, was on him, the moment had arrived, and he had a sense of being the mute and helpless victim of forces that were playing with him, hurrying him along to a future as dark as the moonless night above him. he told his father of the excursion, though he gave him no notion of it as an expression of his fate, and he was all the more distressed at the calm way in which his father acquiesced in what he put before him as a decision he would have liked to have appear as less final. his father in his mildness could not object to his trying, and he would provide the money for the experiment. it gave marley a moment's respite to have his father speak of it as an experiment, for that included the possibility of failure, and hence of his return home, but this meager consolation was immediately dissipated in the surer sense he felt that this was the end--the end of macochee, the end of home, and the beginning of a new life. chapter xxiii the break marley went to lavinia the next morning, and told her as they sat there on the veranda in the spring sunlight. she looked at him with distress in her wide blue eyes. "when?" she asked. "to-night!" "tonight? oh glenn!" her eyes had filled with tears, and she was winking hard to keep them back. "to-night." she repeated the word over and over again. "and to think," she managed to say at last, "to think that the last night i should have been away from you! how can i ever forgive myself!" her lip trembled, and the tears rolled down her cheeks. she drew out her handkerchief and said: "let's go in." all that day marley went about faltering over his preparations. wade powell was the only one of the few who were interested in him that was enthusiastic over his going, and he praised and congratulated him, and pierced his already sore heart by declaring that he had known all along it was what marley would be compelled to do. he would give him a letter to his old friend, judge johnson, he said; the judge would be a great man for him to know, and powell sat down at once, with more energy and enterprise than marley had ever known him to show, and began to elaborate his letter of introduction. marley dreaded saying good-by; he wished to shirk it as to powell as he intended to shirk it in the cases of his few friends; he was to return to the office a last time in the afternoon to get the letter; and then he would bid powell good-by. he had the day before him, but that thought could give him no comfort. he would see lavinia again in the afternoon; he would see her once more, for the last time, in the evening, and in the meantime he would see his father and his mother, and his home; he had still two meals to eat with them, but it was as if he had already gone; there was no reality in his presence there among them; the blow that fate had decreed had fallen, and all that was to be was then actually in being; all about him the men and women of macochee were pursuing their ordinary occupations just as if he were not so soon to go away and be of this scene no more; a few hours, and another day, and they would be going on with their concerns just the same, and he would have disappeared out of their lives and out of their memories. he looked at everything that had been associated with his life, and everything called up some memory,--the little office where he had tried to study law, the court house, and the blind goddess of justice holding aloft her scales, the familiar square, the cloaked cavalryman on the monument, every tree, every fence, every brick in the sidewalk somehow called out to him--and he was leaving them all. he looked up and down main street, wide and ugly, littered with refuse, ragged with its graceless signs; he thought of the people who had gossiped about him, the people whom he had hated, but now he could not find in his heart the satisfaction he had expected in leaving them. he felt tenderly, almost affectionately, toward them all. but it was worse at home. he wandered about the house, looking at every piece of furniture, at every trinket; he went into the woodshed, and the old ax, the old saw, everything he had known for years, wrung his heart; he went to the barn, he looked at the muddy buggy in which he had driven so often with his father; he reproached himself because he had not kept the buggy cleaner for him; he went into the stall and patted the flank of dolly, finally he put his arms about her warm neck, laid his face against it, and the tears rolled down his cheeks. one of the preachers that were always dropping in on them was there to dinner, and in the blessing he invoked on the temporalities, as he called them, he prayed with professional unction for the son who was about to leave the old roof-tree, and this made the ordeal harder for them all. doctor marley spoke to the preacher of little things that he was to do within the next few days and marley wondered how he could mention them, for they were to be done at a time when he would be there no more. because he conceived of life, as all must conceive of it, solely in its relation to himself, he could not imagine life going on in macochee without him. the afternoon wore on, he passed his hour with lavinia; they were to meet then but once again; he returned home, his mother had packed his trunk; it was waiting. he was tender with his mother, and he wondered now, with a wild regret, why he had not always been tender with her; he was tender now with all things; a tenderness suffused his whole being; it seemed as if it might dissolve in tears. still he shrank back; there was one thing more to do; he was to go up-town and get his ticket, and the letter to judge johnson, and bid wade powell good-by. a wild hope leaped in his heart; perhaps--but no, it was irrevocable now. he went, and got his letter, but powell refused to bid him good-by; he said he would be at the train to see him off. he bought his ticket and went home. old man downing had been there with his dray and hauled away his trunk; it was settled. he could only wait and watch the minutes tick by. it seemed to marley that all things that evening conspired to accentuate all that he was leaving behind, and to make the grief of parting more poignant. his mother, who was then in that domestic exigency described by the ladies of macochee as being without a girl, had prepared an unusually elaborate supper, and while there was no formal observance of the fact, it was eaten, so far as any of them could eat that evening, under a sense of its significance as a parting ceremonial. they talked, or tried to talk, indifferently of commonplace things, and doctor marley even sought to add merriment to their feast by a jocularity that was unusual with him. marley, who knew his father so well, could easily detect the heavy heart that lay under his father's jokes, and he suffered a keener misery from the pathos of it. then he would catch his mother looking at him, her eyes deep and sad, and it seemed to him that his heart must burst. marley's train was to leave at eleven o'clock; he had arranged to go to lavinia's and remain with her until ten o'clock; then he was to stop in at his home for his last good-by. those last two hours with lavinia were an ordeal; into the first hour they tried to crowd a thousand things they felt they must say, and a thousand things they could only suggest; when the clock struck nine, they looked at each other in anguish; they did little after that but mentally count the minutes. the clock ticked loudly, aggressively, until in the soul of each, unconfessed, there was a desire to hasten the moments they felt they would like to stay; the agony was almost beyond endurance; it exhausted them, beat them down, and rendered them powerless to speak. finally the clock struck the half-hour; they could only sit and look at each other now; at a quarter of ten they began their good-bys. at ten o'clock mrs. blair, connie and chad came into the room solemnly, and bade marley farewell; the judge himself came in after them, his glasses in his hand and the magazine he had been reading, which, as marley thought with that pang of things going on without him, he would in a few moments be reading again as calmly as ever. he took marley's hand, and wished him success; for the first time he spoke gently, almost affectionately to him, and although marley tried to bear himself stoically, the judge's farewell touched him more than all the others. the shameless children would have liked to remain and see the tragedy to its close, but mrs. blair drew them from the room with her. the last moment had come, and marley held lavinia in his arms; at last he tore himself from her, and it was over. he looked back from out the darkness; lavinia was still standing in the doorway; he saw her slender, girlish figure outlined against the hall light behind her; somehow he knew that she was bravely smiling through her tears. she stood there until his footfall sounded loud in the spring night, then the light went out, the door closed as he had heard it close so often, and she was gone. he saw the light in his father's study as he approached his home, and there came again that torturing sense: the sermon his father then was working on would be preached when he was far away; his mother, as he knew by the light in the sitting-room window, was waiting for him; she had waited there so many nights, and now she was waiting for the last time. she rose at his step, and took him to her arms the minute he entered the door. "be brave, dear," he said, stroking her gray hair; "be brave." he was trying so hard to be brave himself, and she was crying. he had not often seen her cry. she could not speak for many minutes; she could only pat him on the shoulder where her head lay. "remember, my precious boy," she managed to say at last, "that there's a strong arm to lean upon." he saw that she was turning now to the great faith that had sustained her in every trial of a life that had known so many trials; and the tears came to his own eyes. he would have left her for a moment but she followed him. he had an impulse he could not resist to torture himself by going over the house again; he went into the dining-room which in the darkness wore an air of waiting for the breakfast they would eat when he was gone; he went to the kitchen and took a drink of water, from the old habit he was now breaking; then he went up stairs and looked into his own room, at the neatly made bed where he was to sleep no more; at last he stood at the door of the study. he could catch the odor of his father's cigar, just as he had in standing there so many times before; he pushed the door open and felt the familiar hot, close, smoke-laden atmosphere which his father seemed to find so congenial to his studies. doctor marley took off his spectacles and pushed his manuscript aside, and marley felt that he never would forget that picture of the gray head bent in its earnest labors over that worn and littered desk; it was photographed for all time on his memory. his words with his father had always been few; there were no more now. "well, father," he said, "i've come to say good-by." his father pushed back his chair and turned about. he half-rose, then sank back again and took his son's hand. "good-by, glenn," he said. "you'll write?" "yes." "write often. we'll want to hear." "yes, write often," the doctor said. "and take care of yourself." "i will, father." "wait a moment." doctor marley was fumbling in his pocket. he drew forth a few dollars. "here, glenn," he said. "i wish it could be more." there was nothing more to do, or say. they went down stairs; marley's bag was waiting for him in the hall. he kissed his mother again and then again; he shook his father's hand, and then he went. "write often," his father called out to him, as he went down the walk. it was all the old man could say. the door closed, as the door of the blairs' had closed. inside doctor marley looked at his wife a moment. "well," he said, "he's gone." mrs. marley made no answer. "i suppose," he said, "i ought to have gone to the train with him." then he toiled up the stairs to his study and the sermon he was to preach when glenn was gone. marley walked rapidly down market street toward the depot; in the dark houses that suddenly had taken on a new significance to him, people were sleeping, people who would awake the next morning in macochee. he could not escape the torture of this thought; his mind revolved constantly about the mystery of his being still in macochee, still within calling distance, almost, of lavinia, of his father and mother, of all he loved in life, when in reality they had in an instant become as inaccessible to him as though the long miles of his exile already separated them. twenty minutes later, lavinia, in her room, mrs. marley, at her prayers, and doctor marley sitting in deep absorption at his desk, heard the sonorous whistle of a locomotive sound ominously over the dark and quiet town. chapter xxiv the gates of the city it was a relief to marley when morning came and released him from the reclining chair that had held his form so rigidly all the night. he had not taken a sleeper because he felt himself too poor, and he had somewhere got the false impression that comfort was to be had in the chair car. he had stretched himself in the cruel rack when the porter came through and turned the lights down to the dismal point of gloom, but he had not slept; all through the night the trainmen constantly passed through the car talking with each other in low tones; the train, too, made long, inexplicable stops; he could hear the escape of the weary engine, through his window he could see the lights of some strange town; and then the trainmen would run by outside, swinging their lanterns in the darkness, and calling to each other, and marley would fear that something had happened, or else was about to happen, which was worse. finally the train would creak on again, as if it were necessary to proceed slowly and cautiously through vague dangers of the night. through his window he could see the glint of rails, the two yards of gleaming steel that traveled always abreast of him. toward morning marley wearily fell asleep, and then the sorrow and heart-ache of his parting from lavinia and his home distorted themselves in fearful dreams. when he awoke at last, and looked out on the ugly prairie that had nothing to break its monotony but a few scraggly scrub-oak bushes, and some clumps of stunted trees, the dawn was descending from the gray sky. the car presented a squalid, hideous sight; all about him were stretched the bodies of sleeping passengers, flaccid, inert, having cast aside in utter weariness all sense of decency and shame; the men had pulled off their boots, and sprawled on the chairs, their stockinged feet prominently in view; women lay with open mouths, their faces begrimed, their hair in slovenly disarray. the baby that had been crying in the early part of the night had finally gone to sleep while nursing, and its tired mother slept with it at her breast. the jewish drummer across the aisle was sleeping in shirt-sleeves; his head had rolled from the little rest on the back of his chair and now lolled off his shoulder, his sallow face turned toward marley was greasy with perspiration; his closed eyes filled out their blue hemispherical lids, and his cheeks puffed with his intermittent snoring. at times his snoring grew so loud and so troubled that it seemed as if he must choke; he would reach a torturing climax, then suddenly the thick red lips beneath his black mustache would open, his sallow cheeks would collapse, and relief would come. marley wished the passengers would wake up and end the indecencies they had tried to hide earlier in the night. glancing up and down the long car he could recognize none of them as having been there when he had boarded the car at macochee; those who had got on with him had gone short distances, and then got off, breaking the last tie that bound him to his home. he found it impossible now to conceive of the car as having been in macochee so short a time before. presently he saw an old lady sitting up in the remote end of the car; she was winding her thin wisp of gray hair in a little knob at the back of her head. then, feeling that he might bestir himself, marley got up and went forward; he washed his face, and tried to escape the discomfort of clothes he had worn all the night by readjusting them. the train was evidently approaching the city; now and then he saw a building, lonely and out of place: on the hideous sand-dunes, as if it waited for the city, in the growth it boasted, to catch up with it. the train ran on; it had reached an ever-widening web of tracks; it passed long lines of freight-cars, stock-cars from the west, empty gondolas that had come with coal from the hocking valley; a switch tower swept by, its bell jangling peevishly in alarm; long processions of working-men trooped with their dinner-pails between the tracks. the train stopped, finally, still far from its destination. the air in the car was foul from the feculence of all those bodies that had lain in it through the night, and marley went out on the platform. he could hear the engine wheezing--the only sound to break the silence of the dawn. the cool morning air was grateful to marley, though it was not the air of the spring they were already having in macochee. he risked getting down off the platform and looked ahead. beyond the long train, coated with its black cinders, he saw chicago, dim through the morning light, lying dark, mysterious and grim under its pall of smoke. he shuddered and went back into the car. after a while the train creaked and strained and pulled on again. the passengers had begun to stir, and now were hastening to rehabilitate themselves in the eyes of the world; the woman with the baby fastened her dress, the drummer put on his collar and coat, the men drew on their boots, but it was long before they felt themselves presentable again. the women could achieve but half a toilet, and though they were all concerned about their hair, they could not make themselves tidy. the train was running swiftly, now that it was in the city, where it seemed it should have run more slowly; the newsboy came in with the morning papers, followed by the baggage agent with his jingling bunch of brass checks. the porter doffed his white jacket and donned his blue, and waited now for the end of his labors, so near at hand. he made no pretense of brushing his passengers, for those in his charge were plainly not of the kind with tips to bestow. as the train rushed over unknown streets, marley caught visions of the crowds blockaded by the crossing gates, street-cars already filled with people, empty trucks going after the great loads under which they would groan all the day; and people, people, people, ready for the new day of toil that had come to the earth. at last the train drew up under the black shed of the union station, and marley stood with the passengers that huddled at the door of the car. he went out and down; he joined the crowd that passed through the big iron gates into the station; and then he turned and glanced back for one last look at the train that had brought him; only a few hours before it had been in macochee; a few hours more and it would be there again. in leaving the train he felt that he was breaking the last tie that bound him to macochee, and he would have liked to linger and gaze on it. but a man in a blue uniform, with the official surliness, ordered him not to hold back the crowd. he climbed the steps, went out into canal street, ran the gantlet of the cabmen, and was caught up in the crowd and swept across the bridge into madison street. he was in chicago, and here among these thousands of people, each hurrying along through the sordid crowd to his own task, here in this hideous, cruel city, he must make a place for himself, and gain the foothold from which he could fight his battle for existence in the world. chapter xxv letters home "how does she seem since he went away?" asked judge blair of his wife two days after marley had gone. he spoke in his usual habit of deference to his wife's observation, though his own opportunities for observing lavinia might have been considered as great as hers. "i haven't noticed any difference in her," said mrs. blair, and then she added a qualifying and significant "yet." "well," observed the judge, "i presume it's too early. has she heard from him?" "she had a letter this morning; that is, i suppose it was from him; she ran to meet the postman, and then went up stairs." "you didn't mention it to her?" mrs. blair looked at her husband in surprise, and he hastened to make amends by acquiescing in the propriety of her conduct, when he said: "oh, of course not." he seemed to drop the subject then, but that it remained uppermost in his mind was shown later, when he said: "i think she will be weaned away from him after a while, don't you? that is--if he stays long enough." mrs. blair was not so hopeful; perhaps, too, in her romantic ideal of devotion, she did not wish lavinia to be weaned away. but she avoided a direct answer by the suggestion: "perhaps he will be weaned away from her." this possibility had not occurred to the judge. "why, the idea!" he said resentfully. "do you think him capable of such baseness?" mrs. blair laughed. "would you like to think of _your_ daughter as fickle, and forgetting a young man who was eating his heart out for her far away in a big city?" a condition of such mild romantic sorrow might have attracted mrs. blair in the abstract, but it could not of course appeal to her when it came thus personally. as for the judge, he dismissed the problem, as he had so many times before, with the remark: "well, we can only wait and see." the letter which lavinia received from marley had been written the day he reached chicago. it was a long letter, conceived largely in a facetious spirit, and he had labored over it far into the night in the little room of the boarding-house he had found in ohio street. "i chose ohio street," he wrote, "because its name reminded me of home. ohio street may once have been the street of the well-born, but it has degenerated and it is now the abode of a long row of boarding--places, one of which houses me. my room is a little corner eyrie in the second story, back, and from its one window i get an admirable view of the garbage dump, the atmosphere and certain intensely red bricks which go to make the wall of the house next door. and my landlady, ah, i should have to be a balzac to describe my landlady! she wears large, vociferous ear-rings, and she says 'y-e-e-a-a-s' for yes; just kind o' rolls it off her tongue as if she didn't care whether it ever got off or not. she is truly a beauteous lady, given much to a scarlet hue of her nasal appendage; also, her molar system is unduly prominent, too much to the fore, as it were. as for form or figure, i'm afraid i couldn't say with truth that she goes in for the sinuous, far from it; she leans more to the elephantine style of feminine architecture. and she has a way of reaching out that is very attractive; probably because of the necessity of reaching for room rent. she bears the air of one bent on no earthly thing, of a continual soaring in quest of the unexpected; there is about her the charm of the intangible, the unknowable. "the boarding-house itself isn't so bad; i get my room and two meals for three-fifty a week; my noon luncheons i have to take down-town. they have dinner here, you know, in the evening. i haven't seen much of the people in the boarding-house; the men are mostly clerks, and the women have bleached hair. they all looked at me when i went into the dining-room this evening. there is one young man who sits at my table who is in truth a very unwise and immature youth. he is given greatly to the use of words of awful and bizarre make-up. for instance, he said something about the jokes they get off in the shows here about irishmen, but instead of saying jokes, he said 'traversities'! what do you think of that?" marley had already described his journey to chicago in terms similar to those in which he described his boarding-house; of chicago itself he said: "it seems that ages ago when the gods, or maybe the demons, were making over plans and specifications of the infernal region, chicago was mentioned and considered by the committee. when it came to a vote for choice of sites the place that won had only three more votes than chicago. they didn't locate the brimstone plant here, and from what i can learn chicago was a candidate for both the plant and the honor. it was a mistake on somebody's part, as chicago is certainly an ideal place for it." but the letter discussed mostly the things of macochee, where marley's spirit still dwelt. the passages lavinia most liked, of course, were those in which he declared his love for her; it was the first love-letter she had ever received, and this tender experience went far to compensate her for the loneliness she felt in his absence. it grew upon her after she had read her letter many times, that it would be a kindness to take it over and read to mrs. marley those parts, at least, that were not personal. it was a hard thing for lavinia to do; she had a fear of mrs. marley; but she felt more and more the kindness of it, and so in the morning she set out. lavinia was surprised and a little disappointed, when mrs. marley told her that she too had received in the same mail a letter from glenn. it somehow took away from her own act, the more when mrs. marley calmly passed her letter over for lavinia to read. lavinia, who had not been able to resist a pang that marley had written his mother quite as promptly as he had written her, found some consolation in the fact that his letter to his mother was not nearly so long as his letter to her, and it contained, too, the same information; in some instances, identical phrases, as letters do that are written at the same time. she felt that she should be happy in them both, and she wished she could determine which of the letters had been written first. after she had read mrs. marley's letter, she could not speak for a moment; the letter closed with a description of the sensations it gave marley to open his trunk and come across the bible his mother had packed in it. but she controlled herself, and when she had finished reading parts of her own letter to mrs. marley, she said: "well, he seems to be in good spirits, doesn't he? he writes so amusingly of everything." mrs. marley looked up at lavinia with a curious smile. "why, don't you see?" she said. "what?" asked lavinia, glancing in alarm at the two letters which she still held in her lap. "why, the poor boy is dying of homesickness; that's what makes him write in that mocking vein." "do you think that is so?" lavinia leaned forward. "why, i know it," replied mrs. marley, with a little laugh. "he's just like his father." for a moment lavinia felt a satisfaction in marley's loneliness, but she denied the satisfaction when she said: "he'll get over it, after a while." "not for a long while, i'm afraid," said mrs. marley. "not until some one can be with him." lavinia blushed, and before she knew it mrs. marley had bent over and kissed her cheek. "he has a long hard battle before him, my dear," she said, "in a great cruel city. we must help him all we can." lavinia hesitated a moment, then she put her arms about mrs. marley and drew her down for the kiss which sealed their friendship. they sat and talked of marley for a long time, and at last when lavinia rose to go, she held out to mrs. marley the letter her son had written her. she looked at it a moment before handing it to mrs. marley. "would you like to keep it?" mrs. marley asked. "may i?" "if you wish. but you must come often; i shall be lonely now, you know, and you must bring his letters and read parts of them. he'll be writing so many more to you than he will to me." lavinia received a letter from marley every day; it was not long before clemmons, the postman, smiled significantly when, each morning at the sound of his whistle, she ran to meet him at the door. and lavinia wrote to marley as regularly herself, sitting at the little desk in her room every night long after the house was dark and still. the judge could find no hope in the observations mrs. blair reported to him. "she seems to have developed a new idea of constancy," said mrs. blair. "she will not allow herself to do a thing, or go to a single place; she will hardly accept any pleasure because he isn't here to share it. i believe she tries not to have a thought that is not of him. she is almost fanatical about it." "oh dear!" said the judge. "i thought the nightly calls were a severe strain, but they can not compare to the strain of nightly letters." "he writes excellent letters, however," mrs. blair said. "i wish you could read the one he wrote his mother. a boy who writes like that to his mother--" "how did you get to see a letter he wrote his mother?" interrupted the judge. "lavinia showed it to me." "has she been over there?" "yes. why?" the judge shook his head gravely, as if the situation were now hopeless, indeed. chapter xxvi the army of the unemployed "i am very tired to-night," marley wrote to lavinia a day or so later. "i have been making the rounds of the law offices; i have been to all the leading firms, but--here i am, still without a place. i thought i might get a place in one of them where i could finish my law studies, and make enough to live on, meanwhile; i had dreams of working into the firm in time, but they were only dreams, and all my hopes have gone glimmering. the men who are employed in the law offices are already admitted to the bar; most of them are young fellows, but some are old and gray-headed, and the sight of them gave me the blues. "i did not get to see many of the firm members themselves; their offices are formidable places. there is no office in macochee like them; they have big outer rooms, full of stenographers and clerks and there is a boy at a desk who makes you tell your business before you can get in to see any of the lawyers themselves. they seem to be mighty big, important fellows. most of them would not see me at all; several said they had no place for me and dismissed me with a kind of pitying smile; one man, when i asked him if he thought there was an opening, said he supposed there ought to be, as one lawyer in chicago had died of starvation only the day before. but some were kinder; one, whom i shall never forget, took pains to sit down and talk with me a long time, but he was no more encouraging than the others. he said the profession was terribly overcrowded, 'that is,' he corrected himself with a tired smile, 'if you can call it a profession any longer. it is more of a business nowadays and the only ones who get ahead are those who have big corporations for clients. how they all live is a mystery to me!' he thought i had better not undertake it and advised me to go into some business. but then most of them did that. "but i must tell you of my visit to judge johnson. you will remember my telling you of him; he was wade powell's chum in the law school in cincinnati, and mr. powell had given me a letter to him. i had a hard time seeing him; the hardest of all. when i went into the big stone government building he was holding court, and a lawyer was making an argument before him. i waited till they were all done, and then when the crier had adjourned court--he said 'oyez, oyez, oyez,' instead of the 'hear ye, hear ye, hear ye' we have in ohio; it sounded so old and quaint, even if he did say 'oh yes,' for 'oyez!' it comes from the old norman-french, you know; ask your father about it, he'll explain it--i tried to get in to him. i succeeded at last, but it was hard work. he didn't seem glad to see me; he looked at me coldly, and made me feel as if i ought to hurry up and state my business promptly and get away. when i gave him wade powell's letter he put on his gold glasses and read it; but--what do you think?--i don't believe he remembered wade powell at all! at least he seemed not to. of course he may have been putting it on. wouldn't it make wade powell mad to know that? i'd give a dollar--and i haven't any to spare either--to see him when he hears that his old friend, judge johnson of the united states circuit court, couldn't remember him! well, the judge didn't let me detain him long, he looked at his watch a moment, and then he advised me not to try it in chicago; he said there were too many lawyers here anyhow, and that he thought a young man made a mistake in coming to a city at all. "'why don't you stay in a small town?' he asked, looking at me sternly over his glasses. 'living is cheaper there, and life is much more simple than it is in the cities. i've often wished i had stayed in a little town.' "i came away, as you can imagine, feeling pretty much cast down and humbled in spirit. there are four thousand lawyers in chicago; just think of it, almost as many lawyers as there are people in macochee! as i walked through the crowded streets with men and women rushing along, i wondered how they all lived. what do they do? where are they all going, and how do they get a place to stand on? as i came across the bridge over to the north side i felt that there was no place for me here in this great, dirty, ugly city, just as there is no place for me back in peaceful macochee, where every minute of the day i long to be. anyway, i am sure that there is no place for me here in the law, and i shall have to look for something else. i see so much wretchedness and poverty and squalor; it is in the street everywhere--pale, gaunt men, who look at you out of sick, appealing eyes. "this morning i saw a sight down-town that filled me with horror; it was noon, and a great crowd of ragged men were waiting in front of the _daily news_ office in fifth avenue. they were all standing idly and yet expectantly about; i stood and watched them. presently, as at some signal, they all rushed for the office door, and then all at once they seemed to be enveloped in a white, rustling cloud. each one had a newspaper, and they all turned to one page and began to read rapidly; sometimes two or three men bent over the same paper; in another moment they had scattered, going in all directions. then it flashed upon me: they had been waiting for the noon edition of the paper and the page they had all turned to was the page with the 'want ads' on it; they were all looking for jobs! it made me inexpressibly sad. i do not wish to inflict my own sorrow upon you, dear heart, but it made me shudder; what if i--but no, the thought is too horrible to mention. and yet i, too, belong to this great army of the unemployed. "as i write the clock in the steeple of a church a block away chimes the hour of midnight; so you see that i've retained my nocturnal habits. when the poets of a coming generation sing of me (as they doubtless will, after my death) their songs will be called nocturnes." that same day doctor marley received a letter from his son which mrs. marley, though her husband passed it over to her to read, did not show to lavinia. it ran: "it's rather expensive living here, i find; especially for one who belongs to the great army of the unemployed. my contract with my basiliscine landlady calls for two meals a day and a bed at night--also for three-fifty per week in payment of said two meals and bed. my lunches i get down-town; that is, i did get them down-town; for two days i have gone without lunches, and the aforesaid landlady looks reproachfully at me at night when she sees me laying in an extra supply of dinner. i don't mind the lack of the lunches, even if she does, but i'll have to pay her in a day or so now. i'm in poor spirits to-night, so can't write well; cause of said low mental temperature, only eighty cents in the world between me, my landlady and ultimate starvation. it's funny how much hungrier a fellow gets as the food supply gets low. a word to the wise, etc. "what do you think? i met charlie davis on the street this morning. he is living here now, working in some big department store. my, it was good to see some one from macochee! how small the world is, after all! "how are you all? how is dolly? does smith johnson still clap his hands at his dog every evening as he comes home, and does the dog run out to meet him as joyously as of yore? and does hank delphy still go down-town in his shirt-sleeves? and has charlie fouly had any fits in the square lately? and, father, has mother got a girl yet? give her an ocean of love and tell her not to work too hard, and to let the heathen shift for themselves a while. they haven't any trusts to monopolize the jobs as yet, and they ought to be able to get along. oh, how i'd like to see you all! answer all my questions: i propounded numerous ones to you. i don't remember now what all of them were, but i know they were all momentous and had much to do with my well-being, spiritual and physical, not to say financial. and see that the moss doesn't get too thickly overlaid on my memory." marley's new life in chicago, as somewhat vaguely reflected in his letters, impressed those who had a sense of having been left behind in macochee, as but a continuation of the life he had led there, that is, it was presented to them as one long, hopeless search for employment. he told of his daily tramps up and down the city, of his dutiful applications for work in every place where the boon of work might be bestowed, and of the unvarying refusals of those in whose hands had been intrusted, by some inscrutable decree of the providence of economics, the right to control the opportunity of labor. it was as if the primal curse of earning his bread were in a fair way to be taken from man, had not the primal necessity of eating his bread continued unabated. the routine through which he went each day had begun to weary marley, and it might have begun to weary his readers in macochee, had they not all felt their own fortunes somehow bound up with his. he apologized in his nightly letters for the monotony of their recitals, but he hoped it might be condoned as the most realistic portrayal of his life that he could give. he tried at times to give his letters a lighter tone by describing, with a facility that grew with practice, the many incidents that attracted him in a city whose life was all so new and strange to him; he could not help a growing interest in it all, and while lavinia was probably unconscious of the change, his letters were now less concerned with the things of the life he had left in macochee, and more and more with the things of the life he had entered upon in chicago; as on a palimpsest, the old impressions were erased to make way for new ones. but try as he would to give to his letters a cheer that was far from expressing his own spirit, he could not save them from the despair that was laying hold of him, a despair which finally communicated itself in the declaration that it was now no longer with him a question of selecting employment. "i must take," he wrote, "whatever i can get, and that will probably be some kind of manual, if not menial, work. sometimes," so he let himself go on, "i feel as if i would give up and go back to macochee, defeated and done for. but i can not come to that yet, though i would like to; oh, how i would like to! but i don't dare, my pride won't let me act the part of a coward, though i know i am one at heart. one thing keeps me up and that is the thought of you; i see your face ever before me, and your sweet eyes ever smiling at me--" lavinia's eyes were not smiling as she read this; and she poured out her own grief and sympathy in a long letter that she promptly tore up, to pen in its stead a calmer, braver one, that should hearten him in the struggle which, as she proudly assured him, he was making for her. marley's description of his straits partly prepared lavinia for the shock of the letter in which he said he had found a job at last, but she was hardly prepared to learn that it was anything so far from her conception of what was due him as a job trucking freight for a railroad. the mockery he put into the picture of himself in a blue jumper and overalls could not console her, and she kept the truth from every one, except her mother; she preferred rather that they number marley still with the army of the unemployed than to count him among those who toiled so desperately with the muscles of their arms and backs. she tried to conceal in encouraging congratulations the chagrin of which she felt she should be ashamed, and she tried to show her appreciation of his droll sarcasms about the preparation his four years of college had given him for the task of trundling barrels of sugar and heaving pianos down from box-cars. "i'm sure it's honest work," she wrote, "but do be careful, dear, not to hurt yourself in lifting such heavy loads." it was a comfort to remind him that he was not intended to do such work. there was a relief, however, that she did not dare admit, when he told her three days later that he had lost his job. "i realize for the first time my importance in the great scheme of things," he wrote. "i was fired because i do not belong to the freight handlers' union. it took them three days to find this out, and then they threatened to strike if the railroad company did not immediately discharge me. the railroad company, after due consideration, decided to let me out, and--i'm out. it makes me tremble to think of the consequences that would have followed had they decided otherwise. think of it! the railroad tied up, business at a standstill and the commerce of the nation paralyzed, and all because of glenn marley, a. b. it is really encouraging to know that my presence on the earth is actually known to my fellow-mortals; it has at least been discovered that i am alive and in chicago, even if my diploma is not recognized by freight handlers' union no. . and now," he concluded, "as kipling says, it's 'back to the army again, sergeant, back to the army again'--the army of the unemployed." lavinia was shocked again a day or so later when on opening her letter she met the announcement that he had been offered a job with another railroad as a freight handler. "but you need not be alarmed," she was reassured to read--though it was not until she thought it all over afterward that she began to wonder how he had divined her dislike of his being in such work--"i haughtily declined, and turned them down. you see this road is just now in the throes of a strike, and all their freight handlers are out. consequently, they have had to employ scabs to do the work of the strikers. they take anybody--that's why they were ready to take me. but as i said, i declined. somehow, i couldn't bring myself to take a place away from a union man." lavinia mistook her satisfaction in marley's declination of the position for a satisfaction in the nobility of his sacrifice, and in her elation she related the circumstance at dinner. now that marley had declined such an employment she felt safe in doing this. but her father did not see it in her light, or at least in marley's light. "humph!" he sneered; "so he sympathizes with unionism, does he? well, those unions will own the whole earth if they keep on." "but he says he thought of the wives and children of the union men--" "well, but why doesn't he think of the wives and children of the scabs, as he calls them? they have as much right to live and work as the union men." lavinia, as an opponent of union labor herself, could not answer this argument, though she felt it her duty to defend marley. but before she could proceed in his defense, her father, strangely enraged at the mere mention of the policies of the unions, hurried on: "the union didn't show any consideration for him when it took his other job away from him." lavinia shot a reproachful glance at her mother, who did not see it because she was shooting a glance more than reproachful at her husband, and it had the effect of silencing and humbling the judge, as all of lavinia's arguments, or all of the arguments known to the propaganda of union labor, could not have done. chapter xxvii a foothold the next letter the postman gave lavinia began ecstatically: "i've got a job at last! i'm now working for the c. c. and p. railroad, in their local freight office, and i'm not trucking freight either, but i'm a clerk--a bill clerk, to be more exact. my duties consist in sitting at a desk and writing out freight bills, for which by some inscrutable design of providence my study of common carriers and contracts in the law was doubtless intended to prepare me. "to-day i wrote out a bill for freight to cook and jennings, macochee, ohio, and you can imagine my sensations. it made me homesick for a while; i wished that by some necromancy i might conceal myself in the bill and go to macochee with it; i had a notion to write a little word of greeting on the bill, but i didn't; it might have worried old man cook's brain and he couldn't stand much of a strain of that kind. but i'm getting nearer macochee every day now. i guess i'm to be a railroad man after all, and some day you'll be proud to tell your friends that i started at the bottom. 'oh, yes,' you'll be boasting, 'mr. marley began as a common freight trucker; and worked his way up to general manager.' then we'll go back to macochee in my private car. i can see it standing down by the depot, on the side track close to market street, baking in the hot sun, and the little boys from across the tracks will be crowding about it, gaping at the white-jacketed darky who'll be getting the dinner ready. we'll have jack and mayme down to dine with us, and your father and mother and chad and connie, and my folks, too, and maybe, if you'll let me, wade powell. then, of course, the macochee people will think better of me; they won't be saying that i'm no good, but instead they'll stand around, in an easy, careless way, and say, 'oh, yes, i knew glenn when he was a boy. i always said he'd get up in the world.' "but, ah me, just now i'm a bill clerk at fifty dollars a month, thank you, and glad of the chance to get it; so is my voluptuous landlady glad; she'll get her board money a little more regularly now. "i suppose you'll want to know something about my surroundings. they are not elegant; the office is a big barn of a place, crowded full of desks, where we sit and write from eight in the morning until any hour at night when it occurs to the boss to tell us we can go. last night it was ten o'clock before the idea struck him. they kindly allow us an hour in which to run out to a restaurant for supper. the windows in the office were washed, so tradition runs, in , the year after columbus landed. outside, the freight trains rush by constantly so as to keep the noise going. my boss, whose name is clark, strikes me as being a sort of fool of an innocuous sort. he is a conscientious ass, but a poor, unfortunate, deluded simpleton. he's one of those close-fisted reubs whose chief care is the pennies, and whose only interest in life is the c. c. and p. railroad. he makes his business his own personal affair and the c. c. and p. his god. he lunches down-town and pays twenty cents for his lunch, never more, often fifteen. one of the first things he told me was, now that i had come under his protecting wing, to begin to save money. they have a young man in the office here, whose desk is next to mine, who was born somewhere in canada, and is always 'a-servin' of her majesty the queen,' as kipling says. he told me with much gusto how he had hung out of the office window last new year's a canadian flag. he seemed proud of having done so, and also told me, boasted to me, in fact, that he was going to hang the same flag out of the same window on the fourth of july. 'oh, yes, you are!' thinks i. so i got the flag and ripped it into shreds and started it through the waste-basket on a hurried trip to oblivion. _� bas_ the canadian flag! he'll probably get another one, but if i get hold of it, it'll meet the same fate as the first one. then i have something to think of that'll keep my mind off my horrible fate in being here in chicago, while i smile in ghoulish glee with a cynical leer overspreading my classic features, at the young man's disapproval of my actions. the rest of the men in the office aren't much to boast of. they're a diluted mixture of nijni norgordian and bill hoffman the jeweler. i still hate this town; i wish it were buried under seven hundred and thirty feet of lake michigan." marley's next letter to lavinia opened thus: "extract from the diary of j. h. anderson, esq., canadian, clerk in the freight office of the c. c. and p. ry., at chicago, ill., april . "'new man on desk next to mine; young, about . rather decent fellow, but conceited. do not think he will last. took me to lunch with him this evening.' "now what do you think of that? the youth i described to you at such length keeps a diary, and the foregoing is culled therefrom. he left it by some mistake on top of his desk, and i picked it up innocently enough to-night, to see what it was, and that was the first thing my eye lit on. he is evidently an adept at coming to conclusions, apparently he can sum one up in two whisks of a porter's broom. i was much surprised to find myself so well done. done on every side in those few words. i've rather enjoyed it; strikes me as being uproariously funny. maybe his dictum is correct. you'll agree with me as to his richness. tell every one about it and see what they will think. tell your mother and my mother. tell jack and give him a chance to laugh. tell mayme carter, too." lavinia ran at once to her mother. "listen," she said. and she read it. mrs. blair laughed. "how funny!" she said, "and how well he writes! i should think he'd go into literature." lavinia laid the letter down in her lap and looked at her mother as if she had been startled by a striking coincidence. "why, do you know, i've thought of that very thing myself." "but read on," urged mrs. blair. lavinia picked up the letter again and began: "well, de--" "oh," she exclaimed, blushing hotly, "i can't read you that. let's see--" she leafed over the letter, one, two, three, four sheets. mrs. blair was smiling. "aren't you leaving out the best parts?" she asked archly. "oh, there's nothing," lavinia said, not looking up. "but--oh, well, this is all. he says-- "'there is a good deal of unrest and uneasiness here just now, because the first of may is coming. the road is anticipating trouble with the freight handlers; they may go out on a strike that day.' "oh, dear," sighed lavinia, "more strikes, and i suppose that means more trouble for glenn." "why, the strike of those men can't affect him," mrs. blair assured her. "he's a clerk now." "yes, i know, but what if he gets the notion he ought to help them by quitting too?" chapter xxviii the talk of the town macochee's common interest in marley was sharpened by his leaving town, and out of the curiosity that raged, lawrence and mayme carter one evening made a call on lavinia. "well, lavinia," said lawrence, almost as soon as they were seated in the parlor, "what's the news about glenn? how's he getting along?" "oh, pretty well," she said, smiling. "does he like chicago?" "oh, yes; that is, fairly well." "run get his letters and let us read them." "why, jack! the idea!" mayme rebuked him. but lavinia instantly got up. "well, i'll read you part of one or two," she said. "he can tell you much better than i all about himself." she was gone from the room a moment and then returned with two thick envelopes. "my, lavinia, you don't intend to read all that, do you?" lawrence made a burlesque of looking at his watch. "oh, you needn't be afraid," said lavinia, smiling. she opened a letter. "here's one that came several days ago. he mentions you both in this one." "you don't mean to say he connects our names?" lawrence affected consternation. "can't you be serious a moment?" mayme said, "i want to hear what he says; do go on, lavinia, and don't mind jack." lavinia read the extract from the diary and marley's comment. "doesn't he say anything about you?" said lawrence. "why don't you read that? you skip the most interesting parts. you'd better let me read them. here--" and he held out his hand for the letter. but lavinia laid one letter securely in her lap and opened the other. "listen to this," she began, and then she glanced over the first page and half-way down the second. "here you're skipping again," cried lawrence. "why don't you play fair?" "'i have made a friend,' he says," she began, "'and it all came about through the strike. you know the freight handlers went out on the first of may, and since then there has been more excitement than work in the office. the freight house is stacked high with freight, and only a few men are working there and they are afraid of their lives. all around the outside of the big, long shed are policemen and detectives, and the strikers' pickets. all day they walk up and down, up and down, at a safe distance, just off the company's ground, and they waylay everybody and try to get them not to go to work here. i happened to see the strike when it began. it was day before yesterday morning. i had gone out in the freight house on some little errand and just at ten o'clock i noticed a man walk down by the platform that runs along outside the shed. i saw him stop by one of the big doors and look in. suddenly he gave a low whistle, then another. the men in the freight house stopped and looked up. then the man outside raised his arm, and held up two fingers--'" "he wanted them to go swimming probably," interrupted lawrence. "oh, jack, do stop," said mayme, irritably. "right at the most interesting part, too! do go on, lavinia." lavinia read on: "'then the man outside raised his arm, and held up two fingers, and instantly every truck in the shed dropped to the floor, bang, the men all went and put on their coats, marched out of the freight house--and the strike was on. well, after that came the policemen and the detectives and the pickets, to say nothing of the reporters. it is about these last that i mean to tell you, for among them i have found this new friend. the other day a young man came into the office to see clark, our boss. i was attracted by him at once. he was tall, and his smooth-shaven face was refined and thoughtful; i call him good-looking; his eyes were dark and his nose straight and full of character; his lips were thin and level; his hair was not quite black and stopped just on the right side of being curly. he was dressed modestly, but stylishly; i remember he wore gloves--he always does--and i thought him somewhat dudish. but what was my pleasure to see on his waistcoat the little white cross of my fraternity! i rushed up to him instantly, and gave him the grip. he was a sig., from an indiana college, and he is a reporter on the _courier_. his name is james weston; no, he is no relation to bob weston of macochee at all. i asked him that the first thing; but he is some relation to the cliffords, distant, i suppose.'" "i wonder if that isn't the young man who visited them summer before last?" asked mayme. "i'll bet it is!" "no, it can't be," said lavinia, "i thought of that the very first thing, but you see he says," and lavinia read on: "'he says he hasn't been there for years. we chatted together for a few minutes and were friends at once. to-morrow night, if i can get off in time, i'm to dine with him at a café down-town. my, but it was good to see some one wearing that little white cross! you see my college training has done me some good after all.'" in their conversation afterward, lavinia and mayme celebrated marley's abilities as a writer, but lawrence begged lavinia to read them more, particularly, as he assured her, those parts about herself, saying he could judge better of marley's abilities after he heard how he treated romantic subjects. "i want to know how he handles the love interest," he said. "oh, you got that from george halliday," said mayme. "it sounds just like him when he's discussing some book none of us has read, doesn't it, lavinia?" lavinia admitted that it did sound like halliday, and mayme returned to her attack on lawrence by saying: "what do you know about writing, anyway?" they might have gone farther along this line had not mrs. blair entered with a plate of cake and some ice-cream that had been left over from their dessert at supper. these refreshments instantly seemed to affect mayme with the idea that the call had assumed the formality of a social function, and as she nibbled at her cake, she asked with a polite interest: "just what is mr. marley's position with the railroad, lavinia?" "oh," lavinia answered, "he has a place in the office of the freight department; he's a clerk there." "i'm so glad to know," said mayme, as if in relief. "why?" lavinia looked up in alarm. "oh, well, you know--how people talk." mayme raised her pale eyebrows significantly. lavinia was disturbed, but lawrence, detecting the danger, instantly turned it off in a joke. "she heard he was a section hand," he said. "the idea!" laughed lavinia. "isn't this just the worst place for gossip you ever heard of?" said mayme. "the worst ever," said lawrence. "if i were you i'd quit and start a reform movement." when they had gone and were strolling toward the carters', lawrence grumbled at mayme: "what did you want to give it all away to lavinia for?" "why, jack, i didn't say anything, did i?" "oh, no, nothing--only you tipped off the whole thing to her." "why, what did i say that hinted at it, even?" "'oh, you know how people talk!'" lawrence mimicked her tone as he repeated her words. "well, you know they do, jack, and you know all the mean things they've been saying about glenn. and you remember charlie davis' mother told mama that charlie ran across him in the street: in chicago and that--" "oh, charlie davis!" said lawrence, as impatiently as he could say anything. "what's he? anyway, you didn't have to tell lavinia." "well, i'm glad we got the truth anyway." "yes, so am i." "we must tell everybody." "sure," acquiesced lawrence, "if we can get the gossips started the other way they'll have him president of the road in a few days." chapter xxix a man of letters the macochee gossips, after they were assured he was engaged in clerical, and not manual work, might have promoted marley much more rapidly than his railroad would have done, had it not been for the news that he had changed his employment. they had gone far enough to noise it about that marley was chief clerk in the office, where he was only a bill clerk, when the _republican_, with the impartial good nature with which it treated all of macochee's folk, so long as they kept out of politics, mentioned him for the first time since his departure, and then, to tell of the advancement he was rapidly making in the metropolis that loomed so large and important in their provincial eyes. lavinia had the facts in a letter from marley a day or so before the _republican_ had them, though she never could imagine, as she told everybody, where the _republican_ got its information. "i have a big piece of news to tell you," he wrote. "last night i dined with weston. it was the first really enjoyable evening i have had since i struck the town. luckily, the strikers had everything tied up so tight that we could do little work, and i had no trouble in getting off in time. i met him about six o'clock, and we went to the swellest restaurant in town. weston is the finest fellow you ever saw; as it was pay night, he said he would blow me off to a good dinner. and he did, the best dinner i have ever eaten; there were half a dozen courses, and as we ate we talked, talked about everything, college days, the hard days that come after college, and you, and everything. weston's experience has been about the same as mine--one long, hopeless search for a job. he, however, did not wait so long as i did; he said that he realized there was no place for him in a small town, and so he set out for the city almost at once. his father wanted him to study medicine, but he said he hadn't the money or the patience to wait, and he hated medicine anyway, and, as newspaper work offered the quickest channel to making a living he chose that. his secret ambition, he confessed, is literature, and i believe he is writing a book, but he would not, or did not, tell me as much. he says he thinks newspaper work a bad business for any one to get into, but then i have discovered that that is the way every man talks about his own calling. "after we had finished our dinner, we sat there for a long, long time over our coffee and cigarettes, and we finally got to talking about the strike. weston, you know, has been working on it, and i was glad to be able to tell him a good many things he said he could use. finally, i don't know just how it came about, but i told him how the strike started with us, about the man appearing in the street alongside the freight house, whistling, and then holding up two fingers--i think i described it to you in a letter the other night. weston was greatly interested; i can see him still, sitting across the table from me, knocking the ashes from his cigarette into his empty coffee-cup and looking so intently at me out of his brown eyes that he almost embarrassed me. and what was my surprise when i finished to have him say: "'by jove, marley, i'll have to use that. i've been wondering how to lead my story to-night.' "now you know the strike at our place occurred several days ago, but since then it has been spreading, and to-day the men on another road walked out. this morning when i picked up the _courier_ and turned to the strike news, here is what i read, under big head-lines: "'a short man with a brown derby hat cocked over his eye walked leisurely down canal street at ten o'clock yesterday morning. the short man walked a block and then turned and walked back. at the open door of the c. and a.'s big freight house he stopped. suddenly he whistled, once, twice, thrice, in low notes. then he raised his hand with a gesture that was graceful and yet commanding, and held up two fingers. inside the freight house the men who were heaving away at the big bales and boxes, attracted by the whistle, paused in their labor and looked up; they saw the man raise his two fingers; and, with the discipline of well-trained troops, they dropped their trucks, put on their coats and marched out of the freight house. and the alton had been added to the list of railroads whose men were on strike.' "of course, i was surprised and puzzled, and a little pleased too, that i had had a hand in the article. as i read it, though, i thought of a hundred details i might have told weston, and i began to wish i had written the account myself. this afternoon he came around to the office again, and the first thing he said was: "'did you see your story this morning?' "i told him i had, of course. 'but,' i added, 'that was the way it happened on our road; not on the alton.' "but he only laughed, and said something about the tricks of the trade. "and now for the news i was going to tell you. i told weston, as we talked the story over, of my little wish that i had written the article myself, and he looked at me intently for a moment. then he said: "'how'd you like to break into newspaper business?' "my heart leaped; it came to me suddenly that it wasn't the law, nor railroad work, but journalism that i wanted to enter. i told him so frankly and he said: "'well, it's a dog's life and i don't know whether i'm doing you a good turn or not, but i'll speak to the city editor tonight. he's a little short of men just now. "my heart is in my mouth. i can hardly wait till to-morrow, when i'm to see him again. think of it, dear, and all it means! it means more money, association with men of my own kind, men like weston, and a fine, interesting life; and it means you; oh, it means you!" marley was able in this letter to communicate to lavinia some of his enthusiasm and some of his suspense, and she found it difficult to await the result of his next interview with weston. she began to count the hours until marley and weston should meet again, and then in a flash it came over her that they had doubtless already met, that the decision was already known, the fate determined, and she was still in ignorance. she had a sense of mystery in it, and she grew impatient, wondering why he did not telegraph. the next day came, and a letter with it; but the letter did not decide anything. marley wrote that weston had spoken to the city editor, and that he had told him to bring marley around that evening. and so, other hours of waiting, and then, at last, another letter. marley announced the result with what self-repression he could command. "it's settled," he wrote. "i'm to go to work monday--as a reporter on the staff of the _courier_. the salary to begin with is to be fifteen dollars a week. i'm glad to quit railroad work; i'm not built to be a railroad man; i can't adhere to rules as they want me to, and i can't bow down as it seems i should. i didn't tell you that my boss and i had not been getting along very well lately; i thought i wouldn't worry you. i was glad to be able to tell him to-day that i'd quit saturday. i did it in a proud and haughty manner; he seemed surprised and shocked--even pained. and when i broke the news gently to the young canuck he expressed great sorrow and regret, but in his secret heart i knew he was glad, for now as a prophet he can vindicate himself, at least partly, in his diary." lavinia was glad that marley had gone into newspaper work; much as she had tried she had not been able to conceive of him in exactly the ideal light as a clerk in a railroad office; that position, while it may have had its own promise, nevertheless did not envelope him in the atmosphere she considered native to him. in his new relation to literature, which, in her ignorance, she confounded with journalism, she felt a deep satisfaction, and a new pride, and she was glad when the _republican_ announced the fact of marley's new position; she felt that it was a fitting vindication of her lover in the eyes of the people of macochee and a rebuke for the distrust they had shown in him. thereafter her mail was increased, for in addition to his letter marley sent her the _courier_ with his work marked; often he marked weston's as well, and early in june he wrote: "i want you to read weston's story in sunday's paper about the derby; it's a peach; it's the best piece of frill writing that the town has seen in many a day." the tone of marley's letters now became more cheerful; it was evident to lavinia that he was finding an interest in life, and in his descriptions of his daily work and the places all over chicago it took him to and the people of all sorts it brought him in contact with, she found a new interest for her own life. when he wrote that his salary had been increased because of his story about a sunday evening service in a church of the colored people in dearborn street, it seemed to her that happiness at last had come to them, and if, with the passing of june, she felt a pang at marley's grieving in one of his letters that this was the month in which they had intended to be married, she was consoled by the rapid progress he was making in his work. his salary had been raised a second time; he was receiving now twenty-five dollars a week; it seemed large to her, and she could not understand why it did not seem large to marley, even when he wrote that weston was paid forty dollars a week. her chief joy, perhaps, lay in the fact that he seemed to be living more comfortably than he had before. now that he had left his dismal boarding-house she found a relief from its subtly communicated influence of the stranded wrecks of life, as marley surely found it in the apartments he was sharing with weston. she parted as gladly from the knowledge of his landlady as marley did himself, assuring her that the landlady had "not decreased any in value as a zoo exhibit since first i rhapsodized about her." lavinia felt that she could dispense with much of the worry her womanly concern for his comfort had given her, and she turned with a new joy to the books he was constantly recommending. "did you ever read," he wrote, "turgenieff's _fathers and sons_? i know that you didn't and therefore i know what a treat you have coming. i'll send you the book if you can't get it in macochee, and i presume you can't. snider's sign 'drugs and books' is a lure to deceive an unwary public that doesn't care as much for books as it does for soda-water; and the stock there, as i recall it, consists largely of forty-cent editions of books on which the copyright has expired, and which, printed on cheap, pulp paper, are to be introduced for the first time to the natives of macochee. i wish you could see weston's little book-case, with its rows of his favorites. besides turgenieff and tolstoi--he says the russians are the greatest novel writers the world has yet produced--he has all of george eliot; i have just read over again _middlemarch_ and _daniel deronda_. he likes jane austen, too, and he says you would like her; i haven't read any but _emma_ as yet. i'm going to read them all. and if you like, you can read the set of little volumes i am sending you to-day; we can read them thus together. and henry james--do read him--_daisy miller_ especially; you will like that. besides these, weston has most of ibsen's plays, and sometimes he reads parts of them aloud to me; he reads them well. some day, he says, he's going to write a play himself; he is fond of the theater, and we often go. one of the fine things about being on a newspaper is that we get theater tickets, though we can't always get tickets to the theater we want. now and then the dramatic editor--a fine old fellow with a magnificent shock of white hair, who may be seen about the office late at night looking very _distingué_ in his evening clothes--gets weston to write a criticism on some play; and often the literary editor lets him review books. weston said to-day he'd get the literary editor to let me review some books, and when i told him i didn't know how, he laughed in a strange way and said that wouldn't make the slightest difference. there's another book you _must_ read, and that is _a modern instance_. the chief character is bartley hubbard, a newspaper man. weston and i had a big argument about the character to-day. i said i thought it was a libel on the newspaper profession and weston laughed and said it was only the truth, and that i'd agree with him after i'd been in the work longer. 'newspaper work isn't a profession anyway,' he said, 'but a business.' he speaks of journalism--though he won't call it journalism, nor let me--just as lawyers speak of the law. he is urging me, by the way, to keep up my law studies, and i'm thinking of going to the law school here, if i find i can carry it on with my other work. weston declares i can; he says a man has to carry water on both shoulders if he wants to amount to anything in the world--wade powell said something like that to me once. weston says i'll want to get out of newspaper work after a while. he disturbed me a little to-day, and he hurt me, too, by saying that a newspaper man has no business to be married; and he knows all about you, too. of course, he didn't mean to hurt me, it's merely his way of looking at things." happy as she was, lavinia still had to have her woman's worries, and they began to express themselves in constant adjuration to marley to guard his health; she feared the effect of night work, and she feared, too, that he could not carry on his law studies and do his duty as a reporter at the same time. she sympathized with the spirit of pride and determination which made him wish to finish his law studies and be admitted to the bar, but she found a greater satisfaction in thinking of him as a journalist than as a lawyer; the figure he thus presented to her mind was so much more romantic than the prosaic one of a lawyer to which she had been all her life accustomed; on a large metropolitan daily he was almost as romantic to her as an army officer or a naval officer would have been. and while she did not like the night work, and had her fears of it for marley, she nevertheless felt strongly its picturesque quality. the picture marley drew in one of his letters of the strange shifting of the scene that is to be observed in the streets of a great city as darkness falls, when those that work in the prosaic day disappear and in their places appears the vast and mysterious army of the toilers by night, many of them in callings demanding the cover of the night, thrilled her strangely. but she did not know how from all the temptations of the irregular life he was leading he was saved, partly by the gentle friend he had found in james weston, but more by the constant thought of the girl whom he had left behind at home. chapter xxx home again marley, after a year or more in chicago, found the excitement of his first return home growing upon him as he looked out the car window and long before the train entered the borders of gordon county he eagerly began watching for familiar things. in the spirit of holiday which had come in this his first vacation, he had felt justified in taking a chair in the parlor car, though from the associations he had formed in his newspaper work it was more difficult now for him to resist than to yield to extravagances. he had recalled with a smile how in those first hard days in the freight office he had joked about going home in a private car, and he had had all day a childish pleasure in pretending that the empty pullman was a private car; he could almost realize such a distinction when he showed the conductor the pass his newspaper had got for him. but even if he now felt glad that he was a newspaper man instead of a railroad man, he was quite willing to return to macochee on any terms. he had tried to convince himself that he knew the very moment the train swept across the indiana line into ohio, and he felt a fine glow of state pride. he held his pride somewhat in check until he heard some one speak a name that he recognized as that of an ohio town and then he boasted to the porter: "well, i'm back in my own state again." the porter, though ready to admit that ohio was a pretty good old state, was nevertheless not very responsive, and marley saw that he would have to enjoy his sensations all alone. he could view with satisfaction the figure of a tolerably well-dressed city man reflected in the long mirror that swayed with the rushing of the heavy coach. he knew that his return would create a sensation in macochee, though he was resolved to be modest about it. even if he was not returning to macochee in the ceremony he had dreamed of, he was returning in a way that was distinguished enough for him and for macochee. he was eager to see the old town; he tried to imagine his return in its proper order and sequence, first, the little depot, blistering in the hot sun of the august afternoon, the rails gleaming in front of it, and the air above them trembling in the heat; he could see the baggage trucks tilted up on the platform; from the eating-house came the odor of boiled ham compromised by the smell of the grease frying on the scorching cinders that were heaped about the ties; beyond was the grain elevator that once appeared so monstrous in his eyes; across the tracks, the weed-grown field; and the only living things in sight the two men unloading agricultural machines from a box-car abandoned on a siding, the only sound, the ticking of a telegraph instrument; the target was set, but the station officials had not yet appeared. thence, in thought, he went up miami street; he saw the court house and, lounging along the stone base of the fence, the loafers whom no one had ever seen move, but who yet must have made some sort of imperceptible astronomical progress, for they kept always just in the shadow of the building; then the old law office across the way; then main street, with its crazy signs, its awnings, and the horses hitched to the racks, then the square with its old gabled buildings, the monument and the cavalryman, the long street leading to his own home, and at last, ward street, arched by its cottonwoods,--and he recalled his unfinished verses which had taken ward street for a subject: "i know a place all pastoral, where streams in winter flow, and where down from the cottonwoods there falls a summer snow." and then, at last, the old house of the blairs' with its cool veranda, its dark bricks, its broad overhanging cornices, and lavinia standing in the doorway! he had never forgotten the anguish of his parting that night in spring, and he had looked forward to this return as an experience that would expiate it, and restore the lost balance of his life. but now as he thought of his life in chicago, of the new scenes and associations, it came to him that that night after all had been final; the youth who had then gone forth had indeed gone forth never to return; another being was coming back in his stead. he had been successful in a way which at first flattered his pride, but a new sense of proportion had been growing in him that had lately made him mistrust newspaper work; he had for it a dislike almost as definite as that which used to displease him in weston. he was growing tired of his life as a reporter; it had so many irregularities, so many hardships; it detached him from wholesome, every-day existence. he longed for some calling more definite, more permanent, a work in which he might do things, instead of record them in an ephemeral way. he had for a while been envious of weston's progress in his literary efforts, and for a while he had emulated him, but he had not been long in recognizing that he lacked literary talent. out of this dissatisfaction with himself he had lately gone in earnestly to complete his law studies, which all along he had pursued in a desultory fashion. he found some consolation in the hope that he might be admitted to the bar in the fall, though how or when he was to get into a practice was still as much of a problem as it had been in the old days in macochee. he clung steadfastly, however, to the feeling that his newspaper work was but a makeshift; weston and he had constantly supported each other in this view--it was their one hope. with thoughts somewhat like these marley had been whiling away the hours of his long day's journey from chicago to macochee. he had read thoroughly, and with a professionally critical faculty, all the chicago papers, and had long ago thrown them aside in a disorderly pile. now he had the tired sense that his journey was nearing its end. at last he saw the old mill-pond, and his heart leaped in affection; then he got his umbrella and sticks, took off his traveling cap and put it in his bag. he stood up for the porter to brush him off, and when he had selected a half-dollar as a tip, he asked the porter to get his luggage together, and in a conscious affectation he could not forego, began to pull on his new gloves. they were nearing macochee now; and suddenly the tears started to his eyes, as in a flash he saw his white-haired father standing on the platform, anxiously craning his neck for a first glimpse of the boy who was coming home. marley's mother did not reproach him when he ate a hurried supper that evening and then set off immediately for lavinia's. he renewed some of the emotions of the earlier days of his courtship as the familiar houses along the way gradually presented themselves to his recognition; he was glad to note the changeless aspect of a town that never now could change, at least in the way of progress, and he discovered a novel satisfaction--one of the many experiences that were so rapidly crowding in with his impressions--in the feeling that here, at least, in macochee, things would remain as they were, and defy that inexorable law of change which makes so many tragedies in life. lavinia must have recognized his step, for there she was, standing in the doorway, a smile on her face, and her eyelashes somehow moist. marley felt a strange discomposure; there was a little effort, the intimacy of their letters must now give way to the intimacy of personal contact. but in another second she was in his arms, and her face was hidden against his breast. "at last," she said, "you're here!" he felt her tremble, and he held her more closely. when he released her she put her hands up to his shoulders and held him away from her, while she scanned him critically. "you've grown broader," she said, "and heavier, and--oh, so much handsomer!" the blairs filed in presently, and marley had the curious sense of this very scene having been enacted in his presence before, but it lacked the usual baffling effect of this psychological experience, for he was able to recall, in an incandescent flash of memory, that it was almost a repetition of their good-bys that night when he had gone away; mrs. blair was as tender, and if connie and chad were a little shy of his new importance, judge blair was as dignified, and as anxious as ever to get back to his reading. marley felt once more that permanence of things in macochee; this household had remained the same, and it made him feel more than ever the change that had occurred in him. in lovers' intense subjectivity, he and lavinia discussed this change seriously. they reviewed their old dreams, and now they could laugh at their defeated wish to live, even in an humble way, in macochee. "it was funny, wasn't it?" said marley. "i was very young then,--nothing, in fact, but a kid." "are you so very much older now?" asked lavinia with a slight hint of teasing in her tender voice. "well," marley replied, with a seriousness that impressed him, at least, as the ripe wisdom of maturity, "i am not much older in years, but i am in experience, and in knowledge of life. you see, dear, you can measure time by the calendar, but you can't measure life that way. and weston says that there is no calling that will give a man experience so quickly as newspaper work. you know we see everything, and we get a smattering of all kinds of knowledge. weston says that is all that reconciles him to the business; he says a man learns more there than he ever does in college. he considers the training invaluable; he says it will be of great help to him in literature, if he can ever get into literature--he isn't sure yet that he can. he can tell better after his book is published. and he says a newspaper experience will help me in the law, too, that is," marley added, with a whimsical imitation of weston's despairing uncertainty, "if i can ever get into the law." "you think a great deal of mr. weston, don't you?" said lavinia. "he's the finest fellow in the world, and the best friend i ever had." marley had a curious intuition that lavinia was a little jealous of weston. he immediately sought to allay the feeling with this argument: "you see, when a man does all for a fellow that jim has done for me, and when you have lived with him, and shared your haversack with him, and he with you, like two soldier comrades, you get right down to the bottom of him. and i want you to know him, dear, i know you'll like him." lavinia was silent, and marley had a fear that she might not accept weston quite so readily. "he has done me a world of good," he went on. "he has taught me much, he has corrected my reckoning in more ways than one. he has taught me much about books; and he has taught me to look sanely on a life that isn't, he says, always truthfully reflected in books. and besides all, if it hadn't been for him, if he had not kept me at it and urged me on, i think i should have been doomed for ever to remain a poor newspaper man." "don't you like newspaper work?" she asked with a shade of disappointment in her tone. "i did, but i like it less every day. it's a hard and unsatisfactory life, and it has no promise in it. a man very soon reaches its highest point, and then he must be content to stay there. it's the easiest thing for a young fellow to get a start in, if he's bright; i suppose i'm making more money than any of the young lawyers in chicago; but because it is so easy is the very reason why it is hardly worth while. things that are easily won are not worth striving for." "and you're going to get out of it?" "yes, as soon as i can. as soon as i can, i'm going to get into the law. when weston first began urging me to keep up my studies, and when finally he made me go to the night law school, i consented chiefly because i had always felt the chagrin of defeat in having been compelled to give it up; lately, i've begun to see things differently, and i've determined to carry out my first intention and get into the law somehow. of course, it's going to be hard. and one has to have a pull there as everywhere else in these days." marley was silent for a moment and, lavinia thought, a little depressed. she watched him sympathetically, and yet she was a little troubled by a sense of detachment. she felt that weston was now more closely associated with marley's struggle than she, and she was disturbed, too, by the disappointment of finding that his struggles were not at all ended. "weston says," marley went on presently, "that newspaper work is a good stepping-stone, and by it i may be able to arrange for some place in the law which will give me the start i want." "i thought you liked your work," lavinia said; "i thought you were happy in it." marley detected her regret, and was on the point of speaking, when lavinia went on: "i don't see why you can't go into literature as well as mr. weston." marley laughed. "the reason is that i haven't his talent," he said "i don't see why," lavinia argued with some resentment of his humility. "you haven't enough confidence in your own powers; you let mr. weston dominate you too much." "now, dearest," he pleaded, "you mustn't do jim that injustice. he doesn't dominate me; but he is so much wiser than i, he knows so much more. you will understand when you meet him." "well," she tentatively admitted, "that is no reason why you shouldn't in time be a literary man as well as he. why can't you?" "because i can't write, that's why." "why, glenn, how can you say that? your letters disprove that. every one who read them said that they were remarkable, and that you should go into literature. they said you had such good descriptive powers." marley was looking at her in amazement. "why, lavinia, you didn't show them!" "you simpleton!" she said, with a smile in her eyes, "of course not; but i have read parts of them to mama and to your mother now and then." "oh, well, that's all right," sighed marley in relief, and then he resumed his defense of weston and his analysis of himself. "of course, i suppose i can write a fairly good newspaper story; at least they say so at the office." he indulged a little look of pride, and then he went on: "but that isn't literature." "i don't see why it isn't," she said. "i should think it would be the most natural thing in the world to go from one into the other." "not at all. literature requires style, personality, distinction, and the artistic temperament." "i'd say you were talking now like george halliday if i didn't know you were talking like mr. weston." "i wish you could hear weston talk about literature," he said. "he'd convince you." "he couldn't convince me that he can write any better than you can." lavinia compressed her lips in a defiant loyalty. marley paused to kiss the lips for their loyalty, and he compromised the validity of his own argument by saying: "as a matter of fact, the law, in america and in england, has given more men to literature than journalism ever has." "then maybe you can enter literature through the law," said lavinia, seizing her advantage. "no," said marley, shaking his head. "i'm not cut out for it, as weston is. some day he will be a great man, and we shall be proud to have known him so intimately. and we will have him at our home; i have many a dream about that." he looked fondly at her, and her eyes brightened. "and there is another reason why i want to get out of newspaper work," he went on, speaking tenderly, "and that is because everybody says a newspaper man has no more right to be married than a soldier has." "but they all are," said lavinia. "yes, they all are, or most of them." "and i suppose it is the married ones who say that." "well, i know one who is going to be married just as soon as he can." "who is that,--mr. weston?" "no, but mr. weston knows him, and knows his intentions, and he has promised to be at the wedding and act as best man." "oh, it would be fine to have a literary man at the wedding, wouldn't it." they talked then about the wedding, and they found all their old delicious joy in it. marley said it must be soon now, though with a pang that laid a weight on his heart, he wondered, as he thought of all the extravagances he had allowed himself to drift into, where he was to get the money. he could reassure himself only by telling himself that he was going to live as an anchorite when he got back to chicago; even if he had to give up the pleasant apartment with weston and go back to the boarding-house in ohio street. "how shall you like living in chicago?" he asked. "can you be happy in a little flat, without knowing anybody, and without being anybody?" "i shall be happy anywhere with you, glenn!" she said, looking confidently into his eyes. chapter xxxi illusions and disillusions it was a pleasure to marley to accept the homage the people paid him; they confounded his success in journalism with a success in literature, and under the impression that all writers are somehow witty, they laughed extravagantly at his lightest observation. but much as marley relished all this, much as he enjoyed being at home again, with lavinia and with his father and mother, he was disturbed by a certain restlessness that came over him after he had been in macochee a few days and the novelty and excitement of his return had worn off. the glamour the town had worn for him had left it; it seemed to have withered and shrunk away. he could no longer, by any effort of the imagination, realize it as the place he had carried affectionately in his heart during the long months of his absence; its interests were so few and so petty, and he found himself battling with a wish to get away. he was fearful of this feeling; he did not dare to own it to himself, much less to his father and mother or to lavinia. he was glad that lavinia would not let him mention going back to chicago, and as the days swept by with the swiftness of vacation time, he was troubled that he did not feel more acutely the sorrow he felt would best become the prospect of another separation. he was comforted, finally, when he was able to analyze his sensations sufficiently to discover that it was neither his sweetheart nor his parents that had changed, but his own attitude toward life in a small town; he was vastly relieved when he succeeded in separating his feelings and saw that it was macochee alone that he had lost his affection for, though he could not analyze his sensations deeply enough to recognize himself as at that period of life when external conditions are accepted for more than their real value; he was still too young for that. and so he could spend his days happily with lavinia and grudge the moments which lawrence and mayme carter filched from them by their calls, and he was as resentful of mayme's invitation to the supper which she exalted into a dinner with a reception afterward, as was lavinia herself. when marley went to pay his call on wade powell, he found many sensations as he glanced about the dingy little office where he had begun his studies. wade powell himself, smoking and reading his cincinnati paper, was sitting at his old desk, with the same aspect of permanence he had always given the impression of. marley rushed in on him with a face red and smiling and when powell looked up, he threw down his paper, and leaped to his feet, saying: "well, i'll be damned!" but when their first greetings were over, powell's manner changed; he began to show marley a certain respect, and he paid him the delicate tribute of letting him do most of the talking, whereas he used to do most of the talking himself. he was not prepared to hear that marley was still studying law; and it cost him an effort to readjust his conception of marley as a successful journalist to the old one of a struggling student. he gave marley some intelligence of this, and of his disappointment when he said with a meekness marley did not like to see in him: "well, of course, you know your own business best." but when marley had taken pains to explain his position and when he had described the chicago law offices, powell grew more reconciled. "i've watched you," he said, "i've watched you, and i've asked your father about you every time i've seen him; my one regret was that you were not working on a cincinnati paper; then i could have read what you were writing. i did try to get a chicago paper--but you know what this town is." powell was deeply interested in marley's description of his old friend, judge johnson, and as marley gave him some notion of the judge's importance and prosperity powell could only exclaim from time to time: "well, i'll be damned!" marley did not tell powell that judge johnson had appeared to have forgotten him; he felt that it would be more handsome to accept the moral responsibility of a prevarication than to hurt powell's feelings in the way he knew the truth would hurt them. even as it was, judge johnson's success, now so keenly realized by powell when it had been brought home to him in this personal way, seemed to subdue him, and he was only lifted out of his gloom when marley said: "but i'll tell you one thing, there isn't a lawyer in chicago who can try a case with you." powell's eye brightened and his face glowed a deeper red; then the look died away as he said: "well, i made a mistake. i ought to have gone there." "is it too late?" powell thought a moment, and marley regretted having tempted him with an impossibility. he was relieved when powell shook his head and said: "yes, it's too late now." powell, with something of the pathos of age and failure that was stealing gradually over him, begged marley to come in and see him every day while he was at home. "you see i've always kept your desk," he said, in a tone that apologized for a weakness he perhaps thought unmanly, "just as it was when you went away." marley thought cynically that powell had kept everything else just as it was when he went away, but he was instantly ashamed of the thought, and ashamed, too, of the fact that he and lavinia both considered even this little morning call a waste of time, and a sacrifice almost too great to be borne. powell went with marley out into the street, and it gave him evident pride to walk by his side down main street and around the square. "i want them all to see you," he said frankly. he made marley go with him to the mcbriar house and then to con's corner, and, in every place where men stopped him and shook marley's hand and asked him how he was getting along, powell took the responsibility of replying promptly: "look at him; how does he seem to be getting along?" powell found a delight that must have been keener than marley's in marley's fidelity to chicago, expressed quite in the boastful frankness of the citizens of that city when abroad, though to marley it seemed that he was putting it on them by doing so. he found them all, however, in a spirit of loyalty to macochee that might easily have become combative. "well, little old macochee's good enough for us, eh, wade?" they would say. marley would not let them be ahead of him in praise of macochee, and powell himself softened enough to admit that old ohio was a pretty good place to have come from. when they suddenly encountered carman in the street, marley flushed with confusion, first for himself and then vicariously for powell. but there was no escape from a situation that no doubt exaggerated itself to his sensitiveness, and he was soon allowing carman to hold his hand in his right palm while with the other carman solicitously held marley's left elbow, and transfixed him with that left eye which still refused to react to light and shade. "well, how are you?" asked carman. "how are you, anyway?" "oh, i'm all right." "guess you're glad now i didn't give you that job, eh?" marley could not look at powell, but he hastened to say: "yes, i'm glad, now." "maybe it was for the best," said carman. when they had left him marley quickly and crudely tried to change the subject, but powell insisted on saying: "i want you to know that i've always felt like a dog over that." "oh, don't mention it," marley begged. "i was honest when i told carman i was glad it turned out as it did." "yes," said powell, "i guess it was all for the best." to marley's relief they dropped the matter then, and went over to con's corner. there powell lighted a cigar, and marley could not resist asking for a brand of cigarettes, the kind that weston smoked, though he knew that con would not have them. he felt mean about it afterward, but he could not forego some of the petty distinctions of living in a city and he indulged a little revenge toward the people who had deserted him in what had seemed to him his need, and now, in what seemed to them his prosperity, were so ready to rally to him. marley went home at noon feeling that his triumph had been almost as great as if he had come home in a private car. his triumph soon was at an end; they came to the afternoon of the day when marley was to return to chicago. it was a golden day, with a sun shining out of a sky without clouds, and yet a delicious breeze blew out of the little hills. marley and lavinia walked out the white and dusty pike that made the road to mingo. they walked slowly along the edge of the road, in silence, under the sadness of the parting that was before them. they longed ineffably that the moments might be stayed; somehow they felt they might be stayed by their silence. but when they had ascended the hill and stood beside the old oak-tree which grew by the road, they looked out across the valley of the mad river, miles and miles away--across fields now golden with the wheat, or green with the rustling corn that glinted in the sun, off and away to the trees that became vague and dim in the hazy distance. back whence they had come lay macochee; they could see the tower of the court house, the red spire of the methodist church, the gleam of the sun on some great window in the roof of the car-shops; on the other side of town crawled a train, trailing its smoke behind it. marley looked at lavinia--she was leaning against the tree, and as he looked he saw that her blue eyes were filling slowly with tears. "isn't it beautiful!" he said, looking away from her to the simple scenery of ohio. "do you remember that day?" "when we picked out our farm--where was it?" "wasn't it over there?" "yes," he said. "we could come and live here when we are old." he knew he was but seeking to console himself for what now could not be. "and there is the old town," he said. "it looks beautiful from here, nestling among those trees, it seems peaceful, and calm, and simple. but it is different when you are in it; for there are gossip and envy and spite, and i can never quite forgive it because it had no place for me. well," he went on defiantly, in the relief he had been able to make for himself out of his immature reading of macochee's character; "i don't need it any more; it is little and narrow and provincial, and the real life is to be lived out in the larger world. it's a hard fight, but it's worth it." "don't you regret leaving it?" asked lavinia, in a voice that was tenderer than marley had ever known it. marley looked at macochee and then he looked at her. "i regret leaving it, dear heart, because i must leave you behind in it." "would you never care to come back if it were not for me?" she asked. "i might," he admitted, "when we are old. we could come back here then and settle down on our farm over there." he pointed. "i'm half-afraid of the city," lavinia said. he turned and took her in his arms. "dearest," he said, "you must not say that; for the next time i come it will be to take you away from macochee." "will it?" she whispered. "yes; and it can't be long now. how we have had to wait!" "yes," she repeated, "how we have had to wait!" chapter xxxii at last marley, in that compensatory pleasure we find in difficulties in the retrospect, was afterward fond of saying that if he had waited until he had the money and the position to warrant his marrying, he never would have married at all. just what moved him to take the decisive step he did he would have found it hard to tell. he had grown accustomed to the life he was living in chicago, he had succumbed, as it were, to his environment; he no longer regretted macochee and he found a satisfaction in declaring, whenever he had the chance, that the kindest thing the town had ever done for him was to refuse him a place within its borders. as he looked back at all the plans he had formed, he marveled at their number, but he marveled more that he should have had such regret in the failure of all of them; he was glad now that they had failed; had any one of them succeeded his life would have been diverted into other channels, and it gave him a kind of fear when he tried to imagine his life in those other channels; he could see himself in those relations only as some other identity, and it gave him a gruesome feeling to do this. not that he was satisfied with himself or his surroundings; he did not like newspaper work, and he did not like chicago very well. he was determined to get out of newspaper work at any rate, and while he could not yet clearly see a way of getting into the law, he had a calm assurance that he would do it, in the end. weston sustained him in this hope by saying: "a man can't control circumstances; they control him; but sometimes he can dodge them, and, after all, every sincere prayer is answered." during the winter that followed the summer when he had paid his visit to his home he worked hard at the law, spending in study the hours the other men on his newspaper spent in their dissipations, and in the spring he stole away almost secretly to springfield, took the examination, and was admitted to the bar. after it was done, it seemed but a little thing; he wrote lavinia and he wrote wade powell, knowing the interest powell would have in the fact, that he felt no different now as a lawyer than he had when he was merely a layman. weston had spent the winter over the book he was writing; in the spring he found a publisher, and _the clutch of circumstance_ was given to the world. marley thought it a wonderful book, and so did lavinia, and while it made but little noise in the world, weston said it had done better than he expected--so well, in fact, that he was going to give up newspaper work, and give his attention wholly to writing another book. it was a shock to marley when weston told him they would have to give up their apartment; it was a break in the life to which he had grown accustomed. but it seemed a time of change, and it was then he wrote lavinia that he thought it useless for them to wait any longer; he thought they might as well be married then as at any time. unconsciously, perhaps, he wrote this letter as if he and not she had been waiting, and if he had known the state of the sensitive public opinion in macochee, he might have felt himself justified in the attitude. ever since his visit there the summer before his apparent prosperity had given the sentiment of the town an impetus in his favor; the people had turned their criticism toward lavinia; for months it was a common expression that it was a shame she was keeping marley waiting so long. they would nod in a sinister way, and insinuate the worldliest of motives; it was generally under stood that she was waiting for marley to make a fortune, and this, they held, was demanding too much. she had withdrawn utterly from the society of macochee; and she had not gone to one of the balls lawrence had arranged that winter at the odd fellows' hall; her position, outwardly at least, was as isolated as that of the misses cramer, the fragile and transparent old maids who lived so many years in their house sheltered by the row of cedars behind the high school grounds. when judge blair received the formal letter in which marley told him he had asked lavinia to name the day and requested his approval, the judge gave his consent with a promptness that surprised him almost as much as it did mrs. blair and lavinia. he justified his inconsistency to his wife, in order perhaps, the more thoroughly to justify it to himself, by saying that he had long felt lavinia's position keenly. "if the strain has been to her anything like what it has been to me," he said to his wife, "they could not have endured it much longer." "it will be lonely here without her," said mrs. blair, pensively. "yes," the judge assented, and then after a moment's thought he added: "but we can now begin to worry about connie." "don't you dare mention that, william!" said mrs. blair, almost viciously. "she mustn't begin to think of such a thing." "but she's in long dresses now, and she seems to walk home more and more slowly every night with those boys from the high school." "well, i don't propose to go through such an experience as we have had for these last three years, not right away, at any rate." the judge tried to laugh, as he said: "well, i'll turn connie over to you; i'm going to have a little peace now." the judge complained that he could find no peace, however, anywhere, so great was the preparation that raged thereafter in the house, driving him with his book and cigar from place to place. mrs. blair and lavinia and connie were in fine excitement over the gowns that were being fashioned, and miss ryan lived at the blairs' for weeks, while in every room there were billowy clouds of white garments, and threads and ravelings over all the floors. meanwhile it was understood that marley, too, was making arrangements in chicago. he had leased a small flat on the south side, and had arranged with weston to remove most of the furniture of their apartment into the new home where the lovers were to set up housekeeping. mrs. marley was to spare them some of the things from her home, and mrs. blair, from time to time, designated certain articles which she was willing to devote to the cause. chad's contribution was merely a suggestion; he said they could depend on the wedding presents to fill up the gaps. they were married in the middle of june. the ceremony was pronounced by doctor marley in the parlor of the blair home; everybody bore up well until, under the stress of his emotion, the doctor's voice broke, and then mrs. blair wept and the judge wiped his eyes and his reddened, anguished face. mrs. marley cried too, though every one tried to comfort her with the assurance that she was not losing a son, but gaining a daughter. connie, in her first long gown, acted as maid for her sister, but it was evident that she was desperately impressed by the young author of _the clutch of circumstance_, who had come on from chicago to act as groomsman. the company that had been invited was as much impressed by weston as connie was; they had never had an author in macochee before, and though most of them had such confused notions of weston's performances in literature that they grew cold with fear when they talked with him, they nevertheless braved it out for the sake of an experience they could boast of afterward. most of them took refuge in a discussion of marley's achievements with him, and they gave him the unflattering impression that marley's work was as important as his own. many of them had plots they wished him to use in his stories, others wished to know if he took his characters from real life; and mrs. carter was of such an acuteness that she identified marley as his hero, though weston had tried to keep his book from having any hero. george halliday, however, was able to save the day; he could discriminate; he had read _the clutch of circumstance_, having borrowed lavinia's autograph copy, and he told weston that while he did not go in for realism, because it was too photographic, too materialistic and lacked personality, he nevertheless had enjoyed a pleasant half-hour with the volume, and considered it not half-bad. this conversation was held in plain hearing of all in that difficult moment after the ceremony, when the relatives of the bride had solemnly kissed her, and her most intimate friends, like mayme carter, had wept on her neck. the people were standing helplessly about; marley noticed wade powell, as dignified as a clergyman, in his black garments and white tie standing apart with his wife. marley had never seen mrs. powell before, but he recalled in a flash that she filled his conception of her; and this delicate, sensitive little face completed the picture he remembered long ago to have formed. when he saw powell standing there, his hands behind him, unequal to the ordeal of being entertained in judge blair's house, bowing stiffly and forcing a smile on the few occasions when he was spoken to or thought he was being spoken to, he had a wish to go to him, but he could not then leave his place by lavinia's side. he was glad a moment later when he saw his father and wade powell in conversation, and as he and lavinia passed them on their way out to the dining-room he heard his father say: "well, i'll tell you, mr. powell, when i was young my creed was founded on the fact of sin in man; but now that i am old, i find it more and more founded on the fact of the good that is in all of them." when the supper was over, lawrence gave the cheer that every one wished to see come to the wedding by clearing the parlor for a dance, and marley was glad that his position now permitted him to refrain from dancing with a valid excuse. marley thought that lavinia never looked so pretty as she did when she stood at the head of the stairs after she had donned her blue traveling gown, drawing on her gloves and waiting for the carriage that was to drive them to the station. her face was rosy in the light that filled the house, and she met his eyes with a fond, contented glance. "are you happy?" he asked. "don't you see?" she said, looking up at him. "and will you be happy in that big city, away from every one you know, as the wife of a newspaper man?" "i shall be happy anywhere with you." "our dreams are coming true," marley said, "after a fashion. and yet not just as we dreamed them, after all." "in all the essentials they are, aren't they?" "yes, but you know our dream was that i was to practise law." "well, we still have that dream." "yes, we still have it; maybe it will come true. weston says that our dreams are as much realities in our lives as anything else." the end bob burton; or, the young ranchman of the missouri by horatio alger, jr., author of "ragged dick series," "luck and pluck series," "atlantic series," etc. [illustration: logo] philadelphia: porter & coates. copyright, , by porter & coates. to j. henry plummer, now of tallapoosa, ga. from whom i have received valuable assistance in the preparation of this volume, it is dedicated with friendly regard. [illustration: aaron wolverton steals the receipt.] contents. chapter page i. mr. burton's ranch, ii. aaron wolverton, iii. a little retrospect, iv. the sudden summons, v. wolverton's first move, vi. the lost receipt, vii. wolverton's adventure with clip, viii. wolverton's dismay, ix. sam's gift, x. sam in a tight place, xi. an angry conference, xii. wolverton's waterloo, xiii. what bob found in the creek, xiv. the boat and its owner, xv. bob buys the ferry-boat, xvi. wolverton's baffled scheme, xvii. wolverton's poor tenant, xviii. wolverton's wicked plan, xix. mr. wolverton meets two congenial spirits, xx. an unexpected passenger, xxi. how wolverton was fooled, xxii. the first day, xxiii. a suspicious character, xxiv. clip makes a little money for himself, xxv. clip's secret mission, xxvi. was it the cat? xxvii. the passenger discovered, xxviii. sam finds a relation, xxix. rocky creek landing, xxx. an unlucky evening, xxxi. how clip was captured, xxxii. the boys imprisoned, xxxiii. a lucky escape, xxxiv. mr. wolverton's letter, xxxv. bob's arrival in st. louis, xxxvi. a thousand dollars reward, xxxvii. brown and minton walk into a trap, xxxviii. what bob brought home, xxxix. conclusion, bob burton; or, the young ranchman of the missouri. chapter i. mr. burton's ranch. "harness up the colt, clip; i'm going to the village." "all right, massa!" "what makes you call me massa? one would think i were a slave-owner." "can't help it, massa. there i done forgot it agin," said clip, showing his white teeth--preturnaturally white they showed in contrast with his coal-black skin. "you see i used to say that to my old massa, down in arkansaw." "what's my name, clip?" "mister burton." "then call me mr. burton. now go, and don't waste any time." "all right, massa." "that boy's incorrigible," said richard burton to himself. "he hasn't got cut of his early ways yet; careless and shiftless as he is, i believe he is devoted to me and my family." clip, as may be inferred, was a negro boy, now turned of fourteen, who for four years had been attached to the service of richard burton, a ranchman, whose farm lay on a small stream tributary to the missouri, in the fertile state of iowa. he had fled from his master in the northern part of arkansas, and, traveling by night, and secreting himself by day, had finally reached iowa; where he found a safe refuge in the family of mr. burton. indeed he had been picked up by bob burton, a boy a year older than himself, who had brought him home and insisted on his father taking charge of the young fugitive. on a large ranch there was always something to do, and clip was soon made useful in taking care of the horses, in doing errands and in many odd ways. while waiting for the wagon, mr. burton went into the house, and sought his wife. "mamy," he said, "i am going to the village to pay wolverton his interest." "i wish he didn't hold the mortgage, richard," said mrs. burton, looking up from her work. "so do i, but why is it any the worse for him to hold it than for any one else?" "richard, you may think me foolish and fanciful, but i distrust that man. it is impressed upon my mind that he will some day do us harm." "that is foolish and fanciful in good truth, mamy. now wolverton seems to me a--well, not exactly an attractive man, but good natured and friendly. when i needed three thousand dollars last spring, on account of a poor crop and some extra expenses, he seemed not only willing, but really glad to lend it to me." "he took a mortgage on the ranch," said mary burton dryly. "why, of course. he is a man of business, you know. you wouldn't expect him to lend the money without security, would you?" "and you pay him a large interest?" "ten per cent." "there isn't much friendship in lending money on good security at ten per cent., richard." "oh, you put things in a wrong way, mary. money is worth ten per cent. out here, and of course i didn't want wolverton to lose money by me. he could get that interest elsewhere." "you are very unsuspecting, richard. you credit everybody with your own true, unselfish nature." "why, that's a compliment, mary," laughed the husband, "and deserves a kiss." he bent over and touched his wife's cheek with his lips. mary burton had reached the age of thirty-six, and was no longer in her first youth, but her face seemed even more lovelier than when he married her, so richard burton thought. he too was a man of fine presence, with a frank, open face, that invariably won the favor of those who met him for the first time. he was in the full vigor of manhood, and when he and his wife attended the methodist church on sundays, many eyes were attracted by the handsome couple. they had one son, bob, who will soon receive attention. "i have a great mind, richard, to tell you why i distrust and fear aaron wolverton," said his wife after a slight pause. "i wish you would, mary. perhaps, when i know, i can talk you out of your apprehension." "did you ever know that aaron wolverton was once a suitor for my hand?" richard burton burst into an explosive laugh. "what! that dried-up old mummy had the presumption to offer you his hand!" "he actually did, richard," said mrs. burton, smiling. "i wonder you did not laugh in his face. why, the man is fifteen years older than i am, twenty years older than you." "that difference is not unprecedented. i did not reject him because he was older than myself. if you had been as old as he when you offered yourself, i think i would have accepted you." "poor old fellow! did he take it hard?" asked burton, half jocosely. "if you mean did he show any traces of a broken heart, i answer no. but when, after pressing his suit persistently, he found my resolution to be inflexible, his face became distorted with passion. he swore that he would be revenged upon me some day, and that if i dared to marry any one else he would never rest till he had brought harm to the husband of my choice." "i wish i had been there. i would have made him take back those words, or i would have horsewhipped him." "don't take any notice of them, richard," said mary burton, hastily. "it will be much better." "i agree with you," said her husband, his quick anger melting. "after all, the old fellow's disappointment was so great that i can excuse a little impetuosity, and even rudeness. you see, mary, wolverton isn't a gentleman." "no; and never will be." "he acted as his nature prompted. but it was all over years ago. why, mary, he is always friendly with me, even if i am your husband." "that is on the outside, richard; but i fear he is crafty. he is like an indian; his thirst for vengeance keeps alive." "admitting all that, though i don't, what harm can he do, mary, while i am here to protect you?" and the husband expanded his breast in conscious strength, and looked down proudly on his fair wife. "why, i could wring his neck with only one hand." "well, perhaps i am foolish, richard," the wife admitted. "of course you are, mary." just then clip put his head inside the door. "de hoss is ready, massa!" he said. "all right, clip! i'll come right out." richard burton kissed his wife hastily, and went out. as he closed the door, a bright, handsome boy, strongly made, and bearing a resemblance to both father and mother, entered. "hallo, mother! are you all right?" he asked. "i hope so, robert." "you look serious, as if you were worrying over something." "i was thinking of mr. wolverton. your father has gone to pay him interest on the mortgage." "wolverton is a mean old hunks. he's got a nephew living with him, a boy about my age. he works him nearly to death, and i am sure the poor boy doesn't get half enough to eat." "i was wishing your father didn't owe money to such a man." "oh, well, mother, there's no use in worrying. it's only three thousand dollars, and if we have a good crop next year, father will be able to pay off at least half of it. you can see we've got a splendid ranch, mother. there isn't another within twenty miles where the land is as rich." "i shall be glad to see the day when the mortgage is wholly paid off, and we are out of debt." "so shall i, mother." "does mr. wolverton ever take any notice of you, robert?" "he took some notice of me this morning," laughed bob. "that reminds me. i just left three prairie chickens with rachel in the kitchen." "did you shoot them this morning, robert?" "yes, mother; you see i have my hunting dress on. but i shot two more. i was bringing them home across a field of wolverton's, when the old fellow suddenly made his appearance, and, charging me with shooting them on his land, laid claim to them. i denied the charge and told him i proposed to keep them. with that he seized me by the collar, and we had a rough-and-tumble fight for five minutes." "oh, robert, how imprudent!" "well, mother, it was more than flesh and blood could stand. the upshot of it was that i left him lying on his back trembling with rage. i threw down two of the chickens to appease him. i hope he'll have them for dinner, and sam'll get a share of them. the poor fellow is half starved. i don't believe he gets a square meal once a week." "i am afraid you have made an enemy of mr. wolverton, robert." "i can't help it, mother. would you have me bow down to him, and meekly yield up my rights?" "but, robert, to get into a fight with a man so much older?" "i don't want to get into any difficulty, mother. it was forced upon me. besides, i left him two of the chickens." "was clip with you?" "i reckon i was, missis," said clip, displaying his ivories. "i laughed like to split when massa bob laid de old man down on his back. wasn't he jest ravin'? wouldn't have lost dat sight, missis, for de biggest watermillion i ever seed." mrs. burton smiled, but her smile was a faint one. she knew aaron wolverton, and she feared that some time or other he would try to be revenged on bob. chapter ii. aaron wolverton. richard burton drove rapidly to the village. i may state here that the name of the township was carver. like most western villages, it consisted principally of one long, central street, containing buildings of all sizes and descriptions, from a three-story hotel to a one-story office. but there seemed to be a good deal going on all the time--much more than in an eastern town of the size. western people are active, progressive, never content to stand still. in the drowsy atmosphere that pervades many an eastern country town they would stagnate, but there perpetual motion is the rule. everybody in carver knew richard burton. everybody liked him also; he was easy and social with all. i have said everybody, but i must make one exception, and that was the man on whom he now proposed to call. about midway on the main street was a small one-story building, about twelve feet square. above the door was a sign: aaron wolverton, real estate agent. mr. wolverton had considerable capital, which he was in the habit of lending on mortgage, always for a large interest, and on substantial security. he was supposed to be rich, but did not live like a rich man. his dwelling lay a little way back from the street; it was small, cramped, and uncomfortable, and his style of living was of the most economical character. he was a bachelor, and the only other members of his family were his sister, sally wolverton, who resembled her brother in person and character, and a nephew, sam, the son of a brother, who came in for a liberal share of ill-treatment from the uncle, on whom he was dependent. richard burton reined up in front of wolverton's office, and, leaping from his carriage, unceremoniously opened the outer door. "good morning, wolverton," he said, cheerily. aaron wolverton, a meagre and wrinkled man of fifty-five, looked up from his desk, and scanned his visitor's face attentively. he was not sure but richard burton, who was a high-spirited man, had come to take him to task for his attack upon bob a short time before. whenever he thought of it, he fairly trembled with rage and humiliation, for the boy had conquered him, and he knew it. burton's words reassured him. "i have come to pay interest on the mortgage, wolverton. i suppose you haven't forgotten that?" "no." "catch you forgetting a thing of that kind. that wouldn't be like you." "i suppose you don't want to lift the mortgage?" "no; it is all i can do to pay the interest. the first six months have passed remarkably quick." "not to me." "no, for you are to receive money, i to pay it. it makes all the difference in the world. i suppose you are not in need of the money?" "no, not at present," answered wolverton, slowly; "but if i had it i could get higher interest." "higher interest! isn't ten per cent. enough for you?" "nothing is enough, as long as i can get more." "come, wolverton, don't be such a money-grabber. you must be rolling in money." the old man shrugged his shoulders in deprecation. "times are dull, and--i lose money sometimes," he said. "not much, if you know it," said burton, jocosely. "well, just write a receipt for six months' interest, one hundred and fifty dollars." aaron wolverton took the proffered bills, eyeing them with eager cupidity, and put them in his desk. then he made out a receipt, and handed it to his visitor. "you will be paying the mortgage next year?" he said inquiringly. "i don't know, wolverton. if the crops are good, i may pay a part. but i am afraid i am not a very good manager. i can't save money like you, and that brings me round to the question: for whom are you piling up all this wealth? is it for sam?" "sam is a young loafer," said wolverton, with a frown. "i give him a home and his living, and he is almost too lazy to breathe." "you were not that way at his age?" "no. i worked early and late. i was a poor boy. all that i have, i made by hard work." "take my advice, wolverton, and get the worth of it while you live. but perhaps you are saving with a view to matrimony. ha, ha!" and richard burst into a ringing laugh. wolverton puckered up his face, and snarled: "why shouldn't i marry if i choose? what is there to laugh at?" "no reason at all. i advise you to marry. you ought to, for i have found happiness in marrying one of the sweetest women in the world." then without any apparent reason, remembering that the man before him had aspired to the hand of his wife, he burst into another laugh, which he kept up till the tears ran from his eyes. he didn't notice the evil expression which it called up in the face of the moneylender. "i'd like to kill him where he stands," thought aaron wolverton. "she must have told him about me. curse him! he stole her from me, and now he dares to laugh in my face!" but wolverton was not a man to indulge even his evil temper when it was impolitic to do so. he forced himself to look indifferent, and merely said: "let them laugh that win, mr. burton. perhaps my time may come some day." "perhaps it may, wolverton. i heartily hope that you may find some one to make your life happy. i am happy myself, and i like to see others happy." there was a little more conversation, and then richard burton went out. "good-bye, wolverton. come to my ranch some time. i'll give you a seat at supper, and we will smoke a cigar afterwards." the colt--for it was scarcely more than that--was getting restless. it was pawing the ground and evidently anxious to get away. "your horse has a bad temper, mr. burton," said wolverton. "yes, he needs taming. he's not well trained yet." "there's something more than that," wolverton said to himself, thoughtfully. "horses are like men--they often have nasty tempers. i wouldn't ride behind that brute for--for the money burton has just paid me. some day he'll get upset, or thrown. and if he does," he continued, after a pause, "why should i lament? he has taken from me the only woman i ever loved. she might have made a different man of me--perhaps." just then a boy came up the street. he stopped and eyed aaron wolverton with a little misgiving. "sam," said wolverton, sharply, "what kept you so long? do you want the strap again?" "indeed, uncle, i hurried as fast as i could. mr. jenks kept me waiting." "that is probably a lie," growled wolverton. "however, since you are here, go into your dinner. it is cold by this time, most likely." it was cold and uninviting, but sam could not afford to be dainty, and ate what was set before him by his aunt. chapter iii. a little retrospect. richard burton, three years previous to the opening of this story, was a dry-goods merchant in st. louis. becoming tired of the dull routine of his daily life, and with a wistful remembrance of the country, where he had passed his boyhood, he sold out his business for a few thousand dollars, and with the sum realized bought a large ranch located on a small river or creek running into the missouri. in taking this course he was influenced in no small degree by a city acquaintance, aaron wolverton, who six months before had located himself in the same township, and who, indeed, had made the purchase of the ranch on his behalf. wolverton made a large commission on the transaction--larger than richard burton was aware; but it must be admitted he had bought him an excellent property. burton was entirely unacquainted with the fact that wolverton had at an earlier period been an unsuccessful suitor for his wife's hand, nor did he know it till the morning on which our story opens. it is always rather a hazardous experiment when a man, engaged till middle life in other business, becomes a tiller of the soil without special training for his new occupation. few persons make farming profitable, however well qualified, and the st. louis merchant was hardly likely to do more than make a living. in fact, he did not make both ends meet, but fell behind every year till he felt compelled to borrow three thousand dollars on mortgage of aaron wolverton. his wife expressed uneasiness, but he laughed away her remonstrances, and assured her he should be able to pay it back in a couple of years, if fortune favored him with good crops. "you know, mary," he said cheerfully, "there are a good many extra expenses just at first, but it will be different in future. wolverton assures me that the ranch is a fine one, and that i can pay him back sooner than he desires, for he is glad to lend on such excellent security." mrs. burton was silent, but she was not convinced. robert burton, popularly called bob, was the only son of the ex-merchant. he thoroughly enjoyed the removal to the country, having a taste for manly sports. he usually spent a part of the day in study, reciting to a clergyman in the village, and the rest of his time he employed in hunting, fishing, and farm work. clip, the young refugee, was his chosen companion, and was sincerely attached to massa bob, as he generally called him. the negro lad was full of fun and innocent mischief, but had no malice about him. bob tried to teach him to read, but clip was no scholar. he complained that study made his head ache. "but you ought to know something, clip," expostulated bob. "you don't want to grow up an ignoramus." "what's dat?" asked clip, bewildered. "never heard such a long word. is it anything very bad?" "it means a know-nothing, clip." "i guess you're right, massa bob. dat's what i am." "but don't it trouble you, clip?" "no, massa bob; i guess i was never cut out for a scholar." still bob persevered in his effort to teach clip. one day, after an unsuccessful attempt to get him to understand the difference between capital b and r, he said: "clip, i don't believe you have got any sense." "spec's i haven't, massa bob," answered clip, philosophically. "how many have you got?" bob laughed. "i don't know exactly," he replied; "but i hope i have as many as the average." "i reckon you've got a lot. you learn awful easy." "i am afraid i shall have to learn for both of us, clip." "dat's so!" said clip, in a tone of satisfaction. "dat'll do just as well." so bob was finally obliged to give up teaching clip in despair. he was led to accept the conclusion of his young _protégé_ that he was never meant for a scholar. in one respect bob and clip shared the prejudices of mrs. burton. neither liked aaron wolverton. they felt friendly, however, to sam wolverton, the nephew; and more than once sam, with his appetite unsatisfied at home, came over to burton's ranch and enjoyed a hearty lunch, thanks to the good offices of bob burton. one day he came over crying, and showed the marks of a severe whipping he had received from his uncle. "what did you do, sam?" asked bob. sam mentioned the offense, which was a trifling one, and unintentional besides. "your uncle is a brute!" said bob indignantly. "dat's so, sam," echoed clip. "it would do me good to lay the whip over his shoulders." sam trembled, and shook his head. he was a timid boy, and such an act seemed to him to border on the foolhardy. "how old are you, sam?" "fourteen." "in seven years you will be a man, and he can't tyrannize over you any longer." "i don't believe i shall live so long," said sam, despondently. "yes, you will. even in four years, when you are eighteen, your uncle won't dare to beat you." "why don't you run away, like i did?" asked clip, with a bright idea. but sam was not of the heroic type. he shrank from throwing himself on the world. "i should starve," he said. "would you run away, clip, if you were in my place?" "wouldn't i just!" "and you, bob?" "he wouldn't strike me but once," said bob, proudly. "it's all well enough for you, but i think i'm a coward. when my uncle comes at me my heart sinks into my boots, and i want to run away." "you'll never make a hero, sam." "no, i won't. i'm an awful coward, and i know it." "how is your aunt? is she any better than your uncle?" "she's about the same. she don't whip me, but she's got an awful rough tongue. she will scold till she's out of breath." "how long have you lived with your uncle?" "about four years. when my father died, he told me to go to uncle aaron." "didn't he leave any property?" "uncle aaron says he didn't leave a cent, and i suppose it's so; but father told me in his last sickness there'd be some property for me." "i've no doubt there was, and he cheated you out of it," said bob indignantly. "that's just my opinion of your uncle." "even if it is so, i can't do anything. it'll do no good. but i'd like to know how it is, for uncle aaron is all the time twitting me with living on him." "as if you don't do enough to earn your own living. why, you work harder than clip, here, though that isn't saying much," added bob, with a smile. clip showed his white teeth, and seemed to enjoy the joke. "spec's i was born lazy," he said, promptly. "dat ain't my fault, ef i was born so." "that wouldn't be any excuse with uncle aaron," remarked sam. "he thinks i'm lazy, and says he means to lick the laziness out of me." "i think we had better hire out clip to him. he needs a little discipline like that sort." "oh golly, massa bob! i couldn't stand it nohow," said clip, with a comical expression of alarm. "massa wolverton's the meanest white man i ever seed. wish an earthquake would come and swallow him up." "your father was round to see my uncle this morning," said sam. "yes, i know; he went to pay him some interest money." "your father is a nice gentleman. i wish i was his nephew," said poor sam, enviously. "yes, sam; he's always kind. he's a father to be proud of." "by the way, sam, i've got some good news for you." "what is it, bob?" "your uncle carried home a pair of prairie chickens this morning. you'll have one good dinner, at least." "where did he get them?" "i shot them." "and you gave them to him?" asked sam, surprised. "well, yes, after a little squabble," and bob related the adventure of the morning. "how brave you are, bob!" said sam admiringly. "you actually had a quarrel with uncle aaron?" "yes," answered bob, with a smile. "when i got through, your uncle was lying on his back resting. i threw down two of the chickens, as much for your sake as any other reason. i hope you'll get your share." "i saw the chickens in the kitchen before i came away, and wondered where they came from. i knew uncle aaron wouldn't buy them." "has your uncle got a gun?" "no; i think he's afraid of a gun." "and you are afraid of him?" "i can't help it, bob. he flogs me sometimes with a horsewhip." "i'd like to see him try it on me," said bob, with emphasis. "but as i said before, you'll be a man some time, sam, and then he won't dare touch you." chapter iv. the sudden summons. when richard burton left the office of aaron wolverton, he did not return home immediately. he had a business call to make in the next township, and drove over there. finding that he was likely to be detained, he went to the hotel to dine, and, the day being warm, sat on the piazza and smoked a cigar afterwards. it was not until four o'clock that he turned his horse's head in the direction of carver. the horse he drove was young and untrained. it would have been dangerous for an unskillful driver to undertake to manage him. robert burton, however, thoroughly understood horses, and was not afraid of any, however fractious. but he had been persuaded to drink a couple of glasses of whisky by acquaintances at the hotel, and he was easily affected by drink of any kind. so his hand was not as strong or steady as usual when he started on his homeward journey. the horse seemed instinctively to know that there was something the matter with his driver, and, as he turned back his head knowingly, he prepared to take advantage of it. so he made himself more troublesome than usual, and burton became at first annoyed and then angry. "what ails you, you vicious brute?" he exclaimed, frowning. "you need a lesson, it seems." he gave a violent twitch to the reins, more violent than he intended, and the animal swerved aside suddenly, bringing one wheel of the wagon into forcible collision with a tree by the roadside. this, coming unexpectedly, threw richard burton violently from his seat, and he was pitched out of the carriage, his head being thrown with force against the tree which had been the occasion of the shock. there was a dull, sickening thud, and the poor man lay insensible, his eyes closed and his breast heaving. the horse detached himself from the wagon and ran home--they were within half a mile of the village now--leaving his driver without sense or motion beside the wrecked wagon. he had lain there not over twenty minutes, when a pedestrian appeared upon the scene. it was aaron wolverton, who was on his way to the house of a tenant to collect rent. he had been walking with his eyes fixed upon the ground, thinking intently, when all at once, raising his eyes, he started in amazement at the sight of the wrecked carriage and the prostrate man. "who can it be?" he asked himself in excitement. his eyes were failing, and he could not distinguish, till close at hand, the person of the stricken man. "robert burton!" he exclaimed in excitement, when at last he had discovered who it was. "how on earth did this accident happen?" he bent over the prostrate man and placed his hand upon his heart. alas! it had already ceased to beat. the features wore a startled and troubled look, the reflection of the feelings excited by the collision. "well, well!" ejaculated wolverton, awed in spite of himself by the sight, "who would have dreamed of this? and only this morning he called on me to pay his interest." there was a sudden suggestion, begotten of his greed, that entered that instant into wolverton's mind. "he can't have gone home since," he bethought himself. "he must have the receipt with him." even if he had, what did it concern wolverton? the money had been paid, but there was no evidence of it except the receipt which he had given him. with trembling fingers, wolverton, bending over, searched the clothes of the dead man, half turning his eyes away, as if he feared to meet robert burton's look. at last he found it. burton had thrust it carelessly into his vest pocket. with a furtive look, to see if he were observed, aaron wolverton put the receipt into his own pocket. then he rose to his feet, and turned to go away. he had no desire to remain any longer by the side of the dead. meanwhile the horse had dashed into the village at wild speed. now it happened that clip, sent on an errand to the store by mrs. burton, was in the village. his eyes opened wide when he saw the horse dash by him. "what's dat mean?" clip asked himself, staring with all his eyes at the runaway horse. "what's come of massa burton? must have been an accident. wagon must have upset, and--golly! i hope massa burton isn't killed nor noting." clip was all alive with excitement. he had the sense not to attempt to follow the horse, but ran as fast as he could in the direction from which the horse had come. there, he argued, must be the wagon and its rider. it was a straight road, and he was not long in reaching the scene of the casualty. he came in sight of it at the moment when aaron wolverton was bending over the prostrate man, and searching his pockets. here was another surprise for clip. "what is massa wolverton doing," he asked himself. he was sure he was not up to any good, for, as we have already seen, he had no love for the real estate agent, and thought him a very bad man. clip had no small share of curiosity, and, intent on finding out what wolverton was doing, he slid behind a tree about a foot in diameter, which happened to be conveniently situated. grief struggled with curiosity, for clip had already seen the wrecked team and the prostrate figure of the kind master, to whom he felt warmly attached. "poor massa burton! i hope he isn't dead," thought clip. "jes' as soon as old wolverton goes away i'll go up and look. won't mrs. burton feel bad?" all the while clip was watching the movements of the real estate agent. "what's he searchin' massa burton's pockets for?" he asked himself. "spec's he's going to rob him. didn't think the old man was so mean before. i'd jes' like to jump out and scare him." meanwhile wolverton finished his discreditable business, happily unconscious that any one was witness of his mean act. then, as already stated, he got up and walked swiftly away, not venturing to look back. had he done so he would have seen clip stealing from behind the tree which had served to screen him from observation, and running towards the wreck. clip had never before seen death, but there was something in the mute look of richard burton that awed the soul of the colored boy. clip had an affectionate heart. he felt that richard burton must be dead, and the thought overpowered him. "poor massa burton!" he cried, bursting into tears. "he's done dead, sure 'nough. oh, what will we do?" a minute later clip bounded off like a deer, to carry the sad news to the village. he met the village doctor driving along in his top buggy, and he quickly called out to him: "go quick, massa doctor, for de love of god. poor massa burton's upset himself, and i 'spec's he's dead." "whereabouts, clip?" demanded the doctor, startled. "up the road a piece." "jump in with me and show me." so clip, seated beside the doctor, guided him to the fatal spot. the doctor lost no time in jumping out of his buggy and approaching the fallen man. he didn't need to feel his pulse, or place his hand over his heart. to his practiced eye there were other indications that disclosed the terrible truth. "is he dead?" asked clip, in an awed voice. "yes, clip; your poor master is dead," answered the doctor, sadly. he had known richard burton well, and, like all the rest of his neighbors, had a warm esteem for him. "how did this happen, clip?" he asked. "i don't know, massa doctor; 'deed i don't," answered clip. "i was walkin' along, when i saw the colt runnin' like mad, wid his harness on, and i 'spected something had happened. so i came up, and dat's what i saw." "we can't do anything, clip, except to see that he is carried home. i dread to break the news to his poor wife." meanwhile aaron wolverton had locked himself in his office. he drew the receipt from his pocket, read it through carefully, and chuckled: "i'll get the money out of the widder. she can't prove that the interest has been paid! but i don't care so much for that as i do to get even with that impudent rascal bob. he'll rue this day, as sure as my name is aaron wolverton." chapter v. wolverton's first move. why did not aaron wolverton burn the receipt, and get rid once for all of the only proof that the interest had been paid? it would have been the most politic thing to do, inasmuch as he had made up his mind to be dishonest. but, though unprincipled, he was not a bold man. the thought did certainly occur to him, and he even went so far as to light a match. but more timid counsel prevailed, and he concealed it in his desk, carefully locking the desk afterwards. it is unnecessary to describe the grief of the little family at burton's ranch when the body of the master was brought home. no one had dreamed of speedy death for richard burton. he seemed so strong and vigorous that it would have seemed safe to predict for him a long life--long beyond the average; yet here, in middle life, in the fullness of health and vigor, the summons had come. to mrs. burton, who was a most devoted wife, it was a crushing blow. it seemed at first as if it would be happiness to lie down beside her dead husband, and leave the world for him. "what have i to live for now?" she asked, mournfully. "you have me, mother," answered bob, gently. "i have lost my father. what would become of me if i should lose my mother also?" "you are right, robert," said mrs. burton. "i was wrong to give way; but it is a very hard trial." "indeed it is, mother," said robert, kissing her affectionately. "but we must try to bear up." mrs. burton felt that this was her plain duty, and henceforth strove to control her emotions. she ceased to sob, but her face showed the grief she suffered. the funeral took place, and the little family held a council to decide what was to be done. "can we carry on the ranch now that your father is gone?" asked mrs. burton, anxiously. "would it not be better to sell it?" "no, mother; the sacrifice would be too great." "but i do not feel capable of managing it, robert." "you may think me presumptuous, mother, but my proposal is to assist you, relieving you of the greater part of the care. between us we can carry it on, i am confident." "you are only a boy of sixteen, robert," objected his mother. "that is true; but i have watched carefully the manner in which the ranch has been carried on. of course you must help, and you will try to get a man with whom i can advise. i am sure we can make a good deal more out of the farm than we could realize from investing the money it would bring." "and are you willing to undertake this, robert? it will be a hard task." "i'll help him, missis," said clip, eagerly. "i shall have clip to advise me, mother," said robert. "no doubt clip is willing," said mrs. burton, smiling faintly; "but after all, it will be only two boys." "try us a single year, mother," said bob, confidently. mrs. burton gave her consent, and bob at once took his father's place, rising early and going to the field to superintend the farming operations. he seemed to have developed at once into a mature man, though in appearance he was still the same. clip was his loyal assistant, though, being a harum-scarum boy, fond of fun and mischief, he was of very little service as adviser. he had mentioned to bob seeing aaron wolverton bending over the body of his father, and exploring his pockets. this puzzled bob, but he was not prepared to suspect him of anything else than curiosity, until his mother received a call from the real estate agent a month after her husband's decease. aaron wolverton had been anxious to call before, but something withheld him. it might have been the consciousness of the dishonorable course he had taken. be that as it may, he finally screwed up his courage to the sticking-point, and walked out to burton's ranch early one afternoon. mrs. burton was at home, as usual, for she seldom went out now. she had no intimate friends in the neighborhood. all that she cared for was under her own roof. she looked up in some surprise when mr. wolverton was ushered into the sitting-room. "i hope i see you well, mrs. burton," said the real estate agent, slipping to a seat, and placing his high hat on his knees. "i am well in health, mr. wolverton," answered the widow, gravely. "yes, yes, of course; i understand," he hastily answered. "terribly sudden, mr. barton's death was, to be sure, but dust we are, and to dust we must return, as the scripture says." mrs. burton did not think it necessary to make any reply. "i came over to offer my--my condolences," continued mr. wolverton. "thank you." "and i thought perhaps you might stand in need of some advice from a practical man." "any advice will be considered, mr. wolverton." "i've been thinkin' the thing over, and i've about made up my mind that the best thing you can do is to sell the ranch," and the real estate agent squinted at mrs. burton from under his red eyebrows. "that was my first thought; but i consulted with robert, and he was anxious to have me carry on the ranch with his help." aaron wolverton shook his head. "a foolish plan!" he remarked. "excuse me for saying so. of course you, being a woman, are not competent to carry it on--" "i have my son robert to help me," said the widow. aaron wolverton sniffed contemptuously. "a mere boy!" he ejaculated. "no; not a mere boy. his father's death and his affection for me have made a man of him at sixteen. he rises early every morning, goes to the fields, and superintends the farming operations. peter, my head man, says that he is a remarkably smart boy, and understands the business about as well as a man." "still i predict that he'll bring you deeper in debt every year." "i don't think so; but, at any rate, i have promised to try the experiment for one year. i can then tell better whether it will be wise to keep on or sell." "now, mrs. burton, i have a better plan to suggest." "what is it, mr. wolverton?" "in fact, i have two plans. one is that you should sell me the ranch. you know i hold a mortgage on it for three thousand dollars?" "i know it, mr. wolverton!" answered the widow, gravely. "i'll give you three thousand dollars over and above, and then you will be rid of all care." "will you explain to me how robert and i are going to live on the interest of three thousand dollars, mr. wolverton?" "you'll get something, and if the boy runs the ranch you'll get nothing. he can earn his living, and i don't think you will suffer, even if you have only three thousand dollars." "it is quite out of the question. mr. burton considered the ranch worth ten thousand dollars." "a very ridiculous over-valuation--pardon me for saying so." "at any rate, i don't propose to sell." "there's another little circumstance i ought to mention," added wolverton, nervously. "there is half a year's interest due on the mortgage. it was due on the very day of your husband's death." mrs. burton looked up in amazement. "what do you mean, mr. wolverton?" she said. "my husband started for your office on the fatal morning of his death, carrying the money--one hundred and fifty dollars--to meet the interest. do you mean to tell me that he did not pay it?" "that is strange, very strange," stammered aaron wolverton, wiping his forehead with a bandana handkerchief. "what became of the money?" "do you mean to say that it was not paid to you?" asked the widow, sharply. "no, it was not," answered wolverton, with audacious falsehood. chapter vi. the lost receipt. "i can't understand this," said mrs. burton, beginning to be troubled. "my poor husband had made all arrangements for paying his interest on the day of his death. when he left the house, he spoke of it. do you mean to say he did not call at your office?" if aaron wolverton had dared, he would have denied this, but mr. burton had been seen to enter the office, and so that he would not do him any good. "he did call upon me, mrs. burton." "and said nothing about the interest?" "he said this, that he would pay me the coming week." "he said that, when he had the money in his pocket?" said mrs. burton, incredulously. "of course i didn't know that he had the money with him. he probably thought of another way in which he wanted to use a part or all of it." "i don't believe it. he never mentioned any other use for it, and he was not owing any one except you. mr. wolverton, i don't like to say it, but i think he paid you the interest." "do you doubt my word?" demanded wolverton, with assumed indignation. "suppose i say that you have forgotten it." "i would not forget anything of that kind. you are very unjust, mrs. burton, but i will attribute that to your disappointment. let me suggest one thing, however. if your husband had paid me, he would have been sure to take a receipt. if you have his wallet here--i happen to know that he was in the habit of carrying a wallet--and you doubt my word, examine the wallet and see if you can find the receipt." mrs. burton thought this a good suggestion, and went up-stairs for the wallet. she opened it, but, as wolverton had good reason to know would be the case, failed to find the important paper. "i can't find it," she said, as she re-entered the room. "did i not tell you so?" returned wolverton, triumphantly. "doesn't that settle it? wasn't your husband a good enough business man to require a receipt for money paid?" "yes, yes," murmured the widow. "mr. wolverton, if you are right it arouses in my mind a terrible suspicion. could my husband have been waylaid, murdered, and robbed?" "no, i don't think so. his death was evidently the result of accident--the upset of his team." "what then became of the money--the hundred and fifty dollars which he carried with him?" "there, my dear lady, you ask me a question which i cannot answer. i am as much in the dark as you are." "if this story is true, then we are one hundred and fifty dollars poorer than we supposed. it will be bad news for robert." "it need not be bad news for you, mrs. burton," said wolverton, in an insinuating tone, shoving his chair a little nearer that occupied by the widow. mrs. burton looked up in surprise. "how can it fail to be bad news for me?" she asked. "a loss like that i cannot help feeling." "do you think i would be hard on _you_, mrs. burton?" asked wolverton, in the same soft voice. "if you are disposed to wait for the money, or relinquish a part under the circumstances, robert and i will feel very grateful to you, mr. wolverton." "i might, upon conditions," said the agent, furtively shoving his chair a little nearer. "what conditions?" asked mrs. burton, suspiciously. "i will tell you, if you won't be offended. mrs. burton--mary--you can't have forgotten the early days in which i declared my love for you. i--i love you still. if you will only promise to marry me--after a while--all shall be easy with you. i am a rich man--richer than people think, and can surround you with luxuries. i will be a father to that boy of yours, and try to like him for your sake. only tell me that you will be mine!" mrs. burton had been so filled with indignation that she let him run on, quite unable to command her voice sufficiently to stem the torrent of his words. as he concluded, she rose to her feet, her eyes flashing, and her voice tremulous with anger, and said: "mr. wolverton, are you aware that my poor husband has been dead but a month?" "i am perfectly aware of it, mary." "don't address me so familiarly, sir." "mrs. burton, then, i am perfectly acquainted with that fact, and would not have spoken now, but i saw you were anxious about the future, and i wished to reassure you. of course i wouldn't hurry you; i only meant to get some kind of an answer that i might depend upon." "and you thought that, after loving such a man as richard burton, i would be satisfied to take such a man as you?" said the widow, with stinging sarcasm. "richard burton was not an angel," said wolverton, harshly, for his pride was touched by the contempt which she made no effort to conceal. "don't dare to say anything against him!" said the widow, her eyes flashing ominously. "well, then, he was an angel," said wolverton, sulkily; "but he's dead, and you will need to look to another protector." "my son will protect me," said mrs. burton, proudly. "that boy?" said wolverton, contemptuously. "but i make allowance for a mother's feelings. once more, mary, i make you the offer. remember that i am a rich man, and can surround you with luxuries." "i would rather live in a log house on a crust, than to marry you, mr. wolverton," she said, impetuously. "if you were the only man in the world, i would go unmarried to my grave rather than wed you!" wolverton rose, white with wrath. "you are tolerably explicit, madam," he said. "i can't charge you with beating round the bush. but let me tell you, ma'am, that you have done the unwisest act of your life in making me your enemy." "i did not mean to make you an enemy," said mrs. burton, softening. "i suppose i ought to acknowledge the compliment you have paid me, but i must decline, once for all, and request you never again to mention the subject." aaron wolverton was not so easily appeased. "i do not care to stay any longer," he said. "you had better mention to your son about the interest." mrs. burton had an opportunity to do this almost immediately, for bob and clip entered the house just as wolverton was leaving it. "what have you done to mr. wolverton, mother?" asked bob. "he looked savage enough to bite my head off, and wouldn't even speak to me." "robert, i have some bad news to tell you. mr. wolverton tells me that your father didn't pay him the interest on the day of his death." "i believe he tells a falsehood," said bob, quickly. "but he says, with some show of reason, if the interest was paid, why didn't your father take a receipt?" "can no receipt be found?" "no; i searched your father's wallet in vain." "what is a receipt, missis?" asked clip. "it's a piece of paper with writing on it, clip," said the widow, adjusting her explanations to clip's intelligence. "golly! i saw de old man take a piece of paper from massa burton's pocket after he was dead--when he was a-lyin' on the ground." "say that again, clip," said bob, eagerly. clip repeated it, and answered several questions put to him by mrs. burton and bob. "it's all clear, mother," said bob. "that old rascal has got up a scheme to rob you. he thinks there isn't any proof of the payment. if he suspected that clip had been a witness of his robbery he would have been more careful." "what shall i do, bob?" "wait a while. let him show his hand, and then confront him with clip's testimony. i wonder if he destroyed the receipt?" "probably he did so." "if he didn't, i may get it through sam. don't be worried, mother. it'll all come out right." one thing the widow did not venture to tell bob--about mr. wolverton's matrimonial offer. it would have made him so angry that she feared he would act imprudently. chapter vii. wolverton's adventure with clip. bob and his mother deliberated as to whether they should charge mr. wolverton openly with the theft of the receipt. on the whole, they decided to wait a while, and be guided by circumstances. if he took any measures to collect the money a second time, there would be sufficient reason to take the aggressive. bob had another reason for delay. he intended to acquaint sam wolverton with the matter, and request him to keep on the lookout for the receipt. should he find it, he knew that sam would gladly restore it to the rightful owner. he cautioned clip not to say anything about what he saw on the day of his father's death, as it would put wolverton on his guard, and lead him to destroy the receipt if still in his possession. i must now relate a little incident in which clip and aaron wolverton were the actors. the creek on which burton's ranch was located was a quarter of a mile distant from the house. it was about a quarter of a mile wide. over on the other side of the creek was the town of martin, which was quite as large as carver. in some respects it was a more enterprising place than carver, and the stores were better stocked. for this reason there was considerable travel across the creek; but as there was no bridge, the passage must be made by boat. bob owned a good boat, which he and clip used considerably. both were good rowers, and during mr. burton's life they spent considerable time in rowing for pleasure. now bob's time was so occupied that the boat was employed only when there was an errand in the opposite village. "clip," said bob, one morning, "i want you to go down to martin." "yes, massa bob," said clip, with alacrity, for he much preferred such a jaunt to working in the fields. the errand was to obtain a hammer and a supply of nails at the variety store in martin. clip was rather given to blunder, but still there was no reason why he should not execute the errand satisfactorily. clip went down to the creek, and unfastened the boat. he jumped in, and began to paddle away, when he heard a voice calling him. "here, you clip!" looking round, clip recognized in the man hailing him aaron wolverton. mr. wolverton did not own any boat himself, and when he had occasion to go across the river he generally managed to secure a free passage with some one who was going over. if absolutely necessary, he would pay a nickel; but he begrudged even this small sum, so mean was he. clip stopped paddling, and answered the call. "hi, massa wolverton; what's the matter?" "come back here." "what fo'?" "i want you to take me over to martin." now clip was naturally obliging, but he disliked wolverton as much as one of his easy good nature could do. so he felt disposed to tantalize him. "can't do it, massa wolverton. i'm in a terrible hurry." "it won't take you a minute to come back." "massa bob will scold." "you needn't mind that, boy. come back, i say!" "i dassn't." "don't be a fool, you little nigger. i'll pay you." "what'll you give?" asked clip, cautiously. "i'll give you--a cent." "couldn't do it, nohow. what good's a cent to me?" "a cent's a good deal of money. you can buy a stick of candy." "'tain't enough, massa wolverton. i ain't goin' to resk gettin' licked for a cent." cunning clip knew that there was no danger of this, but he thought it would serve as an argument. "i'll give you two cents," said wolverton, impatiently. "couldn't do it," said clip. "ef it was five, now, i might 'sider it." finally wolverton was obliged to accede to clip's terms, and the colored boy pushed the boat to shore, and took in his passenger. "can you row good, clip?" asked wolverton, nervously, for he was very much afraid of the water, and he had never had clip for a boatman before. "you jes' bet i can, massa wolverton. i can row mos' as good as massa bob." "well, show it then; i am in a hurry to get over the creek." clip rowed to the middle of the creek, and then stopped paddling. "i reckon you'd better pay me the money now, massa wolverton," he said. "why, you young rascal, are you afraid to trust me?" "i dunno 'bout dat; but i wants my money." "you haven't earned it yet. what are you afraid of?" "you might forget to pay me, massa wolverton." "no, i sha'n't. push on." "i'm goin' to sleep," said clip, lying back in a lazy attitude. "you young rascal! i've a good mind to fetch you a slap on the side of the head." "better not, massa wolverton," drawled clip. "might upset the boat." "give me the oars," said wolverton, impatiently. he took them; but he had never rowed in his life, and he almost immediately turned the boat around. "hi, yah!" laughed clip, delighted. "where was you raised, massa wolverton, not to understand rowin' no better dan dat?" "take the oars, you black scoundrel, and row me across, or i'll pitch you out of the boat!" "ef you do, what'll 'come of you, massa wolverton?" said clip, not at all alarmed. this was indeed an important consideration for a man so timid on the water as the real estate agent. "you put me out of all patience," said wolverton, furiously. "are you going to row or are you not?" "i want my money," said clip. wolverton was compelled to hand over a nickel, but registered a vow that if ever he caught clip on land, he would make him pay for his impudence. clip took the oars, and made very good progress till he was about fifty feet from the other side of the creek. then he began to make the boat rock, stopping his rowing. "what are you about?" shouted wolverton, turning pale. "it's good fun, ain't it, massa wolverton?" said clip; laughing insolently. "stop, you little rascal! you'll upset the boat." "golly! ain't dis fun?" said clip, continuing his rocking. "i'll choke you, if you don't stop," screamed wolverton. he rose to catch hold of clip. the boy jumped up, and ducked his head. the result of the combined motion was that the boat, which was flat-bottomed, capsized, and the two were thrown into the water. there was no danger, for the water at this point was only four feet deep; and clip could swim, while aaron wolverton was too tall to be drowned in that depth of water. wolverton was almost scared out of his wits. he cut such a ludicrous figure as he floundered in the water, that clip screamed with delight. the black boy swam to the boat, and, managing to right her, got in again; but wolverton waded to the shore, almost beside himself with rage. "is you wet, massa wolverton?" asked clip, innocently, showing his white teeth. "come ashore, and i'll lick you!" shouted wolverton, who had by this time landed, his clothes dripping wet. "i reckon i'm too busy," answered clip, with a grin. "i'm sorry you's wet, massa wolverton. hi yah!" "i'll wring your neck, you young tike!" said wolverton, savagely. "dat old man's a hog," mused clip. "ain't much like my poor old gran'ther. _he_ was always kin' an' good. i mind him sittin' in front of de ole cabin door down in arkansaw. i 'spec' de old chap's done dead afore this," concluded clip, with a sigh. clip kept at a safe distance from shore, and the agent was compelled to defer his vengeance, and go to the house of an acquaintance to borrow some dry clothes. when he returned, it is needless to say that it was not in clip's boat. he opened his desk, to enter a business transaction in his account-book, when he made a startling discovery. _the receipt had disappeared!_ chapter viii. wolverton's dismay. wolverton uttered a cry of dismay when he found that the receipt had disappeared. with trembling fingers he turned over a pile of papers in the hope of finding the important paper. "where on earth can it be?" he asked himself, with a troubled face. he set himself to consider when he had seen it last and where he had placed it. "it must be in the desk somewhere," he decided, and resumed his search. those of my readers who have mislaid any article can picture to themselves his increasing perplexity as the missing paper failed to turn up. he was finally obliged to conclude that it was not in the desk. but, if so, where could it be? if not found, or if found by any one else, his situation would be an embarrassing one. he had assured mrs. burton that the interest money had not been paid. now suppose the receipt were found, what would be the inference? he could not help acknowledging that it would look bad for him. until he learned something of its whereabouts he would not dare to press mrs. burton for a second payment of the interest money. "it is as bad as losing a hundred and fifty dollars," he groaned. "it is a pile of money to lose." aaron wolverton did not appear to consider that it was losing what was not his property, and was only preventing him from pushing a fraudulent claim. he actually felt wronged by this inopportune loss. he felt somehow that he was the victim of misfortune. but what could have become of the receipt? that was what troubled him. was there anybody who was responsible for its disappearance? naturally it would be important for mrs. burton to get hold of it; but then, they did not know of its existence. they had no evidence that the receipt had even been delivered to richard burton. still it was possible that bob burton had visited the house, and searched the desk. he would inquire of his sister. he opened the door leading to the kitchen, where miss sally wolverton was engaged in some domestic employment. "sally, has the burton boy been here this morning?" "no; why should he come? he isn't one of your visitors, is he?" "was he here yesterday?" "no; what makes you ask?" "there was a little business, connected with the farm, which he might have come about." "i am glad he didn't come," said sally. "he's too high-strung for me." "i don't like him myself; but sometimes we have to do business with those we don't like." "that's so. how's the widder left?" "she's got the ranch, but i hold a mortgage of three thousand dollars on it," replied her brother, his features expanding into a wintry smile. a man who can laugh heartily possesses redeeming traits, even if in some respects he is bad; but aaron wolverton had never been known to indulge in a hearty laugh. "can she pay?" "not at present." "is the mortgage for a term of years?" "no; it can be called in at the end of any year." "i never liked that woman," said miss sally wolverton, grimly. sally wolverton did not like any woman who was younger and prettier than herself, and there were few who were not prettier. she had never known of her brother's infatuation for the lady she was criticising, otherwise she would have been tempted to express herself even more strongly. she was strongly opposed to his marriage, as this would have removed her from her place in his household, or, even if she remained, would have deprived her of her power. aaron did not care at present to take her into his confidence. still he could not forbear coming, in a faint way, to the defense of the woman he admired. "mrs. burton is a fine-looking woman," he said. "fine looking!" repeated sally with a contemptuous sniff. "i don't admire your taste." "she isn't in your style, sally," said aaron, with a sly twinkle in his eye. sally wolverton was taller than her brother, with harsh features, a gaunt, angular figure, and an acid expression. "i hope not," she answered. "i hope i don't look like an insipid doll." "you certainly don't, sally; you have expression enough, i am sure." "do you think mrs. burton pretty?" asked sally, suspiciously. "oh, so so!" answered aaron, guardedly; for he did not care to reveal the secret to his sister at present. she was useful to him as a housekeeper, and moreover (an important point) she was very economical; more so than any person whom he could hire. he did indeed pay his sister, but only a dollar a week, and out of this she saved nearly one half, having the gift of economy in quite as large a measure as himself. this assurance, and her brother's indifferent tone, relieved sally from her momentary suspicion. yet, had she been able to read her brother's secret thoughts, she would have been a prey to anxiety. he had made up his mind, if ever he did marry mrs. burton, to give sally her walking-ticket. "i can't afford to support two women," he reflected, "and my wife ought to be able to do all the work in so small a household." "why are you so anxious to know whether any of the burtons have been here?" "i thought they might come," answered her brother, evasively. "you haven't seen anything of that black imp, clip, have you?" "no; has he any business with you?" "i have some business with him," snarled wolverton. "he played a trick on me this morning." "what sort of a trick?" "i got him to carry me across the creek in his boat, and he managed to upset me." "did he do it a-purpose?" "yes; he laughed like a hyena when he saw me floundering in the water." "if he comes round here, i'll give him a lesson. i can't abide a nigger any way. they're as lazy as sin, and they ain't got no more sense than a monkey. it's my opinion they are a kind of monkey, any way." fortunately for the colored race all are not so prejudiced against them as sally wolverton--otherwise they would be in a bad case. "by the way, sally, have you seen a stray paper about the floor in my room?" asked wolverton, with assumed carelessness. "what sort of a paper was it?" "it was a--a receipt," answered her brother, hesitating. "what kind of a receipt--from whom?" asked sally, who possessed her share of general curiosity. "that isn't to the point. if you have seen such a paper, or picked it up, i shall feel relieved. i might have to pay the money over again if i don't find it." this was misrepresenting the matter, but wolverton did not think it expedient to give his sister a clew to so delicate a secret. "no; i have seen no paper," she said shortly, not relishing his evasive reply. "have you searched your desk?" "yes." "and didn't find it?" "no." "suppose i look. four eyes are better than two." "no, thank you, sally," answered her brother, hastily. "i am particular about not having my papers disturbed." aaron wolverton would have gained some valuable information touching the missing paper if he could have transferred himself at that moment to burton's ranch. bob and clip were out in the yard when sam wolverton made his appearance, breathless and excited. "what's the matter, sam?" asked bob, wondering. "let me catch my breath," gasped sam. "i--i've got some good news." "then you are welcome. has your uncle got married?" "no; nor aunt sally either," replied sam. "what do you say to that?" and he drew from his vest pocket a long strip of paper. "what's that?" asked bob, eagerly. "_it's the receipt_", answered sam. chapter ix. sam's gift. "what!" exclaimed bob, in great excitement. "not the receipt for the money?" "that's just what it is," answered sam, nodding emphatically. "let me see it." sam put the paper in bob's hand. there it was in regular form, a receipt for one hundred and fifty dollars, being the semi-annual interest on a mortgage on burton's ranch, dated on the day of richard burton's death, and signed by aaron wolverton. "hurrah!" shouted bob, waving it aloft. "then father did pay it, after all, and that mean scoundrel--excuse my speaking of your uncle in such terms, sam--" "i don't mind," said sam, philosophically. "that mean scoundrel wanted us to pay the money a second time. i'm ever so much obliged to you, sam. but where on earth did you find it?" "i'll tell you, bob," answered sam, perching himself on the fence. "this forenoon uncle aaron started out on business--i don't know where he went." "i know," said clip, giving way to a burst of merriment. "how do you know?" "i rowed him across de creek. i was out in de boat when old massa wolverton come along and axed me to take him across. i made him pay me a nickel, and he got into de boat," and clip began to laugh once more. "i don't see anything to laugh at, clip." "you would, massa bob, ef you'd been dar. we was almost across when de old boat upset, yah! yah! and old massa wolverton--it makes me laugh like to split--tumbled into de water, and got wet as a drownded rat." "clip, you bad boy, you did it on purpose," said bob, trying to look stern. "wish i may die!" asseverated clip, stoutly, for he was not an imitator of george washington. "didn't de old man look mad, dough? he jest shook his fist at me, and called me a black imp, 'deed he did." "i am afraid he was right, clip," said bob, shaking his head. "but you haven't told me about the receipt, sam." "he sent me into his room to get his hat, when right down on the floor by his desk, i saw a piece of paper. i remembered what you told me, bob, about the receipt, so i picked it up and slipped it into my pocket. i had to be quick about it, for uncle aaron is always in a hurry. well, i took out the hat, and i didn't dare to take out the paper and look at it till he was out of sight." "and then--" "well, then i saw it was the paper you wanted." "mr. wolverton took it from the pocket of my poor father when he lay dead on the spot where he was thrown out," said bob, gravely. "it would be hard to think of a meaner piece of rascality." "well, i'm glad you've got it, bob. i don't know as i was right in taking it, but i'll take the risk." "if you never do anything worse than that, sam, you won't have much to answer for. i wish you'd let me give you something." "no, bob, you are my friend, and it would be a pity if i couldn't do you a favor without getting paid for it." "but this is a great favor. it is worth a hundred and fifty dollars. without it we might, and probable would, have to pay the interest money over again. now, when your uncle calls for it, we shall only have to show him the receipt." "he'll wonder where it came from." "i hope it won't get you into trouble, sam." "he won't suspect me. he'll know i couldn't break into his desk, and he won't know anything about having dropped it on the floor. i don't see how he came to be so careless." "depend upon it, sam, it was the work of providence. mother says that god often overrules the designs of the wicked, and i think this is an instance. henceforth, sam, though you are old wolverton's nephew, i shall consider you a friend of our family. why can't you stay to supper to-night?" "it would never do, bob, unless i asked permission." "then ask permission." "i am afraid it wouldn't be granted." "if your uncle is as mean as i think he is, he would be glad for you to get a meal at the expense of somebody else." "he wouldn't like to have me enjoy myself," said sam. "is he so mean as that?" "whenever he hears me singing, he looks mad, and wants to know why i am making a fool of myself." "he's an uncle to be proud of," said bob, ironically. "i just wish i could live at your house, bob." "perhaps i can make an exchange, and give clip to your uncle instead of you." "oh, massa bob, don't you do it!" exclaimed clip, looking scared. "old massa wolverton would kill me, i know he would. he hates niggers, i heard him say so." bob and sam laughed, being amused by the evident terror of the young colored boy. "i won't do it, clip, unless you are very bad," said bob, gravely, "though i think sam would be willing to change." "indeed i would," said sam with a sigh. "there's no such good luck for me." when bob carried in the receipt and showed it to his mother, her face lighted up with joy. "this is indeed a stroke of good fortune," she said; "or rather it seems like a direct interposition of providence--that providence that cares for the widow and the fatherless. you must make sam a present." "so i will, mother; but if he understands it is for this he won't take anything." "sam is evidently very different from his uncle. he is a sound scion springing from a corrupt trunk. leave it to me to manage. won't he stay to supper?" "not to-night. i invited him, but he was afraid to accept the invitation, for fear of being punished." "is his uncle so severe, then?" "i suspect he beats sam, though sam doesn't like to own it." "and this man, this cruel tyrant, wants to marry me," thought mrs. burton, shuddering. two days later sam chanced to be in the house with the two boys, when mrs. burton passed through the room, and greeted him pleasantly. "when is your birthday?" she asked. "last week--thursday--ma'am." "how old are you?" "fifteen." "did you receive a birthday present?" sam shook his head. "there's no one to give me presents," he said. "you have an uncle and aunt, sam." "they never give presents. they tell me i ought to be thankful that they take care of me, and save me from going to the poor-house." "there would be no danger of that, sam," said bob. "if your uncle ever turns you out to shift for yourself, come and live with us." "i wish he would turn me out to-morrow, then," said sam; and it was evident the boy meant it. "sam, you will permit me to make up for your uncle's neglect," said mrs. burton, kindly. "here is a neck-tie. i bought it for robert, but i can get another for him. and here is something else which may prove acceptable." she drew from her pocket a silver dollar, and put it into sam's hand. "is this really for me?" asked sam, joyfully. "yes; it is only a small gift, but--" "i never had so much money before in my life," said sam. "it makes me feel rich." mrs. burton looked significantly at bob. her woman's wit had devised a way of rewarding sam for the service he had done the family without his being aware of it. the gift was well meant, but it was destined to get poor sam into trouble. chapter x. sam in a tight place. many a man who had come unexpectedly into a fortune of a hundred thousand dollars would not have felt so rich as sam with his silver dollar. it must be remembered that he had never before had so much money at one time in his life. the prospect of spending it opened up dazzling possibilities. there were so many things that he wanted, that it was hard to decide which to select. among other things, sam wanted a fishing-pole. there was a supply at a variety store in the village. he had never inquired the price, because he had no money. now that he was wealthy he determined to inquire. so he went into the store and, pointing to the coveted article, asked the price. "seventy-five cents," answered the old man, gordon locke, who kept the store. "seventy-five cents!" repeated sam, thoughtfully. this would only leave him twenty-five cents, and there were so many other things he wanted. "was you calc'latin' to buy, sam?" asked mr. locke, pushing up his iron-bound spectacles. "i don't know," said sam, slowly; "i didn't think i'd have to pay so much." "it's cheap, for the quality," said the store keeper. "this ain't no common fishing-pole. it comes all the way from york." "yes, it seems a nice one," sam admitted. "hev you got the money about you?" asked the old man. "yes," answered sam, unguardedly. "then you'd better take the pole. you won't find no better within fifty mile." "i'll think about it," said sam. he could not make up his mind to part with his precious dollar so soon. as long as he had it, he felt like a man of property. when it was once changed, he would once more be a poor boy. in spite of the storekeeper's persuasions, he walked out with his money intact, leaving the coveted fishing-pole behind. now it so happened that his uncle, who never allowed anything to pass unnoticed, saw from the window sam come out of the store, which was nearly opposite. "what business has he there, i wonder?" he said to himself. five minutes later he made an errand to visit the store himself. "good-day, mr. wolverton," said gordon locke, deferentially. "good-day, locke! didn't i see my nephew, sam, come out of here just now?" "like as not you did. he was here." "what business had he here?" "he was looking at them fishin'-rods." "he was, hey?" said wolverton, pricking up his ears. "yes; he reckoned he'd buy one soon." "what's the price?" "seventy-five cents." "he reckoned he'd pay seventy-five cents for a fishin'-rod," said wolverton, slowly. "did he show you the money?" "no; but he said he had it." "oho, he had the money," repeated aaron wolverton, shaking his head ominously. "where'd he get it? that's what i'd like to know." "i reckon you gave it to him; he's your nephew." "i don't pamper him in any such way as that. so he's got money. i'll have to look into that." wolverton, who was of a suspicious disposition, was led to think that sam had stolen the money from him. he could think of no other way in which the boy could get possession of it. he went home, and sought his sister sally. "sally, where is sam?" "i don't know." then, noticing the frown upon her brother's brow, she inquired, "is anything the matter?" "i think there is. sam has money." "what do you mean? where'd he get it, aaron?" "that's what i want to find out," and he told her of sam's visit to the store. "have you missed any money, aaron?" "not that i know of. you haven't left any round?" "no." "it stands to reason the boy has taken money from one of us. even if he hasn't, whatever he has belongs to me by right, as i am takin' care of him." "half of it ought to go to me," said sally, who was quite as fond of money as her brother. "i don't know about that. but where's the boy?" "i don't know. he may have gone over to see the burtons. he's there most of the time." "i'll foller him." aaron wolverton went into the shed, and came out with a horse-whip. he did not keep a horse, but still he kept a whip. for what purpose sam could have told if he had been asked. "if the boy's become a thief, i want to know it," said wolverton to himself. sam had really started on the way to the burtons. his uncle struck his trail, so to speak, and followed him. he caught up with his nephew about half a mile away. sam had thrown himself down on the ground under a cotton-wood tree, and gave himself up to pleasant dreams of the independence which manhood would bring. in his reverie he unconsciously spoke aloud. "when i'm a man, uncle aaron won't dare to boss me around as he does now." the old man, creeping stealthily near, overheard the words, and a malicious smile lighted up his wrinkled face. "oho, that's what he's thinkin' of already," he muttered. "what more?" "i wish i could live with the burtons," proceeded the unconscious sam. "they would treat a boy decently." "so i don't treat him decently," repeated wolverton, his small eyes snapping. he had by this time crawled behind the trunk of the tree under which sam was reclining. "i sometimes think i'd like to run away and never come back," continued sam. "you do, hey?" snarled wolverton, as he stepped out from behind the tree. sam jumped to his feet in dire dismay, and gazed at his uncle panic-stricken. "did you just come?" he stammered. "i didn't hear you." "no, i reckon not," laughed his uncle, with a queer smile. "so you want to get quit of your aunt and me, do you?" "i don't reckon to live with you always," faltered sam. "no; but you ain't a-goin' to leave us just yet. there's a little matter i've got to inquire into." sam looked up inquiringly. "what is it?" "what did you go into locke's store for?" demanded his uncle, searchingly. "i just went in to look round," answered sam, evasively. "you went to look at a fishing-pole," said aaron wolverton, sternly. "what if i did?" asked sam, plucking up a little courage. "did you have the money to buy it?" "ye--es," answered sam, panic stricken. "how much money have you got?" "a dollar." "which you stole from me!" asserted wolverton, with the air of a judge about to sentence a criminal to execution. "no, i didn't. it didn't come from your house." "where did it come from?" "mrs. burton gave it to me--for my birthday." "i don't believe it. it's one of your lies. give it to me this instant." poor sam became desperate. what! was he to lose the only money of any account which he ever possessed? he was not brave, but he made a stand here. "you have no right to it," he said, passionately. "it's mine. mrs. burton gave it to me." "i tell you it's a lie. even if she had done so i should have the right, as your uncle, to take it from you. give it to me!" "i won't!" said sam, desperately. "won't, hey?" repeated wolverton, grimly. "well, we'll see about that." he raised the horse-whip, and in an instant sam's legs--he was standing now--felt the cruel lash. "won't, hey?" repeated his uncle. "we'll see." "help!" screamed sam. "will no one help me?" "i reckon not," answered his uncle, mockingly, and he raised his whip once more. but before the lash could descend, it was snatched from him, and, turning angrily, he confronted bob burton, fierce and indignant, and saw clip standing just behind him. chapter xi. an angry conference. "you ought to be ashamed of yourself, you brute!" exclaimed bob. "do you want me to thrash you, too?" snarled wolverton, angrily. "you can try, if you want to," returned bob, contemptuously. "sam, what was he going to whip you for?" asked bob, turning to his unfortunate friend. "i'll answer that question," said wolverton, "though it's no concern of yours. the boy has been robbing me." "what have you to say, sam?" "it's not true." "what do you charge him with taking, mr. wolverton?" "a dollar." "it's the one your mother gave me, bob." "to be sure! i saw her give it to you myself." "he lies, and you swear to it," said wolverton, with a sneer. "mr. wolverton, you have brought a false charge against your nephew, and you know it. if you don't care to take his word or mine, you can come over to our house and ask my mother whether sam's story is true." "it doesn't matter whether it's true or false," said wolverton, doggedly. "sam is under my charge, and i have a right to any money he comes by." "i always knew you were mean," said bob, contemptuously, "but this is ahead of anything i ever imagined. do you still accuse sam of robbing you?" "i don't know whether he did or not." "you can easily satisfy yourself by calling on my mother." "i mean to call on your mother, but it won't be on this business," said wolverton, opening his mouth and showing the yellow fangs which served for teeth. "you are at liberty to call on any business errand," said bob. "indeed, you are very kind, remarkably kind, considering that the ranch is as much mine as your mother's." "how do you make that out?" "i have a mortgage on it for half its value." "i deny it. the ranch is worth much more than six thousand dollars. besides, the time has not yet come when you have the right to foreclose." "there you are wrong, young man! as the interest has not been promptly paid, i can foreclose at any time." "you will have to see my mother about that," said bob, carefully concealing the fact that the receipt had been recovered. "i thought you would change your tune," said wolverton, judging from bob's calmer tone that he was getting alarmed. bob smiled, for he felt that he had the advantage, and foresaw wolverton's discomfiture when the receipt was shown him. "i am not quite so excited as i was," he admitted. "when i saw you with the whip uplifted i was ready for anything." "give me back the whip!" said wolverton, menacingly. "will you promise not to use it on sam?" "i'll promise nothing, you young whipper-snapper! what business have you to interfere between me and my nephew?" "the right of ordinary humanity." "give me the whip." "then make me the promise?" "i won't." "then i propose to keep it." "i will have you arrested for theft." "do so. i will explain matters to judge turner." judge turner, the magistrate before whom such cases came, heartily despised and hated aaron wolverton, as the latter knew full well. he would certainly dismiss any charge brought against bob by such a man. this consideration naturally influenced him. "very well," he said, though with an ill grace, "if your mother gave sam the money, i retract the charge of theft. nevertheless, as his guardian, i demand that the dollar be given to me." "give it to me to keep for you, sam," said bob. sam gladly took it from his pocket, and threw it towards bob, who dexterously caught it. "now, mr. wolverton," said bob, quietly; "you will have to demand the money from me; sam hasn't got it." "you'll have to pay for your impudence, robert burton!" said wolverton, wrathfully. "you forget that you are all in my power." "you may find yourself mistaken, mr. wolverton," said bob. "at any rate, i don't think i shall lose any sleep on that score." "you can tell your mother i shall call this evening," continued wolverton. "i expect her to be ready with the interest, which is long overdue." "i will give her your message, mr. wolverton. now, clip, let us go on. mr. wolverton will excuse us, i know, when i tell him that we have an errand in the village." "yah, yah!" laughed clip, gleefully; not that there was anything particular to laugh at, but because it took very little to excite clip's risibilities. mr. wolverton turned upon clip with a frown. he had not forgotten the trick clip played upon him when he was upset in the river, and he would have liked nothing better than to flog him till he roared for mercy. "what is that black ape grinning about?" he demanded. clip ought to have felt insulted, but he was only amused. "yah, yah!" he laughed again. aaron wolverton made a dash at him with his recovered whip, but clip nimbly jumped to one side and laughed again. "didn't do it dat time, massa wolverton," said clip, showing his teeth. "i'll get even with you yet, you black monkey!" if clip had been alone, wolverton would have proceeded then and there to carry out his threat. but he had a wholesome respect for bob, whose physical strength and prowess he well knew. it made him angry whenever he thought of this boy, who seemed born to be a thorn in his side. he was stronger than wolverton, though the land agent was a man grown, and it was humiliating to wolverton to be obliged to admit this fact. but he had one consolation in the mortgage he held upon the burton ranch. here the law was on his side, and he saw his way clear to annoy and injure bob and his family, without running any risk himself. as for the chance of the mortgage ever being paid off, that he thought extremely small. if richard burton were still alive, he would have been right, but bob, young as he was, bade fair to be a better manager than his father. he was not so sanguine, or, if the truth must be told, so reckless in his expenditures. besides, he knew, though his father was ignorant of it, that wolverton, for some reason which he could not penetrate, was a bitter enemy of the family, and that his forbearance could not be depended upon. when bob and clip had left the scene aaron wolverton turned to sam, and scowled at his unfortunate nephew, in a way which was by no means pleasant or reassuring. "i've a good mind to flog you for all the trouble you've brought upon me," he said. "i don't see what i've done, uncle." "you don't, hey? haven't you sided with that upstart, the burton boy?" sam was judiciously silent, for he saw his uncle was very much irritated. "why did you give that dollar to him?" "he told me to." "suppose he did; is he your guardian or am i?" "you are, uncle aaron." "i'm glad you are willing to admit it. then why did you give him the dollar?" "because his mother gave it to me. if you had given it to me, i wouldn't have done it." "you'll have to wait a good while before i give you a dollar." sam was of the same opinion himself, but did not think it wise to say so. "you deserve to be punished for what you have done," said his uncle, severely. "i wish i were as strong and brave as bob," thought sam. "i don't see how he dares to stand up before uncle aaron and defy him. he makes me tremble." the truth was, sam was not made of heroic mold. he was a timid boy and was easily overawed. he lacked entirely the qualities that made bob so bold and resolute. he could admire his friend, but he could not imitate him. "now, come home," said wolverton, shortly. sam followed his uncle meekly. when they reached home sam was set to work. at twelve o'clock the bell rang for dinner. sam dropped his axe (he had been splitting wood) and entered the kitchen, where the frugal meal was spread. his uncle was already sitting in his place, and sam prepared to sit down in his usual chair. "samuel," said his uncle, "you have disobeyed me. you do not deserve any dinner." sam's countenance fell, for he was very hungry. "i am very hungry," he faltered. "you should have thought of that when you disobeyed me and gave your money to the burton boy. this is intended as a salutary lesson, samuel, to cure you of your stubbornness and disobedience." "you are quite right, aaron," said miss sally in her deep voice. "samuel needs chastening." poor sam slunk out of the door in a state of depression. not being ordered to return to his work, he went out into the street, where he met bob and clip, and to them he told his tale of woe. "your uncle is as mean as they make 'em," said bob. "here, go into the baker's and buy some doughnuts and pie." he handed sam a quarter, and the hungry boy followed his advice, faring quite as well as he would have done at his uncle's table. rather to mr. wolverton's surprise, he worked all the afternoon without showing signs of hunger, and that gentleman began to consider whether, after all, two meals a day were not sufficient for him. chapter xii. wolverton's waterloo. though the receipt was lost, wolverton could not give up his plan of extorting the interest from mrs. burton a second time. it might have been supposed that he would have some qualms of conscience about robbing the widow and the fatherless, but mr. wolverton's conscience, if he had any, gave him very little trouble. he would have thought himself a fool to give up one hundred and fifty dollars if there was the slightest chance of securing them. towards evening of the day on which bob had interfered with him, he took his hat and cane, and set out for burton's ranch. it so happened that bob answered the bell. he had been sitting with his mother, chatting about their future plans. "good-evening, mr. wolverton," said bob, who felt it incumbent upon him to be polite to a guest, even though he disliked him. "evening," returned wolverton, curtly. "is your mother at home?" "yes, sir. will you come in?" wolverton had not the good manners to acknowledge the invitation with thanks, but strode into the sitting-room, following bob. the widow anticipated his visit, having been informed by bob that he had announced his intention of coming. "good-evening, mr. wolverton. take a seat," she said, pointing to a chair a few feet from her own. "robert, take mr. wolverton's hat." wolverton looked at the widow with a hungry gaze, for she was the only woman, he had ever loved. "if she would only marry me, all her troubles would be over," he said to himself. "she's a fool to refuse." we, who have some idea of mr. wolverton's character and disposition, are more likely to conclude that marriage with such a man would be only the beginning of trouble. "i've come on business, mrs. burton," said the visitor, in an aggressive tone. "state it, if you please, mr. wolverton," the widow answered, calmly. "hadn't you better send your son out of the room? we'd better discuss this matter alone." "i have no secrets from robert," said the widow. "oh, well, just as you please; i don't care to have him interfere in what doesn't concern him." "any business with my mother does concern me," said bob; "but i will try not to give you any trouble." "the business is about that interest," wolverton began, abruptly. "what interest?" "you must know what i mean--the interest on the mortgage." "my husband paid it on the day of his death." "it's easy enough to say that," sneered wolverton, "but saying it isn't proving it, as you must have the good sense to know." "when my husband left me on that fatal morning, he told me that he was going to your office to pay the interest. i know he had the money and with him, for he had laid down the wallet, and i saw the roll of bills." "why didn't he pay it, then? that's what i'd like to know." "didn't he pay it to you, mr. wolverton?" asked mrs. burton, with a searching glance. "carry back your memory to that day, and answer me that question." mr. wolverton showed himself a little restive under this interrogatory, but he assumed an air of indignation. "what do you mean, widder?" he demanded, bringing down his cane with emphasis upon the floor. "do you doubt my word?" "i think you may be mistaken, mr. wolverton," said mrs. burton, composedly. "who has been putting this into your head, widder? is it that boy of yours?" bob answered for himself: "i don't mind saying that i did tell mother that i thought the money had been paid." "humph! you think yourself mighty smart, bob burton," snarled wolverton. "nat'rally you'd like to get rid of paying the interest, if you could; but you've got a business man to deal with, not a fool." "you are no fool where money is concerned, there's no doubt about that. but i want to ask you one thing, if my father didn't pay you the money which mother can testify to his carrying with him on the morning of his death, what became of it?" "how should i know? did you search his wallet when he was brought home?" "yes." "and you didn't find the money?" "no." "so you conclude that he paid it to me. let me tell you, young man, that doesn't follow. he may have been robbed when he was lying on the ground insensible." "i think very likely he was," returned bob, quietly. "what do you mean by that?" demanded wolverton, uneasily. "who could have robbed him?" "possibly some one that we wouldn't be likely to suspect." "what does he mean? can he possibly suspect me?" thought wolverton, fixing his eyes on bob's face. "but no! i certainly didn't take any money from him." "you may be right," he said aloud; "but that hasn't anything to do with my claim for interest. whether your father was robbed of the money, or spent it, is all one to me. it wasn't paid to me, i can certify." "would you be willing to swear that the money was not paid to you that day, mr. wolverton?" "do you mean to insult me? haven't i told you it was not paid?" "do you expect me to pay it to you, then?" asked mrs. burton. "widder, i am surprised you should ask such a foolish question. it lies in a nutshell. i'm entitled to interest on the money i let your husband have on mortgage. you admit that?" "yes." "i'm glad you admit that. as your husband didn't pay, i look to you for it. i can say no more." mrs. burton took a pocket-book from a pocket in her dress, and handed it to robert. bob opened it, and drew therefrom a folded paper. "mr. wolverton," he said, quietly, "i hold in my hand a receipt signed by yourself for the interest--one hundred and fifty dollars--dated the very day that my poor father died. what have you to say to it?" mr. wolverton sprang to his feet, pale and panic-stricken. "where did you get that paper?" he stammered, hoarsely. [illustration: bob produces the missing receipt.] chapter xiii. what bob found in the creek. "when my poor husband left your office this receipt was in his possession," answered mrs. burton. "i deny it," exclaimed aaron wolverton, in a tone of excitement. "where else should it be?" inquired the widow, eying him fixedly. "i don't know. how should i?" "so you deny that the signature is yours, mr. wolverton?" "let me see it." "i would rather not," said bob, drawing back the receipt from wolverton's extended hand. "that's enough!" said wolverton quickly. "you are afraid to show it. i denounce it as a base forgery." "that will do no good," said the boy, un-terrified. "i have shown the receipt to mr. dornton, and he pronounces the signature genuine." "what made you show it to him?" asked wolverton, discomfited. "because i thought it likely, after your demanding the interest the second time, that you would deny it." "probably i know my own signature better than mr. dornton can." "i have no doubt you will recognize it," and bob, unfolding the paper, held it in such a manner that wolverton could read it. "it may be my signature; it looks like it," said wolverton, quickly deciding upon a new evasion, "but it was never delivered to your father." "how then do you account for its being written?" asked mrs. burton, in natural surprise. "i made it out on the day your husband died," wolverton answered glibly, "anticipating that he would pay the money. he did not do it, and so the receipt remained in my desk." bob and his mother regarded each other in surprise. they were not prepared for such a barefaced falsehood. "perhaps you will account for its not being in your desk now," said bob. "i can do so, readily," returned wolverton, maliciously. "somebody must have stolen it from my desk." "i think you will find it hard to prove this, mr. wolverton." "it is true, and i don't propose to lose my money on account of a stolen receipt. you will find that you can't so easily circumvent aaron wolverton." "you are quite welcome to adopt this line of defense, mr. wolverton, if you think best. you ought to know whether the public will believe such an improbable tale." "if you had the receipt why didn't you show it to me before?" wolverton asked in a triumphant tone. "i came here soon after your father's death, and asked for my interest. your mother admitted, then, that she had no receipt." "we had not found it then." "where, and when, did you find it?" "i do not propose to tell." wolverton shook his head, satirically. "and a very good reason you have, i make no doubt." "suppose i tell you my theory, mr. wolverton." "i wish you would," and wolverton leaned back in his chair and gazed defiantly at the boy he so much hated. "my father paid you the interest, and took a receipt. he had it on his person when he met with his death. when he was lying outstretched in death"--here bob's eyes moistened--"some one came up, and, bending over him, took the receipt from his pocket." mr. wolverton's face grew pale as bob proceeded. "a very pretty romance!" he sneered, recovering himself after an instant. "it is something more than romance," bob proceeded slowly and gravely. "it is true; the man who was guilty of this mean theft from a man made helpless by death is known. he was seen at this contemptible work." "it is a lie," cried wolverton, hoarsely, his face the color of chalk. "it is a solemn truth." "who saw him?" "i don't propose to tell--yet, if necessary, it will be told in a court of justice." wolverton saw that he was found out, but he could not afford to acknowledge. his best way of getting off was to fly into a rage, and this was easy for him. "i denounce this as a base conspiracy," he said, rising as he spoke. "that receipt was stolen from my desk." "then we do not need to inquire who took it from the vest-pocket of my poor father." "robert barton, i will get even with you for this insult," said wolverton, shaking his fist at the manly boy. "you and your mother." "leave out my mother's name," said bob, sternly. "i will; i don't think she would be capable of such meanness. you, then, are engaged in a plot to rob me of a hundred and fifty dollars. to further this wicked scheme, you or your agent have stolen this receipt from my desk. i can have you arrested for burglary. it is no more nor less than that." "you can do so if you like, mr. wolverton. in that case the public shall know that you stole the receipt from my poor father after his death. i can produce an eye-witness." wolverton saw that he was in a trap. such a disclosure would injure him infinitely in the opinion of his neighbors, for it would be believed. there was no help for it. he must lose the hundred and fifty dollars upon which, though he had no claim to it, he had so confidently reckoned. "you will hear from me!" he said, savagely, as he jammed his hat down upon his head, and hastily left the apartment. "aaron wolverton is not the man to give in to fraud." neither bob nor his mother answered him, but mrs. burton asked anxiously, after his departure: "do you think he will do anything, bob?" "no, mother; he sees that he is in a trap, and will think it wisest to let the matter drop." this, in fact, turned out to be the case. mortifying as it was to give in, wolverton did not dare to act otherwise. he would have given something handsome, mean though he was, if he could have found out, first, who saw him rob the dead man, and next, who extracted the stolen receipt from his desk. he was inclined to guess that it was bob in both cases. it never occurred to him that clip was the eye-witness whose testimony could brand him with this contemptible crime. nor did he think of sam in connection with his own loss of the receipt. he knew sam's timidity, and did not believe the boy would have dared to do such a thing. all the next day, in consequence of his disappointment, mr. wolverton was unusually cross and irritable. he even snapped at his sister, who replied, with spirit: "look here, aaron, you needn't snap at me, for i won't stand it." "how will you help it?" he sneered. "by leaving your house, and letting you get another housekeeper. i can earn my own living, without working any harder than i do here, and a better living, too. while i stay here, you've got to treat me decently." wolverton began to see that he had made a mistake. any other housekeeper would cost him more, and he could find none that would be so economical. "i don't mean anything, sally," he said; "but i'm worried." "what worries you?" "a heavy loss." "how much?" "a hundred and fifty dollars." "how is that?" "i have lost a receipt, but i can't explain how. a hundred and fifty dollars is a great deal of money, sally." "i should say it was. why can't you tell me about it?" "perhaps i will some time." about two months later, while bob was superintending the harvesting of the wheat--the staple crop of the burton ranch--clip came running up to him in visible excitement. "oh, massa bob," he exclaimed, "there is a ferry-boat coming down the creek with nobody on it, and it's done got stuck ag'inst a snag. come quick, and we can take it for our own. findings is keepings." bob lost no time in following clip's suggestion. he hurried to the creek, and there, a few rods from shore, he discovered the boat stranded in the mud, for it was low tide. chapter xiv. the boat and its owner. the boat was shaped somewhat like the popular representations of noah's ark. it was probably ninety feet in length by thirty-eight feet in width, and was roofed. bob recognized it at once as a ferry-boat of the style used at different points on the river, to convey passengers and teams across the river. it was a double-ender, like the much larger ferry-boats that are used on the east river, between new york and brooklyn. the creek on which the burton ranch was located was really large enough for a river, and bob concluded that this boat had been used at a point higher up. "i wish i owned that boat, clip," said bob. "what would you do with it, massa bob?" "i'll tell you what i'd do, clip; i'd go down to st. louis on it." "will you take me with you, massa bob?" asked clip, eagerly. "i will, if i go, clip." "golly, won't that be fine!" said the delighted clip. "how long will you stay, massa bob?" clip supposed bob intended a pleasure trip, for in his eyes pleasure was the chief end of living. but bob was more practical and business-like. he had an idea which seemed to him a good one, though as yet he had mentioned it to no one. "get out the boat, clip," he said, "and we'll go aboard. i want to see if the boat will be large enough for my purpose." clip laughed in amusement. "you must think you'self mighty big, massa bob," he said, "if you think there isn't room on that boat for you an' me." "it would certainly be large enough for two passengers like ourselves, clip," answered bob, smiling; "for that matter our rowboat is large enough for two boys, but if i go i shall carry a load with me." clip was still in the dark, but he was busying himself in unloosing the rowboat, according to bob's bidding. the two boys jumped in, and a few strokes of the oars carried them to the ferry-boat. fastening the flat-bottomed boat, the two boys clambered on deck. bob found the boat in good condition. it had occurred to him that it had been deserted as old and past service, and allowed to drift down the creek, but an examination showed that in this conjecture he was mistaken. it was sufficiently good to serve for years yet. this discovery was gratifying in one way, but in another it was a disappointment. as a boat of little value, bob could have taken possession of it, fairly confident that no one would interfere with his claim, but in its present condition it was hardly likely to be without an owner, who would appear sooner or later and put in his claim to it. "it seems to be a pretty good boat," said bob. "dat's so, massa bob." "it must have slipped its moorings and drifted down the creek during the night. i wish i knew who owned it." "you an' me own it, massa bob. finding is keeping." "i am afraid it won't be so in the present case. probably the owner will appear before long." "can't we get off down de river afore he comes, massa bob?" "that wouldn't be honest, clip." clip scratched his head in perplexity. he was not troubled with conscientious scruples, and was not as clear about the rights of property as his young patron. he was accustomed, however, to accept whatever bob said as correct and final. in fact, he was content to let bob do his thinking for him. "what was you goin' to take down de ribber, massa bob?" he asked. "i'll tell you what i was thinking of, clip. you know we are gathering our crop of grain, and of course it must be sold. now, traders ask a large commission for taking the wheat to market, and this would be a heavy tax. if i could load it on board this boat, and take it down myself, i should save all that, and i could sell it myself in st. louis." "can i go, too?" asked clip, anxiously. "you shall go if i do," answered bob. "when will you know?" asked clip, eagerly. "when i find out whether i can use this boat. i had thought of building a raft, but that wouldn't do. no raft that i could build would carry our crop to st. louis. this boat will be just the thing. i think it must have been used for that purpose before. see those large bins on each side. each would contain from fifty to a hundred bushels of wheat. i only wish i knew the owner. even if i couldn't buy the boat, i might make a bargain to hire it." bob had hardly finished his sentence when he heard a voice hailing him from the bank. going to the end of the boat, he looked towards the shore, and saw a tall angular figure, who seemed from his dress and appearance to be a western yankee. his figure was tall and angular, his face of the kind usually described as hatchet face, with a long thin nose, and his head was surmounted by a flapping sombrero, soft, broad-brimmed, and shapeless. "boat ahoy!" called the stranger. "did you wish to speak to us?" asked bob, politely. "i reckon i do," answered the stranger. "i want you to take me aboard that boat." "is the boat yours?" asked bob. "it doesn't belong to anybody else," was the reply. "untie the boat, clip. we'll go back!" ordered bob. the two boys dropped into the rowboat, and soon touched the bank. "if you will get in we'll row you over," said bob. "when did you lose the boat?" "it drifted down last night," answered the new acquaintance. "i've been usin' it as a ferry-boat about twenty miles up the creek. last night i thought it was tied securely, but this morning it was gone." "i don't see how it could have broken away." "like as not some mischievous boy cut the cable," was the answer. "any way, here it is, and here am i, ichabod slocum, the owner." "then the boat and its owner are once more united." "yes, but that don't take the boat back to where it belongs. it's drifted down here, easy enough; mebbe one of you boys will tell me how it's goin' to drift back." "there may be some difficulty about that," answered bob with a smile. "how long have you owned the boat?" "about two years. i've been usin' her as a ferry-boat between transfer city and romeo, and i've made a pretty fair livin' at it." bob was familiar with the names of these towns, though he had never been so far up the creek. "i'm afraid you'll have trouble in getting the boat back," he said. "it will make quite an interruption in your business." "i don't know as i keer so much about that," said ichabod slocum, thoughtfully. "i've been thinkin' for some time about packin' up and goin' farther west. i've got a cousin in oregon, and i reckon i might like to go out there for a year or two." "then, perhaps you might like to dispose of the boat, mr. slocum," said bob, eagerly. "well, i might," said ichabod slocum, cautiously. "do you know of anybody around here that wants a boat?" "i might like it myself," was bob's reply. "what on airth does a boy like you want of a ferry-boat?" asked slocum, in surprise. "i have a plan in my head," said bob; "and think it would be useful to me." "there ain't no call for a ferry-boat here," said ichabod. "no; you are right there. i may as well tell you what i am thinking of. our crop of grain is ready to harvest, and i should like to load it on this boat and carry it down to st. louis and sell it there myself." chapter xv. bob buys the ferry-boat. "good!" said mr. slocum. "i like your pluck. well, there's the boat. you can have it if you want it--for a fair price, of course." "what do you call a fair price?" asked bob. "i don't mind sayin' that i bought it second-hand myself, and i've got good value out of it. i might sell it for--a hundred and twenty-five dollars." bob shook his head. "that may be cheap," he answered; "but i can't afford to pay so much money." "you can sell it at st. louis when you're through usin' it." "i should have to take my risk of it." "you seem to be pretty good on a trade, for a boy. i reckon you'll sell it." "do you want all the money down. mr. slocum?" "well, i might wait for half of it, ef i think it's safe. what's your security?" "we--that is, mother and i--own the ranch bordering on the other side of the creek. the wheat crop we are harvesting will probably amount to fourteen hundred bushels. i understand it is selling for two dollars a bushel or thereabouts." (this was soon after the war, when high prices prevailed for nearly all articles, including farm products.) "i reckon you're safe, then," said mr. slocum. "now we'll see if we can agree upon a price." i will not follow bob and mr. slocum in the bargaining that succeeded. the latter was the sharper of the two, but bob felt obliged to reduce the price as much as possible, in view of the heavy mortgage upon the ranch. "i shall never breathe easy till that mortgage is paid, mother," he said. "mr. wolverton is about the last man i like to owe. his attempt to collect the interest twice shows that he is unscrupulous. besides, he has a grudge against me, and it would give him pleasure, i feel sure, to injure me." "i am afraid you are right, robert," answered his mother. "we must do our best, and heaven will help us." finally mr. slocum agreed to accept seventy-five dollars cash down, or eighty dollars, half in cash, and the remainder payable after bob's river trip was over and the crop disposed of. "i wouldn't make such terms to any one else," said the boat-owner, "but i've been a boy myself, and i had a hard row to hoe, you bet. you seem like a smart lad, and i'm favorin' you all i can." "thank you, mr. slocum. i consider your price very fair, and you may depend upon my carrying out my agreement. now, if you will come up to the house, i will offer you some dinner, and pay you the money." [illustration: bob buys the ferry-boat.] ichabod slocum readily accepted the invitation, and the three went up to the house together. when bob told his mother of the bargain he had made, she was somewhat startled. she felt that he did not realize how great an enterprise he had embarked in. "you forget, robert, that you are only a boy," she said. "no, mother, i don't forget it. but i have to take a man's part, now that father is dead." "st. louis is a long distance away, and you have no experience in business." "on the other hand, mother, if we sell here, we must make a great sacrifice--twenty-five cents a bushel at least, and that on fourteen hundred bushels would amount to three hundred and fifty dollars. now clip and i can navigate the boat to st. louis and return for less than quarter of that sum." "the boy speaks sense, ma'am," said ichabod slocum. "he's only a kid, but he's a smart one. he's good at a bargain, too. he made me take fifty dollars less for the boat than i meant to. you can trust him better than a good many men." "i am glad you have so favorable an opinion of robert, mr. slocum," said mrs. burton. "i suppose i must yield to his desire." "then i may go, mother?" "yes, robert; you have my consent." "then the next thing is to pay mr. slocum for his boat." this matter was speedily arranged. "i wish, mr. slocum," said bob, "that you were going to st. louis. i would be very glad to give you free passage." "thank you, lad, but i must turn my steps in a different direction." "shall i have any difficulty in managing the boat on our course down the river?" "no, you will drift with the current. it is easy enough to go down stream. the trouble is to get back. but for that, i wouldn't have sold you the boat. at night you tie up anywhere it is convenient, and start again the next morning." "that seems easy enough. do you know how far it is to st. louis, mr. slocum?" "there you have me, lad. i ain't much on reckonin' distances." "i have heard your father say, robert, that it is about three hundred miles from here to the city. i don't like to have you go so far from me." "i've got clip to take care of me, mother," said bob, humorously. "i'll take care of massa bob, missis," said clip, earnestly. "i suppose i ought to feel satisfied with that assurance," said mrs. burton, smiling, "but i have never been accustomed to think of clip as a guardian." "i'll guardian, him, missis," promised clip, amid general laughter. after dinner, in company with mr. slocum, bob and clip went on board the ferry-boat, and made a thorough examination of the craft, with special reference to the use for which it was intended. "you expect to harvest fourteen hundred bushels?" inquired mr. slocum. "yes; somewhere about that amount." "then you may need to make two or three extra bins." "that will be a simple matter," said bob. "the roof over the boat will keep the wheat dry and in good condition. when you get to the city you can sell it all to one party, and superintend the removal yourself. you can hire all the help you need there." bob was more and more pleased with his purchase. "it is just what i wanted," he said, enthusiastically. "the expenses will be almost nothing. we can take a supply of provisions with us, enough to keep us during the trip, and when the business is concluded we can return on some river steamer. we'll have a fine time, clip." "golly! massa bob, dat's so." "you will need to tie the boat," continued ichabod slocum, "or it may float off during the night, and that would upset all your plans. have you a stout rope on the place?" "i think not. i shall have to buy one at the store, or else cross the river." "then you had better attend to that at once. the boat may become dislodged at any moment." after mr. slocum's departure, bob lost no time in attending to this important matter. he procured a heavy rope, of sufficient strength, and proceeded to secure the boat to a tree on the bank. "how soon will we start, massa bob?" asked clip, who was anxious for the excursion to commence. he looked upon it somewhat in the light of an extended picnic, and it may be added that bob also, apart from any consideration of business, anticipated considerable enjoyment from the trip down the river. "don't tell anybody what we are going to do with the boat, clip," said bob. "it will be a fortnight before we start, and i don't care to have much said about the matter beforehand." clip promised implicit obedience, but it was not altogether certain that he would be able to keep strictly to his word, for keeping a secret was not an easy thing for him to do. of course it leaked out that bob had bought a ferry-boat. among others mr. wolverton heard it, but he did not dream of the use to which bob intended to put it. he spoke of it as a boy's folly, and instanced it as an illustration of the boy's unfitness for the charge of the ranch. it was generally supposed that bob had bought it on speculation, hoping to make a good profit on the sale, and bob suffered this idea to remain uncontradicted. meanwhile he pushed forward as rapidly as possible the harvest of the wheat, being anxious to get it to market. when this work was nearly finished mr. wolverton thought it time to make a proposal to mrs. burton, which, if accepted, would bring him a handsome profit. chapter xvi. wolverton's baffled scheme. mrs. burton was somewhat surprised, one evening, when told that mr. wolverton was at the door, and desired to speak with her. since the time his demand for a second payment of the interest had been met by a production of the receipt, he had kept away from the ranch. it might have been the mortification arising from baffled villainy, or, again, from the knowledge that no advantage could be gained from another interview. at all events, he remained away till the wheat was nearly harvested. then he called, because he had a purpose to serve. "tell mrs. burton that i wish to see her on business," he said to the servant who answered his knock. "you can show mr. wolverton in," said the widow. directly the guest was ushered into her presence. "i needn't ask if i see you well, mrs. burton," he said, suavely. "your appearance is a sufficient answer." "thank you," answered mrs. burton, coldly. aaron wolverton noticed the coldness, but did not abate any of his suavity. he only said to himself: "the time will come when you will feel forced to give me a better reception, my lady!" "i have called on a little business," he resumed. "is it about the interest?" asked the widow. "no; for the present i waive that. i have been made the victim of a base theft, and it may cost me a hundred and fifty dollars: but i will not speak of that now." "what other business can you have with me?" "i have come to make you an offer." "what!" exclaimed mrs. burton, indignantly. aaron wolverton chuckled, thereby showing a row of defective and discolored teeth. "you misunderstand me," he said. "i come to make you an offer for your wheat crop, which i suppose is nearly all gathered in." "yes," answered the widow relieved. "robert tells me that it will be all harvested within three days." "just so. now, i am willing to save you a great deal of trouble by buying the entire crop at a fair valuation." "in that case, mr. wolverton, you will allow me to send for robert. he attends to the business of the ranch, and understands much more about it than i do." "wait a minute, mrs. burton. robert is no doubt a smart boy, but you give him too much credit." "i don't think i do. he has shown, since his father's death, a judgment not often found in a boy of his age." "she is infatuated about that boy!" thought wolverton. "however, as i have a point to carry, i won't dispute with her." "you may be right," he said, "but in this matter i venture to think that you and i can make a bargain without any outside help." "you can, at any rate, state your proposition, mr. wolverton." "have you any idea as to the amount of your wheat crop?" "robert tells me there will be not far from fourteen hundred bushels." wolverton's eyes showed his pleasure. if he made the bargain proposed, this would bring him an excellent profit. "very good!" he said. "it will be a great help to you." "yes; i feel that we are fortunate, especially when i consider that the ranch has been carried on by a boy of sixteen." "well, mrs. burton, i am a man of few words. i will give you a dollar and a half a bushel for your wheat, and this will give you, on the basis of fourteen hundred bushels, twenty-one hundred dollars. you are a very fortunate woman." "but, mr. wolverton, robert tells me he expects to get at least two dollars a bushel." it must be remembered that grain was then selling at "war prices." "i don't know what the boy can be thinking of," said wolverton, contemptuously. "two dollars a bushel! why don't he say five dollars at once?" "he gained his information from a st. louis paper." "my dear madam, the price here and the price in st. louis are two entirely different matters. you must be aware that it will cost a good deal to transport the wheat to st. louis." "surely it cannot cost fifty cents a bushel?" "no; but it is a great mistake to suppose that you can get two dollars a bushel in st. louis." "i must leave the matter to robert to decide." "excuse my saying that this is very foolish. the boy has not a man's judgment." "nevertheless, i must consult him before deciding." mrs. barton spoke so plainly that wolverton said, sullenly: "do as you please, mrs. burton, but i would like to settle the matter to-night." robert was sent for, and, being near the house, entered without delay. mr. wolverton's proposition was made known to him. "mr. wolverton," said bob, regarding that gentleman with a dislike he did not attempt to conceal, "you would make a very good bargain if we accepted your proposal." "not much," answered wolverton, hastily. "of course i should make a little something, but i am chiefly influenced in making the offer, by a desire to save your mother trouble." "you would make seven hundred dollars at least, out of which you would only have to pay for transportation to st. louis." "that is a very ridiculous statement!" said wolverton, sharply. "why so? the wheat will fetch two dollars a bushel in the market." "some one has been deceiving you." "shall i show you the paper in which i saw the quotations?" "no; it is erroneous. besides, the expense of carrying the grain to market will be very large." "it won't be fifty cents a bushel." "young man, you are advising your mother against her best interests. young people are apt to be headstrong. i should not expect to make much money out of the operation." "why, then, do you make the offer?" "i have already told you that i wished to save your mother trouble." "we are much obliged to you, but we decline your proposal." "then," said wolverton, spitefully, "i shall have to hold you to the terms of the mortgage. i had intended to favor you, but after the tone you have taken with me, i shall not do so." "to what terms do you refer, mr. wolverton?" asked the widow. "i will tell you. i have the right at the end of six months to call for a payment of half the mortgage--fifteen hundred dollars. that will make, in addition to the interest then due, sixteen hundred and fifty dollars." "can this be true?" asked mrs. burton, in dismay, turning to robert. "it is so specified in the mortgage," answered wolverton, triumphantly. "you can examine it for yourself. i have only to say, that, had you accepted my offer, i would have been content with, say, one quarter of the sum, knowing that it would be inconvenient for you to pay half." bob, as well as his mother, was taken by surprise, but in no way disposed to yield. "we should be no better off," he said. "we should lose at least five hundred dollars by accepting your offer, and that we cannot afford to do." "you refuse, then," said wolverton, angrily. "yes." "then all i have to say is that you will rue this day," and the agent got up hastily, but upon second thought sat down again. "how do you expect to get your grain to market?" he asked. "i shall take it myself." "what do you mean?" "i shall store it on a boat i have purchased, and clip and i will take it to st. louis." "you must be crack-brained!" ejaculated wolverton. "i never heard of a more insane project." "i hope to disappoint you, mr. wolverton. at any rate, my mind is made up." wolverton shuffled out of the room, in impotent rage. "we have made him our enemy, robert," said his mother, apprehensively. "he was our enemy before, mother. he evidently wants to ruin us." as wolverton went home, one thought was uppermost in his mind. "how could he prevent bob from making the trip to st. louis?" chapter xvii. wolverton's poor tenant. bob hired a couple of extra hands, and made haste to finish harvesting his wheat, for he was anxious to start on the trip down the river as soon as possible. his anticipations as to the size of the crop were justified. it footed up fourteen hundred and seventy-five bushels, and this, at two dollars per bushel, would fetch in market nearly three thousand dollars. "that's a pretty good crop for a boy to raise, mother," said bob, with pardonable exultation. "you haven't lost anything by allowing me to run the ranch." "quite true, robert. you have accomplished wonders. i don't know what i could have done without you. i know very little of farming myself." "i helped him, missis," said clip, coveting a share of approval for himself. "yes," said bob, smiling. "clip has been my right-hand man. i can't say he has worked very hard himself, but he has superintended the others." "yes, missis; dat's what i done!" said clip, proudly. he did not venture to pronounce the word, for it was too much for him, but he was vaguely conscious that it was something important and complimentary. "then i must buy clip a new suit," said mrs. burton, smiling. "i'll buy it in st. louis, mother." when the grain was all gathered in bob began to load it on the ferry-boat. wolverton sent sam round every day to report progress, but did not excite his nephew's suspicions by appearing to take unusual interest in the matter. to prepare the reader for a circumstance which happened about this time, i find it necessary to introduce another character, who was able to do bob an important service. in a small house, about three-quarters of a mile beyond the burton ranch, lived dan woods, a poor man, with, a large family. he hired the house which he occupied and a few acres of land from aaron wolverton, who had obtained possession of it by foreclosing a mortgage which he held. he permitted woods, the former owner, to remain as a tenant in the house which once belonged to him, charging him rather more than an average rent. the poor man raised vegetables and a small crop of wheat, enough of each for his own family, and hired out to neighbors for the balance of his time. he obtained more employment on the burton ranch than anywhere else, and mrs. burton had also sympathized with him in his difficult struggle to maintain his family. but, in spite of friends and his own untiring industry, dan woods fell behind. there were five children to support, and they required not only food but clothing, and dan found it uphill work. his monthly rent was ten dollars; a small sum in itself, but large for this much-burdened man to pay. but, however poorly he might fare in other respects, dan knew that it was important to have this sum ready on the first day of every month. wolverton was a hard landlord, and admitted of no excuse. more than once after the rent had been paid there was not a dollar left in his purse, or a pinch of food in his house. a week before this time dan was looking for his landlord's call with unusual anxiety. he had been sick nearly a week during the previous month, and this had so curtailed his earnings that he had but six dollars ready in place of ten. would his sickness be accepted as an excuse? he feared not. wolverton's call was made on time. he had some expectation that the rent would not be ready, for he knew dan had been sick; but he was resolved to show him no consideration. "his sickness is nothing to me," he reflected. "it would be a pretty state of affairs if landlords allowed themselves to be cheated out of their rent for such a cause." dan woods was at work in the yard when wolverton approached. he was splitting some wood for use in the kitchen stove. his heart sank within him when he saw the keen, sharp features of his landlord. "good morning, dan," said wolverton, with suavity. his expression was amiable, as it generally was when he was collecting money, but it suffered a remarkable change if the money was not forthcoming. "good-morning, sir," answered woods, with a troubled look. "you've got a nice, snug place here, dan; it's a fine home for your family." "i don't complain of it, sir. as i once owned it myself, probably i set more store by it than a stranger would." "just so, dan. you get it at a very low rent, too. if it were any one but yourself i should really feel that i ought to raise the rent to twenty dollars." "i hope you won't do that, sir," said woods, in alarm. "it's all i can do to raise ten dollars a month, with all my other expenses." "oh, well, i'll let it remain at the present figure _as long as you pay me promptly_," emphasizing the last words. "of course i have a right to expect that." dan's heart sank within him. it was clear he could not expect any consideration from such a man. but the truth must be told. "no doubt you are right, mr. wolverton, and you've found me pretty prompt so far." "so i have, dan. i know you wouldn't be dishonest enough to make me wait." dan's heart sank still lower. it was becoming harder every minute to own that he was deficient. "still, mr. wolverton, bad luck will come----" "what!" exclaimed wolverton, with a forbidding scowl. "as i was saying, sir, a man is sometimes unlucky. now, i have been sick nearly a week out of the last month, as you may have heard, and it's put me back." "what are you driving at, dan woods?" demanded wolverton, severely. "i hope you're not going to say that you are not ready to pay your rent?" "i haven't got the whole of it, sir; and that's a fact." "you haven't got the whole of it? how much have you got?" "i can pay you six dollars, mr. wolverton." "six dollars out of ten! why, this is positively shameful! i wonder you are not ashamed to tell me." "there is no shame about it that i can see," answered dan, plucking up his spirit. "i didn't fall sick on purpose; and when i was sick i couldn't work." "you ought to have one month's rent laid by, so that whatever happens you could pay it on time." "that's easy to say, mr. wolverton, but it takes every cent of my earnings to pay my monthly expenses. there's little chance to save." "any one can save who chooses," retorted wolverton, sharply. "shall i get you the six dollars, sir?" "yes, give it to me." "and you will wait for the other four?" "till to-morrow night." "but how can i get it by to-morrow night?" asked dan in dismay. "that's your lookout, not mine. all i have to say is, unless it is paid to me to-morrow night you must move the next day." with these words wolverton went off. dan woods, in his trouble, went to bob burton the next day, and bob readily lent him the money he needed. "thank you!" said dan, gratefully; "i won't forget this favor." "don't make too much of it, dan; it's a trifle." "it's no trifle to me. but for you my family would be turned out of house and home to-morrow. the time may come when i can do you a service." "thank you, dan." the time came sooner than either anticipated. chapter xviii. wolverton's wicked plan. wolverton was somewhat puzzled when on his next call dan woods paid the balance due on his rent. "so you raised the money after all?" he said. "i thought you could if you made an effort." "i borrowed the money, sir." "of whom?" "it isn't any secret, mr. wolverton. i borrowed it of a neighbor who has always been kind to me--bob burton." wolverton shrugged his shoulders. "i didn't know he had money to lend," he said. "he always has money for a poor man who needs it." "all right! i shall know where to go when i need money," responded wolverton, with a grin. "it suits me well enough to have the boy throw away his money," wolverton said to himself. "it will only draw nearer the time when he will have to sue me for a favor." that day wolverton read in a st. louis paper that wheat was steadily rising, and had already reached two dollars and six cents per bushel. "i could make a fine thing of it if i had only received the barton wheat at a dollar and a half a bushel," he reflected, regretfully. "if i had only the widow to deal with, i might have succeeded, for she knows nothing of business. but that confounded boy is always putting a spoke in my wheel. if he carries out his plan, and markets the wheat, it will set him on his feet for the year to come." this reflection made wolverton feel gloomy. there are some men who are cheered by the prosperity of their neighbors, but he was not one of them. he began to speculate as to whether there was any way of interfering with bob's schemes. generally when a man is seeking a way of injuring his neighbor he succeeds in finding one. this was the plan that suggested itself to wolverton: if he could set the ferry-boat adrift when the grain was all stored it would float down stream, and the chances were against its being recovered. it would be mean, and even criminal, to be sure. for the first, wolverton did not care; for the second, he would take care that no one caught him at it. he did not think of employing any one else in the matter, for he knew of no one he could trust; and he felt that he could do it more effectually than any agent, however trustworthy. wolverton was so full of the plan, which commended itself to him as both simple and effective, that he took a walk late in the evening from his house to the point on the creek where the boat was tethered. now, it so happened that dan woods, who had been employed all day, had occasion to go to the village in the evening to procure a few groceries from the village store. he delayed for a time, having met an old acquaintance, and it was half-past nine when he set out on his return homeward. his way led him not only by the burton homestead, but by the river bend where bob kept his rowboat--the same point also where the ferry-boat was tied. as he approached, he caught sight of a man's figure standing on the bank. who it was he could not immediately distinguish on account of the darkness. "it may be some one bent on mischief," he thought to himself. "i will watch him and find out, if i can, who it is." he kept on his way stealthily till he was within a dozen feet, when he slipped behind a tree. then it dawned upon him who it was. "it's aaron wolverton, as i'm a living man," he ejaculated, inwardly. "what can he be doing here?" it was wolverton, as we know. the old man stood in silence on the bank, peering through the darkness at the shadowy form of the ferry-boat, which already contained half the wheat crop of burton's ranch--the loading having commenced that morning. he had one habit which is unfortunate with a conspirator--the habit of thinking aloud--so he let out his secret to the watchful listener. "sam tells me they expected to get half the crop on board to-day," he soliloquized. "i sent him over to get that very information, though he don't know it. it is too early to do anything yet. to-morrow night the whole cargo will be stored, and then it will be time to cut the rope and let it drift. i should be glad to see the boy's face," he chuckled, "when he comes down to the creek the next morning and finds the boat gone. that will put him at my mercy, and the widow, too," he added, after a pause. "he will repent too late that he thwarted me. i will work in secret, but i get there all the same!" wolverton clasped his hands behind his back and, turning, walked thoughtfully away. he did not see his tenant, who was crouching behind a tree not over three feet from the path. dan woods had no very favorable opinion of wolverton, but what he had heard surprised and shocked him. "i didn't think the old man was as wicked as that!" he said to himself. "he is scheming to ruin bob and his mother. why should he have such a spite against them?" this is a question which we can answer, but woods became more puzzled the more he thought about it. one thing was clear, however; he must apprise bob of the peril in which he stood. even if he had not received the last favor from our hero, he would have felt in duty bound to do his best to defeat wolverton's wicked plan. the next morning, therefore, he made an early call at burton's ranch, and asked for a private interview with bob. he quickly revealed to him the secret of which he had become possessed. "thank you, dan," said bob, warmly. "you have done me a favor of the greatest importance. i knew wolverton was my enemy, and the enemy of our family, but i did not think he would be guilty of such a mean and wicked action. if he had succeeded, i am afraid we should have lost the farm." "you won't let him succeed?" said dan woods, anxiously. "no; forewarned is forearmed. i shall be ready for mr. wolverton!" and bob closed his lips resolutely. he deliberated whether he should let his mother know of the threatened danger, but finally decided not to do so. it would only worry her, and do no good, as whatever measures of precaution were to be taken, he must take. he did not even tell clip; for though the young colored boy was devoted to him, he was lacking in discretion, and might let out the secret. bob did not want to prevent the attempt being made. he wished to catch wolverton in the act. he did, however, take into his confidence a faithful man who had worked for his father ever since the ranch was taken, thinking it prudent to have assistance near if needed. that day the rest of the wheat was stored on the ferry-boat. all would be ready for a start the next morning, and this bob had decided to make. he sent clip to bed early, on the pretext that he must have a good night's sleep, as he would be called early. if clip had had the least idea of what was in the wind he would have insisted on sitting up to see the fun, but he was absolutely ignorant of it. wolverton had learned from sam, who was surprised that his uncle should let him spend almost all his time with his friends, bob and clip, that the cargo had been stored. "when do they start?" he asked, carelessly. "to-morrow morning, uncle," sam answered. "if i had thought of it," said wolverton, "i would have asked young burton to take my wheat along, too." "i don't think he would have room for it, uncle aaron. the boat is about full now." "oh, well; i shall find some other way of sending it," said wolverton, carelessly. about nine o'clock wolverton stole out in the darkness, and made his way stealthily to the bend in the creek. he had with him a sharp razor--he had no knife sharp enough--which he judged would sever the thick rope. arrived at the place of his destination, he bent over and drew out the razor, which he opened and commenced operations. but there was an unlooked-for interference. a light, boyish figure sprang from behind a tree, and bob barton, laying his hand on wolverton's shoulder, demanded, indignantly: "what are you doing here, mr. wolverton?" wolverton started, dropped the razor in the river, and, with an expression of alarm, looked up into bob's face. chapter xix. mr. wolverton meets two congenial spirits. "what are you doing here, mr. wolverton?" repeated bob, sternly. "oh, it's you, bob, is it?" said wolverton, with assumed lightness. "really, you quite startled me, coming upon me so suddenly in the dark." "i noticed that you were startled," responded bob, coolly. "but that isn't answering my question." by this time wolverton was on his feet, and had recovered his self-possession. "what right have you to put questions to me, you young whelp?" he demanded, angrily. "because i suspect you of designs on my property." "what do you mean?" snarled wolverton. "i will tell you; i think you meant to cut the rope, and send my boat adrift." "how dare you insult me by such a charge?" demanded the agent, working himself into a rage. "i have reason to think that you meant to do what i have said." "why should i do it?" "in order to injure me by the loss of my wheat." "you are a fool, young man! i am inclined to think, also, that you are out of your head." "if you had any other purpose, what is it?" wolverton bethought himself that in order to avert suspicion, he must assign some reason for his presence. to do this taxed his ingenuity considerably. "i thought i saw something in the water," he said. "there it is; a twig; i see now." "and what were you going to do with the razor?" "none of your business!" said wolverton, suddenly, finding it impossible, on the spur of the moment, to think of any reason. "that is easy to understand," said bob, significantly. "now, mr. wolverton, i have a warning to give you. if anything befalls my boat, i shall hold you responsible." "do you know who i am?" blustered wolverton. "how do you, a boy, dare to talk in this impudent way to a man who has you in his power?" "it strikes me, mr. wolverton, that i hold you in my power." "who would believe your unsupported assertion? sneered the agent." "it is not unsupported. i brought with me edward jones, my faithful assistant, who has seen your attempt to injure me." at this, edward, a stalwart young man of twenty-four, stepped into view. "i saw it all," he said, briefly. "you are ready to lie, and he to swear to it," said wolverton, but his voice was not firm, for he saw that the testimony against him was too strong to be easily shaken. "i don't wonder you deny it, mr. wolverton," said bob. "i won't remain here any longer to be insulted," said wolverton, who was anxious to get away, now that his plan had failed. bob did not reply, and the agent slunk away, feeling far from comfortable. "what cursed luck sent the boy to the creek to-night?" he said to himself. "i was on the point of succeeding, and then i would have had him in my power. could he have heard anything?" wolverton decided, however, that this was not likely. he attributed bob's presence to chance, though his words seemed to indicate that he suspected something. he was obliged to acknowledge his defeat. yet it would be possible for him to return in an hour or two, and carry out his evil plan. but it would be too hazardous. the crime would inevitably be traced to him, and he would be liable to arrest. no, hard though it was to bring his mind to it, he must forego his scheme, and devise something else. when the agent had left the scene, bob burton said: "edward, you may go home. i mean to stay here on guard." "but you will not be in condition to start to-morrow morning. you will be tired out." "i can't take any risks this last evening, edward." "then let me take your place. i will stay here." "but it will be hard on you." "i will lie later to-morrow morning. you can relieve me, if you like, at four o'clock." "let it be so, then! too much is at stake for us to leave anything to chance. i don't think, however, that wolverton would dare to renew his attempt." meanwhile wolverton retraced his steps to his own house. there was one lonely place on the way, but the agent was too much absorbed in his own reflections to have room for fear. his occupation of mind was rudely disturbed, when from a clump of bushes two men sprang out, and one, seizing him by the shoulder, said, roughly: "your money or your life!" wolverton was not a brave man, and it must be confessed that he was startled by this sudden summons. but he wasn't in the habit of carrying money with him in the evening, and an old silver watch, which would have been dear at four dollars, was not an article whose loss would have seriously disturbed him. so it was with a tolerable degree of composure that he answered: "you have stopped the wrong man." "we know who you are. you are aaron wolverton, and you are a rich man." "that may and may not be, but i don't carry my money with me." "empty your pockets!" wolverton complied, but neither purse nor pocket book was forthcoming. "didn't i tell you so?" he said, shrugging his shoulders. "we won't take your word for it." the first highwayman plunged his hand into the agent's pockets, but his search only corroborated wolverton's statement. "you, a rich man, go without money!" he exclaimed with rough contempt. "perhaps i might have expected such a meeting," wolverton replied, with cunning triumph. "you must have a watch, at any rate!" "i have one that i will sell you for four dollars." as he spoke, he voluntarily produced the timeworn watch, which had served him for twenty years. the thieves uttered an exclamation of contempt. their disappointment made them angry. they hurriedly conferred as to the policy of keeping wolverton in their power till he should pay a heavy ransom, but there were obvious difficulties in the way of carrying out this plan. aaron wolverton listened quietly to the discussion which concerned him so nearly. he smiled at times, and did not appear particularly alarmed till one, more bloodthirsty than the other, suggested stringing him up to the nearest tree. "my friends," he said, for the first time betraying a slight nervousness. "i can't see what advantage it would be for you to hang me." "you deserve it for fooling us!" replied the second highwayman, with an oath. "in what way?" "by not carrying any money, or article of value." "i grieve for your disappointment," said wolverton, with much sympathy. "if you mock us, you shall swing, any way." "don't mistake me! i have no doubt you are very worthy fellows, only a little unfortunate. what sum would have paid you for your disappointment?" "fifty dollars would have been better than nothing." "that is considerable money, but i may be able to throw it in your way." "now you're talking! if you are on the square, you'll find us gentlemen. we are ready to hear what you have to say." "good! but i expect you to earn the money." "how?" inquired the first gentleman, suspiciously. the word earn might mean work, and that was not in his line. "i'll tell you." there was an amiable conference for twenty minutes, but this is not the place to reveal what was said. enough that it nearly concerned bob burton, and involved a new plot against the success of his enterprise. chapter xx. an unexpected passenger. the next morning the boys were up bright and early. it was a glorious morning, and bob accepted it as auspicious of a pleasant and prosperous trip. clip was in wild spirits. he was naturally vivacious and fond of change, and the prospect of the river trip made him very happy. bob, as a practical joke, put on a grave face and said: "clip, i don't know but i shall have to leave you at home." "what fo', massa bob?" inquired clip, his face assuming a look of dismay. "i am afraid my mother won't be able to get along without you. there are so many things to attend to on the ranch." "i can't do no good on the ranch," said clip, eagerly. "i'm only a lazy, good-for-nothing nigger." "then i don't see how you can help me, clip," returned bob, his eyes twinkling as he listened to this candid confession. "dat's different, massa bob. i ain't no good on the ranch, but i'm powerful help on the river. please take me along, massa bob," pleaded clip. "just as likely as not you'll get lost, clip. besides, you might meet your old master from arkansas." "he won't catch dis nigger," said clip, shaking his head, resolutely. "please let me go, massa bob." "your arguments are so cogent, clip, that i suppose i shall have to give in." instantly clip's face was radiant. he didn't know what cogent arguments were, but as long as they had accomplished his desire he was content to remain in ignorance. "but if you give me any trouble, clip," bob added, seriously, "i may have to put you ashore, and let you walk home." clip gave the most emphatic assurance of good conduct, and was informed that he could go. there was much to do, even on the last morning, and though the boys were early risers, it was fully ten o'clock before they were ready to start. half an hour before this bob had a surprise. sam wolverton was seen approaching on a run, breathless and without a hat. he arrived at the landing, just as bob was putting off in the flat-bottomed boat, with a load of provisions for the voyage. "what on earth is the matter, sam?" asked bob, in surprise. "let me get on the boat and i will tell you." the boat was put back and sam jumped on. "now what has happened, sam?" "do you see this," said sam, pointing to his right cheek, which was stained with blood. "what has happened to you? did you fall and hurt yourself?" "my uncle knocked me over and i fell against a block of wood." "what made him attack you?" inquired bob, indignantly. "i don't know; he got mad with me for nothing at all. he's been in an awful temper all the morning. something must have happened to vex him." bob smiled. he could understand what had happened. wolverton's disappointment at the failure of his villainous plan had no doubt soured him, and, like a born bully, he had vented his spite upon the poor boy who was dependent upon him. "i wish you'd more spunk, sam," bob said. "he wouldn't dare to attack me in that way." "you're stronger and braver than i am, bob. i can't be like you. i wish i could." "your uncle is no more nor less than a bully. he imposes upon you because he thinks it is safe to do so. he wouldn't dare tackle me, because he knows it wouldn't be safe." "bob," said sam, solemnly, "i've borne it as long as i'm going to. i am not going back to my uncle's house." "do you mean this, sam?" "yes, i do. it's the only home i have, but i would rather go without a home than to be beaten and ill-treated by uncle aaron." "i commend your pluck, sam. i can't say i think you are doing wrong." "i have a favor to ask of you, bob. you are my only friend." "what is it, sam?" "let me go with you to st. louis. it would make me happy to be with you, and i should be out of my uncle's way." bob paused for consideration, the proposal being unexpected. "but suppose, sam, i am charged with abducting you?" "i'll take all the blame. let me hide on the ferry-boat, and i won't show myself until you've got miles away." "that might do," said bob, smiling. "perhaps it isn't exactly square, but with such a man as your uncle we must make use of his own methods." "you will take me, then?" asked sam, eagerly. by this time they had reached the boat. "clip," said bob, "go with sam and hide him somewhere on the boat, but don't tell me where he is concealed. then, if old wolverton comes after him i can say truly that i don't know where he is." "all right, massa bob," said clip, showing his teeth. when the contents of the boat had been transferred to the larger craft, bob rowed back, leaving clip and sam together. the boat was roofed over, as already stated. besides the bins there was a corner in which some bedding had been placed for the accommodation of the young voyagers. but it seemed difficult to find a suitable hiding-place for sam. "where can you put me?" asked the young runaway, with a troubled look. clip looked about him, rolling his eyes in perplexity. at length his face brightened, for an idea had come to him. in one corner was an empty barrel. some stores had been brought aboard in it, and it had been suffered to remain, with the idea that it might possibly prove of use. the particular use to which it was to be put certainly never occurred to bob or clip. "get in there, sam!" said clip. "old mass' wolverton won't look for you in there." "but i shall be seen." "you wait and i'll show you how we'll manage; only get in!" thus adjured, sam got into the barrel, and with some difficulty crouched so that his head was lower than the top of the barrel. "now i'll show you," said clip. he took a white cloth--it was apiece of sail-cloth--and spread over the top of the barrel. "now old mass' wolverton will have sharp eyes to see you," said clip, triumphantly. "that may do," said sam. "but it isn't necessary to put it on now. it will be time if my uncle makes his appearance. i'll keep out of sight in the center of the boat." meanwhile bob had gone to the house to bid good-bye to his mother. "i feel anxious about your going off on such a long trip, robert," said mrs. burton. "you forget that i am almost a man, mother. it is time for me to assume some responsibility." "but you are only a boy, after all, robert. think, if anything should happen to you, what would become of me?" "my dear mother, you may depend on my taking excellent care of myself. i don't see what risk or danger there can be in going to st. louis. it isn't a long trip. i shall be back in less than a fortnight if all goes well." "it will seem a very long fortnight to me, robert." "i have no doubt you will miss me, mother, but you forget i have clip to look after me." "clip is only a poor colored boy, but i am sure he will prove faithful to you," said mrs. burton, seriously. "even the humble are sometimes of great service. i am glad he is going with you." bob did not mention that sam wolverton would also be his companion, as he foresaw that the agent would not unlikely question his mother on that point. bob returned to the boat, and was just about to cast off, when wolverton was seen on the bank, waving his hat and shouting frantically. "i guess, massa sam, you'd better get into the barrel," said clip with a grin. chapter xxi. how wolverton was fooled. "what do you want, mr. wolverton?" asked bob, coolly, as he stood at one end of the boat and surveyed the excited agent. "come ashore, or i'll have you arrested," shouted the irate wolverton. "you are very kind, mr. wolverton; but i am in considerable of a hurry, and have not time to comply with your request." "you'd better come ashore, if you know what's best for yourself." "please state your business! if it is anything to my advantage, i may come; but i am just ready to start for st. louis." "is my nephew sam on your boat?" "i don't see him. why should he be on board?" "i suspect him of running away, the ungrateful young rascal? i thought he might be scheming to go down the river with you." "clip," said bob, gravely, "has sam wolverton engaged passage with us?" "not as i knows on, massa bob." "if he should, charge him fifteen dollars." "yes, massa bob," answered clip, with a grin. "if you wish your nephew to go to st. louis on my boat, mr. wolverton," said bob, with ceremonious politeness, "i will take him, being a friend, for fifteen dollars, excursion ticket. you can't complain of that." "but i don't want him to go," roared wolverton. "i tell you he has run away." "that's very strange, considering how kindly and liberally you have always treated him." wolverton eyed bob suspiciously, for he knew well enough that the remark was ironical. "none of your gammon, young man!" he said, crabbedly. "send sam ashore." "really, mr. wolverton, you must be joking. what have i got to do with sam?" "i don't believe a word you say. i mean to search your boat." "you had better do it at once, then, for it is time for me to start." "but how am i to get aboard," asked the agent, perplexed. "you might swim," suggested bob, "or wade. the water is shallow--not higher than your neck, anywhere." "that is nonsense. steer your boat to shore, that i may board her." "it can't be done, mr. wolverton. we can only drift down with the current." "then how am i to get aboard?" "that is your lookout." just then mr. wolverton espied the flat-bottomed boat which bob proposed to take with him. he had attached it by a line to the stern of the ferry-boat. "row over and take me across." "i can't spare the time." wolverton was about to give vent to his wrath at this refusal, when he observed a boat approaching, rowed by a german boy named otto brandes. "come here, boy, and row me out to yonder boat," he said. otto paused in his rowing, and, understanding the man with whom he was dealing, he asked, quietly: "how much will you pay me, mr. wolverton?" "five cents to take me over and back," answered the agent, with some hesitation. otto laughed. "i don't work for any such wages," he said. "i'll give you ten; but be quick about it." "give me a quarter and i'll do it." "do you think i am made of money?" said wolverton, in anger. "that is an outrageous extortion." "all right! then hire somebody else," said otto, coolly. after a fruitless effort to beat down the price, wolverton sulkily agreed to the terms, and otto rowed to the bank. "now, row with all your might," said the agent, as he seated himself in one end of the boat. "your fare, please," said otto. "i'll pay you when the trip is over," said wolverton. "it's a poor paymaster that pays in advance." "then you'd better get out of the boat. railroad and boat tickets are always paid in advance." "i'll give you ten cents now, and the balance when i land." "it won't do, mr. wolverton. i don't care much about the job anyway; i'm in a hurry to get home." otto lived about half a mile further down the creek. much against his will, the agent was obliged to deposit the passage-money in the boy's hand before he would consent to take up the oars and commence rowing. "that rascal sam is putting me to all this expense," he said to himself. "i'll take my pay out of his skin once i get hold of him." clip went up to the barrel in which sam was concealed. "ol' wolverton is comin', massa sam," he said. "don't you make no noise, and we'll fool de ol' man." in spite of this assurance, poor sam trembled in his narrow place of concealment. he knew that he would fare badly if his uncle got hold of him. "how's he coming?" he asked in a stifled voice. "otto brandes is rowin' him. he's in otto's boat." "it's mean of otto!" "no; he don't know what de ol' man is after." it took scarcely two minutes for wolverton to reach the ferry-boat. he mounted it with fire in his eye. "now, where is sam?" he demanded in a peremptory tone. "you can search for him, mr. wolverton," said bob, coolly. "you seem to know more about where he is than i do." wolverton began to peer here and there, looking into bins of wheat and all sorts of improbable places. clip took a broom and began to sweep energetically. bob could not explain this sudden fit of industry till he saw clip slyly slip the broom between wolverton's legs as he was hurrying along, thereby upsetting the unfortunate agent, who tumbled sprawling on the deck. "why, you black imp!" he exclaimed, furiously, as he picked himself up, "what made you do that?" "couldn't help it, massa wolverton! i 'clare to gracious i couldn't!" said clip, rolling his eyes in a most wonderful manner. "are you hurt, massa wolverton?" "i most broke my knee!" growled wolverton, as he rose and limped towards the other end of the boat. "i may be laid up for a week." "it was de ol' broom did it," said clip, innocently. "never see such a broom!" bob had hard work to keep a straight face, as he heard clip's odd accusation against the unoffending broom. this accident seemed to dampen wolverton's enthusiasm, and the pain in his knee increasing made him desirous of getting home as soon as possible. besides, he began to suspect that he was on a wrong scent, as he had thus far found no traces of his runaway nephew. he never once noticed the barrel, over which the piece of sail-cloth had been thrown so carelessly. "well, did you find sam?" asked bob, composedly. "no!" snapped wolverton. "i seed him jest before you came, massa wolverton," said clip. "where?" asked the agent, eagerly. "runnin' along the bank." "in what direction?" clip pointed up the creek. "why didn't you tell me that before?" "you didn't ask me, massa wolverton." "take me ashore quick!" said wolverton to otto. "hurry up, massa wolverton, and mebbe you'll catch him!" wolverton was already in the boat, and otto was rowing him to the shore. clip went to the barrel and released the prisoner. "de ol' man's gone, sam!" he said. "i'm glad of it, clip. i'm almost suffocated." "golly, didn't we fool him!" and clip lay down on his back on deck, and gave way to an explosion of mirth. a minute later the rope was drawn in, and the ferry-boat started on its adventurous career down the creek. chapter xxii. the first day. bob was accustomed to rowing, but navigation with the ferry-boat presented a new and interesting problem which he was eager to solve. a steering apparatus had been rigged up at the stern, which was found strong enough for the purpose required. bob took his place at the helm in starting, and managed for the first hour to regulate the direction of his craft. by that time they came to a place where the creek widened considerably, and the boat showed a disposition to whirl round in an eddy. this difficulty, however, was overcome by practice, and bob began to acquire confidence in himself as a navigator. but it was evident that he could not remain at the helm all day. "come here, clip," he said; "i want you to rest me in steering." clip took his place, but his first attempts proved discouraging. he was inclined to steer in just the reverse direction, and twice came near running the boat ashore. "what are you about, clip?" demanded bob, in excitement. "don't you see you are running the boat ashore?" "i done just like you, massa bob," protested clip. "de boat acts contrary; never see such an ol' boat." "it is you that are contrary, clip. you don't do as i tell you." "i 'clar to gracious i did, massa bob. i can't never learn to steer." in fact, clip, who was naturally lazy, found it very irksome to stand at the helm, and much preferred going here and there on the boat and surveying the scenery on either bank. he hoped that his incompetence would save him from the task. but his dream was rudely disturbed. "if you can't take your turn in steering, clip," said bob, "you won't be of any use to me. i shall have to send you home, and get along with sam's assistance." "oh, don't send me home, massa bob!" exclaimed clip, in alarm. "i'll try--'deed i will." "i'll try you a little longer, clip," said bob; "but you must not blame me for sending you back, if it is necessary." no better argument could have been used to insure satisfactory work from clip, who was naturally careless, and inclined to shirk work. nevertheless, bob felt glad that he had another assistant in sam wolverton, who proved to possess all the qualities which clip lacked. when it was one o'clock, clip began to show signs of distress. "i'm pow'ful hungry, massa bob," he said, in a pleading tone. "so am i, clip," returned bob, with a smile. "i will see if i can't do something to relieve you." he had brought from home a basket of sandwiches and a gallon of milk. to these the boys did ample justice, displaying even more appetite than usual. this was not surprising, for they had worked hard, and this in the open air. "sam," said bob, "i can't hope to supply you with all the delicacies you would get at home, but i hope you'll make it do with our humble fare." sam smiled. "all the delicacies on uncle aaron's table wouldn't spoil anybody's digestion. i like my dinner to-day better than any i've eaten for a long time. i don't know what uncle and aunt would say if they could see me here." "de ol' man would be wild," said clip, with a guffaw. "i expect he would, clip. he isn't fond of me, but he doesn't want to lose me. he will have to do his own chores now, for i don't believe he can get a boy to work for him." about six o'clock in the afternoon, having arrived opposite a town which i will call rushford, bob decided to tie up for the night. he and clip went on shore, leaving sam in charge of the boat. he did not dare to leave it unguarded, for the cargo, according to his estimate, was worth not far from three thousand dollars. he took the opportunity to enter a restaurant, where he bought clip and himself cups of coffee, and ordered a fresh supply of sandwiches made up, which he arranged to have delivered at the boat early the next morning. "i don't mean that we shall starve, clip," he said. clip showed his teeth. "dat coffee's awful good, massa bob," he said. "yes, but we can't make it on board the boat. i shall have to depend on getting it at the villages on the way." "how far are we from home, massa bob?" "well thought of, clip. i will inquire." he asked the keeper of the restaurant the distance to carver. "i don't know, but i think my waiter comes from that neighborhood. sam, how far away is carver?" "forty miles," answered sam promptly. "i thought it had been more. we have been eight hours coming on the river." that is because the river (they had left the creek fifteen miles up) was winding in its course. on the whole, however, bob decided that it was very fair progress for the first day, and that only about two-thirds of the time. rushford was a town of fifteen hundred inhabitants, and presented as busy an appearance as a town three times the size in the east. clip, who was fond of variety, was reluctant to return to the boat, but bob said: "we must relieve sam, and give him a chance to come ashore and get some coffee. you come with him, and show him the restaurant." this arrangement suited clip, who liked as much variety and excitement as possible. on returning to the boat bob was somewhat surprised to find his young lieutenant in conversation with an old lady dressed in antediluvian costume. she had a sharp face, with an eager, birdlike look, and seemed to be preferring a request. "here's the captain; you can ask him," said sam, who seemed much relieved by the return of bob. "is _he_ the captain?" asked the old lady. "why, he's nothin' but a boy!" "he's all the captain we have," answered sam. "be you in charge of this boat?" asked the old lady. "yes, ma'am. what can i do for you?" "i want to go down to st. louis," said the old lady, "and i thought maybe you might find room for me." "but, ma'am, why don't you take passage on a river steamer?" "they charge too much," said the old lady. "i hain't got much money, and i s'pose you wouldn't charge me much. are you any acquainted in st. louis?" "no, ma'am." "i thought maybe you might know my darter's husband. he keeps a grocery store down near the river. his name is jeremiah pratt, and my darter's name is melinda ann. i want to give 'em a surprise." "i never met the gentleman." "when do you start?" "to-morrow morning about half-past seven o'clock." "can't you put it off till eight? i've got to pack my trunk over night, and i've got to eat a bit of breakfast to stay my stummik. how much do you charge? i'd be willing to pay you seventy-five cents." "how much do the steamboats charge?" asked bob. "i think it's six dollars, or it may be seven. that's too much for a poor woman like me." "i think you will have to pay it, madam, for we have no accommodation for passengers on our boat." "oh, i ain't a mite particular. you can put me anywhere." "i suppose you wouldn't be willing to get into a grain bin?" "oh, now you're jokin'. where do you sleep yourself?" "on a mattress on the floor; that wouldn't be suitable for a lady like you. besides, we have no separate rooms." "then you can't take me, no way?" asked the old lady, disappointed. "i am afraid not, madam." "you're real disobligin'. i don't see how i am to get to st. louis." "i am sorry i can't help you." the old woman hobbled off in evident anger. bob heard afterwards that she was a woman of ample means, fully able to afford steamboat fare, but so miserly that she grudged paying it. "now, sam," said bob, "clip will show you the way to a restaurant where you can get a hot cup of coffee and a plate of meat, if you desire it." while the boys were gone, bob received a visitor. chapter xxiii. a suspicious character. fifteen minutes after sam and clip had left him bob's attention was drawn to a man of somewhat flashy appearance, who, while leaning against a tree on the bank, seemed to be eying him and the boat with attention. he wore a prince albert coat which was no longer fit to appear in good society, a damaged hat, and a loud neck-tie. his eyes were roving from one point to another, as if he felt a great deal of interest in bob or the boat. our hero was not favorably impressed with this man's appearance. "i wonder what he sees that interests him so much?" he thought. "i say, young man, is this here boat yours?" he asked. "yes," answered bob, coldly. "what have you got on board?" bob felt under no obligation to answer, but reflecting that there was no good excuse for refusing, he said, briefly: "wheat." "humph! how much have you got?" this clearly was none of the questioner's business, and bob replied by another question: "do you want to buy?" "i don't know," said the stranger. "what do you ask?" "i can't say till i get to st. louis." "how much do you calc'late to get?" "two dollars and a quarter," answered bob, naming a price beyond his expectations. "ain't that a high figger?" "perhaps so." "come, young feller, you don't seem social. can't you invite me aboard?" "i don't think you would be paid for coming," said bob, more and more unfavorably impressed. "oh, i don't mind. my time ain't valuable. i guess i'll come." the stranger stepped across the gang-plank, which bob had laid from the boat to the shore, and entered without an invitation. bob was tempted to order him off, but the intruder appeared much stronger than himself; and while he was alone it seemed politic to submit to the disagreeable necessity of entertaining his unwelcome visitor. the latter walked from end to end of the boat, examining for himself without asking permission, or appearing to feel the need of any. he opened the bins and counted them, while bob looked on uneasily. "i say, young feller, you've got a smart lot of wheat here." "yes," said bob, briefly. "got a thousand bushels, i reckon?" "perhaps so." "and you expect to get two dollars and a quarter a bushel?" "perhaps i shall have to take less." "at any rate, you must have two thousand dollars' worth on board." "you can judge for yourself." "i say, that's a pile of money--for a boy." "the wheat doesn't belong to me." "who owns it, then." "my mother." "what's your mother's name?" "i have answered all the questions i am going to," said bob, indignantly. "don't get riled, youngster. it ain't no secret, is it?" "i don't care about answering all the questions a stranger chooses to put to me." "i say, young chap, you're gettin' on your high horse." "what is your object in putting all these questions?" "what is my object?" "that is what i asked." "the fact is, youngster, i've got a ranch round here myself, and i've got about five hundred bushels of wheat i want to market. naturally i'm interested. see?" bob did not believe a word of this. "where is your ranch?" he asked. "about two miles back of the town," answered the stranger, glibly. that lie was an easy one. "i'm thinkin' some of runnin' down to the city to see if i can't sell my wheat in a lump to some merchant. mebbe i could strike a bargain with you to carry me down." bob had even more objection to the new passenger than to the old lady, and he answered stiffly: "i have no accommodations for passengers." "oh, i can bunk anywhere--can lie on deck, on one of the bins. i'm used to roughin' it." "you'd better take passage by the next steamer. this is a freight boat." "there ain't anybody but you aboard, is there?" "yes; i have two companions." the stranger seemed surprised and incredulous. "where are they?" he asked. "gone into the village." the visitor seemed thoughtful. he supposed the two companions were full-grown men, and this would not tally with his plans. this illusion, however, was soon dissipated, for sam and clip at this point crossed the gang-plank and came aboard. "are them your two companions?" asked the stranger, appearing relieved. "yes." sam and clip eyed him curiously, expecting bob to explain who he was, but our hero was only anxious to get rid of him. "then you can't accommodate me?" asked the man. "no, sir; but if you'll give me your name and address, i can perhaps sell your crop for you, and leave you to deliver it." "never mind, young feller! i reckon i'll go to the city myself next week." "just as you like, sir." he re-crossed the plank, and when he reached the shore took up his post again beside the tree, and resumed his scrutiny of the boat. "what does that man want?" asked sam. "i don't know. he asked me to give him passage to st. louis." "you might make money by carrying passengers," suggested sam. "i wouldn't carry a man like him at any price," said bob. "i haven't any faith in his honesty or respectability, though he tells me that he owns a ranch two miles back of the town. he came on the boat to spy out what he could steal, in my opinion." "how many days do you think we shall need for the trip, bob?" asked sam. "it may take us a week; but it depends on the current, and whether we meet with any obstructions. are you in a hurry to get back to your uncle?" "no," said sam, his face wearing a troubled look. "the fact is, bob, i don't mean to go back at all." "you mean dat, massa sam?" asked clip, his eyes expanding in his excitement. "yes, i mean it. if i go back i shall have to return to my uncle, and you know what kind of a reception i shall get. he will treat me worse than ever." "i am sure, sam, my mother will be willing to let you live with us." "i should like nothing better, but my uncle would come and take me away." "would he have the right?" "i think he would. he has always told me that my poor father left me to his charge." "do you think he left any property?" "yes; i feel sure he did; for on his deathbed he called me to him, and said: 'i leave you something, sam; i wish it were more; but, at any rate, you are not a pauper.'" "did you ever mention this to your uncle, sam?" "yes." "what did he say?" "it seemed to make him very angry. he said that my father was delirious or he would never have said such absurd things. but i know he was in his right mind. he was never more calm and sensible than when he told me about the property." "i am afraid sam, your uncle has swindled you out of your inheritance." "i think so, too, but i can't prove anything, and it won't do to say anything, for it makes him furious." "what does your aunt say?" "oh, she sides with uncle aaron; she always does that." "then i can't say i advise you to return to carver, although clip and i are sure to miss you." "'deed i shall, massa sam," said clip. "i think i can pick up a living somehow in st. louis. i would rather black boots than go back to uncle aaron." "i am sure you can. perhaps some gentleman will feel an interest in you, and take you into his service." "i want to tell you, bob, that uncle aaron hates you, and will try to injure you. you will need to be careful." "that's no news, sam. he has shown his dislike for me in many ways; but i am not afraid of him," the boy added, proudly. at nine o'clock the boys went to bed. they were all tired, and all slept well. it was not till seven o'clock that bob awoke. his two companions were asleep. he roused them, and they prepared for the second day's trip. chapter xxiv. clip makes a little money for himself. about noon the next day, while clip was at the helm, there was a sudden jolt that jarred the boat from stem to stern, if i may so speak of a double-ender ferry-boat. bob and sam, who had been occupied with re-arranging some of the cargo, rushed up to the colored pilot. "what on earth is the matter, clip asked bob. "'clare to gracious, i dunno, massa bob," asseverated clip. bob didn't need to repeat the question. clip had steered in shore, and the boat had run against a tree of large size which had fallen over into the river, extending a distance of a hundred feet into the stream. of course the boat came to a standstill. "what made you do this, clip?" said bob, sternly. "didn't do it, massa bob. ol' boat run into the tree himself." "that won't do, clip. if you had steered right, there would have been no trouble." "i steered just as you told me to, massa bob." "no, you didn't. you should have kept the boat at least a hundred and fifty feet from the shore." "didn't i, massa bob?" asked clip, innocently. "no. don't you see we are not more than fifty feet away now?" "i didn't get out and measure, massa bob," said clip, with a grin. "now, own up, clip, were you not looking at something on the bank, so that you didn't notice where you were steering?" "who told you, massa bob?" asked clip, wondering. "i know it must be so. do you know you have got us into trouble? how am i going to get the boat back into the stream?" clip scratched his head hopelessly. the problem was too intricate for him to solve. "i think, clip, i shall have to leave you over at the next place we come to. you are more bother than you are worth." "oh, don't, massa bob. i won't do so again. 'deed i won't." bob didn't relent for some time. he felt that it was necessary to impress clip with the heinousness of his conduct. at length he agreed to give him one more chance. he had to secure the services of two stout backwoodsmen to remove the tree, and this occasioned a delay of at least two hours. finally the boat got started again, and for the remainder of the day there was no trouble. towards the close of the afternoon they reached a place which we will call riverton. it was a smart western village of about two thousand inhabitants. bob and sam went on shore to get some supper, leaving clip in charge. "now, clip, you must keep your eyes open, and take good care of everything while we are gone," said bob. "all right, massa bob." about ten minutes after the boys went away clip was sitting on a barrel whistling a plantation melody, when a slender, florid-complexioned young man stepped aboard. "good-evening, sir," he said, removing his hat. "evenin'," answered clip, with a grin. he was flattered by being addressed as "sir." "are you in charge of this boat?" "yes; while massa bob and sam are gone ashore." "are they boys like yourself?" "yes, sir." "are you three all that are on board--i mean all that man the boat?" "yes, massa." "where are you bound?" "to st. louis." "do you think they would take me as passenger?" clip shook his head. "they won't take no passengers," he answered. "an ol' woman wanted to go as passenger, and another man" (clip was unconscious of the bull), "but massa bob he said no." "suppose i make a bargain with you," said the man, insinuatingly. "what you mean, massa?" asked clip, rolling his eyes in wonderment. "can't you hide me somewhere without their knowing i am on board?" "what for i do dat?" asked clip. "i'll make it worth your while." "what's dat?" "i'll give you five dollars." "for my own self?" "yes; for yourself." "and i won't have to give it to massa bob?" "no; you can spend it for yourself." "but massa bob would find out to-morrer." "if he finds out to-morrow i shan't mind." "and you won't take back the money?" "no; you can keep the money at any rate." "where's the money?" asked clip, cautiously. the stranger took out a five-dollar gold piece, and showed it to clip. clip had seen gold coins before, and he understood the value of what was offered him. "where can i put you?" he said. "we'll go round the boat together, and see if we can find a place." the round was taken, and the stranger selected a dark corner behind a bin of wheat. "will massa bob, as you call him; be likely to look here?" "no; i reckon not." "have you got anything to eat on board which you can bring me by and by?" "i'm goin' on shore soon as massa bob gets back. i'll buy something." "that will do." the stranger ensconced himself in his hiding-place, and soon after bob and sam returned. "has anybody been here, clip?" asked bob. "no, massa bob," answered clip, solemnly. poor clip's moral convictions were rather obtuse, and a lie did not impress him as seriously wrong. "what have you been doing while we were away?" "nothin', massa bob." "that's what you like best to do, clip, isn't it?" "dat's where you're right, massa bob. yah, yah!" "well, you can go to your supper, clip. here's some money." "all right, massa bob." clip did not seem in any great hurry to go. he was rather afraid that bob and sam would explore the boat while he was away. finally he walked away with slow steps, looking back from time to time. "what's got into clip?" said bob, wonderingly. "i guess he isn't hungry," answered sam, with a laugh. ten minutes later bob's attention was drawn to a crowd of men and boys who were approaching the boat. he naturally wondered what was the object of the assemblage. the leader called out to bob, when he had approached sufficiently near: "i say, boy, have you seen anything of a man with dark hair, florid complexion, wearing a light suit, running along the bank?" "no, sir. why?" "a man of that description has stolen a sum of money from a dry-goods store in the town. he was seen running in this direction. we thought you might have seen him." "no, sir; i have seen nothing of such a man." bob little dreamed that the thief in question was concealed at that moment within twenty-five feet of where he was sitting. chapter xxv. clip's secret mission. the man who had addressed bob eyed him sharply on receiving his negative answer. "it is a pretty serious thing to connive at the escape of a criminal," he said. "that remark does not affect me, sir. i know nothing of any criminal. if i had seen him i would tell you." bob talked so frankly and honestly that it seemed impossible to doubt his word. the leader of the pursuing party turned to consult with a friend. "the boy seems straightforward," he said. "what do you think?" "i agree with you. still, the man was seen to run in this direction." the first questioner was the one most concerned in the capture of the guilty party, for it was his store that had been robbed. "have you been here all the time?" he asked, turning once more to bob. "no, sir; my friend and i have been to the village to get supper." "did you leave no one on board?" "yes, sir; a colored boy in my service--a boy named clip." "did he mention having seen any suspicious party, or any man who seemed to be running away?" "no, sir." "where is he? i would like to speak with him." "he has gone to the village to get his supper." if clip had been present he would no doubt have been questioned, but as he was absent the party of investigation did not think it worth while to wait. "that's rather curious, sam," said bob, when they were again alone. "we were suspected of screening a criminal." "i wouldn't give much for the fellow's chance of escape. they are evidently determined to catch him." these words were all distinctly heard by the man in hiding. "i was lucky to fall in with the little nigger," he reflected. "them boys would have refused to help me. they would give me up now if they knew i was on board. i must be careful." clip came back at the end of half an hour. if bob had taken notice of him, he would have noticed that the boy's pockets bulged out as if crowded with articles. but he had no especial reason for suspecting clip of any underhand proceeding, and sat with sam talking about home matters, leaving his young colored servant to his own devices. clip was faithful to his trust. he had agreed to take care of his concealed passenger, and he was determined to do so. as soon as he could do so without observation, he went to the man's hiding-place and poured out the contents of his pockets. there were some buns and small rolls and a few round cakes. "will they do you, mister?" he asked, in a low voice. "yes; but i'm terribly thirsty. have you got any whisky aboard?" clip shook his head. "we ain't got no 'toxicating liquors," he answered. "can you bring me a glass of water?" "i'll try. if you'd let me tell massa bob you were on board, i guess he'd give you some milk." "milk be--hanged! no, i'll make it do with water. don't you tell this bob, on any account, that i am here!" "all right, massa!" answered clip; but he was getting more and more puzzled. "are you goin' to stay in dat place all night?" "yes." "you'll find it mighty uncomfor'ble. if massa bob knew you was here--" "he is not to know, do you hear?" said the other, impatiently. "all right, massa! you know best." "of course i know best." by this time clip was missed. "where are you, clip?" asked bob. "i'm jist loafin' around, massa bob," said clip, a little startled. "there's something strange about you to-night, clip; i don't understand it." "i'm thinkin' of old times down in arkansaw, massa bob." "would you like to be there now, clip?" "no, massa bob, i'd rather live with you and your mudder. my ol' massa use to give me plenty of lickin's. i don't want to go back, never no more." clip still continued to be restless and uneasy. he knew he had no authority for taking a passenger on board, and feared that bob would take away the five dollars if he learned that clip had accepted so large a sum. to do clip justice, he had no idea that the man whom he had hidden was an offender against the laws, and that the police were in search of him. even if he had known this, however, it is not certain that clip would have been prejudiced against the offender. in truth, his prejudices were against the agents of the law rather than against those who had offended. bob and sam usually retired early; but to-night, to clip's discontent, they remained up later than usual, talking about matters at home. "isn't you ever goin' to bed, massa bob?" asked clip, at last. "what is your hurry, clip? are you sleepy?" "awful sleepy, massa bob," answered clip; "can't hardly keep my eyes open." "then you can go to bed any time. sam and i will soon follow." this was not altogether satisfactory, for clip meant to get up as soon as bob and sam were asleep and visit his passenger, who had expressed a wish to have him do so. however, there was nothing to be said, and clip withdrew to his bunk and lay down; but, as may readily be guessed, his mind was too active for sleep. there was some one else who was anxious to have bob and sam retire. this was the hidden passenger, who found his quarters contracted and uncomfortable. "what's the matter with those confounded boys?" he growled to himself. "they seem determined to sit up on purpose to vex me. when they are once asleep i can get up and stretch my limbs." in about twenty minutes the boys, judging from their deep and regular breathing, had fallen asleep. clip, who had been waiting anxiously, raised himself on his elbow and eyed them closely. feeling that it was now safe for him to do so, he slipped out of bed cautiously and began to feel his way toward the hiding-place of his new acquaintance. "they're asleep," he whispered. "now, what you want, massa?" "it's high time they were," growled the man. "i thought they were going to sit up all night." "so did i," returned clip. "are you sure there is no whisky on board?" "no, massa." "i suppose you could get some for me on shore. there's a saloon only three minutes' walk from this place." clip was reluctant to go on shore on such an errand; but finally the offer of fifty cents for himself induced him to do so. he took a tin cup which bob had brought with him from home, and started on his errand. at the saloon he was asked, "do you want this for yourself? we don't sell to boys." "no, massa; it's for a sick man." "where's the sick man?" "on board a boat." upon this representation the whisky was obtained, and clip started on his return. his curiosity led him to take a swallow of the whisky he was carrying, but it did not commend itself to clip's palate. "it's nasty stuff!" he said with a grimace; "i don't see what fo' people drink it." he carried the drink safely to the passenger, who drank it and smacked his lips over it. "it goes to the right spot," he said. "do those boys sleep sound?" he asked. "yes, massa." "then i'll get out of this beastly hole and take a turn on deck." "be keerful, massa!" said clip anxiously. "oh, yes; i won't make any noise." clip crept back to bed and succeeded in resuming his place without disturbing or arousing bob or sam. chapter xxvi. was it the cat? usually bob burton slept all night; but to-night, unfortunately for clip, he awakened about two o'clock in the morning. by an equally perverse chance, just as he awoke, the concealed passenger, now enjoying the freedom of the deck, broke out into a stentorian sneeze. bob heard it, and so did clip, whose uneasiness made him sleep more lightly than usual, and both were startled. "i hope massa bob won't hear dat," thought clip. but bob did hear it. "what's that?" he asked, half rising in bed. "it's me!" answered clip, preferring to admit the sneeze rather than have bob suspect that there was any one else on the boat. "do you mean to say you sneezed, clip?" asked bob, in amazement. "yes, massa bob." "you must be dreaming. the sneeze came from another part of the boat." "are you sure?" asked clip. "yes. what made you tell me that it was you who sneezed?" "i t'ought i did, massa bob." "when did you wake up?" "just now." "the sneeze must have waked you up." "i dunno," answered clip, dubiously. "there must be some one on board, unless we both dreamed about the sneeze." "mebbe it's a cat!" remarked clip, ingenuously. bob laughed. "it must be a very remarkable cat that would sneeze like that," he said. "jus' so, massa bob," assented clip, meekly, hoping that bob would drop the subject. "i think, clip, i shall get up and search for that cat." "don't you do it, massa bob. he--he might bite you." "i hope i am not such a coward as to be afraid of a cat." bob rose and lighted a candle which he had with him. then, followed by clip, he advanced to the other end of the deck. but the passenger had warning, having heard the conversation which had taken place between bob and clip, and had hurriedly retreated to his former hiding-place. it did not occur to bob to look there, and he returned from his fruitless search more mystified than ever. but, clip being close beside him, he caught the aroma of the single swallow of whisky which clip had taken, and he immediately began to suspect poor clip of having indulged in much deeper potations than he was guilty of. "clip," he said, suddenly, "i smell whisky." "does you, massa bob?" asked clip, feeling that he was getting into a scrape. "yes, i do, clip; and where do you think it comes from?" "don't know, massa bob; 'deed i don't." "it comes from your mouth, clip. you've been drinking!" drops of perspiration stood on clip's forehead. he could not excuse himself, or explain matters, without betraying his secret. not thinking of anything to say, he said nothing. "tell me the truth, clip; have you been drinking?" "i jes' took a little swaller." "where did you take it?" "on sho'." "what made you do such a thing? i didn't dream that you were getting intemperate, clip." "you see, massa bob, a gen'leman asked me to bring him a drink of whisky, and i t'ought i'd jest see how it tasted." "who asked you to bring him some whisky?" asked bob, who believed this to be a pure fiction on the part of his young companion. "a gen'leman." "what gentleman?" "he didn't tell me his name." "i think you are telling me a lie, clip." "no i ain't, massa bob; it's as true as de bible." "i don't think you know much about the bible, clip." "it's all true what i told you, massa bob. if i find de gen'leman, i'll bring him here to tell you." the witness referred to smiled to himself grimly when he heard this statement. "that little nigger's a brick!" he said to himself. "as to that other boy, i'd like to throw him overboard. he's too fond of meddling with other people's business." it may occur to the reader that this was hardly a fair way of stating the case. as the boat belonged to bob, and he was the commander, it might safely be assumed that he had a right to inquire into anything that excited his suspicion. "are you goin' back to bed, massa bob?" asked clip, uneasily. "wait a minute, clip; i want to get a drink of water." again poor clip was in bad luck. the tin dipper had been used to procure the whisky, and of course it still smelled strongly of that liquor. "clip," said bob, as soon as he had raised it to his lips, "you got some whisky in this cup." "ye'es," admitted clip. "and you drank it yourself instead of giving it to any gentleman." "no, i didn't, massa bob," stoutly, and as we know truly, asserted clip. "i'm ashamed of you, clip. if you are going to act in this way, i shall have to send you home. you have been acting very queerly this evening. sam and i both noticed it, but i didn't think you had formed a taste for whisky." "i don't love it, massa bob. i hate it. it's awful nasty stuff." "and you didn't drink this dipper full, then?" "no, i didn't." "what did you do with it?" "throwed it away, massa bob. i only took one swaller. i couldn't drink it if you gave me half a dollar; 'deed i couldn't." "i hope this is true, clip. i shouldn't like to tell my mother that you had become intemperate." "what's the matter?" was heard from sam's bed at this juncture. "where are you, bob?" "here i am, sam." "what made you get up?" "i thought i heard a noise on deck; so clip and i got up." "what was it like?" "a sneeze. clip thought it might be a cat." bob and sam laughed at the ludicrous idea, and clip joined in, glad that bob's embarrassing cross-examination was over. "you'd better come to bed, both of you. very likely you dreamed it." at that moment, and before bob had put out the candle, there was a most unlooked-for corroboration of clip's singular theory. an immense tom-cat ran swiftly between bob's legs, from some place of concealment. both he and clip saw it, and the latter was quick to take advantage of the opportune appearance of the animal. "dare's de cat, massa bob," he shouted, triumphantly. "didn't i tell you it was a cat?" bob was temporarily nonplussed. clip seemed to have the best of the argument. "all i can say is, it is a remarkable cat," he said. "i wish it would sneeze again." the rest of the night passed without anything remarkable happening. all three boys slept soundly. indeed, it was later than usual, probably on account of their sleep being interrupted during the night, that they awoke. according to custom, the boys took turns in going out to breakfast. "clip, you and sam can go out together," said bob. "i will take my turn afterwards." "i ain't in no hurry, massa bob," said clip. "you an' sam go first, and i'll go afterwards." bob thought this a little strange, but did not object. when clip was left alone he went at once to see his charge. "hope you pass de night good," said clip, politely. "i'm awfully cramped up," groaned the other. "but you're a trump, clip. you stood by me like a trojan." "thank you, massa. i'm afraid massa bob'll find you out. how long you goin' to stay?" "till i get a few miles from this town. then he may find me and welcome." clip felt that it would be a great relief to him when there was no further need of concealment. chapter xxvii. the mysterious passenger is discovered. bob burton started on his trip down the river quite unaware that he carried a passenger; clip's peculiar nervousness attracted his attention, and he wondered at it, but finally was led to attribute it to the whisky, of which he credited clip with having drunk a considerable amount. we know that he was mistaken in this, but those who practice deception are apt to be misjudged, and have no right to complain. one more discovery puzzled bob. clip happened to have a hole in the pocket in which he carried the money given him by the mysterious passenger. at first it was not large enough to imperil the safety of the coin; but clip thrust his hand so often into his pocket, to see if the money was safe, that he had unconsciously enlarged the opening. as a result of this, as he was walking the deck, a two-dollar-and-a-half gold piece, obtained in change, slipped out, and fell upon the deck. bob happened to be close at hand, and instantly espied the coin. clip walked on without noticing his loss. bob stooped and picked up the coin. "a gold piece!" he thought, in amazement. "where can clip possibly have got it?" he had not missed any of his own money. indeed, he knew that none of it was in gold. certainly the case looked very mysterious. "clip," he said. "what, massa bob?" returned clip, innocently. "is this gold piece yours?" clip started, and, if he had been white, would have turned pale. "i reckon it is, massa bob," he answered, with hesitation. "where did it come from?" "from my pocket," he answered. "but how did it come into your pocket, clip?" "i put it there." "look here, clip," said bob, sternly. "you are evading the question." "what's dat, massa bob?" "you are trying to get rid of telling me the truth. did you steal this money?" "no, i didn't," answered clip, indignantly. "i nebber steal." "i am glad to hear it. then, if you didn't steal it, how did you get it?" clip scratched his kinky hair. he was puzzled. "i done found it," he answered, at length. "where did you find it?" "in de--de street." "when and where?" "dis mornin', when i was comin' from breakfast." "if you found it, there would be no objection to your keeping it," he said, "provided you could not find the original owner." "can't find him now, nohow," said clip, briskly. "come here a minute." clip approached, not understanding bob's reason for calling him. bob suddenly thrust his hand into clip's pocket, and drew out two silver dollars, and a quarter, the remains of the five-dollar gold piece, clip having spent a quarter. "what's all this?" he asked, in amazement. "did you find this money, too?" "yes, massa bob," he answered, faintly. "clip, i am convinced you are lying." "no, i'm not." "do you mean to tell me you found all these coins on the sidewalk?" "yes, massa bob." "that is not very likely. clip, i don't want to suspect you of dishonesty, but it looks very much as if you had been stealing." "no, i haven't, massa bob," asserted clip, stoutly. "do you still tell me that you found all this money?" clip began to find himself involved in the intricacies of his lie, and his courage gave out. "no, massa bob. don't you get mad with me, and i'll tell you the trufe." "tell it, then." "a gemman gave it to me." "a gentleman gave you this money. what did he give it to you for?" "he--he wanted to go down de ribber," stammered clip. "wanted to go down the river? suppose he did," said bob, not yet understanding; "why should he give you money?" "he wanted me to let him go as a passenger on de boat." "ha!" said bob, a sudden light breaking in upon him. "and you agreed to take him?" "ye-es, massa bob." "where is he now?" it was not clip that answered this question. there was heard a noise from the corner as of some one moving about, and from his sheltered place of refuge, the mysterious passenger stepped forth. he coolly took out his silk handkerchief and dusted his coat and vest. "really," he said, "i can't say much for your accommodations for passengers. have you got such a thing as a clothes-brush on board this craft?" bob stared at him in amazement, and could not find a word to say for the space of a minute. "who are you, sir?" he asked, at length. "who am i? well, you may call me john smith, for want of a better name." "when did you come on board?" "at the last landing. i made a bargain with that dark-complexioned young man"--with a grin at clip--"who for the sum of five dollars agreed to convey me to st. louis. it wasn't a very high price, if i had decent accommodations." "why didn't you tell me this, clip?" demanded bob. "i--de gemman didn't want me to," stammered clip. "quite right," corroborated the stranger. "i told clip he needn't mention our little arrangement, as he thought you might object to it. i don't blame him for telling you at last, for you forced him to do so. i suppose you are the captain." "i am all the captain there is," answered bob. "i am delighted to make your acquaintance, really. i assure you i am glad to get out of that dusty hole, and presume you will now allow me the freedom of the deck." the stranger was so cool and self-possessed--cheeky, perhaps it might be called--that bob eyed him in wonder. "why did you select my boat in preference to a regular passenger steamer?" he asked. "a little whim of mine!" answered the other, airily. "the truth is, i am a newspaper reporter, and i thought such a trip as i am making would furnish the materials for a taking article. i mean to call it 'in the steerage; or, a boat ride on the missouri.' good idea, isn't it?" "why, yes, it might be," said bob, dryly; "but i think the owner of the boat ought to have been consulted." "accept my apologies, captain bob," said the passenger, with a smile. "if there was a saloon near, i would invite you to take a drink with me, but--" "never mind. i don't drink. here, clip!" "well, massa bob." "you did wrong to take this man's money, and you must return it." at these last words clip's countenance fell. bob counted the money and handed it to the stranger. "there are twenty-five cents missing," he said. "i will make that up from my own pocket." "let the boy keep the money. i don't want it back." "i cannot allow him to keep it." clip's face, which had brightened at the stranger's words, fell again. "what is your objection?" asked the passenger. "i may as well be frank with you. i understand your reason for embarking on my boat in preference to waiting for a river steamer. you were in a hurry to leave the town." "that's what i said." "shall i mention the reason?" "if you like." "because you had been implicated in robbing a store--perhaps several. this is stolen money." "i deny it. i may have been suspected. in fact, i don't mind admitting that i was, and that i thought it my best policy to get away. the good people were likely to give me a great deal of trouble. thanks to you--" "not to me." "to clip, then, i managed to elude their vigilance. it makes me laugh to think of their disappointment." bob did not appear to look upon it as a joke, however. "of course i shall not allow you to remain on the boat," he said. "i'll give you twenty-five--thirty dollars," said the stranger, earnestly. "i decline. it would be making me your accomplice. i would be receiving stolen money." "what do you propose, then?" "i will steer the boat as near the shore as i can, and request you to land." the stranger shrugged his shoulders. "very well," he said. "we must be eight or ten miles away from my accusers. i think i can manage for myself now." in ten minutes the stranger stepped jauntily ashore, and, lifting his hat, bade bob a cheerful good-bye. chapter xxviii. sam finds a relation. as my readers may feel interested in the subsequent adventures of the mysterious passenger, i may state that his extraordinary coolness did not save him. a description of his appearance had been sent to the neighboring towns, and only a few hours after he had left the ferry-boat he was arrested, and taken back to the scene of his theft. a trial was held immediately, and before the end of the week he found himself an inmate of the county jail. on the day succeeding his departure, bob brought the boat to anchor at a place we will call sheldon. there was no restaurant, and bob and sam took supper at the sheldon hotel. clip had been sent on shore first, and the boys felt in no hurry to return. they accordingly sat down on a settee upon the veranda which ran along the front of the hotel. as they sat there, unknown to themselves they attracted the attention of a middle-aged man with sandy hair and complexion, whose glances, however, seemed to be especially directed towards sam. finally, he approached the boys and commenced a conversation. "young gentlemen," he said, "you are strangers here, i imagine?" "yes, sir," replied bob. "are you traveling through the country?" "we have a boat on the river, sir; but we generally tie up at night, and start fresh in the morning." "how far do you intend going?" "to st. louis." "pardon my curiosity, but it is not common for two boys of your age to undertake such an enterprise alone. are you in charge of the boat?" "he is," said sam, indicating bob. "and you, i suppose, are a relative of his?" "no, sir; i help him." "have you come from a distance?" "decidedly," thought bob, "this gentleman is very curious." still there seemed to be no reason for concealment, and accordingly he mentioned the name of the village in which sam and himself made their home. their new acquaintance appeared to take extraordinary interest in this intelligence. "is there a man named wolverton who lives in your town?" he asked. "yes," answered bob, in surprise; "aaron wolverton." "exactly. this young man," indicating sam, "has the wolverton look." now it was sam's turn to be surprised. "i am sam wolverton," he said. "do you know my uncle?" "i not only know him, but i knew your father, if you are the son of john wolverton." "that was my father's name." "then i am a relative. my name is robert granger, and i am a cousin of your mother." "my mother's maiden name was granger," said sam, becoming very much, interested. "do you live here, sir?" "yes; i have lived in sheldon for the last ten years. i came from ohio originally. it was there that your father met my cousin fanny, and married her. do you live with your uncle aaron?" "i have been living with him," answered sam, hesitating. "does that mean that you have left him?" asked mr. granger, quickly. sam looked inquiringly at bob. he hardly knew whether it would be advisable for him to take this stranger, relation though he were, into his confidence. bob answered his unspoken inquiry. "tell him all, sam," he said. "i have left my uncle aaron," said sam, "without his consent. i hid on board bob's boat, and got away." "you have run away, then?" "yes, sir; you may blame me for doing so, but you would not if you knew how meanly uncle aaron has treated me!" "i know aaron wolverton, and i am far from admiring him," said robert granger. "but in what way has he ill-treated you?" "he made me work very hard, and would not always give me enough to eat. he keeps a very plain table." "but why should he make you work hard?" "he said i ought to earn my living." "did he say that?" "yes, whenever i complained. he asked me what would have become of me if he had not given me a home." "the old hypocrite! and what has he done with your property?" "my property!" repeated sam, hardly believing his ears. "yes. of course you know that you have property, and that your uncle aaron is your guardian?" "i never knew that i had a cent of money, sir. uncle always said that my father died very poor." "your father, to my knowledge, left property to the amount of five thousand dollars." "that is all news to me, mr. granger." "and to me," added bob. "i heard mr. wolverton tell my father the same story, that john wolverton died without a cent, and that he had taken in sam out of charity." "he seems to have taken him in, emphatically." "in what did the property consist?" asked bob. "in a house, situated in st. louis--a small house in the outskirts of the city--and some shares of bank stock." "he thought sam would never find out anything of it." "i should not, if i had not met you, mr. granger." "old aaron wolverton is a long-headed man; but even long-headed men sometimes over-reach themselves, and i think he has done so in this instance." "but what can i do, sir? i am only a boy, and if i should say anything about the matter to uncle aaron he would deny it, and perhaps treat me the worse." "there is one thing aaron wolverton is afraid of, and that is the law. he doesn't care for the honesty or dishonesty of a transaction, but he doesn't mean to let the law trip him up. that is the hold we shall have upon him." "i believe you there," said bob. "he has already tried to swindle my mother, and he is scheming now to get possession of our ranch. it is partly on that account that i started on this trip down the river." "do you carry freight, then?" "yes, sir; i carry a thousand bushels of wheat--rather more, in fact--intending to sell them in st. louis." "couldn't you have sent them?" "yes, sir; but by taking the wheat to market myself i shall save the heavy expense of freight, and commission for selling." "you seem to be a smart boy," said robert granger, eying bob with interest. "i hope you are right," bob answered, with a laugh. "my young cousin accompanies you to help, i suppose?" "he came on board at the last moment, having determined to run away from aaron wolverton." "i wish you could spare him; i should like to take him home to talk over family matters with myself and my lawyer, and we would concert some way of forcing aaron wolverton to give up his property. i have some children of my own, who would be glad to make his acquaintance." "would you like to accept mr. granger's invitation, sam?" asked bob. "but i am afraid you will need me, bob." "no; i have clip. i think it will be well for you to stay. i will call on my way back." so it was arranged that sam should leave the boat and stay over. bob returned to the boat alone. the next day proved to be an eventful one. chapter xxix. rocky creek landing. twenty miles further down the river, at a point called rocky creek, two men of questionable appearance were walking slowly along the bank. one of them has been already introduced as visiting the boat, and displaying a great deal of curiosity about the cargo. the other, also, had the look of one who preferred to live in any other way than by honest industry. "suppose the boy doesn't touch here?" said one. "our plan would in that case be put out," said his companion; "but i don't think there is any doubt on that point. last night he was at sheldon, and this would naturally be the next stopping-place." "he is drawing near the end of his cruise. it won't do to delay much longer." "you are right, there." "i wasn't in favor of delaying so long. we have risked failure." "don't worry, minton. i'm managing this affair. i've got just as much at stake as you." "if all comes out right, i shall be satisfied; but i need the money i am to get for it from old wolverton." "that's a trifle. i am playing for a larger stake than that." "what, then?" "the paltry fifty dollars divided between two would not have tempted me. do you know, minton, how large and valuable a cargo there is on that old ferry-boat?" "no; do you?" "not exactly; but i know this much, that there are at least a thousand bushels of wheat, which will easily fetch, in st. louis, two thousand dollars." "how will that benefit us?" "you seem to be very dull, minton. when we have once shut up young burton in the place arranged, you and i will take his place, drift down the river, and dispose of the cargo, if necessary, at a point below the market price, and retire with a cool thousand apiece." "you've got a head, brown!" said minton, admiringly. "have you just found that out?" returned brown, complacently. "do you really think there is a chance of our succeeding?" "yes; of course we must be expeditious. two or three days, now, ought to carry us to st. louis. then, by selling below the market price, we can command an immediate sale. then, of course, we will clear out; go to california, or europe, or canada." "but we must get wolverton's money." "if we can without risk. it won't be worth that." "i don't like the idea of the old man escaping scot-free." "he won't; you may be sure of that," said brown, significantly. "he has placed himself in our power, and we will get a good deal more than fifty dollars out of him before we get through, or my name isn't brown." "what a head you've got!" repeated minton, with cordial admiration of the sharper rascal. "then there's the other affair, too!" said brown. "we are safe to make a good round sum out of that." "yes; but how can we look after the other? it won't be safe for us to remain anywhere in this locality if we sell the cargo." "leave that to me, minton. i will get joe springer to negotiate for us." by this time the reader will have guessed that these two men were those already referred to as having stopped wolverton on the night preceding bob's departure. the arrangement then made, brown had improved upon. he had engaged to remove the boys from the boat, and set it adrift. but it had occurred to him, after ascertaining the value of the cargo, to sell it for the joint benefit of his confederate and himself. it was the most promising job he had undertaken for a long time, and he was sanguine of ultimate success. he had followed the boat down the river, and had finally selected rocky creek as the point most favorable to the carrying out of his design. meanwhile bob and clip were on their way down the river. sam, as already described, had left them at sheldon, and was enjoying himself as the guest of captain granger, as he found his kinsman was called. bob missed him, not finding clip, though improved, as reliable as sam. but he was drawing near the end of his voyage and was willing to make the sacrifice, since it seemed to be so favorable to sam's prospects. the information which had been communicated to them touching aaron wolverton's breach of trust did not, on the whole, surprise him, except by its audacity; for wolverton had thus far been careful not to place himself within reach of the law and its penalties. he was delighted to think sam had found a new friend and protector, who would compel the unfaithful guardian to account for his dishonesty. clip heartily sympathized with bob in his feeling upon the subject. he liked sam, but disliked wolverton as much as one of his easy, careless disposition was capable of doing. "it seems lonely without sam," said bob, while standing at the helm, with clip sitting on deck whistling just beside him. "dat's so, massa bob." "but i am glad he has found a relation who will help him to get his money." "i'd like to see ol' man wolverton when sam come back with massa granger." "probably you will have a chance to see him. if he hadn't driven sam away by his bad treatment he would never have found out how he had been cheated." "dat's so, massa bob. i'd like to be in sam's shoes." "you'd have to make your feet smaller, then, clip!" "yah! yah!" laughed clip, who enjoyed a joke at his own expense. bob found his work harder now that sam was not on board to relieve him of a part of his duty. but they were making good speed, and there seemed a chance of reaching st. louis within three days. all was going well, yet an indefinable anxiety troubled bob. why, he could not explain. "clip," he said, "i don't know how it is, but i feel as if something were going to happen." "what can happen, massa bob? de boat is all right." "true, clip. i suppose i am foolish, but i can't get rid of the feeling. clip, i want you to be very careful to-night. don't let any mysterious passenger come on board." "no, massa bob. i won't do dat agin." "we shall soon be in st. louis, and then our care and anxiety will be over." "where will we stop to-night?" "at rocky creek." it was a quarter to five when bob reached the place where he had decided to tie up. there was a village of about five hundred inhabitants situated a little distance from the river-side. a small knot of loungers was gathered at the landing, and with languid interest surveyed the river craft and the young crew. among them bob recognized the man who had visited them two or three stations back. he knew him by his dress; the prince albert coat, the damaged hat, and the loud neck-tie. but apart from these he remembered the face, dark and unshaven, and the shifty black eyes, which naturally inspired distrust. the man made no movement towards the boat, but leaned indolently against a tree. "clip," said bob, quietly, "look at that man leaning against a tree." "i see him, massa bob." "have you ever seen him before?" "yes, massa bob; he came aboard de boat one day." "i thought i couldn't be mistaken. i wonder how he comes to be here. can he be following us?" it was too hard a problem for clip, who only shrugged his shoulders. just then another man from the assembled group lounged on board. it was minton. "boat ahoy!" said he, jauntily. "are you the captain?" "i'm all the captain there is," answered bob. "have you any wheat to sell? i am a grain merchant." he looked more like a penniless adventurer, bob thought. "i have no wheat to sell here," said bob, coldly. "i am on my way to st. louis." "perhaps i can do as well by you as the grain merchants in st. louis." "i don't care to sell here," said bob, shortly. "no offense, young man! i suppose a man can make an offer?" "certainly, sir." but the stranger did not leave the boat. he walked about, scrutinizing the arrangements carefully. "you've got a pretty big cargo, boy," he said. "yes, sir." "how many bushels now, about?" "why do you wish to know?" asked bob, eying the stranger keenly. "i thought i might like to load a boat like this some time, and it might be of use to know how much it would carry." "do you live in rocky creek?" asked bob, suddenly. "ye-as." "may i ask your name?" "smith--james smith," answered the other, with hesitation. "very well; when i have sold my cargo i will write you the number of bushels the boat contains." "thank you." "decidedly, the boy is sharp!" said minton to himself. "he's no milk-and-water boy!" he left the boat, and presently joined his friend brown. chapter xxx. an unlucky evening. bob was still in the habit of getting his supper, and breakfast the next morning, at the different points where he landed. he left clip on board, in charge of the boat, while he sought a good place to obtain a meal. he found that rocky creek possessed but one hotel, and that of a very modest character, bearing the rather imposing name of the metropolitan hotel. he registered his name, and intimated his desire for supper. "supper is on the table," said the clerk. bob entered the dining-room, a forlorn-looking room of small dimensions, containing a long table, at which sat two persons, a drummer from st. louis, and an old man with a gray beard, who kept the principal dry-goods store in rocky creek. bob was assigned a place between the two. "good-evening," said the drummer, sociably. "good-evening," responded bob. "are you a regular boarder?" "oh, no; i never was in the place before." "how did you come?" "by river." "indeed!" said the drummer, puzzled. "has any steamer touched here to-day?" "no; i came on my own boat." "bound down the river?" "yes." "business, i suppose?" "yes; i have a load of wheat which i propose to sell in the city." "what house shall you deal with?" "i don't know; i'm not acquainted in st. louis. i shall inquire when i get there." "then let me recommend you to go to pearson & edge. they will treat you liberally." "thank you. i will call on them and see what i can do." "present my card, if you please, and say i sent you there." the drummer produced his card and handed it to bob. from this our hero learned that his companion was benjamin baker, traveling for dunham & co., wholesale grocers. "shall you stay at the hotel this evening?" asked baker. "no; i shall pass the night on my boat." "how many have you on board?" "only myself and a colored boy from home--clip." "isn't that rather a small crew?" "perhaps so; but we haven't much to do, except to let the boat drift, keeping her straight meanwhile." "by the way, speaking of pearson, senior member of the firm i have recommended, he is in great trouble just now." "how is that?" "he had a very pretty little girl of about six years old--little maud. two or three days since, as i hear from a friend in the city, the little girl mysteriously disappeared." "disappeared?" "just so. her parents think she must have been kidnapped, as a suspicious-looking person had been noticed by the nurse hovering near when they were out walking together." "they must be in great trouble and anxiety," said bob, in a tone of sympathy, "if they believe this." "they would be glad to believe it, for in that case the little girl is alive, while otherwise she may have strayed to the river and been drowned. mr. pearson, who is wealthy, has offered a reward of one thousand dollars to any one who will restore his little girl to him." as they sat at table, bob noticed through the window the man minton, who had called upon him on the arrival of the boat. "do you know that man, mr. baker?" he asked, suddenly. the drummer shook his head. "i am a stranger, too," he said. "but perhaps this gentleman, who is in business at rocky creek, may be able to give you some information." thus appealed to, the old gentleman looked from the window. "it isn't any one i know," he replied. "why do you ask?" "because he called upon me on my arrival, representing himself as a grain merchant, and proposed to buy my cargo." the old man shrugged his shoulders. "he looks more like a tramp than a grain merchant," he said. "i agree with you," assented bob, with a laugh. "did he mention his name?" "he called himself james smith; but as he answered my questions in a hesitating manner, i concluded that it was an assumed name." "very likely." "then he doesn't live in the village?" "no; but he has been here for a day or two." "i wonder what could have been his object in representing himself to me as a grain merchant?" said bob, thoughtfully. "oh," answered the drummer, "he probably wanted to strike up an acquaintance which would justify him in borrowing a few dollars of you. i have met plenty of such characters they live by what they can borrow." when supper was over bob and the drummer rose together. "won't you have a cigar, mr. burton?" asked the latter. "no, thank you; i don't smoke." "oh, well, you'll learn after a while. at any rate, sit down and keep me company for a while." "thank you, but i shall have to go back to the boat and give clip a chance to get his supper." clip returned from supper at half-past seven, and bob, feeling wide awake, decided to go on shore again. he did not care to go to the hotel, but took a leisurely walk through the village and beyond. it was an unfortunate walk, for it made him an easy prey to the men who were scheming against him. in a lonely place two men sprang upon him suddenly, and before he could understand what was going on, he was gagged and helpless. in this condition the two men, taking him between them, hurried him to a lonely house at some distance from the road. bob burton was brave, but this sudden and mysterious attack startled and alarmed him not a little. he would have expostulated, but was unable, from being gagged, to utter a word. reaching the house, a short, sharp knock at the door was answered by a rough-looking man, dressed in a suit of faded and shabby cloth. "so you've got him!" was his laconic greeting. "yes, joe! now where shall we put him?" "come upstairs." the two men set bob down, and pushed him forward, and up a staircase, steep and dark. he was thrust into a room with a sloping roof, and the gag was removed from his mouth. "what does all this mean?" he asked, angrily, turning to the two men whom he recognized by the light of the lantern which joe springer carried in his hand. "it's all right, my lad!" said brown. "all you've got to do is to keep quiet, and no harm will come to you." "how long do you mean to keep me here?" asked bob, with, a feeling of despair in his heart. he suspected now what it all meant. "two weeks, perhaps; but you will be well taken care of." the men went out leaving the lantern behind them. bob heard the bolt shot in the lock. he looked around him. there was a low pallet in the corner. he threw himself on it, and, brave boy as he was, came near shedding tears. chapter xxxi. how clip was captured. everything had gone well with bob so far, and he was looking forward hopefully to the end of his journey, and the final success of his expedition. now all was changed. he was a prisoner, and though clip was on board the boat, he was utterly incompetent to take the place of his master. bob hardly dared trust himself to think of the future. he knew not what would become of his valuable cargo, but that it was lost to him seemed probable. this meant utter ruin, for he and his mother would have nothing to live upon till the next harvest, and meanwhile aaron wolverton would foreclose the mortgage. certainly, bob had reason to shed tears, and could not be charged with being unmanly if for a time he gave up to a feeling of despondency and almost despair. leaving him for an hour, we will accompany the two conspirators on their return to the boat. clip was on deck, anxiously watching for the return of bob. he was beginning to feel a little troubled. "can't think what's 'come of massa bob," he said to himself. "he said he'd be back in fifteen minutes. if anything's happened to him, what'll 'come of clip?" instead of fifteen minutes, an hour passed, and still bob had not returned. clip was seriously thinking of going on shore and looking for him, when two men came to the river bank. "hallo!" they said. "are you clip?" "yes," answered clip, in some surprise, not understanding how these two strangers could know his name. "you are sailing with robert burton?" "yes, massa." "where is he?" "gone on shore for a walk. did you see him anywhere?" "yes; we come from him." "why don't he come himself?" "the poor fellow has met with an accident. he has broken his leg." "massa bob broken him leg!" ejaculated clip, turning as pale as his complexion would admit. "how came he to do dat?" "i can't explain," said brown. "my friend and i came up just after it happened, and we took him to a house near by, where he was put to bed. he asked us to come for you and bring you to him." "yes, massa; i'll go right off," said clip, with alacrity. then he hesitated at the thought of leaving the boat. "what'll i do about de boat?" he asked, in perplexity. "pooh! no one will run off with it. probably your friend will want to be brought on board; we will help to bring him. meanwhile i will stay here and look after things, and my friend will take you to massa bob, as you call him." clip saw no objection to this plan. he was too simple-minded to suspect a trick, and being very much attached to his young master he was anxious to be taken to him. he put on his hat and expressed himself ready to go. "very well; minton, show him the house, and see if the boy is fit to be moved." clip did not see the wink that accompanied the last words. the two started on their journey. clip, though the smaller, walked so fast that minton was obliged to quicken his pace. he plied minton with questions till the latter was tired. "i can't tell you much about it," said the man, at length. "my friend and i saw young burton lying by the side of the road. he was groaning with pain. we took him up and carried him to a house close by." "he won't die?" faltered clip, in a tone of anxious inquiry. "oh, no! he's as safe to live as you or i. a broken leg doesn't amount to much." "i don' see why he lef' the boat," said clip, mournfully. "well, accidents will happen," said minton, philosophically. "do you think we can get him on de boat, massa?" "oh, yes. i have no doubt of it. you needn't feel worried. it'll all come right." clip, however, felt that there was sufficient reason for feeling troubled. he was rather surprised at the length of the walk. "what made massa bob go so far?" he asked. "he said he was just exploring a little--wanted to see the country, you know." "he couldn't see much in de dark." "well, he will explain the matter to you; i can't." at length they reached the lonely house. "this is where your friend was carried," said minton. clip thought it was a gloomy place, but his mind was now so occupied with thoughts of bob, whom he was to see immediately, that he said nothing. minton knocked at the door. it was opened by joe springer, whose appearance rather frightened clip. "oh, so you're back?" he said to minton. "who is this?" "it's a friend of the boy with the broken leg," answered minton, with a significant look. "ho! ho!" laughed joe, to clip's surprise. he could not understand what there was to laugh at. "i hope the poor boy's more comfortable," said minton. "i reckon so," answered joe, with another grin. "has he been quiet?" "yes, he hasn't made any noise; but he's been walking round the room." "walkin' round wid a broken leg!" repeated clip, amazed. "what a fool you are, joe!" exclaimed minton, in a vexed tone. "how could he walk round with a broken leg?" "i only meant it for a joke," said joe, in a half-sullen tone. "how did i know his leg was broken?" "my friend, here, was not in when we brought the boy," said minton, in an aside to clip. "now, joe, we'll go upstairs. clip, here, has come to keep his friend company." "i hope he'll like it," returned joe, with another incomprehensible grin. "well, get a light, and show us upstairs." clip thought the house far from pleasant. he had just started to go upstairs, when a little girl ran crying through the door of the adjoining room. "i want to go home," she cried. "i want to go to my papa." she was followed by a tall, gaunt woman, who seized the child in her bony grasp. "you're a very naughty girl," she said. "your papa sent you to stay with me." "no, he didn't. my papa doesn't know you." "if you talk like that i'll give you a whipping. i am your aunt--your father's sister." "no, you're not. i wouldn't have such an ugly aunt." "of all the perverse imps, this 'ere one is the most cantankerous i ever see," said the woman. "i should think you'd ought to be able to manage a little girl," said joe, roughly. "so i be. there's only one way of managin' one like her. i've got a strap in the other room, and she'll feel of it if she keeps on." clip followed minton up the steep, narrow staircase, and the two paused before the door of the chamber occupied by bob burton. "he is in here," said minton, briefly. he opened the door, and by the faint light of the lantern, clip recognized the figure of a boy stretched out on a pallet in the corner. bob looked up, and when he saw clip, he sprang to his feet. "you here, clip?" he asked. "yes, massa bob. which of you legs is broke?" "my legs broke! neither." "the man told me you broke you leg," said clip, bewildered. he turned to appeal to minton for a confirmation of his words, but the door was shut, and his conductor was already on the way downstairs. chapter xxxii. the boys imprisoned. "now sit down and tell me all about it, clip," said bob. "so you were told my leg was broke. who told you?" "de two men." "i think i know the two men. one of them brought you here. where is the other?" "he stayed on board the boat till we come back." "was there anything said about our going back?" asked bob, in surprise. "yes, massa bob. dey said you leg was broke, and you wanted me to come for you. de man said we would take you back with us." "clip," said bob, sadly, "these men deceived you. we are in a trap." "what's dat?" "they have made us prisoners, and i don't dare to think what they will do next." "dey won't 'sassinate us?" asked clip, who had picked up the word somewhere. "no; but i'll tell you what i think they will do. they will take the boat down the river, and sell the grain in st. louis, and run off with the money." this was the conclusion to which bob was led by clip's story. "we won't let 'em, massa bob," said clip, in excitement. "how shall we help it, clip?" "we must get out, and run away." "i wish i knew how," said bob. "if we can get out, we'll take a boat to the city, and git there ahead of 'em." somehow clip's words seemed to reassure bob. misery loves company, and the presence of his trusty friend and servant perceptibly lightened bob's spirits. "you are right, clip," he said. "to-morrow we will see what we can do. we can't do anything to-night." "who is de little girl, massa bob?" asked clip, suddenly. "what little girl?" "haven't you seen her? de little girl downstairs." "i haven't seen her. tell me about her." clip described her as well as he could, and succeeded in conveying to bob a general idea of her appearance, and that of the woman who had charge of her. bob listened, thoughtfully. "you don't think the little girl was any relation to the woman, clip?" he said. "no, massa bob; no more'n you is relation to me. de girl was a little lady, and de woman was awful ugly." "did the little girl say anything in your hearing?" "she asked to be taken back to her fader." suddenly there came into bob's mind the story about a little girl abducted from st. louis. "clip," he said, "i think the little girl has been stolen from her home. i think it is the same one we heard about the other day." "i pity de poor girl. de ol' woman shook her, and treated her bad." "if we could only run away from this place and take the little girl with us, it would be a capital idea. i would like to get her away from these wretches." "i'm wid you, massa bob," said clip, enthusiastically. "hush!" said bob, suddenly raising his finger. a little girl's voice was heard, and it was easy to judge that she was ascending the stairs. bob put his ear to the keyhole. "take me home to my papa!" said the poor child. "i don't want to stay here." "i'll whip you," said a harsh voice, "if you are not good. it's time little girls were a-bed. i'm going to put you to bed, and you can sleep till morning." "i don't want to go to bed." there was a little scream, for the woman had slapped her. "i'd like to get at that woman, clip," said bob, indignantly. they heard the door open--the door of the room adjoining. the partition was very thin, and it was easy to hear what was going on. not only this, but clip discovered an auger hole about eighteen inches above the floor, of sufficient size to enable him to look through it. "who was that black boy?" he heard the little girl say. "he's a funny-looking boy." "he's come to stay here with the other boy," answered the woman, glad to find something of interest to take the place of the complaints. "where are they?" asked the girl. "they are sleeping in the next room, so you need not be afraid if i go down and leave you." "may i play with them to-morrow?" "yes, if you will be a good girl," said the woman, willing to promise anything. then there was a little pause, spent in undressing the child. "now, get into bed, and go to sleep as soon as you can." "will you take me to my papa to-morrow?" "no," answered the woman, shortly. "your papa wants you to stay with me." "won't i never see my papa again?" asked the child, almost ready to cry. "yes; perhaps he'll come to see you next week," answered the woman, fearing that the child might sob and compel her to remain upstairs. "clip," said bob, who had taken clip's place at the hole in the partition, "there's no doubt of it. the girl has been stolen. i wish i could go into the room, and asked her about her father and her home." he went to the door and tried it, but it was firmly locked, and it was quite useless to try to get out. meanwhile, joe and his wife were conversing downstairs. "joe," said the woman, "i hope i'll get rid of that brat soon. she's a heap of trouble." "we shall be well paid," said joe. "who's to pay us?" asked the woman. "brown. he's the man that's got charge of the job. she's got a rich father, who'll shell out liberal to get her back." "did he pay you anything in advance?" "i squeezed five dollars out of him." "where is it, joe?" "don't you wish you knew, old woman?" said joe, with a grin. "i can take care of it." "half of it belongs to me." "how do you make that out?" "haven't i the care of the child? it don't trouble you." "it's all right, old lady. you won't be forgotten." "how much more is brown to pay you?" asked the woman, appearing dissatisfied. "forty-five dollars." the woman's eyes sparkled. to her this seemed a vast sum of money. "and how much am i to have?" "what do you want money for?" demanded joe, impatiently. "i do want it, and that's enough." "well, i can't say yet, old lady, but maybe you'll get ten dollars." "altogether?" "of course. ain't that enough?" "no, it isn't. we ought to divide even." "pooh, you're a woman. you don't need money." an unpleasant look came over the woman's face, but she said nothing. "come, old woman, i've got something that'll put you into good humor. see here!" joe produced from an out-of-the-way corner a suspicious-looking jug. "do you know what's in this?" "what is it?" asked the woman, looking interested. "whisky. get some boiling water, and i'll make you some punch. we'll make a night of it." his wife brightened up. evidently she did not belong to the temperance society, any more than her husband. she moved about the room with alacrity, and, assisted by her husband, brewed a punch which was of considerable strength. then they put it on the table, and set about enjoying themselves. "here's your health, ol' woman!" said joe, and he tried to sing a stave of an old drinking-song. together they caroused till a late hour, and then fell into a drunken sleep, which lasted till a late hour in the morning. about seven o'clock the little girl woke up, and, as is usual with children, wished to be dressed at once. "aunt," bob heard her say, "i want to be dressed." but no one came at her call. after a little waiting, she got out of bed and went downstairs, but returned in a minute or two, crying. bob called through the partition. "what's the matter, little girl?" "there's nobody to dress me. are you the boy that came yesterday?" "yes. where is the woman that put you to bed?" "she's downstairs--she and the man. they're lying on the floor. i can't wake them up." an idea came to bob. "come to our door, little girl, and see if you can draw back the bolt. we are fastened in." "will you take me to my papa?" "yes; i will try to." the child came to the door, and, following bob's directions, with some difficulty slipped back the bolt. "clip," said bob, in a tone of triumph, "we're free. now do as i tell you, and we'll get away, and reach st. louis ahead of the boat." chapter xxxiii. a lucky escape. "now," said bob to the little girl, as they descended the steep and narrow staircase, "will you do as i tell you?" "yes," answered the child, placing her hand confidingly in his. "then make as little noise as possible. we don't want them to wake up. if they do they will prevent your going away." "will you take me back to my papa, certain sure?" "yes." "oh, i am so glad." "clip," said bob, warningly, "mind you remain perfectly quiet. we must go through the room where the man and woman are sleeping. any little noise might wake them up." "don't be afeared for me, massa bob," said clip. the staircase led into the main room below, so that, as bob said, it was necessary to pass through it. entering the room on tip-toe, they witnessed a reassuring, but disgusting spectacle. joe springer was stretched out on the floor on his back, breathing heavily; while his wife, seated in a chair, rested her head on the kitchen table. she, too, seemed to be in a drunken stupor. the little girl regarded the woman nervously, remembering the harsh treatment she had received from her. there was one more ordeal, and one more danger to run. the outer door was locked, but the key was in the lock. there was a creaking sound as bob turned it. but he opened the door successfully, and once more they breathed freely in the clear air of morning. as the door opened they heard a muttered sound from joe springer. it sounded like "more whisky!" he was probably dreaming of his potations of the previous night. bob hurried along his two companions till they had reached a point some half a mile distant from the place of their imprisonment. then he thought it best to question the little girl. [illustration: little maud's escape from her abductors.] "what is your name?" he asked, gently. "don't you know my name?" asked the child, in surprise. "my name is maud." "what is your other name?" "pearson--my name is maud lilian pearson." "just as i thought, clip," said bob, triumphantly. "this is the little girl that was stolen from her parents in st. louis." "yes; my papa lives in st. louis. will you take me to him?" "yes, maud. only be a good little girl, and do as i tell you." "and you won't let that ugly woman take me away?" "no; we will hide you away from her. did she treat you badly?" "yes; she shook me, and said she would whip me. she said she was my aunt; but it isn't true." "who brought you to her?" maud thereupon described the man whom we know as brown, the abler one of the confederates who had stolen the ferry-boat. "i wonder whether our boat is gone?" said bob. "mebbe we can see from the hill," suggested clip. there was a small elevation near by. bob ascended it, and looked towards the point where his boat had been tied up. there was no sign of it. it had disappeared. though still early, brown and minton, fearing interference, had cut loose about four o'clock, and were, by this time, several miles on their way to the great city. "it's gone, clip," said bob, sadly. "never mind, massa bob, we'll catch 'em," answered clip, energetically. "yes, if there is any boat starts down the river to-day." this, however, was something which he was not sure of. moreover, he felt that the sooner he got away from joe springer and his estimable wife, the better. but where could he take refuge? not at the hotel, for springer would find him out and reclaim the little girl. while he was considering, in his perplexity, what course to pursue, he fell in with two boys, who appeared to be about fifteen years of age. they regarded bob and his party with curiosity. bob eyed the boys closely, and decided that they could be depended upon. they seemed to be just the friends he was in search of. he introduced himself, and learned that their names were john sheehan and edward bovee. "can you tell me, boys, when the next steamer will start for st. louis?" "yes," answered john; "there is one at seven o'clock to-morrow morning." "that is the earliest?" "yes," said john. "do you know of any private house where we can stay till that time? i am willing to pay a fair price." "you can come to our house," said edward bovee. "i am sure my mother will take you in. but you won't get as good meals as at the hotel." "i don't mind that. i shall be glad to stay at your house. could we go there to breakfast?" "yes; follow me, and i will lead the way." edward bovee led the way to a neat cottage, where his mother, a pleasant-looking lady, welcomed them, and readily undertook to keep them till the boat started for st. louis. bob, feeling the necessity of concealment, took mrs. bovee into his confidence, and readily secured the co-operation of the good lady, who took a motherly interest in little maud. now that the children have found a safe retreat, we will return to joe springer and his interesting wife. about half an hour after their young prisoners had escaped, mrs. springer raised her head from the table, and looked about her in a bewildered way. the bright sunshine entering at the window revealed to her that she had spent the night in a drunken stupor, even if joe's prostrate form had not been a visible reminder. she went to her husband, and shook him roughly. "get up, joe!" she said. "it's morning." he opened his eyes, and looked around him with stupefaction. "what's up, old woman?" he asked. "i am, and you ought to be," she answered, sharply. "where's the whisky?" "you've had enough. now get up and hustle round, if you want some breakfast. i'll go up and dress the little girl." mrs. springer went upstairs, but came down again two steps at a time, in a state of high excitement. "joe," said she, quickly, "the little gal's gone!" "_what?_" "the little gal's gone! run out and see if you can't catch her. if we lose her, we lose fifty dollars!" "are the boys all right?" "yes; the door is bolted. they couldn't get out." this was true. bob had taken the precaution to lock the door, after leaving the room. for this reason, it was half an hour later before joe discovered that all his prisoners had escaped. then, as might have been expected, there was a wild scene of recrimination, ending in a fight, in which mrs. springer did her part, for she was by no means a weak or delicate lady, but a woman without fear, who believed in the right of self-defense. the worthy pair instituted a search throughout the village, but failed to discover any trace of the lost children. the next morning, however, joe springer got up unusually early, for him, and strolled to the steamboat-landing. the boat was already out in the stream, when on the deck he discovered maud and the two boys. "stop the boat!" screamed joe, in excitement. "what's the matter?" asked the man beside him. "those three children. they have run away!" "from you?" "yes; from my house." "why, man, you must be drunk. you have no children." "i had charge of 'em, particularly the little gal! stop the boat, i say!" "has that man any claim on you?" asked the captain, who chanced to be standing near bob. "not the slightest," answered bob. "or the little girl?" "no; her father lives in st. louis, and i am taking her to him." "stop the boat!" screamed joe, frantically. "he's drunk!" said joe's neighbor. "he doesn't know what he's talking about." this settled the matter so far as the captain was concerned. bob paid the full passage-money for the party, and they were enrolled as regular passengers. towards the middle of the afternoon a surprise awaited them. they saw, not far ahead, their own boat, which was drifting down the river, with brown at the helm. "do you see that, clip?" asked bob. "yes, massa bob." "quick, hide! don't let them see us. i have no objection to their working their passage down to the city. when they get there, we will be on hand to take possession." "dat's a good joke! won't they be s'prised, dough?" said clip, showing his white teeth. so the steamboat swept by, carrying the three children past the two conspirators, who fancied them safely housed in joe springer's house up the river. chapter xxxiv. mr. wolverton's letter. while the boys are meeting with adventures, on their way down the river, we will return to the town of carver, in which, as it will be remembered, the burton ranch was located. there was no one more interested in the progress of the expedition than aaron wolverton. it was against his wishes and his interest that bob should succeed in carrying out his plans. he wanted to get possession of the burton ranch, and force mrs. burton to take him for her second husband. most of all, perhaps, he wanted to humble the pride of "the burton boy," as he styled bob, for he cordially hated him, and was well aware that bob disliked and despised him. if he could only bring about the failure of bob's trip, and the loss of his cargo, he would have both bob and his mother in his power. wolverton had been anxiously awaiting intelligence from his agents, and the postmaster was somewhat surprised at his numerous visits to the office for letters. at length, one morning, aaron wolverton's patience was rewarded. a letter was handed him, directed in an almost illegible scrawl to mr. a. wolverton, esq. it was written by brown, who was by no means an accomplished scholar. wolverton opened it eagerly, and read the following lines: mr. wolverton: i write you these few lines from rocky creek. i am pleased to say we have got the bote, and are jest starting for st. louis with the cargo onbord. if you want to know about the boys, bob burton and the little nigger are locked up in a house in the village belonging to one of my friends, and they won't be let out till it is perfecly saif. we got hold of them by a nise trick. i haven't time to tell you about it now, but when we meat, you shall kno all. send that fifty dollars to mr. j. brown, st. louis post office. don't forget! this is important. yours to command, j. brown. this letter, ill-spelled as it was, seemed to give aaron wolverton unbounded satisfaction. a gratified smile overspread his face, and he said to himself: "that will bring down the burton pride. that young whipper-snapper will come home with a few less airs than when he set out. the chances are that he'll have to walk home or buy a passage." wolverton chuckled at this agreeable thought. he would be revenged upon poor bob for all the mortifications to which the boy had subjected him: and, to a man of wolverton's temperament, revenge was sweet. "you have received good news, mr. wolverton," said the postmaster, observing the land agent's evident glee. "what makes you think so?" asked wolverton, cautiously. "i judged from your smiling face." "it wasn't the letter. i was thinking of something." "that is only a blind," thought the postmaster. "i saw his face light up when he read the letter. let me see; it was mailed from rocky creek. i will bear that in mind, and some day i may discover the secret." as wolverton picked his way through the mud from the post-office to his office, he fell in with mrs. burton, who had come to the village on business. he smiled to himself, and prepared to accost her. "i hope i see you well, mrs. burton," he said, with gravity. "very well, thank you, mr. wolverton," answered the widow, coldly. "what do you hear from your son?" "i received a letter yesterday. all was going well with him." "i am really glad to hear it," said wolverton, with a queer smile. "still you must remember that 'there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.'" "what do you mean, mr. wolverton?" asked mrs. burton, quickly. "what should i mean?" said wolverton, in apparent surprise. "have you heard any bad news of robert?" "oh, dear, no! i am sorry to say that your son is prejudiced against me, and would hardly favor me with any letter." mrs. burton looked relieved. "i was only warning you on general principles. 'let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall,' as the scriptures have it." "thank you for the caution," said mrs. burton, dryly. "by the way, have you heard anything of your nephew, sam?" wolverton's face darkened. "no," he answered. "i did think, i confess, that he might have run away with bob, but i don't think so now." "if he did, i know nothing of it." this was true. for obvious reasons, bob had not taken his mother into his confidence on this subject. "the boy has shown base ingratitude to me," continued wolverton, bitterly. "i cared for him and kept him from starving, and how has he rewarded me?" "if his home was so agreeable as you represent, it is certainly surprising that he should have left you. good-morning, mr. wolverton." "what did she mean?" wolverton asked himself. "some of her sarcasm, i suppose. when she becomes mrs. wolverton, i will get even with her." as nothing had been said of sam in the letter of his confidential agent, wolverton no longer suspected that he had gone down the river with bob burton. on the whole, as he had sam's property in his possession, he did not care whether the boy ever returned, except that he would have liked to give him a good flogging. chapter xxxv. bob's arrival in st. louis. meanwhile bob and clip were steaming rapidly down the river. now that he was pretty sure of recovering his boat and cargo, bob gave himself up to the enjoyment of the trip, and was fain to confess that he enjoyed it better than working his passage on the ferry-boat. as for maud, she seemed to feel as much confidence in our hero as if she had known him all her life. she seemed also to appreciate clip, but in a different way. "you're a funny boy!" she said. "yah, yah, little missy!" laughed clip. "where's your mother?" "dunno, missy! i expect she dead." "my mamma's dead, too. she's in heaven. is your mamma there too?" "s'pect so, little missy." bob questioned the little girl as to the manner of her abduction. he learned that she had been carried off from the street in which she lived by brown, who secured her consent by a promise of candy. then she was put into a carriage, and given something to drink. when she woke up she was on a river steamer, being landed at length at the place where bob found her. "did my papa send you for me?" she asked. "no, maud," answered bob, "but i heard you had been stolen, and i determined to carry you back, if i could." "on what street does your father live?" asked bob, later. "on laclede avenue." "can you tell me the number?" this also maud was able to tell. at the first stopping-place, after he had obtained this information, bob, appreciating the anxiety of maud's friends, telegraphed her father as follows: i have discovered your little daughter, and am on my way to the city with her. she was taken to rocky creek, and confined there. our steamer--the gazelle--will probably arrive at her wharf to-morrow morning. robert burton. when this telegram was received, mr. pearson was suffering deep grief and anxiety; but the message comforted him not a little. when the steamer reached the pier, a middle-aged man of medium size and dark complexion was waiting on the wharf. "that's my papa!" exclaimed maud, clapping her hands; and the little girl danced on the deck in her joy. in a moment she was in the arms of her father. "my darling maud?" he exclaimed, caressing her fondly. "thank heaven i have you back again! where is mr. burton?" "my name is robert burton," said bob, modestly. "what, a boy!" exclaimed mr. pearson, in amazement. "i supposed the person who telegraphed me was a man." "he's a nice boy," said maud, putting her hand confidingly in bob's. "i am sure of it," said mr. pearson, cordially, grasping the hand of our hero. "and _he's_ a funny boy," continued maud, pointing out clip. "yah, yah!" laughed clip, with a broad grin on his shining face. "clip is a companion of mine," explained bob, "and we came down the river together." "i am glad to make your acquaintance, mr. clip," said mr. pearson, smiling, and taking clip by the hand. "yah, yah!" laughed the delighted clip. "now, boys," said mr. pearson, as they passed over the gang-plank and set foot upon the wharf, "i shall take you both home with me. i have not yet had an opportunity of asking questions about how you came to find my dear child, and rescue her from her terrible captivity. there stands my carriage. get in, both of you, and we will go to my home at once." it was a strange sensation to clip to find himself riding in a hansom carriage, the favored guest of the wealthy proprietor. he was not sure whether he were awake or dreaming. they drove rapidly for perhaps a couple of miles, and then stopped in front of an elegant mansion in the upper part of laclede avenue. the two boys never expected to enter st. louis in such grand style. chapter xxxvi. a thousand dollars reward. a little awed by the splendid appointments of the merchant's house, bob and clip entered, following mr. pearson. a stout, pleasant-looking woman of middle age--the housekeeper--appeared at the door of a side room. she darted forward, and clasped maud in a fond embrace. "my darling maud, how glad i am to see you back!" she said. "i thought we had lost you." "this is the young man who rescued maud, margaret," said mr. pearson, pointing to bob. "and _he_ so young! i must kiss him, too!" said margaret; and, considerably to our hero's embarrassment, margaret gave him a resounding kiss. "this boy also assisted," said mr. pearson, indicating clip, with a smile. margaret hesitated a moment--she was not quite prepared to kiss a colored boy--but compromised by shaking his hand cordially. "you look like a nice boy, clip," she said. "so i is, missus; yah, yah!" responded clip, laughing. "now, margaret, can you give us something to eat?" said mr. pearson. "it's all ready, sir. i thought you and miss maud would be hungry." "i suspect we are all hungry," said mr. pearson, leading the way into a handsome dining-room. "now, boys, take your seats," he said. clip felt a little awkward, for he was not used to being a guest at a rich man's table, but he did not allow his bashfulness to interfere with the gratification of an excellent appetite. when the meal was over, mr. pearson invited the boys into his library, and seated himself at a desk. he drew a check-book from a drawer and wrote for a minute. then he tore off a check, and handed it to bob. "this is the reward i offered for the return of my dear daughter," he said. "i have made the check payable to your order." bob took it and read as follows: "first national bank, "pay to the order of robert burton, one thousand dollars. "$ . john pearson." "i don't like to take this large sum, mr. pearson," said bob. "i did not rescue your daughter for money." "i am quite aware of that, my dear boy, but it is a pleasure for me to give you this proof of my gratitude. i am sure you will spend it creditably." "i shall find it very useful, sir; and i thank you sincerely. may i ask if you do not deal in wheat?" "that is a part of my business." "i shall have about fourteen hundred bushels to dispose of if i recover my boat." "i will give you two dollars and a quarter a bushel, if it is in good condition." "i accept, sir," answered bob, promptly. "now, may i ask your advice as to how to proceed to regain possession of the boat?" "when do you expect it to arrive?" asked the merchant. "probably not till to-morrow, but i can't guess at what part of the day. it depends on how well the thieves succeed in managing the boat." "i will order my carriage and drive round with you to the central police office. the police will take proper measures to recover the boat and arrest the rascals who robbed you of it." "won't it be too much trouble, sir?" "i shall not count it a trouble, for i shall at the same time be punishing the men who abducted my dear maud. they will be tried for both offenses, and will probably get a long term of imprisonment." in an hour information had been lodged at the central police office, and orders had been given to watch the river, and to keep a good lookout for the boat, of which bob furnished a description. that night bob and clip slept at mr. pearson's house, being treated as honored guests. chapter xxxvii. brown and minton walk into a trap. little suspecting the reception awaiting them in st. louis, minton and brown were laboriously guiding their stolen craft down the river. not being accustomed to labor of any sort, they found the confinement irksome, but the prize for which they were striving was so large that they took it very good-humoredly. they whiled away the time by indulging in visions of future ease and prosperity, and in exchanging witticisms at the expense of bob, the youthful owner of the boat. "i wonder how the young captain is enjoying himself," said minton, as he lay back, with one of the bins for a support, while puffing at a choice cigar. "he is ready to tear his hair out, i presume," said brown. "he's a conceited young popinjay, and deserves to have his pride taken down." "you're right there, brown. we shall make a tidy sum out of our venture." "yes; we can afford to retire for a time. of course i shall want more than half." "i don't see that," said minton, quickly. "why, man, i've done all the headwork. what have you done to compare with me?" "we are equal partners," said minton, doggedly. "that is where you are mistaken. i don't mind, though, giving you half of what we get for the girl." "how shall we arrange to get anything? it is rather a ticklish business--" "that's where the headwork comes in. i shall wait upon old pearson, and tell him that i have a clew, and suspect i know who abducted the child. then i'll work him up to a point where he'll shell out liberally." "won't there be risk?" "how can there be? leave the thing to me and i'll arrange it. the fact is, minton, you are a man of no ideas. if i depended on you, you wouldn't make a cent out of one of the neatest jobs i've ever been concerned in." minton was conscious that there was some truth in this, and it helped to reconcile him to the evident determination of his companion to appropriate the lion's share of the fruits of their questionable enterprises. "i suppose joe's all right?" he said, after a pause. "of course he is. what would he make by proving false to us?" "nothing, that i can see. still, if he should do so, it might upset our plans. the boy could afford to pay him well for releasing him." "that is true," returned brown, thoughtfully. "on all accounts it will be necessary for us to expedite matters. i sha'n't waste any time once we are in st. louis." "you mean in disposing of the cargo?" "precisely. i am in no position to haggle about prices. i'll offer it at a bargain to some large dealer. he will naturally think i'm a country gentleman, and clinch the bargain at once. do you see?" "yes, brown. you've got the right idea." "of course i have," said brown, complacently. "it takes a long head to outwit me. got another cigar, minton?" minton drew out one and handed to his confederate, and presently took his turn at the rudder. so time passed, the boat making good progress, and about three o'clock in the afternoon the boat reached an obscure pier in the lower part of st. louis. there were some interested persons watching its arrival. among them were bob and his friend clip, and a small squad of policemen. not suspecting anything, brown and minton busied themselves in bringing the boat to anchor. meanwhile bob, without being observed, stepped aboard. "good afternoon, mr. brown! i hope you had a pleasant trip," he said, quietly. brown felt as if he had been struck by lightning. wheeling around suddenly, he saw bob's eyes fixed upon him. he was absolutely speechless with amazement and consternation. "who are you?" he finally ejaculated, quickly resolving to brazen it out, and deny bob's claim to ownership. "i think you know me, mr. brown!" replied bob. "i have only to thank you for taking charge of my boat and bringing it safe to st. louis." "look here, young feller!" said brown, roughly, "you must be crazy. i never saw you before in my life, and here you come on board my boat and claim it as your own. if you don't clear out i'll have you arrested." "there will be no difficulty about that, mr. brown. here are policemen close at hand." mr. brown's face grew pale as he saw three stalwart policemen marching on board the boat. "i guess it's all up, minton!" he said, and made a dash for liberty; but he was not quick enough. he and minton were quickly secured and marched off, with handcuffs on their wrists. as we are now to bid these gentlemen farewell, it may be said briefly that they pleaded guilty in hopes of a lighter sentence, and were sent to prison for seven years. thus far the community has been able to spare them without inconvenience. bob and clip resumed charge of the boat, and during the next day disposed of the cargo to mr. pearson at the price agreed upon. chapter xxxviii. what bob brought home. after disposing of his cargo, bob was puzzled to know what to do with the ferry-boat. finally he had an offer of one hundred dollars, from a speculative yankee who had drifted out to st. louis, and gladly accepted it. this sum paid all expenses, including his and clip's return fare, and left him with a handsome sum to his credit, viz.: , bushels wheat, at $ . , $ , reward, , ------ $ , this sum, with the exception of one hundred and fifty dollars, by advice of mr. pearson, he deposited in a st. louis bank, and then started for home. he could not make the whole passage by steamer, but went part way by railroad, and then engaged a carriage to a point four miles from home. thence he and clip walked. he wanted to surprise not only his mother, but wolverton. he knew now that brown and minton had only been agents of his more crafty enemy, brown having made a written confession, not so much out of friendship to bob as out of spite against wolverton, whom he held responsible for getting him into this scrape. with soiled shoes and clothes covered with dust, bob and clip entered the village, and purposely walked by wolverton's office. the latter, spying them through the window, smiled maliciously, and hurried out to meet them. "aha, my young friends," he said, with a pleased glance at their soiled clothes, "so you have returned?" "yes, sir," answered bob, soberly. "and what luck did you have, may i ask?" "we had good luck at first, but at rocky creek two rascals entrapped us, and stole our boat and cargo." wolverton laughed outright. so it was true, after all. "excuse my smiling," he said; "but you seem to have come out at the little end of the horn." "it does seem so, sir." "you remember what i told you before you started?" "what was that?" "that you were too young for such an expedition. it would have been much better for you to accept my offer." "it seems so," answered bob again. "seems so! of course it would have been. but the trouble was, you were so puffed up by your own self-conceit that you thought you knew best." "i plead guilty to that, sir; i did think so," answered bob, candidly. "i am glad you admit it. so you had to walk back?" "you can judge for yourself, mr. wolverton." "well, you certainly do look like two tramps. the next time you may feel like following my advice." "i may," answered bob. it did occur to mr. wolverton that bob's answers were rather unusual, and his manner rather queer; quite unlike his usual tone and manner. but this he readily accounted for. the boy's pride had been humbled. he knew now that he was in wolverton's power, and he had the sense to be humble, in the hope of making better terms. "but it won't do," said the agent to himself. "he will find that i will have what is mine, and he cannot soften my heart by any appeal to my pity." "it appears to me you are in rather a scrape," he said, after a pause. "how is that." "why, a part of your mortgage comes due in a short time. i hope you don't expect me to wait." "no doubt you will be considerate, mr. wolverton, remembering what luck we have had." "no, i won't!" snarled wolverton. "don't flatter yourself so far. i am not responsible for your misfortune, or folly, as i call it." "still, mr. wolverton--" "oh, it's no use to talk!" continued the agent, raising his hand impatiently. "you have been a fool, and you must suffer the penalty of your folly." "has sam got back, mr. wolverton?" asked bob, changing the subject, rather to mr. wolverton's surprise. "no; have you seen him?" asked the agent, eagerly. "yes, sir." "where?" asked wolverton, quickly. "the fact is, we discovered him on our boat soon after we started." "you did!" ejaculated the agent, his eyes almost starting out of his head. "why didn't you send him back?" "because he said you didn't treat him well, and begged to stay." "young man, do you know i could have you arrested for abducting my nephew?" demanded wolverton, angrily. "was it my fault that he hid himself on my boat?" "where is he now?" asked wolverton, abruptly. "he left the boat at a point on the way." "where was it?" "you must excuse my answering that question. sam wouldn't like it." "what difference does that make?" "sam is my friend. i think, however, you will soon know, as he means to come back." wolverton smiled triumphantly. "i shall be glad to see him," he said, significantly. bob knew what that meant. "you must excuse me now, mr. wolverton," said bob. "i must hurry home, as mother will be anxious to see me." "tell her i shall call very soon--on business." "i will." when they were out of hearing the boys laughed in amusement. they had a surprise in store for wolverton. chapter xxxix. conclusion. there was another arrival at burton's ranch the next day. sam wolverton came in charge of his new-found relative, robert granger. they took a carriage, and reached the ranch without attracting the attention of aaron wolverton. mrs. burton welcomed her visitors, and expressed great pleasure at the discovery that sam's fortunes were likely to be improved. mr. granger proposed to make a call upon the faithless guardian, but was saved the necessity, as mr. wolverton called early in the afternoon of the same day. he was in a hurry to show his power, and foreclose the mortgage. it was arranged that sam and mr. granger should remain out of sight at first. robert answered the knock at the door. "is your mother at home?" asked wolverton. "yes, sir; will you walk in?" "i believe i will." he entered the sitting-room, and mrs. burton soon made her appearance. "i see your son has returned, widder," remarked the agent. "yes; it seems pleasant to have him back. i missed him greatly." "humph! i s'pose so. it's a pity he went at all." "i don't know that." "why, it stands to reason," said wolverton, impatiently. "he went on a fool's errand." "what makes you say that?" "he might have known a boy like him couldn't succeed in such an enterprise. if he had taken up with my offer, he would have been all right." "he said you offered him much less than the market price." "and so he started off to do better, and lost his whole cargo," sneered wolverton, smiling unpleasantly. mrs. burton was silent. "i came to tell you that i should require not only the interest, but a payment of half the mortgage, according to the conditions. it is due next saturday." "won't you wait, under the circumstances, mr. wolverton?" "no; i will not." "do you think that is kind?" asked mrs. burton. "kindness is kindness, and business is business, mrs. burton. still, i am willing to spare you on one condition." "what is that?" "that you become mrs. wolverton." mrs. burton made a gesture of repulsion. "that is entirely out of the question," she said. "then i shall show no mercy." mrs. burton went to the door and called "robert." bob entered. "mr. wolverton demands his interest and the payment of half the mortgage, according to the terms." "it is not due yet." "it will be, next saturday," said the agent, triumphantly. "and i won't listen to any palaver or any entreaties to put off the payment. as you have made your bed you can lie upon it." "what do you propose to do if we don't pay?" asked bob. "foreclose the mortgage!" exclaimed the agent, bringing down his fist upon the table before him. "in that case, i think, mother, we will pay," said bob, quietly. "you can't pay!" snarled wolverton. "that is where you are mistaken, mr. wolverton. i will not only pay what you ask, but i am ready to take up the whole mortgage." "is the boy crazy?" ejaculated wolverton. "not that i am aware of," answered bob, smiling. "you haven't got the money." "mistaken again, mr. wolverton." "when did you get it?" gasped wolverton. "wasn't your cargo stolen?" "yes, by emissaries of yours!" was bob's unexpected reply; "but i recovered it, and sold the grain for two dollars and a quarter a bushel." "you recovered it?" said wolverton, turning pale. "yes; and the men that stole it are now in jail. i have a letter from one of them, declaring that he was employed by you." "it's a lie!" hastily exclaimed the agent; but he looked frightened. "i have reason to believe it is true. mr. wolverton, your base conspiracy failed." "i guess i'll go," said wolverton, rising. he wanted time to think. "not just yet! here are two persons who wish to see you"; and, to wolverton's surprise, sam and robert granger entered the room. "you didn't expect to see me, aaron wolverton," said captain granger. "i have come here with your nephew to demand restitution of the property which you have appropriated to your own use, giving him to understand that he was living on charity." wolverton looked like a man in a state of collapse. he didn't dare to deny what he knew captain granger would have no difficulty in proving. he glared at sam as if he would like to have him in his power for a short time. "are you coming back with me?" he asked. "i will answer for him," said captain granger. "sam is of an age when the law authorizes him to select his own guardian. i have accepted the trust, and i demand the transfer of his property to me." if there had been any chance of success, wolverton would have contested the matter, and, as it was, he interposed all the obstacles in his power. finally, sam got his own, however, much to wolverton's disappointment. ---- five years have passed. the mortgage on burton's ranch has long since been paid, and bob is making a handsome profit every year for his mother and himself. clip is still a member of the family, and, though he cannot be called a model of industry, he is a favorite through his good nature and love of fun. he is thoroughly loyal to the burtons, and hates wolverton as much as it is in his nature to hate anybody. wolverton is getting worse in temper as he grows older, and his ill-gotten gains do not bring him happiness. the sight of bob's prosperity is gall and wormwood to him; but for this bob cares little. sam is employed in a store under his new guardian's charge, but every summer he comes to burton's ranch and stays a month, where he, bob, and clip have fine times. mrs. burton is happy in her prosperity, and is thankful to god for having given her so good a son. bob has made more than one trip down the river, but none so eventful as the one described in this story. the end. the famous castlemon books. by harry castlemon. [illustration: specimen cover of the gunboat series.] no author of the present day has become a greater favorite with boys than "harry castlemon;" every book by him is sure to meet with hearty reception by young readers generally. his naturalness and vivacity lead his readers from page to page with breathless interest, and when one volume is finished the fascinated reader, like oliver twist, asks "for more." any volume sold separately. +gunboat series.+ by harry castlemon. vols., mo. fully illustrated. cloth, extra, printed in colors. in box $ +frank, the young naturalist+ +frank in the woods+ +frank on the prairie+ +frank on a gunboat+ +frank before vicksburg+ +frank on the lower mississippi+ +go ahead series.+ by harry castlemon. vols., mo. fully illustrated. cloth, extra, printed in colors. in box $ +go ahead+; or, the fisher boy's motto +no moss+; or, the career of a rolling stone +tom newcombe+; or, the boy of bad habits +rocky mountain series.+ by harry castlemon. vols., mo. fully illustrated. cloth, extra, printed in colors. in box $ +frank at don carlos' rancho+ +frank among the rancheros+ +frank in the mountains+ +sportsman's club series.+ by harry castlemon. vols., mo. fully illustrated. cloth, extra, printed in colors. in box $ +the sportsman's club in the saddle+ +the sportsman's club afloat+ +the sportsman's club among the trappers+ +frank nelson series.+ by harry castlemon. vols. mo. fully illustrated. cloth, extra, printed in colors. in box $ +snowed up+; or, the sportsman's club in the mts. +frank nelson in the forecastle+; or, the sportsman's club among the whalers +the boy traders+; or, the sportsman's club among the boers +boy trapper series.+ by harry castlemon. vols., mo. fully illustrated. cloth, extra, printed in colors. in box $ +the buried treasure+; or, old jordan's "haunt" +the boy trapper+; or, how dave filled the order +the mail carrier+ proud lady _new borzoi novels_ _spring _ star of earth _morris dallett_ downstream _sigfrid siwertz_ ralph herne _w. h. hudson_ gates of life _edwin björkman_ druida _john t. frederick_ the long journey _johannes v. jensen_ the bridal wreath _sigrid undset_ the hill of dreams _arthur machen_ a room with a view _e. m. forster_ proud lady neith boyce [illustration] new york··alfred·a·knopf copyright, , by alfred a. knopf, inc. _published, january, _ _set up and printed by the vail-ballou co., binghamton, n. y._ _paper furnished by w. f. etherington & co., new york._ _bound by h. wolff estate, new york._ manufactured in the united states of america proud lady i across the ringing of the church bells came the whistle of the train. mary lavinia, standing in the doorway, watched her mother go down the walk to the gate. mrs. lowell's broad back, clad in black silk, her black bonnet stiffly trimmed with purple pansies, bristled with anger. she opened the gate and slammed it behind her. the wooden sidewalk echoed her heavy tread. she went down the street out of sight, without looking back. the slow melancholy bells were still sounding, but now they stopped. mrs. lowell would be late to church. mary listened, holding her breath. she heard the noise of the train. now it whistled again, at the crossing, now it was coming into town--white puffs of smoke rose over the trees. the engine-bell clanked, and the shrill sound of escaping steam signalled its stopping. mary listened, but there was no cheering, though a number of people had gone to the depot to welcome the little knot of returning soldiers. she remembered the day, three years before, when the company raised in the town had marched to the train--there was plenty of cheering then. now perhaps half a dozen of those men were coming back. the war was over, but the rest of them had been left on southern battle-fields. mary stood looking out at the light brilliant green of the trees in the yard. it was very quiet all around her. the house always seemed quiet when her mother was out of it, and now there was a lull after the storm. but she was breathing quickly, intent, listening, shivering a little in her light print dress. the spring sunlight had little warmth, the air was sharp, with a damp sweetness. in the silence, she heard the rustling of a paper and the sound of a slight cough, behind a closed door. her father was there, in his office. he would have gone to meet the train, she knew, but that these were his office-hours. but she couldn't have gone--and neither could she go to church, however angry her mother might be. a light flush rose in her cheeks, as she stood expectant. she was beautiful--tall, slender, but with broad shoulders and a straight proud way of holding herself. her thick hair, of bright auburn, with a natural small ripple, parted in the middle, was drawn down over her ears into a heavy knot. she was dazzlingly fair, with a few freckles on her high cheek-bones, with large clear grey eyes, with scarlet, finely-cut lips. she looked mature for her twenty years and yet completely virginal, untouched, unmoved. but her face expressed very little of what she might be thinking or feeling. it was like a calm mask--there was not a line in it, there was no record to be read. footsteps began to echo down the wooden walk, and voices. she went into the house and shut the door. in the office she heard a chair pushed back, and as she did not want to speak to her father just then, she walked quickly and lightly out through the big bright kitchen into the garden at the back of the house, slipping on as she went a blue coat that she had taken from the hall. the garden was long and narrow, bounded by rail fences along which was set close together lilac bushes and other flowering shrubs of twenty years' growth. it was carefully laid out, in neat squares or oblongs, separated by rows of currant and gooseberry bushes or by grass-paths. the fresh turned earth in the beds looked dark and rich. all the bushes and shrubs were covered with light-green leaves. bordering the central path were two narrow beds of tulips, narcissus, jonquils, flowering in thick bands of colour. at the end of the garden was a small orchard of apple, cherry and peach trees, some of them in bloom. in summer there was shade and seclusion here, but now there was no place to hide. mary stopped a moment, looking back at the house, then opened a gate and in a panic fled out into the pasture. she was well aware that she ought to be in the house, that the minister was coming to dinner, that the roast would probably burn, but above all that some one was coming for her, that they would be calling her any moment; so she hurried on, up a slight rise of ground, over the top of it, and there she was out of sight. the pasture stretched all about her, dotted with cattle nibbling the short green grass. below, the ground fell suddenly, and there was a large pond. it was very deep, with a treacherous mud bottom near the shores. willows encircled it, and on the farther side marshes blended it with the land. the water had a colour of its own, almost always dark--now it was a dull blue, deeper than the light april sky. beyond it on every side was the prairie, flat, unbroken to the skyline. trees, fields, houses, scattered over it, seemed insignificant, did not interrupt its monotony. it rolled away in long low wavering lines, endless and sombre, like a dark sea. * * * * * a faint call from the direction of the house--that was her father's gentle voice. then a shout, lusty and clear--her name, shouted out over the hill for the whole town to hear! mary started, a confused cloud of feelings made her heart beat heavily. but she stood still. in another moment a man appeared at the top of the rise and came plunging down toward her. in his blue uniform--cap tilted over one eye--just the same! he caught her in his arms and kissed her, laughing, repeating her name over and over, and kissed her again and again. mary did not return his kisses, but bowed her head to the storm. released at last from the tight clasp against his breast, but still held by his hands on her shoulders, she looked at him, and he at her--their eyes were on a level. but his eyes were full of an intoxication of joy, excited, almost blinded, though they seemed to be searching her face keenly, from brow to lips. mary's eyes were clear. she saw the sword-cut on his left cheek, a thin red scar--that was new to her. she saw that he was thinner and the brown of his face was paler--he had been wounded and in hospital since she had seen him. she saw what had always repelled her--what she thought of vaguely as weakness, in his mouth and chin. but then she saw too the crisp black hair brushed back from his square forehead, the black eyebrows, sharp beautiful curves--and the long narrow blue eyes--and these she loved, she did not know why, but they had some strange appeal to her, something foreign, come from far away. she never could look at those eyes without tenderness. now she put up her hands on his shoulders and bent toward him, and tenderness glowed like a light through the mask. at that moment she did not look cold. he could not say anything except, "oh, mary! mary!" and mary did not speak either, but only smiled. they sat down together on a stone in the pasture. the young soldier held her hands in his clasp, his arm around her, as though he could never let her go again. his heart was overflowing. he held her clasped against him and stared at the dull-blue water. this was like a dream. many a time, on the bivouac, on the march when he dozed from fatigue in his saddle, he had dreamed vividly of mary, he had felt her near him as now. he half expected to wake and hear again the tramp of marching men, the jingle of the chains of his battery behind him. the present, the future, were a dream, he was living in the past. he had thought of mary when the shell burst among his guns. "this is death," he had thought too, wounded in the hip by a fragment of shell, deluged with blood from the man killed beside him. he had taken the place of the gunner and served his gun. that was at the wilderness. yes, he had held them back, and brought off his whole battery. "distinguished gallantry." ... he sighed, and touched mary's bright hair with his lips, and was surprised that she did not vanish. was it true, that life was over, "daredevil carlin" was no more, his occupation gone? then he must begin the world at twenty-five, with empty hands. he turned and looked at the woman beside him. it was hard to realize that now his life would be with her, that what he had so longed for was his. ii the roast _was_ burned. dr. lowell, at the head of the table, carved and dispensed it, with sly chuckles. his mild blue eyes beamed through his spectacles, and he kept up the slow flow of conversation, now addressing the minister, who sat alone on one side of the table, now captain carlin, who sat with mary on the other side; and sending propitiatory glances at his wife, who loomed opposite, stonily indignant. she was outraged at having her dinner spoiled--in addition to everything else. and if looks could have done it, the whole company, except the minister, would have been annihilated. yes, her husband too. this was one of the times when he exasperated her beyond endurance. how ridiculous he was, with his perpetual good-humour, his everlasting jokes! as he carved the leathery beef he made a point of asking each person, "will you have it well-done, or rare?" and then he would wink at her. she glared back at him, looking like a block of new england granite, as she was. it was strange that in a long life together she had not been able to crush the light-mindedness out of that man. but she had not even made a church member of him. he treated the minister as he did anybody else, with gentle courtesy--beneath which, if you knew him well, you might suspect a sparkle of amusement. he laughed at everything, everybody! at times she suspected him of being an atheist. he had said that he was too busy correcting god's mistakes in people's bodies to think about their souls, or his own. mrs. lowell would not have dared repeat this remark to the minister, for if she had an atheist in the family she would conceal him to the last gasp, as she would a forger. whenever she spoke, during this meal, she addressed herself pointedly to the minister, for she was above being hypocritical or pretending that captain carlin's presence was welcome to her. from the deep respect of her manner toward the reverend mr. robertson, he might have been a very venerable personage indeed. but he was a young man, under thirty and at first glance insignificant--slight and plain. his straw-coloured hair was smoothed back from a brow rather narrow than otherwise, his light eyebrows and lashes gave no emphasis to his grey-blue eyes, his complexion was sallow, his mouth straight and rather wide. perhaps mrs. lowell's manner merely indicated respect to the cloth. but when hilary robertson spoke, people listened to him--whether he was in his pulpit or in a chance crowd of strangers. sometimes on the street, people would turn and look at him, at the sound of his voice. it had a deep, low-toned bell-like resonance. the commonest words, spoken in that rich voice, took on colour, might have an arresting power. perhaps this remarkable organ accounted for hilary robertson as a minister of religion. no, it was only one of his qualifications. a second glance was apt to dwell on his face with attention. there were deep lines from the nostrils to the corners of the mouth and across the forehead and between the eyebrows. the pale-coloured eyes had a luminous intensity, and the mouth a firm compression. a fiery irritable spirit under strong control had written its struggle there. as he sat quietly, eating little, speaking less, but listening, glancing attentively at each of the family in turn and at captain carlin, only an uncommon pallor showed that he was feeling deeply. no one--not mrs. lowell, though she suspected much, not mary--no one knew what the return of carlin meant to hilary robertson. two people at that table would have been glad if carlin never had come back. mrs. lowell would have denied indignantly that she wished any ill to laurence carlin--only she did not want her daughter to marry a nobody, of unworthy foreign descent. but the minister faced the truth and knew that he, hilary robertson, sinner, had hoped that laurence carlin would die in battle; that when his imagination had shown him carlin struck down by a bullet, he felt as a murderer feels. his heart had leaped and a deep feeling of solace had filled it, to think that carlin might be out of his way. why not, where so many better men had died? why must just this man, whom his judgment condemned, come back to cross the one strong personal desire of his life, his one chance of happiness? mary belonged to him already, in a sense--he shared the life of her soul, its first stirring was due to him. not a word of love had ever been spoken between them. she was betrothed, he could not have spoken to her. but all the same he felt that only a frail bond held her to the other--the bond of her word and of a feeling less intense than the spiritual sympathy between her and himself.... but now it was all over--carlin had come back and she would marry him. and a soul just beginning to be awakened to eternal things would perhaps slip back into the toils of the temporal and earthly.... dr. lowell asked questions about washington city, the great review of the army, about general grant, and sherman and the new president. carlin answered rather briefly, his natural buoyancy suppressed by the hostility of two of his auditors. but this he felt only vaguely, his happiness was like a bright cloud enfolding him, blurring his eyes. the other people were like shadows to him, he was really only conscious of mary there beside him. he would have liked to be silent, as she was. there was no lingering over the table. the doctor had his round of visits to make. the indian pudding disposed of, he lit his pipe, put on his old felt hat and his cape, took his black medicine-chest, and went out to hitch up satan, a fast trotter who had come cheap because of his kicking and biting habits. gentle dr. lowell liked a good horse, and as he pointed out to his wife, he needed one, on his long country journeys at all hours of the day or night. the horse's name had provoked a protest, but as the doctor said, that _was_ his name and it suited him, why change it? you might christen him the angel gabriel but it wouldn't change his disposition. the minister took his leave, saying that he had work to do. at parting he asked if he should see them at evening meeting. mary felt a reproach and blushed faintly and mrs. lowell said with asperity, "certainly, that is all except the doctor, nobody ever knows when he'll be back." she escorted mr. robertson to the door, and then majestically began gathering up the dinner dishes. there were no servants in the household. mary came to help, but her mother said sternly, "i'll attend to these, you can go along." so mary went along, to the parlour where laurence carlin was waiting. this room was bright now because of the sunlight and the potted plants in all the windows, between the looped-up lace curtains. but the furniture was black walnut and horse-hair, and marble-topped tables. on the walls were framed daguerreotypes and a wreath under glass, of flowers made from hair. it was not a genial room. the blue and purple hyacinths flowering in the south windows made the air sweet with rather a funeral fragrance. carlin turned to her with a tremulous wistful look. after the first joy of seeing her, as always, timidity came upon him. each time that he had come back to her, during these four years, it seemed that he had to woo her all over again. each time she had somehow become a stranger to him. yet she had never repudiated the engagement made when she was seventeen. it was always understood that they were to be married. but it seemed almost as though she had accepted and then forgotten him. she took their future together for granted, but his passionate eagerness found no echo in her. so he always had to subdue himself to her calm, her aloofness, and his wistful hungry eyes expressed his unsatisfied yearning. mary liked him best when only his eyes spoke, when his caress, as now, was timid and restrained. he touched her bright hair and looked adoringly at her untroubled face. they sat down together on the slippery horse-hair sofa. "captain!" said mary, looking at the stripes on his sleeve with a pensive smile. "so now you're captain carlin!" "that's all i am," he said ruefully. "i have to start all over again now." "yes." "nothing to show for these four years." mary smiled and touched with her square finger-tips the scar on his cheek. "how did you get that?" "sabre-cut." he looked hurt. "i wrote you from the hospital, don't you remember?" "oh, yes, i remember," she said serenely. "well, it doesn't look so bad. you aren't sorry, are you?" "for what, the--" "the four years." "no, i couldn't help it. but--but--" "i'm glad of it--i'm proud of you--and that you were promoted for bravery--" "oh, mary, are you?... but bravery isn't anything, it's common. why--" "yes, i know. but you must have been uncommonly brave, or they wouldn't have promoted you!" he laughed and drew her near him, venturing a kiss. "it seems strange that you have been through all that--battles, killing people--and you just a boy too, just laurence," said mary dreamily. "and wouldn't hurt a fly. i can remember yet what a fuss you made about a kitten--you remember the kitten the boys were--" "just larry o'carolan, the gossoon, divil a bit else," said laurence. "oh, don't be irish!... o'carolan is pretty, though, prettier than carlin, but it's too irish!" "you can have it either way you like, mary darling," said he tenderly. "just so you take it soon--will you?" she could feel the strong beating of his heart as he held her close. "and yet--i ought not to ask you, maybe! for i've got nothing in the world, only my two hands!... you know i was studying law when it came. judge baxter would take me back in his office, i think--but it would be years before--" "he said you would be a good lawyer," pondered mary. "would you like that? i could make some money at something else, perhaps, and be reading law too--at night or some time.... or there's business--there are a lot of chances now, mary, all over the country. i've heard of a lot of things.... would you go away with me, mary, go west, if--" "west?" she looked startled, rather dismayed. "well, we'll talk about that later, i'll tell you what i've heard," said laurence hastily. "but i'll do exactly what you want, mary, about everything. you shall have just what you want, always!" she smiled, her pensive dreamy smile, and looked at his eyes so near her--blue mysterious eyes, radiant with love. this love, his complete devotion, she accepted calmly, as her right and due. laurence belonged to her and she to him--that was settled, long ago. her heart beat none the quicker at his touch--except now and then when he frightened her a little. mary lavinia was not in the least given to analysing her own feelings. she took it for granted that they were what they should be. and they remained largely below the threshold of consciousness. but now she moved a little away from him and studied his face thoughtfully. this was not the handsome boy of four years ago, gay, tumultuous, demanding, full of petulant ardour. the lines of his mouth and jaw, which she had always thought too heavy, with a certain grossness, were now firmly set. he was thinner, that helped--the scar on his cheek, too. there was power in this face, and a look, sad, almost stern, that she had never seen before. suffering, combat, the resolute facing of death, the habit of command, had formed the man. she had been used to command laurence carlin, she had held him in the palm of her hand. but here was something unfamiliar. her instinct for domination suffered an obscure check. iii the doctor returned earlier than usual, and was able to work for an hour in his garden, before dark. mrs. lowell, wrapped in a purple shawl, stood in the path, while he was turning over the soil with a pitchfork. she often objected to his working on sunday. the doctor pointed out that his hedges were thick enough to conceal him from observation; she said that being seen wasn't what mattered, but breaking the sabbath; whereupon the doctor alleged that he felt more religious when working in his garden than any other time, so that sunday seemed a particularly appropriate day to work in it. this would reduce mrs. lowell to silence; she always looked scandalized when her husband referred to religion, suspecting blasphemy somewhere. this old dispute was not in question now, however. in answer to a question about "the young folks," mrs. lowell had said curtly that they were out walking. then she had stood silent, her broad pale face, with its keen eyes and obstinate mouth, expressing so plainly trouble and chagrin that the doctor spoke very gently. "you mustn't worry about it, mother." her chin trembled and she set her mouth more firmly. "of course i worry about it! i never liked it!" "no, i know you didn't. but laurence isn't a bad fellow." "that's a high praise for a man that--that--!" "yes, i know, you think he isn't good enough for mary. but you wouldn't think anybody good enough." "i've seen plenty better than laurence carlin! who is he, anyway--the son of a labourer, a man that worked for day-wages when he wasn't too drunk!" "oh, come now, mother! don't shake the family crest at us. your father was a carpenter--and don't i work for wages?" "my father was a master-carpenter and had his own shops and workmen, as you know very well!" cried mrs. lowell, flushing with wrath. "and if you like to say you work for wages, when it isn't true, you can, of course! anyhow my people and yours too were good americans for generations back and not bog-trotting irish peasants!" "now, mother, who told you laurence's ancestors trotted in bogs? they may have been--" "didn't his father come over here with a bundle on his back, an _immigrant_?" "why, now, we're all immigrants, more or less, you know. didn't _your_ ancestors come over from england?" "james lowell--" "yes, i know, they came in the _mayflower_, or pretty nearly ... that is, those that _did_ come. of course, on one side you're right, and we're all immigrants and foreigners, except you! you're the only real native american!" and the doctor chuckled, while his wife started to walk into the house. a standing joke with him was mrs. lowell's aboriginal ancestry. her grandfather, in vermont, had married a french-canadian, and the doctor pretended to have discovered that this grandmother was half indian. he would point to her miniature portrait on the parlour-wall, her straight black hair and high cheek-bones, as confirmation. mrs. lowell and mary too had the high cheek-bones, they had also great capacity for silence, which the doctor said was an indian trait--not to mention the ferocity of which he sometimes accused his wife. equally a jest with him was her undoubted descent from a genteel english family which actually did boast a crest and motto--and the fact that mrs. lowell treasured a seal with these family arms, and though she did not use it, she might, any day. and how did she reconcile her pride in that seal with her pride in the grandfather who had fought in the revolution? but the doctor, seeing his wife walk away, stuck his pitchfork in the ground and followed her, saying penitently: "there, there, now, i was only joking." "yes, you'd joke if a person was dying!... but you know very well what i'm thinking about is his _character_, that's what worries me. his father drank. and he's got nothing to hold him anywhere, he's a rolling stone, i'm sure. i don't believe he has principles. and he's been roaming around for four years, getting into all sorts of bad habits, no doubt--" the doctor sighed. it was useless to oppose his wife's idea that the life of a soldier was mainly indulgence, not to say license. useless to point to laurence's military record, for she did not approve of the war, her position being that people should be let alone and not interfered with. if they wanted to keep slaves, let them, they were responsible for their sins. if they wanted to secede, it was a good riddance. how did she reconcile this principle of non-resistance with the fact that she imposed her own will whenever she could on all around her? she didn't. that was her strength, she never tried to reconcile any of her ideas with one another--it was impossible to argue with her. so he sighed, for he knew she wanted comfort, her pride and her love for mary were bleeding--and he couldn't give it. he was doubtful himself about this marriage. what he finally said was cold enough comfort: "i don't think we can help it." "you're her father!" cried mrs. lowell, angrily. "i've said all _i_ can." "i'll talk to mary," he said. "oh--talk!" with that she went into the house and banged the door. well, what did she expect him to do--shut mary up--or disinherit her? the doctor smiled ruefully as he returned to his gardening. it was growing dark, but he would work as long as he could see. there was no set meal on sunday nights--people went to the pantry and helped themselves when they felt like it. he liked the smell of the fresh earth, even mixed with the manure he was turning in. the air was sharp and sweet, and over there above the lilacs with their little tremulous leaves, was a thin crescent moon. he stood looking at it, leaning on his pitchfork, thinking that tomorrow he would put in the rest of his seeds, if he had time. thinking how sweet was the spring, how full of tenderness and melancholy, now as ever, though he was an old man.... he thought too of the murdered lincoln, whom he had deeply admired; of the men now returning to their homes, the long struggle over; of the many he had known who would not return. he had wanted to serve also, had offered himself for the field-hospitals but had been rejected on the score of age. that might have been a good end, he thought. now what was before him but old age, with lessening powers, the routine of life.... he sighed again, submissively, and darkness having come, went slowly in. * * * * * to his wife's surprise, he offered to accompany her to church. she was pleased, for now she could take his arm instead of carlin's, who followed with mary. laurence had no particular desire to go to church, but as mary was going, naturally he went also. they walked silently, arm in arm, down the quiet street. mary had been very sweet and gentle to him, all day, and very serious--more so than ever before. she had changed, he felt, she was not a young girl any more, she was a woman. she had never been very gay--but yet she had had a glow of youth rather than sparkle, an enthusiasm, that he missed now. they had talked over plans for the future, gravely. she was ready to marry him at once, if he wished. she did not mind his being poor, she had said earnestly, she expected they would be, at first. she had not expected it to be a path of roses. there was a slight chill about this, to laurence. marriage with mary was to him a rosy dream, a miracle--not a sober reality. still silently, they entered the church and took their seats. it was the "meeting-house," plain, austere--nothing to touch the senses. no mystery of shadowy lights or aspiring arches or appealing music. but the pews and benches were full, when the simple service began, there were even people standing at the back, as in a theatre. mary sat with her head bent forward. the broad rim of her bonnet hid her face from laurence, but he felt this was the attitude of prayer. he watched her for what seemed many minutes, with a faint uneasiness. he had never thought mary religious, and somehow her absorption seemed to set her away from him--it was one more change. she raised her head only when the minister stepped into the pulpit and gave out a hymn, and then she looked directly at _him_. she joined in the singing, with a deep, sweet alto, a little husky and tremulous. hilary robertson in the pulpit had no pomp of office. with his black coat and black string tie he looked like any other respectable citizen, and his manner was perfectly simple. but when he began his prayer, there was an intense hush of attention in his audience. it was a brief prayer, for help in present trouble, for guidance in darkness, like the cry of a suffering heart. many of the congregation were in mourning. this appeal was perhaps in their behalf, but it had the note of personal anguish. there was the secret of hilary's power. he never appeared the priest, set apart from the struggle of living--but a man like any other, a sinner, for so he felt himself to be. and then, he had true dramatic power, he could move and sway his hearers. his voice, his eloquence, his personality, created an atmosphere, in that bare room, like cathedral spaces, the colours of stained glass, deep organ melodies, incense--an atmosphere of mystic passion, thrilling and startling. when the prayer ended and another hymn was sung, carlin caught a glimpse of mary's face, pale, exalted; her eyes, shining with fervour, fixed upon the minister. the mask for a moment had fallen, she was all feeling, illuminated. carlin saw it, with a sharp jealous pang. some strong emotion surely rapt her away from him, into a region where he could not follow. she was as unconscious of him now as though he had not existed, and so she remained through the service. carlin listened, sitting rigidly upright, his arms folded, his narrow blue eyes upon the speaker. he wanted to study and judge this man, for whom he suddenly felt a personal dislike. he referred this dislike to hilary's office--any assumption of spiritual authority was repugnant to him, perhaps partly from memories of his boyhood, when the priest had tried to direct him. his mood of sharp criticism was not softened by the beginning of hilary's brief discourse. the first thing that struck his attention was a quotation from lincoln's inaugural address: "if god wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so must it still be said, 'the judgments of the lord are true and righteous altogether'." this blood and treasure had been paid, the preacher said, the whole nation had spent to cancel the debt incurred by our own and our father's guilt, the measure had been filled up by the death of lincoln. in spite of himself, carlin approved what was said about lincoln. it was true also, he admitted, that though peace had been declared, the nation was still in the midst of turmoil arising out of past errors, the evil spirit, departing, had rent and torn it. peace was not on the earth and never would be. not peace but a sword had been given to men. yes, that was true, probably. the world was an eternal battle-field, the field of a war without truce and without end, till man should subjugate his own nature. in the heart of man, full of pride, self-love and injustice, lay the root of all evil. he that could overcome himself was greater than he that should take a city. that was the true, the infinite struggle, of which all others were but ephemeral incidents--that was the end and aim of man's existence on earth. not with earthly but with spiritual weapons must his battles be fought and his eternal conquests made. hilary spoke with curt simplicity, but with the fire of a spirit to whom these things were realities, indeed the only realities, all else being a shadow and a dream. there was nothing cold about his morality, nothing soft or sweet--it was intense, hard and burning. a fanatic, carlin thought, frowning--but all the same a man to be reckoned with. iv at the close of the service, the minister stood at the door, to shake hands with his departing congregation. carlin, not disposed to shake his hand, went out and found himself joined by the doctor. they moved on with the crowd, and then stood on the edge of the sidewalk, under the maple trees, and waited. "he's a good speaker," said the doctor pensively. "i like to come and hear him once in a while." "yes," said carlin, coldly. "he's an able man." "he's too mystical for me, though.... seems to me you can think _too much_ about salvation, you can look at your own soul so hard that you get cross-eyed ... that's the way it affects some of them. the women think a lot of him." "yes." "i think some of his doctrine is rather dangerous," went on the doctor mildly. "it takes a strong head, you know, to keep it straight.... but he's all right, himself, he's a good man. got into trouble preaching against slavery--he lost his first church that way, in chicago--that was before the war. oh, yes, he's plucky." the doctor mused for a moment, while carlin watched the church door for mary, then he went on: "he doesn't pay much attention to worldly affairs, though--doesn't care about political institutions and so on. we had a discussion when he first came here, about slavery. he thinks nothing is of importance except the human soul, but each soul is of infinite importance, the soul of the black slave is just as important as that of his white master. he said he hated slavery because of its effect on the master more than on the slave. he said the slave could develop christian virtues, but the master couldn't." the doctor paused and chuckled softly. "i asked him," he resumed, "why, if the slaves outnumbered the masters, the sum of virtue might not be greater under slavery. but of course he had his answer, we were not to do evil that good might come.... shall we walk on? the women-folks are probably consulting about something or other. they do a lot of church-work." after a moment's hesitation, carlin accompanied him. "i didn't know mary was so much interested in the church," he said moodily. "she wasn't, before." "well," said the doctor. "the war has made a difference, you know. life has been harder--not many amusements--and lots of tragedies and suffering. we've had losses in our own family.... the church was about the only social thing that didn't seem wrong, to the women, you see. and they've done a lot of work, through it, for the soldiers and all that.... yes, mary's changed a good deal, she's very serious. i think the preacher has had a good deal of influence." "how?" asked carlin abruptly. "why, in getting her to think this world is vanity, a vale of tears, a place of trial, and so on.... it _is_, maybe, but she's too young to feel it so. i hope she'll get out of that and enjoy life a little," the doctor ended, with much feeling. they walked on in silence. carlin's heart was sore. the doctor had not mentioned his absence and peril as having anything to do with the change in mary. well, perhaps it hadn't had. he gave way to a sudden impulse. "you're not against her marrying me, are you?" he asked tremulously. "i know your wife is. she doesn't like me." "no, i like you, and i think well of you, laurence," was the doctor's grave answer. "as far as _you're_ concerned, i've no objection.... but sometimes i think mary isn't ready to marry yet." "she says she _is_," said laurence quickly. "i don't pretend to understand anything," said the doctor plaintively, and sighed. "perhaps--you think she doesn't care enough about me--is that it?" "sometimes i think she doesn't care about anybody," was the regretful answer. when they reached the gate, carlin did not go in. "i'll walk on, for a bit," he said. * * * * * the doctor went into his office-study and lighted a lamp. this room was arranged to suit him, and he did as he pleased in it. it smelt very much of tobacco, though there were no curtains and no carpet, only a couple of small rugs on the painted floor. the furniture consisted of a large desk, a sofa and two chairs, besides some shelves full of books. out of it opened his bedroom, which had an outside door with a night-bell. the doctor established himself in his easy-chair, with a pipe and a medical review. but his attention wandered from the printed page, and twice he let his pipe go out. half an hour passed before the women-folk returned, and he noted that they entered the house in silence. he opened his door and called mary gently. as she came in, she asked with surprise, "where's laurence?" "he went off for a little walk.... sit down, my dear, i want to talk to you." mary, with a startled and reluctant look, sat down on the sofa. she disliked the atmosphere of this room, not so much the tobacco-flavour as the flavour of the confessional. she was used to hearing low-toned murmurs coming from it through the closed door, and sometimes sounds of pain and weeping. and now she had an instant feeling that _she_ was in the confessional, as had happened a few times before during her girlhood, occasions of which she retained a definite impression of fear. "mary, are you sure you're doing right?" asked the doctor abruptly, yet gently. "right?" she murmured, defensively. "about marrying now. laurence tells me you are ready to marry him, at once." "yes, i am ready," said mary, with a forced calmness. "we have been engaged four years. i always expected to marry him when he came back." "and you haven't changed your mind at all, in those four years? you were very young, you know--it would be natural that you should change." "no--i haven't changed." "in some ways, you have.... but you mean not in that way. you still love laurence, as much as ever?" "yes," said mary, her heart beating fast and sending a deep flush into her cheeks. "because, you know, you are not bound to marry him," said the doctor sharply. "don't you think that a promise is binding?" asked mary. "certainly not--that kind of a promise! are you going to marry him just because you promised?" "i have no wish to break my promise," said mary. "because it's a promise, or because you want to marry him anyway and would, if you hadn't promised? come, mary, answer me!" "i want to keep my promise," said mary clearly, with a look of the most perfect obstinacy in her fair eyes. the doctor was hot-tempered, and banged a book on his desk with his fist. but instantly he controlled himself, for he loved this exasperating child of his, and there was no one but himself to stand between her and harm--so he felt it. "you mean," he said tenderly, "that you haven't any reason _not_ to keep it?" mary assented. "and laurence loves you and depends on you." her silence gave assent to this. "you feel it would be wrong to disappoint him--desert him." "yes, of course it would be." "and there's no one else you care about?" the last question was sharp and sudden. mary started slightly, and cast a troubled and angry glance at her inquisitor. but such was the personality of this little man with the gentle firm voice and pitying eyes, such was his relation to his daughter, that she never thought of denying his authority or right to question her. she felt obliged to answer him, and truthfully too. "nobody--in that way," she said faintly. "you don't love anyone else." "no." "and you haven't thought of marrying any one else?" there was just an instant's hesitation before she answered: "no." the doctor reflected, and mary sat still, her long eyelids drooping--the image of maiden calm. "well, then, i was mistaken," said the doctor after a pause. "i thought you were interested in some one else--and i guess your mother thought so too.... but it wasn't that kind of interest." "no, it wasn't," said mary quickly. "but it was--it is--an interest. i wish you could tell me what it is, why you think so much of mr. robertson as you do, what your feeling is about him." "but--it isn't a personal feeling!" cried mary, no longer calm, suddenly alert and on the defensive. "it has nothing to do with that!" "but you admire him and look up to him--" "of course i do! but you don't understand, you don't believe--" "it's religious, you mean, it's your feeling for religion, and he represents it--" "yes," said mary angrily. "don't be vexed with me, my dear--perhaps i don't understand these things, as you say.... but he is something like a spiritual director, isn't he, now?" "i don't know what you mean by that--" "i mean, you talk to him about your religious feelings, and he gives you counsel," said the doctor gravely. "yes--yes, he does." "have you talked to him about your marriage?" "i--why, no!" "you don't talk about worldly affairs, then--is that it? do you think marriage not important enough to talk about?" "it isn't that! i haven't, because--" here was a pause, and the doctor asked: "perhaps because, mary, you thought he had a feeling for you that--" "no, it wasn't that! he hasn't--it isn't that at all!" disturbed, distressed, she got up. "wait a minute, mary.... i wish you would talk to him about it," said the doctor in his most serious tone. "but, why? why should i?" "why? because it's a most important thing to you, and mixed up with everything, or should be. because you shouldn't keep your religion separate from your marriage. because you shouldn't shut laurence out from everything." "i shut him out?" "now you do as i tell you, mary," said the doctor quietly. he sat looking out of the window, feeling her bewilderment and silent revolt. he hesitated whether he should tell mary that he thought her religion erotic in origin and her feeling for the minister very personal indeed, but finally decided against it. she would deny it not only to him but to herself--women's minds were made like that. at last he said: "i think at first you were in love with laurence--but four years is a long time, and you were very young." "i haven't changed," said mary proudly. "yes, you have, but you don't want to admit it. you think there are higher things than being in love. you seem to think of marriage as a serious responsibility, a--sort of discipline." "isn't it?" she asked. "well, that isn't the way to go into it! confound it, i tell you you had better not!" he glared at her over his spectacles, then put out his hand and drew her toward him. "what a child you are, mary--with your airs of being a hundred and fifty!... i don't think you understand anything. the basis of marriage is physical, if that isn't right nothing is right--you want to think of that, mary. it's flesh and spirit, but _both_, not divided. if your imagination is drawn away from laurence to what you think are spiritual things, then you oughtn't to marry--or you ought to marry hilary." mary stood like a stone--her fingers turned cold in his grasp. he saw the tears flood her eyes, and got up and led her to the door, and dismissed her with a kiss on her cold cheek. v she went out and stood at the gate, waiting for laurence, uneasy about him, troubled by many thoughts, oppressed. she was still crying when she heard his step down the sidewalk, firm and quick. the thin little moon was already sinking behind the trees, but there was bright starlight, so that laurence could see her face. "what's the matter, mary?" he cried. "where have you been? why did you run off like that?" she demanded with a sob. she swung the gate open for him, but he took her hand and drew her out. "it's early yet--come, we don't want to go in yet. come, let's get away from everybody!" she was quite willing at the moment to get away from everybody. out of a vague sense of injury she continued to weep, and to laurence's anxious inquiries she returned a sobbing answer: "i don't think older people ought to interfere!... it's our own business, isn't it?... what do they know about it?..." laurence agreed passionately that they knew nothing about it and had better not interfere, and kissed her tearful eyes till she protested that they must go on now or somebody would be coming. she said softly: "poor laurence! this isn't very gay, for your first evening home!" "never mind about being gay!" he drew her hand firmly through his arm and strode down the street with a feeling that he was bearing her off triumphantly from a legion of enemies. when she was near him, and in a troubled and melting mood, like this, he feared nothing, his doubts vanished, he felt sure of her, and that was all he cared about at present. as for anybody interfering, that was nonsense. his spirits rose with a bound out of the evening's depression. soon he was talking light-heartedly and mary was laughing. he was quick and fluent, when at ease, and full of careless, gay and witty turns of speech that amused and charmed her. no one had ever amused her so much as laurence. with him life seemed really a cheerful affair, he was so rich in confidence--he had the brightest visions of the future. he was bubbling over now with plans, schemes of all sorts.... the vastness, the richness of the country, its endless opportunities, were in his imagination, a restless ambition in his veins. he had a feeling of his power, more than mere youthful self-confidence. already he had been tried and proved in different ways, and had stood the test. so far he had always been successful. his mind was restless now because a definite channel for his activity was to be fixed. he wanted mary's advice--rather, he wanted to know what she wanted. his own most marked bent was toward the law, with a vista of political power beyond. and there was money in the law, too. but if mary wanted more money, a lot of money--well, she had only to say so! as his talk came back to this point, mary said that she didn't care about money, and that he had better stick to the law and go into judge baxter's office. "not chicago?... i thought you'd like to make a start in a big city," he suggested persuasively. "why not here?... you'd have a better start with judge baxter, and you know he's a good lawyer, he has a big practice.... and then we could live at home till you get started," mary said practically. no, laurence didn't like that at all, it wouldn't do, living with mary's parents!... she didn't press that point, but she was firm about not going away--not to chicago, still less to some vague point "out west." laurence argued. _why_ did she want to stay here, in this one-horse town? why not the city? there was more life, there were more chances, in the city, she would like it better.... no! mary couldn't explain why she wanted to stay, but with emotion she made it clear that she _wanted_ to.... laurence was silenced. he took her hand and kissed it, perhaps in acquiescence. but he meditated, puzzled, asking himself _why_, after all.... he looked at the town from the vantage-point of his four years' wanderings. by contrast with the great cities he had seen, the east, populous and civilized, the picturesque south, beautiful mountains and valleys, stately old houses, glimpses of a life that had been rich in colour and luxury--beside all this the little town, his birth-place, seemed like a mere mud-spot on the prairie.... a little square, with a few brick buildings, the bank, the courthouse, small shops--two or three streets set with frame dwelling-houses, straggling out into the prairie--what was the attraction, the interest of this place?... his absence had broken all his own associations with it except as to mary. his mother, the last remaining member of his family, had died the year before; his only brother had been killed at shiloh. the friends of his youth had scattered, most of them in the army. he could not see himself settling here.... perhaps, for a little while, till he had finished his law-reading, if he decided on the law--they might stay till then, since mary wanted it. but _why_ did she? to be sure, she knew no other place, what friends and interests she had were here--but she was young, she must want to see something of the world! he shook his head, in pensive bewilderment. women were queer, decidedly! he made no pretence of understanding the sex--in fact never had had time or occasion to make an exhaustive study of it. they had come to the end of the board sidewalk; beyond was only a path by the roadside. they went a little distance along this, but it was muddy; a stream, dividing the road from the pasture, had overflowed. mary thought they had better turn back, but laurence protested. so they sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, among a clump of willows that hung over the stream. the lights of the town were faintly visible on one side; on the other, the prairie stretched out dark and silent, with the starry sky bright by contrast. a slight breeze swayed the long fronds of the willows, the stream gurgled softly along its mud-bed, and from a pond out in the pasture rose the musical bassoon of an amorous bull-frog.... the damp heavy air, hardly stirring, had a sweet oppression, a troubled languor, the pulse of the spring.... laurence sighed deeply. turning, he took mary gently in his arms, and kissed her lowered eyelids and her lips, first lightly, then lingeringly, then as she began to resist, with passionate possession. "don't--don't push me away," he begged. "come near to me...." but she was frightened, and struggled against his strong clasp, till she slipped down, bent backward over the tree-trunk, and cried out with pain and anger. laurence released her suddenly, roughly. "you don't love me," he said. she got to her feet, trembling, but laurence sat still, turning away from her. "you don't love me," he repeated bitterly. "you'd better leave me--go back." without a word she moved away, her head bent, stumbling a little on the dark path. he looked after her sullenly. yes, she would go, like that, without a word to him, without a sign.... was she angry--was she hurt?... that silence of hers was a strong weapon. she disappeared beyond the trees.... no, he couldn't let her go like that. in a moment he overtook her. "take my arm," he said curtly. "the path's rough." she took it, and they went back in silence. as they came to a street-light he looked at her, and saw the mysterious mask of her face more immobile, more impassive than ever. doubt had come back upon him, now it was almost despair. he had a strong impulse to break with her, to tell her that he was going away. she was too elusive, too distant, too cold.... but instead, when they came to her gate, he only murmured sadly: "forgive me, mary." and to his surprise she bent toward him to kiss him good-night, and said steadily: "you shouldn't have said what you did. i _do_ love you. why should i want to marry you if i don't love you?" "i don't know, mary," said laurence with a faint weary smile. vi judge baxter's office was in the bank building, up a flight of worn and dingy stairs. carlin, knowing the judge's habits, appeared there at eight o'clock the next morning, and was warmly welcomed. the judge was a big man, with waves of white hair and beard and bright blue eyes; carelessly dressed; with a quid of tobacco in his cheek, which did not interfere with his speech, but gave him a somewhat bovine, meditative air, as he rolled and nibbled at it in the intervals of conversation. "coming back to me, laurence?" he said at once, tilting back his chair and beaming at the young man. "i don't know--i came to talk things over," laurence hesitated. "hope you will--don't see as you could do better. i always said you ought to go into law. and i need an assistant. what's the objection?" "well--i hadn't thought of settling here." "i know." the judge nodded. "hard to settle down now--i expect things seem pretty dull and drab to you around here. natural. a lot of good fellows will have the _wanderlust_--" "no, i want to settle down.... i want to be married soon," said laurence, slightly embarrassed. "yes, i know--miss mary! think of her waiting for you all this time--a lot of girls wouldn't have done that, and i don't believe she even had a sweetheart," said the judge, his eyes twinkling. "though i tell you, if i'd been twenty years younger--you see, she used to run up here and read me some of your letters.... she's a beautiful woman," ended the old man warmly. "i must make some money--i haven't a dollar!" laurence explained. "i thought there'd be better chances in the city perhaps, or--" "no, no!" the judge protested. "why, look here, you'd have a salary--not much, to be sure, at first--but you come into my office and peg away at blackstone and chitty--and in a year or less you can be admitted to the bar. and meantime you could live with the old folks--they're so wrapped up in mary, they'd like it--" "no," said laurence positively, "i wouldn't do that. i must have a place of my own to take her to." "well, yes, i understand." the judge chewed his cud for a moment, then his face lit up. "see here, why shouldn't you live with me!... i've got a good-sized house and there's the whole top floor i never use, and i've got a sort of housekeeper, such as she is. you two young folks could have all the room you want, and mary could fix up the old place and make it a hell of a lot more cheerful, and i'd have somebody to eat with and something pretty to look at--why, jesus, man! it would be charity to me, it would, upon my soul! say you will, now!" "why, judge, you're very kind, i don't know--i'll think it over, and talk to mary--we'd pay our board, of course," laurence stammered, rather overcome. "board, hell!" said the judge, excited. "mary could fix up some pies and things once in a while--i haven't had a decent doughnut for a year.... well, you can board if you want to, we won't quarrel.... and you can be making something besides your salary, if you don't mind work--" "i don't," said laurence, smiling, curiously touched by the old man's warmth. somehow he felt at home now for the first time since his return, he felt some wish to stay. the judge pondered and rolled his quid. "ever run a creamery?" he asked, suddenly, with a twinkle. laurence shook his head. "i was principal of a school once," he remarked. "well, i haven't got a school, but i've got a creamery--that is, i'm the receiver. owner was killed at vicksburg, and his widow has been trying to run it--it's a big place at elmville, about five miles from here--i need a manager for it. i tell you what, laurence, you have a bite of dinner with me at twelve, and then we'll drive over there, i've got to go anyway, and we can talk it over on the way--" there was a knock at the glazed door, the pale youth who occupied the outer office put his head in and announced a client. laurence rose. the judge escorted him out with an arm round his shoulders, and they were to meet at the tavern. "it's only a little worse than at my house," judge baxter said cheerfully. "we need a good hotel here. we need a lot of things, principally some good, hustling young men--i tell you, we've missed you fellows. but the town's all right, you mustn't look down on our town, we're going ahead." laurence strolled across the little square, the centre of the town, and smiled at the judge's civic fervour. he could not see any signs of enterprise or change, except that the young maple trees along the sidewalks had grown, and there were two or three new buildings. the same row of country plugs tied to wooden posts in front of the courthouse, the same row of loafers in front of the saloon. the dry-goods store had a new window with a display of shirts and neckties. there was a new tonsorial parlour, with a gaily painted striped pole, the cigar-store had a wooden indian standing on the sidewalk, holding out a bunch of wooden cigars, and the opera-house had been repainted, and had large bills outside, announcing a minstrel show. yes, there was an ice-cream parlour, too, with a window full of confectionery. laurence stopped to buy a cigar, and spoke to two or three people who recognized him; their greetings were friendly enough but not especially cordial. laurence had no great fund of friendship to draw upon in his native town. he said to himself, as he walked on, that judge baxter was his only friend there. should he go and see mary this morning? it was too early to go yet--and there was a sore feeling in him about mary. no, he would wait till he had made his expedition with the judge and had something definite to talk to her about. something practical, that would suit her. he smiled wryly and went on along the street. there was not much of the brass band about this home-coming, he reflected, not much of hail, the conquering hero comes. no, he would sink into civilian life without any fuss being made over him--so would all the other fellows, the men he had marched with this last week, through the streets of washington, sherman's magnificent army. there had been plenty of brass band there, they had felt pretty important then--it was a shame that the old man hadn't been allowed to lead his army in review, but had been sent straight off to the border. laurence had a feeling of personal affection for the old man, and he realized suddenly, for his companions in arms. he was going to miss them, those tough chaps, scattered now to the four winds of heaven. the best soldiers on earth--now, like him, they would have to compete empty-handed with the fat citizens who had stayed behind and been piling up money these four years. laurence scowled under the rim of his cap, and reflected that he must get himself a suit of civilian clothes. the street he was on brought him to the railroad tracks. a long freight-train was passing, car after car loaded with cattle, going to chicago. after it had passed, he crossed the tracks, and the street became a road, which led up a slight rise, to the cemetery. he followed it listlessly, his eyes fixed on the wide expanse of tombstones, crosses, spires, slabs of grey and white, that covered the swell of the prairie. the cemetery was considerably more populous than the town, he thought; and now he was here, he would go and look at his mother's grave. he had some difficulty in finding it, though he vaguely remembered its location. the lot had been neglected, the prairie-grass had grown long over it, hiding the grey slab with her name, the date of her death and her age, forty-seven. another small stone, with a dove and the name "evangeline," marked the grave of his little sister, dead twenty years. and this was all that remained of his family. patrick lay on the field of shiloh. as to his father, he might be dead or living--he had run away ten years before, and nothing had ever been heard of him. he stood looking sorrowfully down on the unkempt grass. poor his mother had lived, poor she had died, and alone too. pat and he had both gone and left her. he had been very fond of his mother. the proud woman she was, and silent, with long black hair and fine little hands and feet--and she worked at the wash-tub, and he and pat, bare-footed boys, carried the wash home in baskets. oh, but she had a bitter tongue when she did let it out, and she let his father have it. he remembered the night when his father struck her, and he, laurence, fifteen then, knocked his father flat on the floor. that was the last night they saw him, he had sworn he wouldn't stay to be beaten by his own son, and they had all been glad he went.... he turned away, and went on across the rise, thinking he would get out into the country. at the far side of the cemetery he passed a little plot without even a headstone but neatly kept, where a girl in a grey dress was kneeling, setting out some plants. he noticed her slim figure and her copper-coloured hair, but passed without seeing her face. she called after him. "oh, larry! is it you?" he turned and she got up and put out both hands to him, smiling, showing her big white teeth. "well, nora!" he cried, clasping her hands gladly. "why, what a young lady you've grown!" she was not pretty, her red mouth was too big and her nose turned up, and she was freckled, but she had a slim graceful shape, her hair was a glory and her eyes full of warmth. she had been laurence's playmate of old--she belonged to the only other irish family in town. they had lived in the slum together, and she had been his first sweetheart. "and you!" she said, looking at him shyly with artless admiration. "i hardly knew you, and yet i knew it was you!" they stood and talked for a while. laurence found out that she was tending the grave of her brother, "colin, you'll remember," who had come back with the prison-fever on him, and died, "wasted to the bone." and that she did very well, she had been working on a dairy farm but it was too hard for her, and now she had got a place in the store, and was to begin next week. she lived with her mother. when laurence said he would go to see her she seemed a little embarrassed, and asked, couldn't they meet some evening outside, her mother was a bit queer. so they arranged to meet on sunday evening, (mary would be at church) by the big willow on the river road. nora looked a little disappointed, perhaps at having the meeting put off so long, but she was not one to demand or expect much. laurence remembered what she had been--an humble, generous little creature, grateful for the least kindness, and she didn't get much. she was always giving more than she got, to her family and every one. she was hot-tempered, too, and would fly into a rage easily, and then dissolve in repentant tears. he looked at her rough red hands--poor nora always had worked hard. but her neat dress, her carefully arranged hair, showed that she was making the most of herself. her skin was soft and creamy, in spite of the freckles, her eyes were almost the colour of her hair, deep reddish-brown. they were like a dog's eyes, so soft and warm and wistful. poor nora, what a good little thing she was! with a quick glance round, laurence seized her in his arms and kissed her very warmly on her red mouth. she blushed and trembled, but did not resist. she never had been able to resist any sign of affection, however careless. he kissed her again, and said a few tender words to her, in a lordly way. the homage of her shining dazzled eyes was sweet to him. and besides, the remembrance of old times had wakened. as he left her and went on down the slope, along the country road, he realized that his memories of this place were deep. he would still have said that there was not much he cared to remember, that it was better to cut loose and begin afresh in some new place. the poverty of his boyhood still stung him, the community had looked down upon him and his, and old slights rankled in him. and yet it seemed that, little by little, things were shaping to tie him here. not only outside, but in himself he was feeling as if some root went down deep into the black soil of the prairie and held him. vii it was late afternoon when they drove back behind the judge's spanking pair of bays, hitched to a light buggy. the roads were very rough, with frequent mud-holes where the wheels sank nearly to the axle, but when they got a fairly level stretch the trotters stepped out finely. laurence had enjoyed this day. on the way over they had talked politics. judge baxter was a fiery republican. his face flushed red with wrath as he spoke of lincoln's murder and hoped they would hang jeff davis for it. he was in favour of a heavy hand on the south--lincoln would have been gentle with them, they had killed him, the blank rebels, now let them have it. _vae victis!_ laurence was cooler. he had no anger against the men he had helped to fight and beat. they were good fighters, good men, most of them. he did not think the southern leaders had plotted the attack on lincoln and seward. they had fought for a wrong idea, a wrong political system, and they had been beaten. now they wanted peace, not revenge, he thought. they had suffered enough. if they were still to be punished, it would take longer to establish the union in reality. the men who had fought for the union wanted to see it a reality, not one section against another any more, but one country, united in spirit, great and powerful. the judge had listened, and then said meditatively: "you fellows that did the fighting seem to have less bitterness than some of us that had to stay at home--i've noticed that. i suppose you worked it off in fighting." "why, yes," laurence agreed. "and then, when you come right up against the other fellow, you find he's folks, just like yourself. of course he's wrong and you have to show him, but he fights the best he can for what he believes in, he risks his life, the same as you do--and when it's over you feel like shaking hands, in spite of--" "you think we ought to let them come back in the union, as if nothing had happened?" "why," said laurence slowly. "aren't they in it? if we fought to prove they couldn't go out when they felt like it--" "well, authorities differ on that point. i've heard some right smart arguments on both sides," said the judge sharply. after a short silence, he went on: "i see you've been thinking and keeping track of things.... this is a great time we live in, laurence, i wish i was young like you and could see all that's going to happen. still, i've had my day, i've seen a good deal--and maybe done a little. we had some kind of fighting to do here at home, you know, we had plenty of black-hearted copperheads here.... you ought to go into public life, my boy, and there's no entering wedge like the law." but it was on the way home, after they had spent the afternoon inspecting the creamery, a large brick building in the midst of a small town, going over accounts and talking with various people, it was then that judge baxter urged on laurence the wisdom of following the path before him here. "i don't see any use in rambling over the country looking for something better, ten to one you won't find it," he argued. "and you haven't time to lose, laurence, you ought to be buckling right down to your job. our town may look small to you, but she's linked up to a lot of things. to be the big man of this place is better than being a small fish in chicago--to be the best lawyer at the bar of your state is no small thing. it might lead anywhere, and i believe you've got it in you.... this is your state, laurence--this country round here is a rich country and it's going to be richer--you ought to stay with it." the judge swept his whip in a wide circle over the prairie. they were driving westward, the low sun was dazzling in their eyes. laurence looked to the left and the right, over the low rolling swells to the horizon. where the plough had cut, endless furrows stretched away, black and heavy, with young green blades showing. herds of cattle spotted the pastures. yes, it was rich land.... with the flood of sunlight poured along it, the fresh green starting through, the piping song of the birds that have their nests in the grass, the wind that blew strongly over the great plain, smelling of the spring, it had a strange sweetness to laurence, even beauty.... no, it was not beauty, but some sort of appeal, vague but strong.... "you'd have your own people behind you," said the judge. that broke the spell, for the moment. laurence smiled bitterly. "you know what my people were--and what _your_ people thought of them," he said in a cutting tone. "to tell the truth, that's one reason i want to go. i want to forget that i lived in shanty-town and my mother was mrs. carlin the washerwoman, not good enough to associate with _your_ women--that weren't good enough, most of them, to tie the shoes on her little feet!" the judge turned, pulling the broad brim of his hat over his eyes, and looked at the young man's face, pale and set with ugly lines. "laurence," he said after a moment, "if you're the man i think you are, you won't want to forget that. we can none of us forget what we have been, what we came from. you can't do anything for your mother now, and i know it's bitter to you. but you can make her name, her son, respected and honoured here--not somewhere else, where she was never known, but _here_, where she lived. that would mean a lot to her. doesn't it mean something to you?" the judge continued to look earnestly at laurence's face, and presently saw it relax, soften, saw the stormy dark-blue eyes clear, become fixed as though upon a light ahead. "judge," said laurence huskily, "you understand a lot of things. perhaps you're right--" the judge, holding whip and reins in one hand, put out the other and they shook hands warmly. they were silent for a while, then the judge began to talk about the local situation, finance and politics, with a good many shrewd personal sketches mixed in. "you want to know every string to this town," he remarked. judge baxter knew all these strings, evidently, and could, he insinuated, pull a good many of them. though too modest to point the fact, he himself illustrated his contention that, to live in a small town, a man need not be small. if he knew cook county thoroughly, the county knew him too. he had rather the air of a magnate, in spite of his seedy dress, his beard stained with tobacco. he had more money than he cared for. his only adornment was a big diamond in an old-fashioned ring on his little finger, but he drove as good horses as money could buy. near the end of their journey he asked: "well, what do you say--about made up your mind?" "pretty much. i'll talk to mary tonight. i don't think she'll have anything against it. but the women have to be consulted, you know," said laurence lightly. "oh, of course, of course." the judge didn't think the women had to be consulted--but then he was a bachelor. "i really don't see why you should be so good to me--take all this trouble about me," pondered laurence. "well," said the judge judicially, "it isn't altogether for you, though i may say that i like you, laurence. but i'm looking out for myself too. i calculate that you're going to be useful to me, you might say a credit to me, if i have anything to do with giving you a start. i see more in you than--well, i think you're one in a thousand. remember i've seen you grow up, i know pretty much all about you.... i tell you, i felt mighty bad when you marched away. i knew it was right, you had to go, i wouldn't have held you back if i could--and yet i said to myself, ten to one a bullet will pick off that boy instead of some of those lubbers along with him, and i felt _bad_. why," the judge ended pensively, "i thought i knew then about how it feels to have a son go to war--" rather startled himself at this touch of sentiment, he flicked the off-horse with his whip, and they dashed into the town at top speed. viii in the dusk mary stood waiting for him by the gate. he had thought she might be piqued or angry at him, but she met him without the slightest coquetry, asking only where on earth he had been all day. her tone was almost motherly, a little anxious, as if he had been a truant child. he liked it. they sat on the steps. the wind had fallen and the evening was warm. there was the crescent moon over the tree-tops, but tonight it was hazy, a veil had drawn across the sky. there was rain in the air. a syringa-bush beside the steps, in flower, and the honeysuckle over the porch, were strongly fragrant. "i'll tell you in a little while, i'm tired," said laurence lazily. he leaned his head against her knee and she swept her cool finger-tips over his crisp black hair, touching his temples and his eyelids. "are you?" she asked softly. he sighed with pleasure, shutting his eyes, knowing that he could take his time to speak, mary was in no hurry, she never was. sometimes her silence and repose had irritated him, but more often it was a deep pleasure to him. the night was as quiet as she. not a leaf stirred. a cricket chirped under the porch. the honeysuckle was almost too sweet in the damp air. thin veil upon veil hid the stars, and the moon was only a soft blur. when her hand ceased to touch his hair, he reached up and took it, clasping the cool strong fingers and soft palm. he moved and looked up at her. she wore a white dress, sweeping out amply from the waist, open a little at the neck, and she had a flower of the syringa in her hair. the outline of her face, bent above him, was clear and lovely. "how beautiful you are," he murmured. "i love you." she put her arms around him and drew him up, his head to her shoulder. "and i'm very, very fond of you," she whispered. "more than i ever was of anybody. but sometimes you're so impatient." "yes," he said submissively. "you get angry with me. you always did." "yes," he said humbly. "i'll try not to. but sometimes i think you don't love me." "but i do," she assured him gently. "but sometimes--" he stopped. "well, what?" "no, i won't say it." "yes, tell me." "well, sometimes--you don't seem to like to have me touch you, you--" "i don't like you to be rough," said mary. "am i--rough?" "sometimes." "but if you liked me, you--" "no, i do, and you know it." "i don't see why you should, after all." "should what?" "love me." "well, it's been so long now, i couldn't very well stop," said mary, smiling. "yes, a long time.... and you really have, all the time?" "oh, yes." "and nobody else? ever?" "no, you know it," said mary, lifting her head proudly. he was silent, thinking of the years past.... yes, it had been a long time--six years. they had first met at the high school, then at the country college where he was working his way and mary was preparing to teach. he hadn't made many friends--he had been sensitive and apt to take offence, and had plenty of fighting to do. but mary had been his friend from the first. hers was the first "respectable" house in town to open its doors to him. he, however, did not know what a battle-royal had been fought over his admission there. mrs. lowell of course had been against him. in that little town where people apparently lived on terms of equality, caste-prejudice was subtle and strong, and mrs. lowell had her full share. money didn't count for much, as nobody had very much, but education and "family" counted heavily, also worldly position. the town had its aristocracy--the banker, the minister, the lawyers and the doctor. mary, with all her mother's obstinacy, had something of her father's crystal outlook on the world, his perfect unworldliness. she cared nothing for what "people would say," and she seemed to look serenely over the heads of her neighbours and to see something, whatever it was, beyond. when she and her mother had come to a deadlock about laurence, the doctor was called in, and gave his voice on mary's side. so laurence had become a visitor, on equal terms with the other young people--not invited to meals very often, for that was not the custom, but free to drop in of an evening or to take mary out. their youthful friendship had grown and deepened rapidly, and as mary at seventeen was old enough to teach school, she was able also to engage herself to him, in spite of her mother's opposition and her father's wish that she should wait. many girls were married at seventeen or sixteen. mary had made up her mind, and when this happened, it was not apt to change. her nature had a rock-like immobility; hard to impress, it held an impression as the rock a groove. * * * * * memories and thoughts of her were passing through carlin's mind--vague, coloured by her warmth and nearness, a soft tide of adoration. he had always admired her deeply, she appealed to his imagination as no other woman ever had. he had known other women, more easily moved, more loving, more ready to respond and give, than mary. and he wanted love, wanted it warm and expressive and caressing, wanted a long deep draught of it. but--he wanted mary, and no other woman. now she would be his, very soon. he was very happy there, with his head on her shoulder, feeling the soft even beating of her heart; but at this thought he moved, his arms closed around her impetuously, and the dreamy peace that enfolded them was broken. "there, you bad boy," she said with mild chiding. "don't pull my hair down--now tell me what you've been doing all day." he told her, after some insistence--all except the meeting with nora. laurence never, if he could help it, mentioned one woman he had any liking for to another. but in this case he didn't think of nora at all. he told mary all about the judge and his offers; the prospect of immediate work, of a temporary home with the judge, if she liked the idea. in that case they could be married at once. she moved away from him, clasped her arms round her knees, and sat silent. "what is it--have i said anything to bother you?" asked laurence alarmed. "i'm just thinking," she answered absently. after a time she began to speak her thoughts. "it will seem odd, going to live at the judge's house. mother won't like it, she'll want us to stay here, she will think that people will think it's queer if we don't. but it wouldn't be best to live here. father will understand, i think. he doesn't care what people think, it never bothers him at all. but mother is different." "and how about you, mary? does it suit you?" "oh, yes, until we can have a house of our own." "that won't be for long, i hope. i'll do my best." mary turned and looked gravely at him. "do you feel contented to stay here, after all?" "perhaps it's best," said laurence vaguely. "you know the judge will be a great help to you, getting started." "oh, yes, i see that, it makes a lot of difference. but the main reason is, you want it." "yes, i think it's better." they spoke in low tones, though the house was empty and dark behind them. the doctor was off on his round, and mrs. lowell had gone out to a neighbour's. about them now the leaves stirred softly, a damp breath lifted the honeysuckle sprays. then came a soft rustling. "rain," said laurence. they moved up into some low chairs on the porch. "shall i get you a wrap?" "no, thank you." "do you mind if i smoke?" "no." laurence lit a cigar, and laid his left hand on mary's knee. the gently falling rain seemed to shut them in together, in a strange delicious quiet. "can you tell me, mary, why it is that you feel so strongly about this place?... you've always lived here, why is it you don't want something new?" "i don't like new things," she said, after a pause. "you're a strange girl!... you don't seem like a girl at all, sometimes you seem about a thousand years old. i feel like a boy beside you." "you _are_ a boy," said mary. from her tone, she was smiling. "i would like to know where you get your air of experience, of having seen everything! it's astonishing!" "everything is everywhere," said mary serenely. "now, when you say a thing like that! upon my word! where do you get it? i don't half like it, it doesn't seem natural!" laurence pulled hard at his cigar, blew out a great cloud of smoke. "i hope you're not going to be a saint," he said petulantly. mary made no reply, but quietly drew her hand away from his. "there, now, i've done it again!" he groaned. "you think i'm a barbarian, don't you. i don't understand you? well, i don't! i think you're wonderful.... but you don't explain things to me, you don't talk--i don't feel that you give me your confidence, not all of it--" "i don't like to talk much.... and you're in too much of a hurry about everything," said mary coldly. "well, _you're_ not!... you have about as much speed as a glacier!" he sprang up and walked to the end of the porch and stood with his back to her. but he couldn't stand there forever. and certainly mary could sit there forever. he turned and looked at her dim stately outline, the white blur of her dress. the rain pattered softly all around, a great wave of sweetness came from the honeysuckle. it came to him that he might as well quarrel with the slow turning of the earth, he might as well be angry with the rain for falling.... she was right--he was impatient and violent, and foolish--awfully foolish. no wonder she called him a boy.... hadn't he any self-control, any ...? he went back to her, knelt beside her, accusing himself; she did not accuse herself, but she put her arms around him. they made peace. ix the minister lived in a small frame house near the church. a widow woman of certain age and uncertain temper kept his house and provided his ascetic fare. it was she who opened the door to mary, with the suspicious glance due to the visitor's youth and good looks. proclaiming that mr. robertson was busy writing his sermon, she nevertheless consented to knock at his study door, and after a moment mary was admitted. hilary rose from his desk to receive her, gave her hand a quick nervous clasp, and indicated a chair facing the windows, the only easy-chair in the bare room. for himself he was impatient of comfort. he sat down again before his desk and waited for mary to speak, but seeing that she looked pale and troubled and hesitated, he began with an effort to question her. "what is it, mary? you have something to tell me? how can i help you?" she looked earnestly at him, her face was more youthful in its expression of appeal and confidence. "you're the only person i _can_ speak to.... nobody else understands," she murmured. "every one thinks i am wrong." "how, wrong?" "my mother is so unhappy, and she makes me unhappy.... do you think i'm wrong, to marry against her wish?" hilary was silent, looking at some papers on his desk and moving them about. at last he said in a low voice: "not if you're sure, otherwise, that it's right--for you, i mean. we have to judge for ourselves, nobody can judge for us.... your parents are opposed ... to your marriage?" "yes--in a different way, not for the same reason. my mother never has liked laurence, she doesn't trust him--and my father--doesn't trust _me_, he doesn't think i know my own mind." "and are you sure you do?" "oh, yes," said mary. "i couldn't desert laurence, possibly, and i don't see why i should put him off longer--when it has been so long already--" "you want to marry soon, then?" "yes, in two weeks." "here?" "why, we would be married at home, i suppose." "and then--are you going away?" "no, laurence is going into judge baxter's office, and we're going to live at the judge's house, for the present." "i see," said hilary, in a trembling voice. "at first laurence wanted to go away, to start somewhere else, but i persuaded him to stay here," mary went on. "i didn't want to go to a strange place. all i care about is here. i don't want to go away from you, mr. robertson, i depend on you--" hilary pushed back his chair sharply, then, controlling himself, folded his arms tight across his breast. his back was to the light which fell on mary's face, raised toward him with a look of humility that perhaps no one but he ever saw there. "you've taught me so much, and helped me to see.... before i knew you, i didn't know anything about life, how one should live.... you're so strong, so good...." "_i_ am?... you know very little about it, mary. don't say that sort of thing, please." "oh, it's just because you don't think you are that you're so wonderful--" hilary looked into her eyes bright and liquid with feeling, and said to himself that he must keep this faith, he must not disturb it by a look, a word--or his hold on her would be gone. he said abruptly: "your mother has talked to me. she thinks--as you say, she doesn't trust--captain carlin. she thinks he is irreligious and unsteady--and with a bad inheritance. she is troubled about you, she thinks you are marrying just because you gave your word, years ago, and don't like to break it.... is it so, mary?" in spite of himself, this question was a demand. mary looked startled. "no, no, she doesn't understand. i love laurence, and he is good, though--though in some ways.... nobody is perfect, you know, and we shouldn't stop loving people just because they aren't altogether--what we would like.... we ought to try to help them, i know you think so--" "you think you can help him, then?" "i hope so, i--" "do you think you're strong enough to help another?" mary's bright look wavered a little, was shadowed. "aren't you too confident? perhaps you have a little too much pride in yourself. you may lose what you have instead of helping another." she bowed her head, turning pale under this reproof, wincing, but she said humbly: "you will help me." "i'm not sure that i can," said hilary sharply. "when you are married, it will be different--you may not be able to do as you would like, live as you would--" "but i must!" mary got up, pale and agitated. "laurence wouldn't interfere with me in that way, he couldn't. nothing could!" she went a step toward hilary, and stopped, suddenly bewildered and almost frightened by his look. and hilary could bear no more. he turned away from her, bent over his papers, and said harshly: "i must work now, i can't talk to you any longer.... don't look for an easy life, mary, you won't have it." "but i don't!" she protested. with relief she seized upon his words, her eyes lit up again. "why should i look for an easy life? i don't want it--i expect struggle and suffering, isn't that what life is? you have told me so--" "well, then, you won't be disappointed," cried hilary almost savagely. "if you _can_ suffer--i don't know whether you can or not...." he took up a pen and dipped it blindly in the ink, and waited for the closing of the door. "you are against me too," said mary blankly. he made an impatient movement, but did not look around at her. "you must not mind who is against you, as you call it, if you're sure you are right. that's the hard thing, to be sure," he said in the same harsh voice. he was struggling. why not be honest with mary, tell her that he could not advise her, tell her why?... he thought she could not be so blind as she seemed to his feeling for her.... but it would be dishonourable to express that feeling, as she was not free. and it would shock her faith in him. she depended on him, not as a man who loved her, but as a sexless superior being, who could teach and lead her.... but he was not that, he was quite helpless himself for the moment at least, certainly he could not help her. why pretend to be what he was not? he felt her bewilderment, her disappointment. he did not dare look at her, still she lingered. what a child she was after all! looking for support, for approval, and yet so rigid in her own way, so sure of herself! no, she never had suffered anything, and she was trying to make of her religion an armour against life, that would keep her from suffering. he mourned over her. she did not see anything as yet, perhaps she never would, few women could. in his heart hilary regarded religion as the activity of a man, much as fighting. he was impatient with the emotional religion of women; though he could hardly have admitted it to himself, he had a tinge of the oriental feeling that women have no souls of their own and that they can get into heaven only by clinging to the garment of a man.... he would have said that religion is too strenuous for women, they do not think, feel deeply enough.... but it was his duty to help these weak sisters and manfully he did it as best he could. they clung to his garment and he resisted frequent impulses to twitch it out of their hands. in the case of mary he knew that she was as feminine as the worst of them. only she had more firmness, more clearness, there was some kind of strength in her--and she did not chatter. oh, how beautiful she was!... he sat, making aimless scrawls on his paper, and feeling her there behind him, feeling her gaze fixed on him. she was waiting for him to say something, what on earth could he say? should he say that his heart was breaking at the thought that in two weeks she would belong to another man, and that he, hilary robertson, was expected to stand up and perform the ceremony that would give her to this man, and that he would not do it? he made a long dash across the paper, and rose, turned to her. "you must go now, mary--i'm busy.... you did not come to me because you're in doubt yourself as to what you ought to do, or want to do?" "no," faltered mary. "then, if you're sure of yourself, i have no advice to give you. if not, make sure. don't fear to inflict suffering--some one suffers, whatever we do. we can't avoid that, we have to look beyond it." "yes," breathed mary devoutly, her eyes fixed on his face. "but we needn't go out to look for martyrdom either--we can trust life for that," said hilary bitterly. she went away, reluctantly, unsatisfied. she had wanted, expected, one of those long talks, confidential yet impersonal, that had meant so much to her during the year past. never before had he treated her this way, he had always had time for her, had shown an eager interest in her difficulties. her face was clouded as she walked slowly home. she was bent on keeping this relation with her spiritual teacher just as it had been. but now she wondered if her marriage was going to make a difference, had already disturbed and troubled it. why should that be? it made no difference to her, why should it to him? she did not want to think that hilary was a man like other men, she refused to think of him in that way. no, he was better, higher, he was above personal feelings--that was her idea of him. she knew that he cared about her, but the image of the shepherd and his sheep, the pastor and his flock, dwelt in her mind. if she was distinguished from the rest of the flock by a special care, then it was the mystic love of a soul for another soul, it had nothing to do with mere human love, the desire for personal satisfaction, for caresses and companionship. to see hilary seeking such things would spoil completely her idea of him. she saw him as a sort of saint, who denied the flesh. did he not live in the most uncomfortable way, eating hardly enough to keep body and soul together, as the widow said, and working beyond his strength, always pale and tired-looking? he was devoted to service. it was impossible to think of him as taking thought for the morrow, for food and raiment, or as married and having a family. she remembered how, when he had first come, the ladies of the congregation had tried to make him comfortable--one had even worked him a pair of slippers--and how he had brushed their ministrations aside. he was subject to severe colds, but by now they had learned not to offer any remedies, or even express solicitude. mary never had offended in that way. she liked his carelessness about himself, his shabby clothes and frayed tie. she felt that probably he would work himself to death, would go into a decline and die in a few years, but she did not grieve over this prospect as the other sisters did. truly the earth had no hold on him, he was already like a spirit. she had been profoundly shocked by her father's suggestion that she might marry hilary--the more so as the idea had before occurred to her that possibly hilary thought of it. but she had rejected this idea, with all her obstinacy refused to consider it. now it came back to her, but she denied it. she would not have her idol spoiled by any such feet of clay. the fact that hilary repulsed with irritation any attempts to idolize him, or to regard him as a superior being, only affirmed her conviction that he was one. as such he was precious to her, and as such she would keep him. x judge baxter was happy. he decided at once that his house was not fit for the reception of the fair bride, it must be made so. he took laurence with him to inspect the house from cellar to garret and unfolded a scheme of complete renovation. "women like things bright and cheerful," he said, beaming. "gay colours and lots of little fixings, instead of this--" and he looked round the chocolate and maroon parlours. "i'll run up to chicago tomorrow and see what i can find. the wall-papers now--they'll have to be changed. some light colours--roses, that kind of thing. new carpets. and the furniture--hasn't been touched since i bought the place. time it was. and we need a piano for mary--" "say, judge, you mustn't buy out the town," protested laurence. "we don't want you to go to a lot of expense--" "pshaw, pshaw! don't interfere with me--guess i can do what i like in my own house, can't i? if i want some new furniture, what have you got to say about it? but i tell you, laurence--suppose you come along with me--you know better than i do what women like. or look here! why shouldn't we take miss mary? _that's_ the thing!" he glowed with pleasure at this idea. "i tell you, we three will go up together, say tomorrow morning, and we'll make a day of it, or better, a couple of days! we'll see the town, have a good dinner, go to the theatre, and mary can pick out the stuff we want. i'll arrange at the office, and you go along and fix it up with mary and her people. tell 'em i'll look after her, and if she _don't_ come i'll buy everything in sight!" the judge was accustomed to getting what he wanted. not considering this threat sufficient, he added a note of pathos. "tell her i haven't had a vacation for a coon's age, and if she wants to please an old fellow and give him a good time, she'll come. you're both my guests and i'm going to enjoy myself. damn it, man, you _fetch_ her. if you don't i'll go after her myself!" * * * * * the judge did enjoy himself. from the train he took a carriage straight to the biggest furniture house on state street, and there he plunged into a fury of buying. mary and laurence stood by, but it turned out that they had very little to say about it. when the judge found that mary had no definite ideas about furniture and that she demurred whenever any expensive article was in question, he over-rode her bewildered protests and bought whatever struck his eye. he bought a light carpet with red roses on it for the parlour, a set of shiny mahogany upholstered in flowered brocade, a carved oak set for the dining-room. he bought three cut-glass chandeliers and a grand piano; marble vases, an onyx clock and a service of french china. it did not take long. he walked rapidly through the room, followed by the salesmen, glancing round with an eagle eye and pointing with his cane to what he wanted. sometimes he asked mary's opinion, but she was shy about giving it, and provided a thing was bright enough and costly enough, the judge was sure she must like it. he discovered that he himself had more taste than he had suspected; he knew a good article from an inferior one in a minute, and he didn't buy any cheap stuff. everything was handsome. when they thought he was all through, he beckoned them and announced that now things must be bought for _their_ part of the house, the big rooms upstairs, and these mary positively must select. but first they would have lunch and take a drive. * * * * * the judge took his party to the best hotel, engaged rooms and ordered an elaborate luncheon, over which he was gay as a boy on a holiday. then, in an open carriage, they started out to see the city. they drove through miles of badly paved dusty streets, faced with wooden buildings. the judge admitted that it was not a beautiful city--business couldn't be beautiful, except to the mind--but it appealed to his imagination. its history was romantic, going back into the dim past. before the whites came, this had been a meeting-place for the indian tribes; and later for voyageurs and traders. it had been french territory, then english to the end of the revolutionary war. its indian name meant "wild onion"--a racy and flavoursome name, suggesting strength! "think of it--twenty-five years ago this city had less than five thousand inhabitants--now it has a quarter of a million! it's growing like a weed!" they crossed the river which ran through the middle of the city, and the judge pointed to the thronged wharves where ten thousand vessels arrived in a year and nearly as many cleared, bringing lumber, carrying the yield of the prairie, wheat, corn, and oats. "chicago might yet have a direct european trade--a ship had sailed from there to liverpool, with wheat, and three european vessels had sailed to chicago...." built on the flat prairie, on sand and swamp, almost on the level of the lake, nearly the whole city had now been raised a grade of ten feet; an entire business block being raised at one time! with such an energetic and growing population, with its marvellous situation, commanding the lake trade and with all the western territory to draw from, the city had a great future. "half the country will be tributary to it," said the judge with glowing eyes.... they drove out along the lake shore, a broad beach of sand and gravel, back of which rolled low sand-dunes. it was a warm june day, and the great inland sea lay calm and blue, with a slight mist on the horizon. the water sparkled in the sun, a slight motion sent wavelets lapping on the sand. no land could be seen across it, yet there was the feeling of land out there just beyond the line of vision. the air that blew over those miles of water was flat, it had an inland flavour. here it was not the water that was boundless, but the land. the lake was like a pond--the prairie was like the sea.... * * * * * judge baxter talked on enthusiastically about the future of the city, the vast tide of trade that was bound to pass through this, the heart of the country. mary, beside him, listened smiling. laurence, sitting opposite, watching mary, was preoccupied, hardly spoke at all. the drive lasted so long that there was no time for further shopping. the judge said they must dine early, so as to be in time for the theatre. mary went up to her room, to rest a little and to put on her best dress and bonnet which she had brought carefully enveloped in tissue paper, in a box. the dress was of grey silk, heavy and shining, and the bonnet was white. when she was dressed, she stood looking at herself in a long mirror for some time. the rich silk, hanging in full folds, suited her tall stately figure. inside the soft airy ruches of the bonnet her bright hair rippled, each red-gold wave exactly in order, making a clear crisp line like metal. her cheeks were lightly flushed, her grey eyes shining. she smiled reluctantly at herself in the glass. beauty, she knew, was a vain show, and vanity was a weakness that she hoped was entirely beneath her. still, one should make a proper appearance, with due regard to decorum; should not appear careless, nor above all eccentric. a lady should look like a lady. as she was drawing on her white gloves a knock sounded at the door. she went to open it, there stood laurence. "let me come in a minute," he said. she was startled at his tone, his pale and agitated look. he left the door ajar, with a quick motion he drew her away from it, sat down on the bed, his arms round her waist as she stood before him too astonished to speak. "mary! let us not go back there again till we are married! marry me now, here--tonight, or tomorrow!... why wait any longer--and then all the fuss about it.... do, mary--do this for me, please--" he looked up at her, pleading, demanding, his eyes gleaming intensely, humble and imperious. "sweetheart! why shouldn't we?... the judge will be a witness, it will be all right, your parents won't mind very much, will they?... i hate a show wedding anyhow, a lot of people round.... and i don't want to wait any longer, mary--i want it over and settled, and to be alone with you.... we can stay here a few days.... do, please, mary--" he clasped her tighter and pressed his face against the silken folds of her skirt; drew her down beside him. mary was thinking, so intently that though she looked straight at him she hardly saw him, did not notice that he was crumpling her dress, her gloves. "we could send a telegram," he murmured eagerly. "no, not a telegram, a letter," said mary, abstractedly. "yes, a letter!" she disengaged herself from his clasp, and he let her go, watching her as she went slowly over to the mirror, and smoothed her dress, set her bonnet straight, began again to draw on her gloves, all with that absent gaze. "you will, mary?" he breathed. she did not answer, hardly heard. she was thinking that this would be an end for her too of a difficult time. it had been hard for her, with her mother especially, who even now was not resigned and went about with a pale set face.... her father wasn't happy about it either, nobody was, it wasn't a cheerful atmosphere.... they hadn't treated her very well about it. mr. robertson too, her pastor, who was to marry them--he had rebuffed her. none of them had smiled on her, had any joy for her.... they would be hurt, of course, her mother would be anyhow. her mother, she knew, had intended to hold her head high, if the marriage had to be, and to have the customary wedding festivities and not let any outsider know how she felt. but perhaps she would be glad not to have to go through it. anyhow-- she turned, met laurence's look of eager suspense and appeal, smiled faintly. "what an idea!... it's time to go down now--" "yes, but--tell me.... tomorrow?" he got up and put out his hands to her, grave and tender, as he met her eyes with a new look in them, a kind of timidity, a yielding look. he had not thought she would consent, it had been, he felt, a wild impulse, but behold, she was consenting. secretly mary was thrilled by it--it seemed reckless and adventurous to her--an elopement! "i'll take care of you, mary," murmured laurence with passionate tenderness. she smiled mistily at him. at dinner she drank a glass of the champagne that judge baxter insisted on. the judge's gaiety and flowery compliments, laurence's adoring gaze, the novel luxury of the big restaurant and the box afterward at the play--it was like a dream. she did not recognize herself in the person going through this experience--it seemed to be happening to somebody else. that glass of golden wine--never had mary lowell tasted anything of the sort, never had she acted irresponsibly.... but it was delicious not to be mary lowell.... to let herself go, for once, to feel this abandonment and not to care whither this soft flowing tide was taking her.... * * * * * the judge was thunderstruck, when laurence told him, late that night. "the house won't be ready," he murmured feebly. laurence had an answer to all his objections. they would stop a few days in the city, then they would go to mary's parents for a time. the judge mustn't feel responsibility, nobody would blame him. they just didn't want the fuss of a wedding at home. mary would write to her parents and it would be all right. in the end, the judge was persuaded that, if wrong-headed, it was a romantic thing to do, and entered into it with spirit. but he had to have his part in it. a wedding-dinner, in a private room, with an avalanche of flowers. a wedding-gift to the young couple, a complete service of flat silver. and at the ceremony, in the little parlour of a minister whom laurence had taken at hazard, the judge, with paternal tears in his eyes, gave the bride away, and kissed her fair cheek. xi summer lay hot and heavy on the prairie. grass and trees were at their fullest, most intense green. they were full of sap, luxuriant--the heat had not begun to crisp them. but it hung like a blanket over the town. people sweltered and panted as they went about their business in the streets, where the slow creaking watering-cart could not keep down the dust. when dusk came they sat out on their porches, fanning themselves and fighting mosquitos. it was not the custom to go away in summer, nobody thought of it. life went on just the same, only at a more languid pace. in the yards facing the street roses were blooming and drooping. at judge baxter's house all was long since in order. the outside had been repainted a clear white with bright green blinds, kept shut now all day against the heat, with the shutters open to admit any breath of air. inside the half-light softened the newness of everything, the medley of bright colours which the judge had got together. at night, shaded lamps toned down the glitter. mary was constantly about the house, keeping it immaculate--she was slow, methodical and thorough. but with the judge's housekeeper to do the work in the hot kitchen, she felt that she was living in pampered luxury. it was not what she had expected for the beginning of her married life. sometimes she vaguely regretted that things were not harder, more strenuous for her. there were long hours that seemed vacant, with all she could do. laurence was working hard. three times a week he drove over to elmville and spent the afternoon at the creamery. the rest of the time he was busy at the judge's office, he worked at night too over his law-books or papers. he did not mind the heat, he was in radiant health and spirits. there was not much social life in the town except for the boys and girls. older people were supposed to stay at home. married women were out of the game, they had their houses and children to attend to, and for relaxation, the church or gossip with a neighbour. the men had their business and an occasional visit to chicago; they met in the bar of the tavern or the barbershop, or at the lodge, if they were masons. there was no general meeting-place, no restaurant or park. very seldom did any citizen take a meal outside his own home. the opera-house did not often open. there were a few dances, for the youth; older people did not go, even as chaperones, nor were they wanted at the straw-rides or picnics, nor in the front parlours where the girls received their beaux. once married, a person retired into private life, so far as amusement was concerned. anything else would have been scandalous. mary did not feel these restrictions. she was, if not wholly content, at least for the moment satisfied; it was a pause. if not radiance, there was some sort of subdued glow about her, something that softened and lightened her look and manner. she was silent as ever, not more expressive, even more slow. sometimes alone, she would give way to a dreamy languor. she never had been very social, and now she was less so. she saw few people, paid few visits. friends of her own age she had none--she had always felt herself older than other girls. she went regularly to church and kept up the activities connected with it, and so constantly saw the minister. but here had come a distinct break; she had not talked with him at any length, or except about church-matters, since her marriage. she did not mean this break to be permanent; she knew that some time she would want to talk to him again, but just now she did not, and he did not seek her, even for an ordinary pastoral visit. each day she went in to see her parents, five minutes' walk up the street, or one of them came to see her. they were quite reconciled now, though there had been sore scenes at first, after her return. mrs. lowell had wept bitterly, and told mary that she was a selfish girl, who never thought of any one but herself, a bad daughter who didn't care how much she hurt her mother and father. at this mary had cried too, not with sobs and gaspings, but just big slow tears rolling down her cheeks, as she sat looking unutterably injured. when she spoke, in answer to her mother's long complaint, it was only to say gently; "but mother, you know you never pretended to like laurence or my marrying him, so why should i think you cared about the wedding? it wasn't as if you'd been pleased, and liked it. everybody could see you didn't like it, so i thought the sooner it was over the better." "who says i don't like laurence?" mrs. lowell demanded hotly. "don't you see it was just the way to make the whole town believe it, running off that way! a pretty position it puts me in, and your father--as if you couldn't be married at home, like other girls! as if we would have prevented you, if you were set on it! we would have given you as nice a wedding as any girl ever had here--" then another burst of tears, at the end of which they found themselves in one another's arms. endearments were rare between them, but it was with great relief to both that they now kissed and made it up, for they did love one another. from that time it was understood that mrs. lowell was very fond of her son-in-law. woe to the person who should dare say a word to the contrary or against him! he was now fully received into the family; his status was fixed for all time. the doctor had not made any scene; had welcomed them both warmly, as if nothing had happened. indeed, mary thought he was pleased. they had stayed for two weeks there, till the judge's house was ready; a satisfaction to mrs. lowell, as effectually giving the lie to any report that there was trouble in her family. and she had done her utmost, after the first day, to make things pleasant. by the end of the visit, laurence was calling her "mother," and paying her compliments; every one was in good humour, the house gayer than it had ever been; and mrs. lowell was nearly in love with the scion of irish bog-trotters. so mary had no more defending of laurence to do. it was understood that she was happy, that her husband was full of promise and well-befriended, and that everybody was satisfied. the judge insisted that laurence must help exercise his horses, so often, when work and the heat of the day were over, laurence drove the trotters out over the prairie, with mary in the buggy beside him. he handled the spirited horses with ease, and she felt perfectly safe with him. he would talk to her at length of his day's doings, of anything that came into his head, and she listened, not saying much. sometimes he wanted her to talk, and she found she had nothing to say. her inexpressiveness often bothered him, sometimes made him angry. he needed response and was impatient if he didn't get it, in all things. he was ardent and tumultuous in his love, constantly wanting expression of love from her. he was demanding, impetuous, imperious in his desire. he could not have patience, he could not woo any longer, he must possess--all, to the uttermost, without reserve. his experience of women had not taught him to understand a nature like hers--less emotional than his own, really more sensual. his whole idea of women in general, of mary in particular was opposed to this understanding--he would have reversed the judgment, and so would mary. he thought mary cold to love, and her coldness often made him brusque and overbearing. yet he was very happy. he loved to be with her, to talk to her even when she did not answer, to look at her. he was proud of her beauty; liked to drive with her through the town or to walk with her on his arm; liked the admiring glances that followed her. he held his head high; consciousness of power, confidence in himself and his destiny, were strong in him. he felt that he could control the forces about him, as his powerful wrists controlled the horses, and drive them at his will, along the road he chose. several times a week he saw nora, the companion of his childhood, for she was working now in the creamery at elmville. he had not met her that sunday on the river road, for then he was in chicago with mary, and had forgotten all about nora. but he had remembered her afterwards, and as she had lost her place in the store because she was not quick at figures, he had found a place for her at the creamery. he meant to look out for poor little nora, had a desire to be kind to her. he had a quick sympathy for the weak and helpless, always; he was full of generous impulses, would kindle at any tale of distress or injustice and was ready to help. part of his feeling for "the under dog" came by nature; part perhaps from his own circumstances in the years of sensitive youth. a deep mark had been left upon him by these early hardships--he hated and feared poverty. he was ambitious in a worldly and social way, he wanted to count among men, he wanted power; and he was determined to be rich. his power was to be beneficent, his riches were to benefit others. though he liked display and luxury, he liked better the feeling that he could be a mainstay and rock of refuge to those weaker than himself. he would be great, powerful, and generous. these ambitions and dreams came out clearly as he talked to mary. but she did not echo them, only listened gravely. she did not sympathize with laurence's desire for worldly things, and she knew he would not sympathize with her indifference to them. when she expressed anything of the kind he would say with irritation that she knew nothing of the world and had better get some experience before she despised it. so after a few attempts, she gave up trying to talk to him about it. the time hadn't come, she felt, laurence's spiritual eyes were not opened, he was bound to earthly vanities. perhaps he would have to experience these things before he could despise them, see their nothingness. but _she_ needn't, she felt serenely that no experience would change her point of view. she loved laurence, but she nourished in her heart an ideal to which he did not correspond. a militant saint--that was her ideal. not a man struggling for the goods of this world, but one who could put his feet upon them and whose vision was far beyond. a look of infinite remoteness would come into her eyes sometimes and she would fall into abstraction; and laurence, when this happened in his presence, would resent it instinctively and drag her out of it by making love to her or quarrelling with her, or both at once. but they had many happy hours together in the long drowsy twilights, many times of troubled exquisite sweetness in the dusk or the dark of still summer nights. their youthful tenderness was stronger than any division of feeling; a deep unconscious bond was forming between them. * * * * * sometimes in the evenings, the heat and mosquitos would drive them indoors. then in the dim light mary would sit down at the piano. she did not play very well, her fingers were strong rather than skilful, but she sang old ballads in her husky contralto, for laurence and judge baxter. the judge had a sentimental passion for these songs, and as he sat and listened, pulling slowly at his cigar, he was happy, he had a feeling of home. his bare bachelor existence had been cushioned, or he would have said, glorified by the tender touch of a woman. he had a chivalric affection for mary, he admired her intensely. he and laurence would sit with their eyes fixed upon her as she sang, on the clear outline of her cheek, her thick knot of burnished hair, her young figure, strong and stately, in the light flowing gown of white muslin. she sang "ye banks and braes of bonnie doon," and "oh, tell me if all those endearing young charms," and other old-world songs. the two men listened raptly, the glowing tips of their cigars gathering thick cones of ashes. in the intervals of the song, a chorus of night-insects could be heard outside, shrilling in the grass and heavy-leaved trees. or sometimes the low rumbling of thunder heralded an approaching storm. xii on an august afternoon, mary walked languidly up the street to her father's house. she was bare-headed, dressed in a plain white muslin, and carried a small parasol, though the sun was hidden in a thick haze. it was about four o'clock. all day the heat had been intense, the air was thick, motionless, stifling. the greyish haze hung low and heavy, and darkened steadily. it was as though all the heat of the summer, of all the long monotonous summer days, had been gathered up, concentrated in that one day; as if it hung there between the baked earth and the thick blanket of cloud sinking lower and lower, pressing down. there was no feeling of space. the prairie was stagnant, torpid--nothing stirred on it, except the small ant-like motions of men. the horizons of the vast plain had disappeared.... day follows day, each with its little occupations, orderly, monotonous, peaceful. some little corner of the world seems a safe place to live in--shut in upon itself, shut out from disturbance--perhaps too safe. life may grow dull and languid, sometimes, even when new pulses are stirring in it, grow faint. long summer days, one like another, each with its weight of humid heat, pile up a burden.... vast unbroken spaces are dangerous. beyond that curtain of sullen mist, who knows what is brewing? unknown forces, long gathering and brooding, strike suddenly out of darkness. that infinite monotony of the prairie breeds violence--long suppressed, breaking at last.... mary found her mother sitting on the porch, gasping, fanning herself with a palm-leaf. "what a day--the worst yet," moaned mrs. lowell. "have a glass of lemonade, mary? i made some for your father. it's on the dining-room table." "where is father?" mary dropped into the hammock, panting. "he hasn't come back yet. i wish he'd come. there's going to be a storm." mary lay against the cushion, her lips parted, breathing heavily. "how pale you are! what ails you, child?" mrs. lowell asked with alarm. "nothing--the heat--" "don't you want the lemonade? i'll get it for you--" "no, no--i'll go in a minute--" but mrs. lowell rose with an effort, and went in. when she brought the lemonade, mary sat up with a faint murmur of thanks, and drank it. mrs. lowell stood looking at her with watchful tenderness. "there isn't anything the matter, is there? you ought to be careful, this hot weather, and not overdo, mary." "no, it isn't anything--" mrs. lowell took the empty glass and went back to her chair. "laurence is over at elmville," said mary languidly. "i'm afraid he'll get caught in the storm. how dark it's getting." she looked out at the low cloud that thickened momently and that now was clotting into black masses against a greenish grey. the rattle of the doctor's old buggy was heard approaching; he drove rapidly in past the house. his horse was sweating heavily and flecked with foam. they caught a glimpse of his pale face as he passed. "thank goodness," murmured mrs. lowell. "perhaps we'd better go in." but she remained, gazing at the clouds. a few people went by, more hurriedly than usual. it was almost dark now, a strange twilight. mary left the hammock and came to look up at the sky. up there were masses of cloud in tumult, but down below not a breath of air stirred. "how queer it looks--i wish laurence was home. he starts about this time," she said uneasily. "oh, he'll wait till it's over.... i wonder why your father doesn't come in...." mary turned and entered the house, but the doctor was not there, and she went on out into the garden. at the door of the stable she saw the horse hitched, he had not been unharnessed. dr. lowell stood there, looking up. she went quickly along the path to him. "say, mary, this looks mighty queer. we're going to have a big wind," he called to her. "you better go in." "well, why don't _you_ come in? aren't you going to unhitch?" "i suppose so," he said with a worried glance. "satan acted like the very deuce on the way home--" he looked at the wooden stable doubtfully. "i suppose i'll have to put him in there. i don't know but we're going to get a twister." he unbuckled the tugs and pushed the buggy into the stable, and then, holding the sweating, stamping horse firmly by the halter, led him in, but did not take off the harness. he shut the stable-door and joined mary, gazing up at the boiling black clouds, which cast greenish gleams. he looked around at his garden, kept fresh and full of blossom by his labours. the yellow of late summer had begun to shoot through its green, but it was still lovely, tall phlox blooming luxuriantly, and many-coloured asters. in the sick light, the foliage and flowers looked metallic, not a leaf moved. the doctor took mary by the arm and they went in. mrs. lowell was shutting all the windows. it was hot as a furnace in the house. the cellar-door stood open. "it's cooler down there," suggested mrs. lowell in a trembling voice. "well, we may have to," the doctor responded calmly, helping himself to lemonade. mary hurried to look out of the front windows. the passers-by were running now, teams went by at a gallop. then it was as if a great sighing breath passed over, the trees waved and tossed their leaves, and then--the wind struck. in an instant the air was full of tumult, of flying dust, leaves, branches, and darkened to night, with a roar like the sea in storm. all was blurred outside the windows, the house shook and seemed to shift on its foundations, blinds tore loose and crashed like gun-fire. mary felt a grasp on her arm, and saw her mother's face, white and scared. mrs. lowell tried to drag her away, shouted something. but she wrenched her arm loose, turned and ran upstairs. from the second-story windows she could see nothing but a wild whirl, the trees bent down and streaming, dim shapes in the visible darkness driving past. there was still another stair, narrow and steep, to the attic. she climbed up there. from the small window in the eaves she could see over the tree-tops. the house shook and trembled under her, the roar of the wind seemed to burst through the walls, but she crouched by the low window, heedless. she started at a touch on her shoulder, her father was there beside her. she made room for him at the window, and pointed out, turning to him a white face of terror. the fury of the wind was lessening, the darkness was lifting. the outer fringe of the storm-cloud had swept them--but out there on the prairie, miles away, they could see now-- there it was, a murky green and black boiling centre in the sky, and shooting down from it, trailing over the earth, something like a long twisting finger-- an instant's vision of it. then there came a deluge of rain, beating on the sloping roof. through the streaming window nothing could be seen. the doctor raised mary and led her down the stair, she clung to him without a word. on the second floor they found mrs. lowell, about to mount in search of them, trembling with fright. * * * * * "it's all over, mother," shouted the doctor through the drumming of the rain. "we only got the edge of it." they went down to the lower floor. now it was perceptibly lighter. the cloud fringe sweeping like a huge broom was passing as swiftly as it had come. the rain lessened in force, the grey outside brightened. the doctor and his wife looked at one another, and both looked at mary, who stood beside a window staring out. "now, mother," said dr. lowell briskly, "you get me a sandwich or something, i've got to start out. mary! help your mother, will you? you might as well fill up a basket, as quick as you can--put in anything you've got, in five minutes--don't know how long i may be--" he was already fastening his rubber coat, his old hat jammed down on his head. mary followed her mother, blindly obeying her quick directions in the kitchen. the basket was packed by the time the doctor came out with his medicine-chest and a big roll of surgical dressings. "where you going?" mrs. lowell then demanded. "there'll be some damage where that thing struck," said the doctor cheerfully. "i'm going over there. don't you sit up for me, i may be all night. you better keep mary here, till laurence comes for her." but mary was putting on an old cloak of her mother's that hung in the entry. "i'm going with you. laurence is over there," she said. mrs. lowell started to protest, but looking at mary's face, stopped, and went to get a scarf to tie over her hair. the doctor said nothing, but went to hitch up his horse and put a feed of grain into the back of the buggy. they started. satan indicated his displeasure at the turn of things by rearing up in the shafts and then trying to kick the dashboard in; but the doctor gave him the whip and he decided to go. * * * * * the road was mud-puddles, ruts and gullies, and strewn with branches, sometime great boughs or fence-rails lay across it. other people were on the way now. satan passed everything going in their direction. salutations and comments were shouted at the doctor. then they began to meet people coming the other way; the doctor did not stop to talk, but a man called to him that elmville had been wiped out by the cyclone. two miles on they came to a cluster of houses where a crowd had gathered, most of them refugees who had fled before the storm. two houses here had been un-roofed, sheds blown away, and the place was littered with splinters, but nobody was seriously hurt. from there on they met a stream of people, nearly all the population of elmville, including the people from the creamery who had escaped into the prairie laden with whatever goods they could carry. then they reached the last buildings left standing by the storm--a farmhouse and barns, by some freak of the wind untouched, a mile from elmville. these were crowded with people from the town, mostly women and children, and a few men, some of them injured. the doctor pulled up his horse and shouted an inquiry for laurence. oh, captain carlin was all right, he had been there when the storm struck, had started home but decided he couldn't make it and stopped there--he had driven back now to see what he could do, and most of the men had gone after him. wouldn't the doctor come in? one of the men had a broken leg and there was a woman with her head hurt by a flying brick, they thought she would die. the doctor hesitated. mary said: "you stay, father, i'll drive on and find laurence." "you drive satan! you couldn't hold him a minute!" "i'll drive him." he looked at her, realized that she was quite irrational, called out that he would come back, and drove on. the storm had come at an angle to the road, so the wreckage of the town had blown the other way, but where its buildings had stood, with the tall brick factory in their midst, the skyline was now absolutely empty. they came on laurence's horse, tied to a fallen tree, and then laurence himself came running toward them, out of a group of men who were lifting timbers. mary was out of the buggy and in his arms in a moment, sobbing on his shoulder, clinging to him wildly, the rain falling on her bare head. she hid her face against his wet coat, not to see the desolation around her. but then after a little she raised her head and looked over his shoulder, her eyes full of the terror of death that had passed so near, that had threatened to strike to her heart.... a rubbish-heap, in which men were frantically digging for the wounded and dead, was all that was left of the town. a heap of splintered boards and bricks, with pitiful odds and ends of household furniture mixed in. not a wall was standing, not one brick left on another, all was levelled to the earth. the wind had roared away across the prairie and there, somewhere in the midst of vast spaces, it would vanish. over beyond, now, near the horizon, a rift had opened in the grey clouds, and through it was visible a long belt of blue sky--serene, limpid, smiling. part two i carlin walked with a quick firm step across the square from the courthouse to his office in the bank building. his usually ruddy face was pale, his eyes gleamed with excitement under the brim of his soft felt hat. he made his way through the crowd that filled the street before the jail without halting, shaking off impatiently some attempts to stop him, nodding or shaking his head for all answer to questions shouted at him. it was a bright spring day. for the second time since his marriage the maples round the square were putting out their brilliant young leaves. but there was no brightness in the throng under the maples. a sombre excitement moved them, a low-toned angry murmur followed carlin's progress. it was hardly personal to him, however, or only faintly, doubtfully so. he was recognized respectfully, and responded with curt nods, or sometimes a quick lifting of his hand, like a military salute. he ran up the steps into his own office, and through this to judge baxter's, entering with a quick rap on the glass, closing the door sharply behind him. the judge was alone, writing at his desk, and looked round rather absently, pushing his spectacles up on his forehead. carlin flung his hat on the rickety sofa in the corner and standing by the desk, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, frowning, he said firmly: "judge, we must take this case." the judge looked at him now with attention, but without answering. resistance showed in his face, but he put out his lower lip and thoughtfully shifted his quid of tobacco from one cheek to the other. "he sent for me and i was admitted to see him, as his counsel," laurence went on in the same quick urgent tone. "and then--we must do it, that's all." the judge looked at the sheet of paper before him, half-filled with his crabbed painstaking writing, laid down his pen, and leaned back in his chair. "why?" he demanded coolly. "my god, judge!" carlin burst out. with an effort to master himself, he turned away and walked several times across the floor. "if you'd seen the man--if you'd heard him!... i'm all smashed up by it," he confessed huskily, stopping and staring out of the window. "i see you are," said the judge. "have a drink?" carlin shook his head. but the judge, opening a cupboard in his desk, took out a bottle and one glass, poured a stiff allowance of whiskey and tossed it off neat. "i'm glad you don't drink much, laurence," he remarked as he put away the glass. "with your excitable temperament you couldn't stand it." as carlin stood silent, staring out, the judge addressed his back. "i don't like murder cases--never did. never could do anything with 'em. my clients were hanged, every time--that was long ago.... i haven't touched a criminal case for--well, years. i'm no jury lawyer. we don't want to go into that, laurence ... and then, the fellow's a brute." "no--no!... wait until i tell you about it...." laurence turned round. his tone was calmer but he still looked deeply agitated, and began to pace the floor again. "well, take your time.... but i can't see what it is to you," said judge baxter curiously. his genial shrewd old face expressed a somewhat cynical perplexity. if he had ever been deeply moved by human passion and folly, he had forgotten it--for many years it had been only a spectacle to him. all crimes spring from love, so-called, or money. one of these two great mainsprings the judge understood thoroughly. he knew all about human cupidity. he had made his own fortune out of the desire of some of his fellow-beings to over-reach others, and this golden fountain would never run dry. the judge had all the law of property at his fingers' ends. his ability to help a corporation to use the law was abundantly recognized and recompensed. he was a noted railroad counsel. why turn aside from this safe and profitable concern with people's purses, to meddle with the wild impulses of their hearts, so-called? "you say you don't see what it is to me," carlin began, turning abruptly. "but i know the man, if you remember. he was in my company--one of the best in it too--i knew him well--that's why he thought of me, i suppose.... but even if i hadn't known him, if i'd seen any man as he was this morning, if any man talked to me as he did.... i never heard anything like it--i never saw anything so friendless, forlorn.... he's like a lost beaten dog--there isn't a soul in the world that isn't against him...." "well, that's right, i guess," said the judge cautiously. "he's worse than friendless." he turned his head toward the window, giving ear to the noise from the street--a low continuous murmur. "that crowd means trouble.... when do they take him out?" "by the afternoon train. the sheriff thinks he can do it--he's got thirty deputies sworn in." "i've never seen a lynching here," said the judge, getting up and going to the window. "but--we came pretty near it once or twice during the war. it looked a good deal like this, too.... you see, our people don't make an awful lot of noise about a thing--when they mean business, they're quiet." the two men stood side by side, looking down on the square, which was by now closely packed. "well, i guess we'll get him out just the same," said carlin grimly. "'we'?" "they won't get him if i can help it.... but i'd like to know why they _want_ to--don't understand a mob getting up like this about it--" "it runs like wildfire, once it starts.... perhaps the boys want some excitement, we haven't had much lately. and then," said the judge emphatically, "they don't _like_ it. it was an unprovoked brutal murder of a woman--a good hardworking woman, with little children to look after--and this fellow comes back, takes to drinking, quarrels with his wife and smashes her head with an ax--by god, if they want to string him up, i don't blame them!" "look here, judge, you're just like the rest of them, you don't understand, you don't know! a man doesn't smash his wife with an ax for _nothing_--" "if you're going to try to justify him--" "no, he doesn't want that, neither do i. he's a lost man and he knows it.... all he seemed to want of me was to have one human being understand it--just to tell me about it. he doesn't want to get off, he wants to die." carlin's intense blue eyes held the judge's unwilling gaze; they both forgot the crowd outside, turned from the window. the judge sat down again at his desk. "well, tell me about it," he said reluctantly. "but i'm sorry to see you so worked up.... i really don't see how we could handle a case like this, even if we had a chance to do anything with it. i tell you it isn't the thing, it's all off my beat--you know it. and you're just getting your start, and to handicap yourself right off with an unpopular case where you haven't the ghost of a show, where feeling's dead against you--no, laurence, my boy, i oughtn't to let you--we can't do it!" laurence drew a chair to the other side of the desk, facing the judge. "if _we_ can't, i'll try it alone," he said quietly. "all i want for barclay is a hearing--just to have his side of it known, that's all. he'll have to pay the penalty, of course--he'll get life imprisonment at least and i'm not sure he wouldn't rather be hanged, in fact i'm sure he would, _now_.... but he did have provocation--if you could get anybody to see it." "well, see if you can get me to see it. i guess that's a good test," said the judge coolly. "i'm as prejudiced against him as anybody. i wouldn't lynch him, maybe--but i don't want you to lose your first important case." he leaned back in his chair and fixed his old, wise, wary eyes on carlin, who, quite calm now, had an abstracted look. "well, to begin i'd have to tell you what i knew about barclay before this.... he was in the first company to go from here--enlisted for three months, you know. just dropped his tools and went--he was a machinist, making good wages, had a nice little home here, wife and two children. they were dependent on him, but the wife was sturdy and said she guessed they could get along somehow--and they did. she got work and people helped them, and she kept up the home. barclay was awfully proud of her and the youngsters--another one was born after he went. he used to show me their pictures and talk about them. he was good at machinery--it was the only thing he _did_ know--he was a gunner in my battery later and a good one. strong as a horse and he'd fight like the devil when things got hot. a big fellow, good-natured too and kind of simple-minded--soft, you might say, except when he was fighting or drunk. he didn't seem to have but two ideas in his head--one was the war and the other was his family. he re-enlisted, of course, and went through the whole thing, but he was homesick all the time. he used to write home whenever he could, and when he didn't get letters as often as he thought he ought to, he'd come to me and worry, and ask if i'd heard and so on.... i'm telling you this, judge," carlin looked earnestly at the judge's impassive face, "so you can understand what sort of a man he was and what his home meant to him--just everything, outside of what he was fighting for. that man made a real sacrifice, because he thought it his duty. he felt it all the time, but he thought the country needed him, and he had to do it, and he had a pride in it too--he didn't look for any reward, but i suppose he thought what he did would be appreciated somehow--anyhow he didn't expect to lose out altogether by it...." carlin stopped for a moment, frowning till his eyes showed only a blue glint. "lots of us that went were remembered," he said slowly, "and some--were forgotten." he picked up a pencil and began scoring deep lines on a sheet of paper. "four years is a good slice out of a man's life. he loses a lot--in his life, his work--other men get the start of him--he's far away, and perhaps will never come back, and they're _here_.... when a man gives that much, and risks everything, in what seems a holy cause to him, it seems as if--it seems as if--" his voice trembled. the judge was watching him now intently. he got up and began to walk the floor again. "you see, judge, that's natural--to want to have some recognition of what you've done. and i know a lot of our fellows felt that the people at home _didn't_ recognize it. they made a lot of fuss about us when we went away, but when we came back--those of us that did come back--they didn't get excited much about us. "they were busy--they'd been living their lives in peace while we were fighting and protecting them--_we_ stood between them and the enemy and most of them never felt what war is. they might know about it, but they didn't _feel_ it, we saved them from that.... then when we came back, sometimes they were glad to see us, sometimes not. anyhow, we had to scramble around and see what we could do, to make a living, to get back the place we'd lost. lots of us found it hard. it wasn't only the time lost, but those four years of war made a difference in us, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse...." "surely," said judge baxter, nodding. "you see, judge, it upsets all a man's habits and way of living. you can't make a good soldier of a man without loosening up some things in him that are usually kept down. he faces violent death every day, and he _kills_. it's a primitive thing, war is, and men get back to where they were. they suffer and they try to make the other fellow suffer more, they get callous, savage, lots of them. then when they come back to civilized life, it's hard for them to fit in. i wonder there wasn't more trouble than there was, i wonder that that great army, nearly a million men, melted away as quietly as it did.... judge, it was a great thing that we did--" carlin stopped and fixed his eyes on the judge, who nodded gravely. "we felt it so at the time, at least very many of us did, and looking back, we can see how big a thing it was. we fought the good fight, we crushed something evil, that would have destroyed our country. every man in our army has a right to be proud of it, proud of himself, if he did his best ... he has a right to be remembered...." "yes, surely," said judge baxter, with the same grave intentness, his keen eyes watching carlin's every look and motion. there was a brief silence. "well," said carlin, drawing a deep breath. "barclay was forgotten.... the last year, letters were scarce. we were on the jump and then we went down into georgia.... i don't know just what happened here. he doesn't make any accusation against his wife, though it seems there was somebody else she liked. but she'd settled her life without him. she could support the family and she'd got used to doing without him. perhaps she never cared so much for him as he thought. but yet if he'd been here, probably it would have gone along all right. but he wasn't, you see.... and she heard things about him too. he was in the guardhouse a few times for drinking, and somebody else would mention it in writing home.... all that came out after he got back." carlin was still walking about restlessly under the judge's watchful gaze. "when he got back he found he wasn't wanted--that's all. his wife could do without him, and preferred to. his children were little--they'd forgotten him. there was a baby he'd never seen. he felt like a stranger in the house. and she made him feel it! at first he couldn't realize it, and tried to have it all as it was before--but it was no use. she didn't want him there.... well, i suppose you can't see what that meant to him--" "yes, i can," said the judge. "it was all he had, you know. and she'd taken it away from him--the children and all. he could see that if he'd never come back, if he'd been killed, she would have married this other man, and never missed him. he saw that she wished he hadn't come back. in fact--she told him so, after they got to quarrelling...." "that was pretty bad," muttered the judge. "and he still loved her, you see. otherwise he'd have gone away again. but he wanted her and the children. so he took to drinking--" "why, naturally." "he took to drinking hard and didn't work--couldn't. and he made the house miserable, of course. they quarrelled terribly, he beat her.... she reproached him for being a useless drunken loafer, spoiling her life and the children's--then she told him she wished he'd died.... it was after that...." carlin was silent. the judge nodded his white head and said abruptly: "yes, the poor simpleton--lost his head." "he doesn't remember how it happened--he was drunk. but he doesn't deny it--can't, of course," said carlin in a low voice. "he said to me that he could hardly believe it ... he'd always loved her ... he said it didn't seem possible he could have hurt her ... he thought he must have been crazy ... he wished he had been killed down south, then it wouldn't have happened and she would have been happy, and the children taken care of, while now.... and then he cried...." carlin's voice broke, and he turned away to the window. the judge's eyes followed him eagerly, dwelt on his bent head, his bowed shoulders for some moments. "the poor fool," he said, taking off his spectacles and looking at them critically. "judge, it was an awful thing to see--that big fellow, all crumpled up like a wet rag--broken, crushed--helpless as a baby,--not a soul to put out a hand to him--and he was sinking, lost--lost forever.... and a good man too, that's the mystery ... why, judge, anybody might have acted that way--_might_ have ... if people could only see that, feel it...." the judge had polished his spectacles to a nicety and now put them on and stood up. "well, laurence, i guess you can make them feel it--i guess you can, my boy!" he burst out. his broad face lighted up with enthusiasm, with professional ardour. "laurence, you were right and i was wrong. if you feel the thing as much as this, it's a chance for you. nothing counts so much with a jury as feeling--real feeling--and you've got it. we'll take that case and you shall make the address--i'm not a jury lawyer myself, but i know one when i see him! you won't save your man, laurence, but many a reputation has been made in a lost cause!" and the judge, advancing, took carlin's hand and shook it warmly. carlin looked at him with troubled, bewildered eyes, and the judge clapped him on the shoulder briskly. "laurence, my boy, i knew you had it in you!" he cried. "i'm not taking this case to distinguish myself," carlin said angrily. "no, no, of course not--that makes it all the better!" the judge assured him, with the utmost cheerfulness. but suddenly he became grave again and pondered. "if the boys try anything it will be when they take him to the train," he reflected. "i'm going home now to get a bite of dinner--then i'll be on hand if there's trouble. you coming, judge?" carlin took up his hat. "i've got a letter to finish--then i'll be along. but, say, laurence--" the judge stopped on the way to his desk. "mary--she won't like this." laurence was at the door, and turned a disturbed look on the judge. "no, she won't. she liked mrs. barclay." "she won't like our defending him." "i'll explain--there's a lot she doesn't know--i'll tell her and she'll understand." carlin's tone had not much conviction. "well, perhaps," said the judge dubiously. ii in carlin's household there were now two children. the family still lived at the judge's house; he had resisted firmly their attempts to leave him. he had turned over the whole house to them, reserving only two rooms on the ground floor for himself, and by now he had established himself as a member of the family. there was no more thought of breaking up the arrangement. carlin reached the house a little before the dinner hour. he found his eldest son carefully penned up on the porch, exercising his fat legs by rushes from side to side of his enclosure. in a chair beside the pen sat mary, with the new baby at her breast. in spite of his hurry and preoccupation, carlin smiled with pleasure at the group, stopped to hold out a finger to the tottering golden-haired boy, bent to kiss mary, looking tenderly at her and the small blonde head against her bosom. the baby was but three weeks old. mary had still about her the soft freshness and radiance of new motherhood. she was pale, her tall figure had not yet regained its firm lines, but her beauty was at its best. she had borne her children easily and happily. the fuller oval of her face, her soft heavy-lidded eyes and the new tenderness of her mouth, expressed the quiet joy of fulfilment, satisfaction. "i must hurry back--can i have a bite to eat now?" carlin asked softly, touching the baby's tiny hand outspread on mary's breast. "dinner's nearly ready--i'll see. he's asleep." "he's always asleep, when he isn't eating, and sometimes then," commented carlin, smiling. "so he ought to be," said mary calmly. she rose with caution, and carried the baby indoors, the frills of her muslin robe billowing about her. both parents smiled as a wail from the deserted first-born followed them. they had a robust attitude toward the young james, and he was used to solitary communing with himself in his pen, but didn't like it. mary carried the baby into the judge's bedroom and laid him on the bachelor's bed. the judge liked to have his room used in this way; it delighted him to find articles of infant's attire, or toys belonging to young james, in his quarters. he often said that he was getting all the feeling of being a family man without any of the bother. mary went into the kitchen to hurry the stolid swedish cook, and carlin ran lightly upstairs. when mary came up to arrange her hair and dress, a moment later, she found him loading his army revolver, which he persisted in keeping in his top bureau drawer among his neckties. "what's that for?" she asked quickly. carlin looked at her with concern, wishing to break the matter gently to her, for it had been deeply impressed upon him that to disturb mary was to disturb the baby also, and that any interference with her sacred function was a crime--sacrilege, in fact. he hesitated. "i know--it's that barclay!... but what are you going to do?" "why--there may be some trouble getting him out of town--" "yes, i heard about it. but why do you--" "well, i'm sworn in as a deputy to defend him, if--" "laurence!" "yes, defend him--he's going to have a fair trial, if i--and look here, mary, i might as well tell you, the judge and i are going to defend him at the trial." paler than before, she laid down her comb and gazed at him. he finished loading the revolver and slipped a box of cartridges into his pocket. "defend that man? i don't believe you mean it, laurence, the judge wouldn't." "yes, he would. you ask him.... i haven't time to tell you all about it now, mary, i must eat and run. come downstairs." not having succeeded in breaking it gently, carlin took the opposite tack and spoke with curt military command. in silence mary turned to the glass, fastened her dress and smoothed her hair carefully. in no circumstances would she be sloppy. she descended the stairs after carlin, they sat down at the table in the dining-room, and the awkward swedish girl brought in the dinner. mary silently filled carlin's plate. he began to speak, but just then the judge arrived, winded from a rapid walk and looking worried. he greeted mary rather apologetically, as he tucked his napkin under his beard. "laurence tell you?" he panted. "now don't get mad, mary--seems as if we'd have to do it. explain to you later." mary lifted her chin haughtily as she gave the judge his plate. "i'm not 'mad'--but i certainly don't understand why you and laurence want to defend a brute like that man. when i think of poor sarah barclay, working and slaving away, and those poor little children--i can't see how you can do it!" she looked indignantly at her husband, who was eating in haste and left the judge to reply. "now, mary, you don't understand--don't know _his_ side of it--" "_his_ side of it--a drunken worthless brute--judge, i wonder at you, defending murder!" "no, not murder--no, i don't defend murder, certainly not--" "you've just said you would! the murder of a helpless woman, with little children depending on her!" mary's grey eyes blazed with anger, and the judge, cowed, continued to splutter excuses with his mouth full. "now, mary! i tell you i don't defend what he did! but he did have something on his side, she didn't treat him well--?" "treat him well! he came back, wouldn't work, took her money for drink, beat her--judge, i'm ashamed of you, to make excuses for such a man!" the judge, not liking his post of whipping-boy, glanced reproachfully at the real culprit. carlin pushed back his chair and lit a cigar. "don't abuse the judge, i got him to do it," he said coolly. "and i did it because i was sorry for the man and because he hasn't a friend on earth, nobody to look to but me, and he isn't half so bad as you think. but you've made up your mind and you don't want to hear anything on the other side. you just want him punished." "of course i do!" she cried. "well, now, i can't understand why you good church-people are so hard on sinners. your religion doesn't teach that." mary flushed slowly at the bitterness of this speech. "it doesn't teach us to defend sin," she answered. "but i don't think you know what it does teach." "perhaps not. but i seem to remember something about there being more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just men--in _heaven_, of course, not on earth." "_repents_, yes--" "well, barclay repents all right.... but the good people of this town don't want to give him any time to repent, you see. they're in a great hurry to send him, with all his imperfections on his head, to--well, i suppose they think he'd go straight to hell. that's why i've got to go right back." he got up, went round to mary and bent to kiss her. "i'm sorry you don't like my doing this, but i've _got_ to do it," he said gently. she did not respond, but sat looking straight before her. he started away, then came back. "mary--kiss me good-bye." something in his tone pierced through her frozen resentment. she met his look of anxious love, a sorrowful troubled look--the kiss was given. he hurried out. the judge hated to be disturbed at his meals, he was making a very bad dinner. he said pettishly: "i've got to go right away too--i'll take some pie, please.... i wish people wouldn't get up a fuss at dinner-time." mary looked at him absently and handed him the bread. "pie, please!... now, you see, mary, i was against it at the start," the judge explained rapidly, after getting what he wanted. "as you know, i've never taken criminal cases, and i didn't want laurence to get the whole town down on him--for he _will_, you know, at the beginning.... but do you know why i changed my mind? you may believe i had a good reason--say, mary, are you listening?" "well? you were saying you had a good reason." "well, sometimes it _pays_ to go against public feeling. it gets a man noticed, anyway. and if he believes enough in his side and can put it over on all the other fellows--why, then, you know, it's a real success.... and i found out today that laurence can do it--that is, i _believe_ he can. mary, that boy has lots of talent, lots of it.... why, look here, he nearly made me cry today, talking about that barclay,--and yet i believe the man's a low-down skunk, just as you do.... you just let laurence get at a jury, with that feeling he's got, that sympathy, that simple way of appealing to their emotions--why, he might almost get the man off! anyhow, he'll make a reputation, mary, there isn't a doubt--" "i don't _want_ him to make a reputation doing what's wrong!" "wrong? why, mary, it isn't wrong to defend a criminal! the law insists that he be defended, it's a sacred part of our legal system. they wouldn't think of hanging him unless he was properly defended. somebody'll have to do it. and laurence believes he's _right_ to do it--that's what makes him so strong. there's nothing like having right on your side--that is, i mean, believing you have it, of course--" "then laurence thinks the man was right to murder his wife?" mary said ironically. "no, no, dash it all!--oh, well, you can't explain things to a woman," groaned the judge. "excuse me, mary, i've got to get back--" he took off his napkin, and rose, sighing. "but i should think you'd be proud of laurence," he added as he moved ponderously to the door. "to think he's willing to face public disapproval, take all sorts of risks, just to stand by that poor hunted beast--run into danger--" "danger?" she was moved now. her eyes, wide open, fixed the judge piercingly. he promptly hedged. "oh, well, i don't mean actual danger, of course--life and limb.... i mean,--why, i mean his career, that's all. but he doesn't give a--doesn't think of that. i must run." the judge fled ignominiously. mary sat still. her mind moved rapidly enough when her emotion was stirred. in a flash she had pieced together the judge's words--his hurry and laurence's--the revolver--laurence's reference to the mob and his saying he had been sworn in to defend barclay. she saw it now--certainly he was in danger, actual danger. she wondered she had been so stupid, not to see it before, not to feel it when he said good-bye. the girl came in to clear the table, and mary remembered that it was time for young james' nap. she went quickly out on the porch, picked him up and carried him upstairs. when he was tucked into his crib, she put on her bonnet and light shawl, and went down to look at the baby, who was sleeping. she did not like leaving the children, she always got her mother to stay with them if she went out, but now she would not stop for that. she sent a message to her mother by a passing neighbour, and hurried down the street toward the square. * * * * * afterwards she remembered it shuddering, with the vividness of a bad dream that has startled one from sleep. the crowd in the square, in which she was caught at once, it seemed without the possibility of getting forward or getting out. waves of motion passed through this crowd. she was pushed on, pushed back. those near her seemed as helpless as herself. a group of men about her tried to protect her, but they too were swept on by the mass, sometimes a rush would almost carry them off their feet. the frills of her dress were torn, her shawl wrenched off her shoulders. in a sudden pressure that nearly crushed her she cried out sharply. her defenders, fighting back savagely, made a united effort and beat their way across the sidewalk, up some steps, lifting her into the embrasure of a closed shop-door, and there they formed a line before her. she leaned against the wall, panting and faint, and looked over their shoulders at the swaying crowd. all those faces--a vague blur, like the noise that came from that mass of men--something bewildered, indefinite, a formless suggestion of violence. it was a mob without leaders. the feeling was there, the vague intent, but without shape. above the groundswell of the crowd a voice was ringing out, deep and powerful. across the square, on the courthouse steps, hilary robertson was speaking. through the light veil of maple-branches, at the top of the long crowded flight of steps, she could see him. his voice reached her, not the words but the tones, sharp and hard, not pleading, rather menacing, commanding, flashing like a keen sword of wrath. now he lifted his arm, with clenched fist, in an imperious gesture.... he stopped, turned and went into the building. there came a sudden shout from the crowd and a struggle began, an eddy like a whirlpool, about something advancing--a black closed vehicle, with horsemen surrounding it, visible over the heads of the people. it passed slowly along the side of the square. cries, hisses greeted it, and a shower of stones. it passed so close that she could clearly see the faces of two men who stood on the step of the prison van, shielding its door with their bodies. both had the same look of hard pale resolution. the narrow step gave them a bare foot-hold, they stood close together, holding to the door. one was carlin, with his revolver in his hand, the other was hilary robertson, hatless, his forehead cut by a stone. iii carlin came back late that night, weary but triumphant, having seen his man safely lodged in the county jail. he was full of scorn for the futile malice of his fellow-citizens, and declared to mary and the judge, as he ate his supper, that he would get barclay off, just to spite them. he was excited, his blue eyes gleamed with the elation of combat and success. he had identified himself completely now with the cause of his client. the odds against him roused all his energies, his fighting instinct as well as his instinct for protection. carlin needed at the same time to hate and to love. but he liked things in clear black and white, he wanted always a definite adversary whom he could hate with reason. he was profoundly impatient of certain feelings in himself which he could not explain nor justify. some incidents of the day had irritated him deeply, stirring these feelings. presently he broke out, addressing the judge. "i suppose you know that the preacher mixed himself up in it." "yes, yes, he certainly did. i will say for that fellow that he's always on hand when there's a scrap," replied the judge easily. "spoiled a good fighting man, i guess, when he took to preaching." "well, he ought to _stick_ to preaching, and not come poking his nose into what doesn't concern him!" "oh, i don't know, laurence, i guess he did a good turn today. the way he lit into that crowd--he gave them hell. and he has influence round here, people respect him, they know he's no milk-sop. of course maybe the talk didn't do so much, i don't know--but his coming along with you--" carlin cut the judge short impatiently. "_we_ didn't want him to go! but there he stuck--he would be in it.... and then he'd got in too and talked to barclay. got the poor fellow all mushed up, talking about his sin--as if he didn't feel enough like a sinner already!" "well, well, that's his business, you know," argued the judge. "you can't blame him for that. and he showed he was willing to stand by barclay. i guess he did about as much to protect him as the deputies did--" "oh, bosh!" "well, i think so. that crowd knew they'd have to hurt him to get at barclay, and they didn't want to." "i saw they cut his head open with a stone," observed mary calmly. she was sitting beside the table, sewing. "you saw?" "i was down there in the square." the two men stared at her incredulously. she went on, taking tiny neat stitches carefully in the baby's garment: "i went down after you left. i was worried." "down there--in that crowd? good lord!" the judge looked horrified and guilty. "yes. my dress got torn and i lost my shawl. but some men helped me up into a doorway. i saw you go by." she looked up reflectively at carlin. "you were crazy to do that!" he cried. "why on earth--" "well, i was worried. i knew you wouldn't be taking that pistol for nothing." carlin gazed at her with softened eyes, with compunction, disturbed and pleased too. "why, you poor girl! i didn't think you'd worry. you always take everything so quietly. why, mary! you in that mob--!" "i'm glad i went. the crowd was dreadful, but--i'm glad i saw you." her eyes lit up suddenly, glowed. "you looked splendid!" "splendid?" he laughed, stretched out his hand to hers, deeply pleased. "i can't express it, but with all that howling crowd, and the stones, yes, you were splendid! both of you." carlin withdrew his hand abruptly, and mary serenely went on with her sewing. * * * * * she was well aware that carlin disliked hilary robertson, but as she considered that his dislike was without reason, she ignored it as much as possible. carlin's flings at "the preacher," she was accustomed to receive in silence. she considered that hilary needed no defence, his life spoke for him, he was blameless. she put carlin's sneers down to his unregenerate nature, his habit of scoffing at religion, which now seemed ingrained. never would she have admitted the possibility that carlin might be jealous. that would have been too degrading, it would have reflected upon her, and she was serenely conscious that her conduct and feelings were blameless also. she had tried to explain to him the nature of her admiration for hilary, but he couldn't or wouldn't understand it. he had a wrong attitude toward it, and toward her church activities and charitable work. most men, she thought, liked to have their wives religious, but laurence would have preferred frivolity on her part. he was very fond of pleasure; he insisted on keeping wine in the house, and on taking her to chicago for the evening on the rare occasions when she could get away. mary felt that she yielded a good deal, perhaps more than she ought, to laurence's light tendencies; but then, also, it was a wife's duty to yield, whenever she could consistently with higher duties. so she had a submissive attitude--except when some question of "right" came up. in reality she ruled the house, and the judge and carlin, and the babies and the swedish servant, with an iron hand. an exact order prevailed in the household, a definite routine for each day. mary had her ideas about how a family should be managed, and she worked hard to carry them out, and made other people work too. she had a manner now of quiet authority. she did not scold, nor raise her voice when displeased; but visited the transgressor with an awful silence and with icy glances. outside the house she seldom interfered with the doings of her husband or judge baxter. "business" was the man's province, and she did not enquire, as a rule, into its details. and in her own province she did not expect to be interfered with. the judge and carlin submitted meekly to her rules--refrained from smoking in certain rooms, were prompt at meals, careful about the sort of men they brought to the house, did not indulge in unseemly levity of conversation. the judge had almost conquered a lifelong habit of profanity. he had a complete fealty to mary, was touchingly pleased to be ruled by her. he was afraid of her, and often felt like a small boy in her presence. he despised her intellect, as he did that of all women. this contempt existed side by side in his mind with admiration and involuntary awe, and the conjunction never troubled him. he would have said that he admired women but didn't respect them. more difficult to overcome than swearing was his habit of cynical speech about the sex. it broke out now and then in mary's presence, revealing his deep conviction that women (though angelic no doubt) were hardly human, but of a distinctly inferior species. mary never troubled to defend her sex. she would merely look at the judge with a calm, slightly ironical gaze, under which he sometimes blushed. * * * * * the next afternoon she went to visit hilary, who was ill, mrs. lowell reported. there was no hesitation now about her entrance. she walked into the house, majestic in her sweeping grey dress, and the widow received her gladly. confidential relations had long since been established between them on the subject of the minister. "he's up and dressed, though the doctor ordered him to stay in bed," the widow complained in a subdued voice. "and he won't take his chicken broth, that i made specially--" "well, bring it in and i'll see that he takes it," said mary. she knocked at the study door. a peevish voice said, "oh, come in!" hilary was lying on the hard sofa, with a rumpled afghan over him. his head was swathed in bandages, his cheeks flushed with fever. "oh, it's you," he murmured apologetically. "i thought it was that old woman again." mary, laying aside her shawl, proceeded to spread the afghan more smoothly over him and to shake up his pillows. then she took his wrist, her finger on the pulse. "why don't you stay in bed?" she enquired. "you have fever." "nonsense, no fever. i got tired yesterday, that's all." "i should think so. was the cut on your head very bad?" "the doctor sewed it up. it's all right." he spoke gently, and lay back quietly on his pillows. mary sat down beside the sofa and picked up a book that lay open on the floor. "greek--a nice time for you to be reading greek!" she remarked. hilary smiled. "how are you getting on with it?" he asked. "oh, i can pretty nearly write the alphabet," she smiled too. "i practise when i have time. and i'm going to teach it to james when he's old enough." "they say john stuart mill could read greek when he was three." "then i don't see why james shouldn't." at this they both laughed. the widow now came in, with a sad look, bearing a steaming cup, which mary took from her and presented to hilary. "drink your broth--and after this you must drink it whenever mrs. lewis brings it." hilary raised himself with an effort on his pillows and began to sip the broth, making a wry face. "awful stuff," he protested. "indeed, it's the best chicken broth, if i did make it myself!" muttered the widow, retiring with an offended air. "i'm afraid you're a trying invalid," said mary, amused. "hate to be treated like an invalid, that's all.... but women always have to be coddling something," hilary said ungraciously. he finished the broth and lay back with a sigh of relief. mary rose and began setting the room in order, restoring scattered books to their shelves, picking up articles of clothing and crumpled papers from the floor. hilary's eyes followed her; he made no protest, even when she arranged the papers on his desk in neat piles. "you know," said mary suddenly, "laurence and the judge are going to defend that man--barclay." "yes, i know it." "do you think it is right for a lawyer to defend a man he knows to be guilty?" "there's something to be said even for the guilty," said hilary after a moment. "you mean he can be defended?" again he hesitated. "as i understand it, they can't try to deny that he committed the murder, they can only plead extenuating circumstances." "that means, try to justify it!... do you believe in that?" "i don't know all the circumstances.... but the law distinguishes--if it is done in the heat of passion, it may be called manslaughter--not murder." "and what would he get for that?" "a term of years, imprisonment." "well, i should think murder was murder, however it was done!... and as to circumstances, you know mrs. barclay was a good woman, a member of your church, you know what a hard time she had, especially after _he_ came home, and now her children are left worse than orphans--i don't see how you can say that 'circumstances' make any difference!" she stood straight, her eyes flashing reproach at him. "why, mary, do you want the man hanged?" "well, if anybody is hanged, _he_ ought to be! so long as we have laws to punish criminals--" "you stand up for the woman always, mary," said hilary, smiling faintly. "and you--you and laurence--it seems to me very queer that you two should be standing up for that man! yesterday--risking your life for him--now i think it's very strange." "that wasn't so much for him," said hilary slowly. "it was to prevent another murder, that's all--to keep them from doing what he'd done." he shut his eyes wearily, and mary softened. "i oughtn't to talk to you about it now. you must be quiet. i'll go now, and you must promise me to go to bed and not get up till the fever's gone. will you?" "yes. but stay a little longer." she sat down again beside him, and he lay still with his eyes closed. "did you go to see the children today?" he asked after a pause. "yes, i stopped in. they were playing in the yard--they're so little, you know, they don't realize anything--except perhaps the girl. i wanted to take one of them, but mrs. peters said she thought they were better off together." "yes, i should think so.... we'll have to find homes for them, though, and it isn't likely they can be together long." "i know. mrs. peters said she would keep one of them--and i could take one. i'm sure laurence would think that right, as he is so much interested in--the father." mary's face and tone expressed a sudden repugnance. hilary half-opened his eyes and looked at her. "you hate sinners, don't you, mary? you don't understand why people sin?" "from weakness," she said. "and you haven't much pity for weakness.... you don't understand how a man can make a beast of himself with drink, because he's unhappy." "do you?" "oh, yes, yes, i understand it," said hilary with a tortured look. "i know what unhappiness and loneliness can do.... sometimes i wish i didn't. how can i condemn sin when i understand the sinner so well?" "you must, though," said mary calmly. she knew well this mood of his, by this time she knew his weakness. the relation between these two had changed. no longer did she with humility look up to hilary as a saint. the change was not so much in him as in her. in the old days, before her marriage, hilary had often accused himself to her as a weak and erring man, he had passionately resisted her attempts to canonize him. since then he had talked to her more frankly but in the same way, she knew his yearning for perfection, and his despair of it; she knew too, though not by direct expression, his human longings and his loneliness. she no longer idealized him, she did not need to. but he was intensely interesting to her. he was only a man now, but still better than other men, stronger, with higher aims. she admired him. but they now stood more on an equality; her manner toward him had even a tinge of maternal authority. for she felt that all men, all that she knew, however gifted and interesting, were somewhat childish. she herself had reached maturity. with the birth of her children she had come into her heritage of life. she was now so firmly planted on the earth, so deeply rooted, that it seemed nothing could shake her. the dreams of her girlhood, of life beyond life, passed by her now like the clouds on the wind. she was satisfied, assured. hilary's life, even, seemed to her dream-like, cloud-like, because it was so restless, so tormented. the need for incessant action and struggle that drove him, as it drove laurence in a different direction, seemed to her sometimes absurd. religion to her meant tranquillity, the calm certitude that one was on the right path, doing one's duty and refraining from wrong. simple--and easy. she stayed a little while longer with hilary, but insisted that he should not talk. she knew that he liked to have her sitting beside him, immobile, her hands folded on her knee, not even looking at him. she knew now very well what her presence meant to him; their constant meeting in the work of the church; their talks, intimate in a sense, though she made no personal confessions to him and he never expressed his feeling for her in speech. she was quite satisfied with this relation, and sure that hilary would never overstep the bounds of right and reason, even if tempted to do so. she herself had not the least temptation. all her pride lay in keeping things exactly as they were. iv that night she proposed to laurence that they should adopt one of barclay's children. laurence did not like the idea at all; he looked discomfited, and so did the judge. both felt it would be the intrusion of a stranger into the domestic circle. laurence had a good reason to give for his objection, and a sincere one--it would be too much for mary, she had her hands full now, with the house and two small children. mary said she could manage it, and that it was only right for her to do her part in helping the unfortunates. she looked so calmly resolved as she spoke that laurence and the judge exchanged alarmed glances. they did not oppose her directly, but devised a stratagem. laurence pointed out to mary next morning that after all they were living in the judge's house, and the judge didn't want a strange child there. so they couldn't very well adopt the child, but he, laurence, would be responsible for its maintenance and care somewhere else. "very well," said mary austerely. "but i think the judge is very self-indulgent." "so am i, then," confessed laurence. "i don't want it either. but honestly, both of us think about you. i don't want you to undertake it, dearest--it's too much." "if other people, not so well off as we are, can do it, i should think we could." "it's a question of what we can do best. i'll gladly give the money, and i'm doing all i can for barclay too, and so is the judge." "i know--for _him_. you're interested in him, but i think you'd do much better to help the children." "well, i _will_ help them, you'll see." laurence kept his word, and in fact charged himself with the future, as it turned out, of all three children. but mary was for the moment dissatisfied. she wished to put into instant practice her theories of duty, and utterly scorned theory without practice. looking in that afternoon, as she had said she would, to see if hilary had kept his promise and to report about the children, she mentioned the attitude of her husband and the judge as explaining why she could not carry out her plan. "i think men are very inconsistent," she said caustically. "they like to talk about what they'll do for other people, but when it really comes to _doing_ it--" "a man's reach should exceed his grasp," quoted hilary. "we always _see_ much more than we can do." "i think it would be better, then, to see less and do more," remarked mary. hilary looked very weak and pale. his fever was down, but he had kept his bed, unwillingly. mary had brought him a pot of jelly and a few daffodils from her garden. he held the flowers in his hand, and looked with brooding tender pleasure at their brilliant colour. mary asked questions about some church-business she was to do for him, and then, in the short remaining time of her visit, they talked about sin. the conversation of the day before had remained in her mind and puzzled her. she questioned him sharply: "what did you mean by saying that when you understood the sinner you couldn't condemn sin? do you really feel that?" "i often feel it," said hilary in a low voice. "then it would be better for you _not_ to understand the sinner. you said so yourself, you said you wished you didn't." "well, i can't help it," hilary smiled wanly. "because, you see, i'm a sinner myself." "of course you're not. you only like to think you are." "what is sin? you said it's weakness. do you think i'm not weak, sometimes?" "no, i don't think you are. you don't _act_ weakly, and that's the only thing that counts." "is it? don't you think there are sinful thoughts and feelings?" "of course. but if we fight against them--" "well, don't you think that a man who carries a sinful feeling around with him, even if he doesn't act on it, knows what a sinner is--and do you think he can be very hard on another man who just happens to act?" mary cast an angry glance at the pale face turned toward her. there was a look about hilary's mouth, as though he were repressing a smile. he had a look of mischief, not merry either, but as though deliberately trying to puzzle and disturb her--and she had seen this in him before. she arose from her chair, and gathered her shawl about her, lifting her chin, stately in her displeasure. her grey eyes looked down with cold reproof. "i think instead of talking that way, you'd much better go to sleep." "well, good-bye, then," said hilary. he turned his head away sharply. his fingers closed tightly on the yellow daffodils. mary suddenly saw lying there before her, not a man, but a forlorn sick child. for the first time she knew the impulse to comfort this unhappiness, an impulse of tenderness. it frightened her, and she went out quickly, without a word. * * * * * returning home, she found trouble and confusion. the judge had been taken ill and laurence had brought him home. mrs. lowell was there in the room, a messenger had been sent to try to find the doctor. the judge was stretched out on his bed, unconscious, his face deeply flushed. laurence, with mrs. lowell's aid, was trying to get some of his clothes off. "he's had a stroke--just toppled over at his desk--i wish you'd been at home, mary," said laurence with sharp reproach. "i don't know what on earth to do for him--" silently mary gave what help she could. they got his coat and boots off, loosened his shirt-collar, put a cold compress on his head. he was breathing heavily and the purple flush deepened, especially on the left side of his face. in her alarm, mary still remembered the children and that it was the baby's nursing-time, and as there seemed nothing more to do, she left the room. laurence followed her out. "you remember he's complained of dizziness several times lately--i tried to have him see your father but he wouldn't, said he thought perhaps he'd been eating or smoking too much. at his age, you know, it's pretty serious--" "he didn't look well this morning," began mary, going into the dining-room, where the cook was looking after the children. "well, i should think you might have stayed at home, then--where were you?" asked laurence irritably. "please put james in his pen," said mary, taking the baby. "hilda, you'd better see that there's plenty of hot water--the doctor may want it." she carried the baby upstairs and sat down in a low chair in their room to nurse it. when laurence came in the door, she said directly: "i went to see mr. robertson--he's ill." "you went yesterday too, didn't you?... you're very attentive to him." she looked up at him, opposing to harsh irritation her reproving silence. "i tell you, i don't care to have you going to see him that way, alone. do you want to be talked about?" "don't disturb me when i'm nursing the baby.... there--isn't that father?" the clatter of wheels and a hasty run up the steps in fact announced the doctor's arrival. laurence went downstairs, with an angry parting glance. the baby cried a little, and mary gathered it to her breast, composing herself, shutting her eyes, trying to banish all disturbing thoughts, even the thought of the judge. she believed that any disturbance in her when she was nursing reacted at once on the baby. indeed now the baby cried shrilly and at first refused the breast; but after a few moments, quiet succeeded, and mary sighed, relaxing. it was a deep physical pleasure to her, to nurse her child--more so with this one than with the first. the baby's strong pull at the breast, for he was a robust infant--his hand opening and shutting on her flesh, the warmth of his little body, the relation of complete confidence and satisfaction--it moved and soothed her. she sank into a dreamy contentment, isolated from all that hurry and trouble downstairs. but when the baby, replete, had gone to sleep, she laid him on the bed, and at once went down. she was very much concerned about the judge, though her quiet face and motions did not betray her anxiety. she did what could be done, and awaited her father's verdict silently. "apoplexy--he'll recover, undoubtedly, but his left side is affected, there may be a slight paralysis," dr. lowell told them. "his habits have been bad--no exercise, too much whiskey and tobacco. and then his age--he must be over seventy. probably he'll be a good deal of an invalid from now on." "he won't like that," laurence said sorrowfully. "no, he's never taken care of himself, he'll hate it, naturally--but so it is.... it will mean a good deal for you and mary--the care of him here, and then he won't be able to do any work for some time--perhaps never again, to any extent." laurence and mary looked at one another gravely and sadly--both felt what this would mean to the judge. when they were alone, laurence went and took her into his arms. "i'm sorry i was cross to you," he said softly. "i didn't mean to be rough." mary kissed his cheek. "i know--of course you were terribly worried," was her forgiving response. "this will be very hard for you, mary, the judge being ill--we must get some one to help." "well--we'll see.... you'll have a lot of extra work too, laurence, and you're working so hard now--" "oh, i think i can manage," he said absently. "but the thing right now is to get somebody here to help you--he'll have to be watched at night now, and--i tell you, there's nora. you remember the girl you saw at the office the other day, nora skehan, you know i told you i used to know her as a child. she's out of work again, and i'm sure she'd be glad to come. you might try her." "well, i'll see," said mary again. laurence held her and looked at her appealingly. "mary--i can't bear to have anything wrong with you and me.... other things go wrong--there's a lot of trouble and worry--but i can't stand it to feel angry at you, or have you angry with me--" "i don't think i'm ever angry with you," murmured mary reflectively. "well, worse ... you look at me sometimes as if you didn't like me! when you're displeased--it's worse than being angry. i'd rather you'd flame out, the way i do, and get it over with--" "i'm not like you." she smiled gravely. "i wish you felt as i do--that you'd do anything rather than have trouble between us--" "trouble? what trouble?" she drew away from him, an instinctive shrinking that hurt him. "i mean, you don't seem to care that certain things disturb me!" he burst out. "you're so terribly reserved, you keep things to yourself--you do things i don't like, and you don't _care_ that i don't like them--" "i don't do anything wrong," said mary proudly. "you're so sure everything you do is right! no matter how it affects _me_!" "you do things _i_ don't like--barclay, for instance." "that was a matter--i felt i _had_ to do it--i felt it was right--" "well, you must allow me to judge what is right for _me_. i shall never do what i think wrong." "what you think! you don't think it wrong then to disturb me by your actions, not to give me your confidence--" "confidence?" said mary haughtily. "i will tell you anything you want to know. i haven't anything to conceal. but you simply don't understand my feelings, certain things i care about that you don't care about--" "that's it! you take it for granted i can't understand.... i don't want you to have friendships apart from me!" mary stood still, looking down, her eyes hidden by the long drooping lids that gave her face a look of passionless calm, inflexible, immovable. "do you hear?" cried laurence. he knew, even while he could not master his agitation, that it put him in the wrong, that it gave her the advantage. but he could not bear opposition from her. to know that they were not completely united, completely one in feeling, was a torment to him. "don't shout," she said. "i think this is a queer time for you to talk like this, laurence--it seems to me you ought to be thinking about the judge." "ought!" he muttered. "did you hear what i said?" "yes, i heard, laurence. but--" she looked full at him now, her clear grey eyes very bright. "but i will not let you interfere with what i think right to do." "you will not?... don't you know that i'm master here, that you're bound to do as i say?" again the long lids veiled her eyes, and she stood without replying. and laurence's heart was burning. this harsh assertion of authority had been wrong, it was not what he meant. he hated force. what good would anything forced from mary do to him? what he longed for was a tender understanding--but if she would not understand, would not be tender, what could he do but rage? at this point they were interrupted. mrs. lowell called to them from the sickroom, and mary hurried to take charge there, without a word or look for her husband. resentment smouldered in her mind, a feeling that laurence was wrong, and, in addition, undignified. all the rest of the afternoon, busy as she was, and grieved too as she watched the judge's stricken figure--all this time a turmoil of feeling about laurence was going on below the surface of her mind. never had she been so disturbed. this was the first really serious clash in the two years of their life together. v for the first time, her will and laurence's were definitely, sharply opposed. heretofore, each of them had yielded, in much that concerned the other, without a clear issue. she felt that she had yielded a good deal to laurence. he had associates that she did not like, hard-drinking bachelors of the bar, with whom he spent an occasional convivial evening, coming back flushed and gay though never overcome. she did not like even his moderate drinking, nor the fact that he never went to church, that he took no interest in religion except to jest crudely about it. on the other hand, he had not, so far, tried to interfere openly with her interest in the church nor her association with hilary in work, nor her taking up a course of reading in history and beginning to study greek under hilary's direction. he had acquiesced in her asking hilary to supper a few times, as was her social duty, and had behaved with courtesy, though she knew he disliked "the preacher." he gave no good reason for his feeling, but he expressed it in gibes and bitter jokes about "sky-pilots," the fondness of women for priests, the power of "holiness," and so on. these expressions irritated mary deeply, but she had passed them over in silence, withdrawing into herself and indicating to laurence that she did not expect him to understand nor take any part in this interest of hers, any more than she could take part in his stag-suppers. but this division of interest, this separation, to some extent, of activity, did not affect her feeling about laurence nor disappoint any desire in her. she was satisfied with laurence and with the arrangement of her life. the achievement of maternity had given her the solid basis, the central motive, to which everything else was incidental. laurence was most importantly connected with this motive, but yet in a way he was outside it. and he felt this and raged dumbly against it. what he had dreamed of was a mystic bond between mary and himself, which should be the centre of all things, subordinating everything else. and this, in his feeling, had not come to pass, because she could not understand nor respond to his desire. he was unsatisfied; therefore demanding, often harsh and bitter, often unreasonable. laurence was not contented to be a husband and a father; and this appeared to mary the height of unreason on his part. to be the head of a family--what more dignified and satisfactory position could he wish, so far as his private life was concerned? if, in addition, he succeeded in his profession, what more could he ask? why, when everything promised well, should he so often be moody, irritable and discontented? it must be the nature of man, perpetually unquiet. on one point mary was a little disingenuous, or perhaps not clearly conscious. her plan assigned to laurence the rôle of head of the family; in reality what she expected him to be was a figurehead. this was quite in accordance with custom and tradition. theoretically, of course, the man was master of his household, and the wife as well as the children owed him obedience. mary would never have dreamed of disputing this axiom. it was accepted by all the women of her acquaintance. but practice--that was quite another thing. in practice, the women ruled their households and themselves, and very often their husbands also, allowing them liberty of course in exclusively masculine matters, such as business, and a certain amount of license in regard to their amusements. the woman's path was sharply marked out; she could not overstep certain limits. but keeping within those limits, she had her authority and independence. in her own family, mary could remember very few occasions on which her mother's actions or decisions had been questioned by the nominal chief. if she were subject to her husband, it did not appear; the household produced the effect of a matriarchy. and this was mary's idea of the proper constitution of a family. it was unthinkable that the man should interfere in details, should try to dictate in matters outside his province; by so doing, he lost dignity, which it was essential he should maintain. a wife must always speak to her husband with respect; must never criticize him nor complain of him, even to her nearest friend or relative; his dignity was hers. also, a certain formality in her address to him was proper. she should use his title, if he had one, as judge, doctor or colonel; or if not, should call him mr. brown, rather than john. mary was conscious that her relation with laurence, so far, lacked formality. but laurence hated that sort of thing, and he was very young, for his years. he was nearly thirty, yet he acted like a boy, much of the time. that afternoon and evening, there were times when there was nothing to be done in the sickroom but to sit and watch; and mary was thinking. she regretted bitterly the clash with laurence--those sharp words, her own assertion of independence. there she had made a mistake, had transgressed her own code. laurence's counter-assertion of authority was also a mistake, but a natural consequence of hers. she should not have set herself up against him, in a personal matter, even if he were wrong. she now found herself obliged either to give battle or to retreat--both alternatives very distasteful to her. she was angry at herself; she had fallen below her own standard, lost her self-control, behaved in an unseemly fashion; and had much weakened her own position. she perceived now, aghast, that if laurence actually _did_ command, she would have to obey. she could not openly flout her husband's authority, that was impossible, her own pride would not permit it. the terrible mistake was to have brought him to issue a command. she knew very well that that was not the way to manage. sitting by the bedside, her hands folded on her knee, looking straight before her, she thought it out. she did not like the idea of "managing," or gaining any point by methods other than the most simple and direct. anything underhand, any ruse or scheme, was deeply repugnant to her. she did not like even to "humour" people. how, then, was one to deal with an unreasonable man--must one actually submit to him when he was in the wrong? laurence was wrong and unreasonable in this case because he could not possibly think that there was any harm in her friendship with hilary. he could not possibly suspect her of anything approaching wrong, in that connection. at the mere idea of it, her cheeks fired and her eyes flashed proudly. she felt herself not only impeccable in thought and deed, but above suspicion from him or any one else. therefore in acting as though he suspected her, or even disapproved of her, he was wronging her deeply.... but let that be, for the moment. the thing to do now, was to retrieve her own false step. she had done wrong--she would set that right, as far as possible. then at least _she_ would be right, whatever he might be. and it was absolutely necessary for her to be right, in her own feeling. what she saw as the right thing she would do, whatever it cost her. having made her decision, she became quieter in mind, and began to think about the judge. this day was evidently a day of disaster. the judge would never be the same again. suddenly she realized that she had grown very fond of him. affection had been obscured in her by constant disapproval of his character. she disdained fleshly indulgences, such as eating and drinking too much. she had felt scornful when the judge's face would flush after dinner, when sometimes his speech was a little thick of an evening, when he found difficulty in lifting his heavy bulk. but now that the punishment of these carnal indulgences had fallen upon him, she felt real sorrow. and even, as she thought what was before him, the rare tears rose and softened her grey eyes. when she had a few minutes alone with laurence, before he took up his night-watch beside the judge, she said to him gently: "i'm very sorry i spoke to you as i did this afternoon. i was wrong. i shall never oppose your will, in anything that concerns myself, if i can help it." laurence's troubled gloomy face lit up with a flash of joy. he clasped her in his arms, melting instantly when she showed a sign of yielding, too happy to pause upon the manner of her yielding. his generous spirit, impetuous and uncalculating, carried him much farther in concession. he swept their difference away passionately. "dearest, i was wrong too--more than you!... you know, mary, i don't want to interfere with any pleasure of yours--you know i want you to have everything you want!... and i don't think you want anything wrong, you know i don't think it, not for a minute!... only i want you to love me more than anything, not to need anything but me, that's all i really want! and you do, don't you? because i love you more than the whole world--" "of course i do," she said softly. "you know perfectly well, i do." "no, sometimes i don't, and then i get wild! then i can't bear to have you like any one else at all. only make me feel that you love me, mary, and it will be all right. i shan't care what you do, if i'm sure of you!" "as if you weren't sure of me!" said mary, with a touch of austerity. "oh, i don't mean what you do, i mean your feeling, don't you see?" "no, i don't. how queer you are, laurence!" "no, it's you that's queer!... but i love you." * * * * * so the shadow passed, for the time being. but the reality which had cast this shadow remained, the real difference. both of them were careful now not to bring it up, both repressed themselves somewhat. mary continued to see hilary in connection with the church, but she did not ask him to the house. laurence did not speak of him, nor of mary's studies, and she kept her books out of his sight. but he knew that she was going on, as he would have said, regardless of his feeling; and she knew that he was still unreasonable about it. for some time, however, this remained an undercurrent in their life, which was full of activities, interests, anxieties, in which they generally accorded. it was on the whole a happy time for them, an unconscious happiness. they were young and vigorous, life opened out before them full of hope and promise, vaguely bright. vi the next year brought significant changes. laurence made a brilliant personal success in his defence of barclay, and melted the jury to the point where nearly half stood out for twenty-four hours in favour of a verdict of manslaughter. finally however barclay was convicted of murder in the second degree and was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. laurence was showered with praise and congratulations for his conduct of the case, his address to the jury had moved a crowded courtroom to irrepressible enthusiasm. his reputation was made. the judge had been able to give him some assistance, though he never recovered from his illness. the burden of the partnership now fell upon laurence, the judge could only consult and advise in important cases, and as time went on not even that, for his memory was impaired. he suffered and fretted under his restrictions, was a fractious invalid, and the loss of mental power was so sore a grief to him that he resorted for solace to the forbidden whiskey-bottle, perhaps with the desire, unconscious or not, to end it all the sooner. nora, now domesticated in the family, was of great assistance with the judge. her quick good-humour amused the old man, her energy was unfailing, she was deft and tactful. she became his special attendant, and also helped with the children, for another baby was coming. nora liked the judge, but she loved the children, she became devoted to them. soon she was indispensable in the household. mary was a little ailing. three children in less than four years had taxed her strength. but she was well content; she wanted another son, in fact she would have liked six of them, big strapping fellows. sometimes she saw them in her mind's eye, a robust procession. during that year the judge made his will. he desired to leave his property, which was much larger than any one had suspected, to laurence. but laurence protested. there were relatives, sisters and nephews, and he couldn't take what ought to belong to them. the judge, easily excited, flew into a rage, and declared that he didn't care a cuss for any of his relatives, and that he would leave his money to charity rather than to them; nay, lest they should contest his will, he would give away the lot of it during his lifetime, make ducks and drakes of it, throw it away, by god! he would do as he pleased! laurence had to calm him, tried to postpone the discussion. "no," said the judge fretfully. "carpe diem--i haven't so many left. i want it settled." "judge, how can i take anything more from you? see what you've done for me already. it wouldn't be right--" "well, see what you've done for _me_, you and mary. you've given me a home, the only one i ever had, you've been like my own children to me, and that's the way i feel about you. and i want you should have something to remember the old man by, when he's gone." in the end, mary being consulted and feeling as laurence did about the money, a compromise was effected. generous legacies were left to the near relatives, and the remainder, for those days a small fortune, to laurence in trust for his children, the income to be laurence's for his life. the judge, having drawn up and executed what he considered an ironclad will with these provisions, was easier in his mind, and felt that he had nothing more to do in life, except to watch laurence's progress and give an occasional counsel. laurence was fairly launched, business poured in upon him, he had two juniors in the office. the judge rather regretted his tendency to take criminal cases whenever they appealed to him; but he recognized too that laurence's talent lay in this direction. and then the boy could afford it now, he needn't be looking closely after money. he could afford to take cases that brought him little except reputation, and to have it said that every poor man in trouble knew the way to lawyer carlin's office. if laurence wanted to be the champion of the poor and oppressed, if he could be more eloquent in behalf of an ignorant negro cheated out of his small property than when he had a fat fee in prospect--why, let him go ahead. he was provided for, anyhow. * * * * * in his many vacant hours, the judge fell back on reading, of which he had always been fond. he had a respectable library of classics, bound in calf. he liked laurence to read aloud in the evenings when work permitted. the judge had a taste for lofty and magnificent diction. shakespeare, the old testament, milton, burton and macaulay were his favourites. he liked de quincey too, and burke's speeches. he could listen by the hour to milton's prose, or the "anatomy of melancholy." he often dwelt on the advantages of such reading, in forming a style. he did not consider that laurence as yet had a style--he was too simple, too colloquial in his speaking. rolling sonorous periods, balanced and built up, a wide range of allusion and metaphor, a sombre and weighty splendour, was the judge's ideal of eloquence. mary was usually present at these readings, sitting by and sewing. but her thoughts often wandered--she had not much æsthetic feeling, and poetry bored her. however, she liked the sound of laurence's voice, as an accompaniment to thoughts which might have no concern with him. one evening a strange thing happened--hilary robertson came to call on the judge. laurence happened to be away on business at the county seat--perhaps hilary knew this. what the purpose of his visit was, did not appear at that time. the judge received him politely, though a little nervous, and begged mary to stay when she was about to leave them together. there was a little general conversation, which presently fell upon literature and ended by hilary's reading at the judge's request the "urn burial" of sir thomas browne. the effect of this stately prose in hilary's wonderful voice thrilled the two listeners. mary dropped her work. something of the feeling of old days came back upon her--some mysterious lifting of the heart, vague pain and yearning at the touch of unearthly beauty. she had hardly felt this since her girlhood, her present life had too much absorbed her. her eyes were fixed upon hilary with startled feeling--no one but he, she was thinking, had ever had the power to move this feeling in her, to make her conscious of a world beyond this narrow world she lived in, to make her dissatisfied with herself, unhappy.... and he could do this just by the tone of his voice, reading something that she did not attend to. music, what little she had heard, produced a similar effect upon her--it was the only form of art that touched her.... but now she resented hilary's power, she did not want to be stirred or made unhappy. especially now, when she was carrying a child. hearing the judge issue a cordial invitation to hilary to repeat his visit, she decided that next time she would avoid him. in the next few months laurence was away a good deal, and was obliged also to work late in the evenings when at home. the judge came to depend upon hilary for at least two weekly visits, when they would read and talk together, and mary often sat with them, in spite of her judgment. sometimes she was sorry for it, sometimes not. laurence learned of this intimacy with astonishment. finding how it had begun, he was struck with hilary's audacity. he had received the judge's praise of his new friend in silence; all the more incensed because he couldn't openly oppose hilary nor keep him out of the house. "i think the judge is getting childish," he said to mary darkly. "he is much weaker," she agreed. "he must be--to let the preacher get hold of him. that would never have happened if he'd been himself." she made no reply, but lay in her low chair, looking out across the lawn to where the sunset sparkled red through the trees. laurence was sitting on the steps near her, carefully cutting the end of a thick black cigar. he glanced up. mary's look of weariness and sadness startled him. she was thinking that laurence did not seem to realize that the judge was dying, and needed what hilary gave him. she knew that hilary had begun to talk to him, gently, of the future, of what he must soon meet; the judge did not resent it, he was a little frightened, and only clung the closer to the firm hand stretched out to him. yes, he needed hilary--to no one else could he confess that he was afraid of death, that he had lived a careless life, that he didn't want to believe in immortality but sometimes couldn't help it.... but, mary thought, it was no use to try to explain to laurence. he felt her sadness without knowing its cause. a quick impulse of alarm and affection made him repentant. he moved closer to her, put his hand on hers. "mary, you're not looking well--i'm afraid you're doing too much. are you very tired?" "yes, a little," she said vaguely, without responding to him, her eyes still fixed on the swaying trees and the red glow beyond. laurence moved back, struck a match sharply and lit his cigar. at that moment he felt acutely that she was far away from him in spirit. he did not know her thoughts, he had no part in them; if he asked her what she was thinking of, she would not tell him. he had given up asking her. it seemed to him often that it was only the material part of her life that he had any connection with--that she willed it so. but she had another life, it seemed, jealously kept secret from him--a life of thought and feeling. he turned away from her, his face dark and brooding. laurence could look evil. his narrow blue eyes, half-closed, were menacing. his heavy jaw, thrust forward, teeth clenched on the cigar, spoke the strength of passionate instinct that would not be repulsed nor foiled, that must be active, that would destroy if it could not build. now he looked destructive. he had changed much in these few years, grown heavier in body from his indoor life, grown handsomer. he still had his military erectness of carriage, something of the soldier remained in his alertness of movement and speech. but the spring and gaiety of youth were gone. experience, thought, responsibility, were marked on his face--and there were lines of pain too, visible at times like this. the judge came up the walk with nora. he had been taking his constitutional late, because of the heat, supported by his gold-headed cane and nora's arm. they were laughing as they approached. "she's been telling me some of her irish stories," called out the old man tremulously. "never was so amused in my life. she's a smart girl, nora is--and a pretty girl too! isn't she now?" laurence went to help the judge up the steps. he sank heavily into a chair, keeping hold of nora's hand, panting. "isn't she pretty now?... i like her red hair. i wish i was a young fellow, i'd make up to her.... she'd keep me laughing...." nora blushed, laughed, wrested her hand away and ran indoors. laurence lounged for a moment against the door, and then went in too. he had to go to the office, and went upstairs to fill his cigar-case. passing the open door of the children's room, he saw nora, with a candle, bending to arrange a tossed coverlet. he stood looking at her. the candle-flame lit up her shining hair, her red lips and tender eyes. she came out softly, and as she passed him, smiling, laurence, put his arm around her, drew her close. "no!" she protested in a whisper. "yes!" he felt her tremble in his clasp, felt her frightened, wishing to resist, unable, felt the emotion that shook her at his touch. he bent his head, kissed her on the mouth. vii carlin could not have told himself how nor when his attitude toward nora had changed, nor when he first became aware that the most ardent feeling of her warm heart was for him. it was all gradual and easy; it seemed to reach far back in the past, and to grow out of their childhood intimacy. carlin could not remember the time when he had not felt affection for nora. affection was still his feeling--but hers was much stronger. and to know that she loved him, humbly, adoringly, passionately, as without any words on her part it was evident she did, could not but influence him. nora had always looked up to him, even when they were playmates; he was the bright romantic figure in her life. the years had set him apart from her; he had risen in the social scale and she had remained where she was. she was too humble to feel any bitterness at this. nay, it was only right, for wasn't it well known that carlin came of gentlefolk in ireland? it was natural that laurence should be a gentleman, and that she, nora, should be his handmaid. but it was also natural that she should love him. he was the handsomest, cleverest man she had ever seen; and no one else had ever been so kind to her. up to the time she entered his household, nora had certainly never aspired to more than kindness and an occasional word of affection from laurence; and there for some time she was too happy to want more. she was treated not like a servant, but almost like a member of the family. she had her own pleasant room, she had no hard nor disagreeable work to do; she was always nicely dressed, clean and fresh. she spent her time with the children or the judge; was in awe of mary, who however always spoke to her kindly and pleasantly; addressed laurence as "mr. carlin," at which, chatting with her, he would laughingly protest. nora did her work with real devotion. far from feeling that her position was in any way an inferior or degrading one, she made her service so willing, so thorough and complete, she gave it with such pleasure, that it became an art. mary soon learned that she need not watch nora, that her instructions would be followed exactly, that nothing would be slurred nor forgotten, that nora could be trusted to the last detail. as the time approached for the third child to be born, the other two came more and more under nora's care. nora loved laurence's children. if her own life had been happily arranged, she would by this time have had some children of her own. she was twenty-eight years old, and had never had even a satisfactory love-affair. for this no doubt laurence was indirectly to blame. his image, bright and radiant, made any swain who might sigh for nora appear too dull for more than a passing interest. it was not in nora's nature to be ungrateful for any affection, whatever the source, and she had honestly tried to love her humble suitors, but in vain. she would have liked to marry, her only life in fact being that of affection, but instead she had drifted from one employment to another, untrained, badly paid, always finding something in the rough conditions of her work to disgust or hurt her. in carlin's house she found for the first time a pleasant way of living, gentleness, consideration, and she was so happy that her spirit danced and sang all day long. she was deeply grateful to all of them, especially to laurence, for he had placed her here; she tried to show her gratitude in service to them all. she quarrelled freely, to be sure, with the swedish cook, whose slowness and awkwardness provoked her contempt. but with the family, inspired by love, she was tactful, graceful, meek; even to mary, whom she did not love, but admired from a distance. as time went on she shared more intimately in the life of the family. through the children she began to feel that she belonged to it. keenly sensitive to anything that concerned laurence, she was aware of occasional friction between him and mary; she saw that he was unhappy sometimes. she began in her mind to criticize mary, sometimes to be angry with her, on laurence's account; she sought out things to do for laurence, put a tender thoughtfulness into the care of his personal belongings. she did not put herself in his way, at least not consciously, but naturally they were always seeing one another. and always her face, her whole being, welcomed him, glowed with pleasure when he stopped to talk to her or bestowed a light caress. the caresses grew more frequent, grew warmer, by insensible gradations. she came to expect his kiss when they met alone; and to dream of it before he came. now her happiness was no longer serene and childish, as at first. it was poignant at moments--with intervals of depression and restlessness. but nora was nearly incapable of reflection or of looking beyond the moment; she had no wisdom except what love gave her, and that did not help her to take care of herself. nora's helplessness had always been evident to laurence. he had felt that she needed to be taken care of, and he still felt it. he felt that he _was_ taking care of her. nora needed affection, she could not work like a menial without any reward but money. money could not buy such service as hers. it was done for love, and love must be its reward--tenderness such as one would give to a child, or a sister.... just when his affectionate recognition of nora passed this line, laurence could hardly have told. it was connected, though, with his feelings about mary, with a wounded resentment that burned in him the deeper for having little expression. when mary hurt him by her coldness or absorption in something apart from him, he was more apt to take or make a chance of being with nora alone. these interviews came to have a secret, a stolen character; snatched moments, a word, a look, an embrace. laurence did not feel that he was doing harm to nora. he did not feel anything very deeply about her--his strong feelings were all for other things. that he was irresponsible, unscrupulous, he would have denied blankly. but his mood was reckless. he wanted the comfort of nora's warmth, her utter acceptance of him, her trembling joy in his caress. from his obscure jealousy, he wanted obscurely to revenge himself on mary, though she was never to know that he had done so. lately, nora had shown some fear--but fear was not resistance. well he knew that she could never resist any impulse, any desire of his. viii on the thick summer air, in the close room, the scent of flowers was overpowering. laurence, standing by the door, looking round at the silent black assemblage, at the black coffin heaped with roses, felt deeply impatient with this show of grief. no one there grieved for the judge, except perhaps nora, sobbing in a corner, and himself. mary was upstairs, not able to be present. he looked coldly at hilary, reading in his deep musical voice the funeral service. it was the custom to pronounce a panegyric on the departed; and he wondered what hilary would say, and waited cynically for some hypocritical praise, for how could the preacher appreciate the judge's real qualities? but he underrated hilary's honesty. in truth it was impossible for hilary to praise the judge's life and character. it was not for him to betray the confidence of the old man's last days, of his fears, doubts and regrets, his halting steps toward the unknown. so he uttered simply a brief prayer, full of solemn tenderness for the passing soul. in hilary's feeling the infinite was like the living air surrounding, interpenetrating, every finite thing; there was no line between life and death, except for a personal loss. to him also, the funeral panoply was unpleasant; he also reflected that the judge had perhaps only one or two real mourners. when it was all over and laurence had returned to the house alone, he went up to see mary. she was lying in bed, in the big room they shared together; she looked very white and tired and had evidently been weeping. laurence bent to kiss her tenderly, and sat by her, holding her hand. "he was a good friend to us," she said at last softly. "yes, he was, indeed." "he thought everything of you, laurence." "i didn't deserve it especially." "i'm sorry for him now, i'm afraid he feels very lonely." laurence looked at her uneasily. "because, you see," she went on slowly, "he never thought about his soul, till just lately, or about another life. it will be very strange to him. he was so worldly." "he was a good man," asserted laurence, frowning. "no, laurence, he wasn't," said mary with inflexible regret. "he was bound up in worldly things, and had no light. so it will be hard for him." "i don't think you are in a position to judge him," said laurence sharply. but then, seeing her tears begin to flow again, he reproached himself and tried to comfort her with soft words and kisses. he resolved once more that until mary was quite strong again he would not cross her in anything, that even if she were unreasonable he would remember her state and be patient. he was really alarmed about her, she had never been ill before, never in the least morbid. several times lately she had frightened him by saying that she thought she would die when this baby was born; and dissolving in tears for the other two babies who would be left motherless. altogether she was unlike herself. laurence, profoundly worried, had talked to mary's father, who told him that she had had her children too fast and was tired out for the time, and naturally affected by the judge's illness, but that there was no cause for great alarm. but at the mere idea of losing mary, laurence was deeply shaken. he would not have said that he was happy with her--in fact for the past year he had seldom felt happy--but he couldn't imagine being anything but miserable without her. he had loved her too long, too exclusively, to live without her. and always he had the hope, though sometimes unconscious, that she would change and love him as he wanted her to. that was all that was lacking, he thought, to make him perfectly happy. he believed in happiness and never ceased to expect it. "laurence," said mary, when her tears had stopped, insensibly soothed by his tenderness, "i wish the judge hadn't left us that money. we didn't need it." "well, sometimes i wish so too," he answered thoughtfully. * * * * * he was perfectly sincere in this. at times, after the judge's will was made, the thought of the money had weighed on him. he disliked the feeling of obligation, even to the judge; he would have liked to owe his advancement to his own efforts alone. but the judge had stood behind him and helped him on, in every way. he was grateful, and yet he was burdened by that help. in later years he was never able to forget it. then it seemed to him that he owed his career to the judge and to the condemned criminal barclay, who had died in prison, for it was the barclay case that gave him his professional start. he showed gratitude as best he could. he put up for the judge a massive monument of granite; and he maintained barclay's children. but he would have preferred to be independent of any assistance. he was conscious of powers that could make their way unaided. and he disliked the feeling that he had not been able to mould his life just as he wished, that in some ways it seemed made for him by forces beyond his control. that feeling did not yet oppress him, he was still too full of youthful energy; it was only an occasional shadow. but many times, in the course of the next months, laurence wished the judge's money at the devil or in the hands of his disappointed relatives. laurence, as executor of the will, had to deal with innumerable details and complexities that bored and bothered him; he hated "business." when finally the estate was settled, the relatives having decided not to contest the will, laurence found himself in possession of a handsome income. the judge had shown his faith in the future of chicago by investing largely in real estate there; these holdings were rapidly increasing in value. they were in the business section and the rentals were high. in addition, the judge's house and its contents, and his horses, were left personally to laurence. for a time, his enjoyment of these things was clouded. the attitude of the judge's relatives had stung him, in spite of his consciousness that his efforts alone had procured them any share in the property. he was extremely sensitive to disapproval, to criticism, especially to any reflection on his independence. to feel that some people, perhaps many of his fellow-citizens, thought his relation with the judge an interested one, that he might be suspected of "making a good thing" out of the judge's friendship, galled him deeply. he knew that never in his life had he used any indirect means for his own advancement, that he was incapable of using people for his own interest, and he hated to appear what he was not. it was more than the pride of an honest man in keeping his reputation clear of any spot. laurence cared more than he could admit about public opinion, about his position in the eyes of his fellow-citizens. their admiration was necessary to him. his ambition could be satisfied only by predominance without any shadow on it, any reproach or sneer. professionally he understood how to keep himself safe from anything of that sort. there he stood on solid rock. his reputation for uprightness, for indifference to money, was unquestioned. he began to be considered "eccentric"; no one could predict what cases he would take, what refuse, except that the more unpromising a case appeared, the more apt he was to take it. he made enemies, of course; but this sort of enmity pleased him. he liked to be called "quixotic" and to be accused of "tilting at windmills." in the law he knew perfectly well what he was about. his law was sound; he worked faithfully and constantly to build up his knowledge. he aspired to the judicial ermine, and a spot upon it would have killed his pride. he would be known as an able and incorruptible judge. he would not owe his position to politics, either, if he could help it. judge baxter had been a busy politician, and had striven to initiate laurence into the local situation. but laurence had not been interested; he hated wire-pulling and contests for power. naturally he belonged to the party that had supported the war and was now all-powerful. but he wanted none of the spoils, at present. his political activity was confined to supporting what he thought good candidates and opposing bad ones; his test being the public welfare. he had identified himself more than he would have thought possible with his town. its growth and prosperity had become important to him. he wanted the town improved and did not want it plundered, and had made his position clear. it suited him--active, and yet aloof from any vulgar scramble for profit. the enemies made for him by this activity he despised; they could not hurt him, he was too strong. the public esteem that he cared for was increased rather than otherwise by their opposition. ix but he had his vulnerable point. when he saw money coming in faster than he could spend it, piling up at the bank, he felt that the time had come to change their way of living. the house that he had wanted to live in had been in his mind for years. it remained only to get an architect from chicago and have the plans drawn for the stately mansion of his dreams. yes, one other thing--to persuade mary that she too wanted it. mary had another son now--a frail infant in whom her life and thoughts seemed centred. it had been a question whether this child would live, and she still watched it with anxious care. she had not fully recovered her own health after its birth--she was thinner, looked much older. for the first time she was a little careless of her own appearance, thought nothing of her dress, and even her rich hair lost its lustre and sometimes straggled untidily from its heavy knot. laurence did not like this change in her--her total absorption in the nursery, her prevailing anxiety, which seemed to him exaggerated. his children had not reached the stage of development necessary to interest his mind. he was fond of them, proud of the two sturdy older ones, and concerned about the sickly youngest. but he could not see why mary couldn't take a little interest in life outside them. it was partly his desire to give her another interest, something that she could share with him, that made him broach the subject of the house. he wanted a more social life--something that they could join in, beside mere parenthood. magnificence would become mary, if she only thought so. she was a beautiful and stately woman, in spite of her present neglect of herself, and would be in her proper place at the head of a big establishment. she ought to have more servants, to entertain, to wear rich dresses of silk, to be adorned with jewels. he wanted to see her so--he wanted more amusement, more gaiety. they were both young--why bury themselves in a mere daily round of work and care? mary at first opposed his idea, but languidly, from mere lack of interest in it. when he grew warm and petulant, and passionately accused her of not caring for anything that he did or for any of his wishes, she yielded the point without more ado. it was laurence's money, of course he could do as he liked with it. she thought they were very comfortable as they were, but if he didn't like the house and wanted a bigger one, very well, let it be built. one house or another was much the same to her. laurence drove out with her one day to see the site he had selected--on the outskirts of the town, which was however rapidly growing. it was a big pasture, running from the road back to the edge of the lake--a rough piece of ground, thickly overgrown with weeds and with straggling willows under which the cattle gathered. but laurence already saw it laid out in lawns and shrubbery, framing the great house of brick and stone that should dominate the town. here would be the stables, there the gardens. there should be a boathouse on the lake, there should be a screen of rapidly-growing trees along the road, a splendid entrance with tall gates, a graveled drive leading to the house. his face lit up as he eagerly explained it all to mary, pointing with his whip, holding in the restive horses with a strong hand, turning the light buggy dexterously around the rough prairie hillocks and mud-holes. a bull came out of a group of cattle and looked at them sullenly with lowered head. the horses wheeled and started nervously. but laurence with the lash of the whip and firm control, forced them to pass directly in front of the menacing animal, and continued his talk. mary listened, wrapped up in her mantle, agreeing to all his suggestions.... it was a bright autumnal day, clear and crisp, with a strong breeze blowing. yellow leaves from nut-trees and maples swirled in clouds along the ground and covered the road. laurence wanted to drive a little further into the country; mary assented, saying that she must be at home by six o'clock. "you ought to get out more--even this little drive has done you good, you have some colour," laurence said, leaning over to kiss her cheek. she smiled, shut her eyes with pleasure, feeling the rush of the wind as they drove against it. "yes, i'd like to drive every day--you manage them so well." "then we will! i'll try to get away for an hour each day, if you'll come, mary.... but you always have some tiresome thing to keep you at home." "do you call the children tiresome things?" she asked, smiling. "well--i do, sometimes," he confessed. "they take so much of you.... i'd like to drive you away somewhere, now, away from all of it, for a while. i wish we could run away together. i hardly ever see you, mary!" "you see me every day, except when you're away--i should think you must be tired seeing me." "i never see you alone, except at night and then you're always tired.... i want things arranged so you won't have so much to do, so that we can have an evening together sometimes--go out somewhere or be alone together, without your having to go and sit with some baby or other," said laurence with sudden peevishness. "well, you know, bringing up a family isn't all pleasure," mary reminded him with mild reproof. "i should say it wasn't!... but there might be a little. you might think about me, once in a while, and put on a pretty dress and sing to me, the way you used to. you'll be getting old if you keep on this way!" "with three children you can't expect me to look like a girl," mary protested. one of the trotters shied at a paper blown across the road, both horses reared and the light buggy rocked dangerously. laurence lashed them, stinging blows, then checked their leap with a wrench, pulling them back on their haunches. "laurence! you shouldn't lose your temper with the horses," remonstrated mary. "they have to know who's master," he answered curtly. "but you make me angry, talking that way about yourself. you're not thirty yet, and you want to live like an old woman! why don't you put on a cap and spectacles?" "well, my mother wore a cap when she was thirty. at thirty a woman can't pretend to be young," said mary, smiling. "pooh, your mother! a woman with your looks, too! you'd be more beautiful than ever if you'd take care of yourself. you haven't ever worn that silk dress i brought you months ago." "oh, i haven't had it made up--it's much too gay, laurence! you know i never wear colours." "well, you ought to.... i should think you might want to please me, once in a while.... but you women! all you think about is children, and a man can go hang himself, for all you care. you wouldn't even want him around, if you could have children without him!" "how you talk! anybody would think you didn't care about the children!" "i care a lot more about you than i do about them--but it isn't the same with you. what's the _use_ of having children if nobody's going to enjoy life--if everybody's just to go along doing their duty and raising up another generation to do the same thing? hey, what's the use of it?" "i don't think the use of it is enjoyment," said mary. "it isn't meant to be." "just like you! how do you know what it's meant to be? have you had any private revelation from god about it?... well, i tell you that i don't see any use in life if there isn't any pleasure in it--and that i'm going to enjoy _my_ life, anyhow, and when i don't, it will be time to quit!" "laurence, you're a pagan," said mary gravely. "a pagan is better than a psalm-singing hypocrite, that wants to take all the pleasure out of life!" "do you mean me by that?" she enquired gently. "no, i don't mean you! you're not a hypocrite, whatever else you are.... if you'd only unbend a little, once in a while, and let yourself have a good time, you'd be all right. but you got a lot of foolish ideas into your head when you were a girl--and i know who put them there too. and you hang onto them like grim death, you're so obstinate you won't _ever_ give up an idea or anything else. you won't change--no matter if you see it makes me unhappy--" he broke off suddenly, and for some moments they were both silent. they were now far beyond the town, out on the open prairie. great fields of stubble from which the grain had been reaped, stretched on either side. in spite of the bright sun and the fresh wind, the outlook over these endless yellow-brown flats, broken by dull-green marsh or dark belts of new-turned soil, was not cheerful. dreary, rather, and sombre was the prairie, its harvest yielded, waiting now for the sleep of winter. in the distance, a grey smudge on the horizon showed where lay the great sprawling smoky city. with his eyes fixed on this laurence said: "but i've known a long time that you don't really care anything about me." "you shouldn't say such things--you know better.... it's only that we don't look at life in the same way." "and you're contented to have it so! but i'm not. why can't you see it more as i do, mary? i think you would, if you cared about me." "no, i can't, you are so personal about it. you want things so much for yourself, and you will always be disappointed, laurence. life isn't given us for our personal pleasure." "you talk like a book or an old greyhead.... i don't think it's living at all to slide through life thinking about something else--not to want anything for fear you'll be disappointed! i think that's cowardly. it's better to try for things." "yes, but what things? i can't care much about worldly things--houses to live in and clothes to wear. i _can't_, laurence." "you seem to think that's all i care for," he said bitterly. "but you don't understand me and don't try to. what i wanted isn't houses and clothes! it was something very beautiful, to me. something that would last for our whole life--and beyond it. but you couldn't see it. even now you don't know what i mean." the suffering in his voice touched her, she leaned toward him and laid her cheek to his. "i wish i could be what you want--i wish you could be happy," she said. "you _could_ be, if you wanted to be!... no, i'm not happy, and i can't be contented this way, mary, i warn you, i can't be!" the menace of his suppressed violence left her silent and impassive. he too fell into moody silence, and so they returned to the house. that night the whole town was roused from sleep, to see a red glare in the sky where by day hung the grey smudge over the city. the news came over the wires--chicago was burning. a strong wind blew the smoke over the prairie, the town was enveloped in a dim haze. trains came in, bringing refugees. later, crowded into all sorts of vehicles, they poured in. the town opened its houses to the flood of terrified homeless people. all night blazed that red light in the sky. the wires went down, but each new arrival brought a story of more complete destruction, of whole streets of wooden houses bursting into flame at once, of brick buildings melting like wax in the furnace. by morning the city of half a million people was in ashes. x but the energy of youth does not stop long to mourn over destruction. hardly had the ground cooled under that vast heap of ashes when it was torn up for new foundations. almost overnight a new city began to rise, a prouder city where brick and stone largely took the place of wood. ruin was swept away and forgotten, men toiled in the busy ant-hill to rebuild their fortunes, and within a year it was done. the city spread along the shore of the lake and far inland, bigger than ever, busier than ever, more splendid and prosperous. at first, in the general ruin, laurence had thought himself involved. his rent-producing buildings were gone, and the insurance companies prostrate. but the land remained, and by the outleap of energy and hope in the people, became more valuable than before. long before the end of the year laurence was at ease about his property. and so the new house that he had planned began to rise from its deep foundations. the house became to laurence a symbol, a personal expression. indeed, it had been that, from his first idea of it. but as time went on, more of his constructive energy went into it. checked in another way, an immaterial way, he must still be building something. the house at least was his creation, all his own, and it became a keen interest, almost a passion. the plans were drawn and redrawn till they suited him, he scrutinized each detail, he spent all the time he could spare in watching the workmen. when from the stone foundation the walls began to grow, layer on layer of deep red brick, he sat or lounged about by the hour, smoking one thick cigar after another, impatient, already seeing in his mind the whole structure complete up to the spire on the cupola, and planning the decoration of the stately rooms. mary sometimes accompanied him. she made an effort to do so, and to join in his interest. but it was somewhat as she might have joined in a child's play, humoring him, and he saw this. nevertheless, he was glad to have her there with him, to talk to her about it, to ask her advice. but the ideas were all his--she had not many suggestions to offer, and these were practical ones, about pantries, closets, and so forth. the scale of the house rather daunted her--sometimes she murmured that it was going to be hard to run it, with nothing but raw untrained servants to be had. "well, you can train them," said laurence cheerfully. he planned the entrance-hall with its stately stair, its niches for statues; the billiard-room on the top floor; the library, with long windows looking out on the lake and a chimney-piece of dark marble reaching to the ceiling. he wanted the house to be gay, inviting, festive in appearance--yet his plan was rather sombre than gay, grandiose. in spite of himself, what he chose had this character. the wish to make a striking effect, to impress and dominate, was stronger than the desire to please. perhaps this came from the poverty and bareness of his early life--perhaps from some lingering ancestral memories of the old world. he wanted splendour, but he wanted it somehow aged and mellow, he did not like the appearance of newness. so the colour of the house was dark, dark wood was used in it. when it came to wall-papers and hangings, he chose them of heavy textures and deep colours. a sombre and dusky red was a favorite--he used that in the hall, the billiard-room and the library. he wanted mary to choose the colour for the parlours, but in the end he decided that too, and it was a dark gold, with heavy double curtains of lace and silk subduing the faint gleam of the walls, and great chandeliers to light it up on festive occasions. all this cost a great deal of money--how much, mary did not enquire. she took it for granted that laurence could manage his own affairs--and they both looked upon the fortune inherited from the judge as his, though of course it was left in trust to the children. that was a formality, the money had been meant for laurence. naturally he would not impair the capital, but would rather increase it, by good investments. the house was an investment--what could be safer than that? the judge had always laid stress on the value and safety of real estate. and already the value of his estate had increased largely. values were going up everywhere. a wave of prosperity had overflowed the country. with the settling of political troubles, the new sense of security, a feeling of boundless wealth and opportunity sprang up and prevailed. the great west opening its riches, the quick growth of cities, fortunes made overnight almost, golden fortunes beckoning on every hand--the eyes of men were dazzled, the gold-fever ran in their veins. gaining and spending went hand-in-hand. a new luxury was spreading. money-scandals spread too, and a cynical perception that those in high places were by no means above lining their pockets in alliance with the rising power of wall street. speculation was the note of the time. merchant princes, railroad barons, money kings, made a new aristocracy, prodigal and flamboyant, and set the fashion for living. * * * * * these big splashes in the pool, spreading tumultuous waves, had subsided into ripples before they reached the inlet where mary lived; but the quiet surface of her life was to some degree disturbed. the restlessness of the time reached even her, but as something to be resisted as far as possible. the few friends she had were staid people, rather older than herself, and with these or with her parents, she preferred to spend what leisure she had. her household mainly absorbed her energies, not yet restored to their normal pitch. even with nora, the care of the children was a constant occupation. the delicate youngest child was mary's special charge. he shared her room, sometimes banishing laurence, who could not wake at night after working all day. the other boys, now six and five years old, were handsome robust fellows, noisy and inventive of mischief. the question of their education troubled mary. she herself taught them to read, and began their religious instruction. she did not want to send them to the town school, fearing profane influences. her early passionate tenderness for them had become a grave solicitude. nora petted and spoiled the boys, but mary was their taskmaster and mentor. nora often lost her temper with them, and slaps alternated with kisses. mary was calm and serious, severe with their moral lapses, such as fibbing and disobedience, rarely caressing them. she felt for them much more tenderness than she showed, believing that it was not good for them to be petted. on hilary's advice, she had not taught her boys greek, though by this time she could read it pretty well herself. but she taught them the bible; they went to church with her, and on sundays they had to learn and recite to her a certain number of verses; and she heard them say their prayers at night, encouraging original efforts. for some time past she had felt that nora was not a good influence. she was too much of a child herself, stormy, impetuous, without any authority over the boys. when she could not control them, she would threaten, scold and at times use physical violence, always repenting it, though, and making up with kisses and fond words. mary had forbidden her to slap the children and sharply reproved her when she broke any of the rules laid down for them. then nora would sulk. in fact her temper had become noticeably bad. * * * * * one day in late september, after a week's absence, trying a case at the county seat, laurence was expected home. nora dressed both the boys in clean white suits, combed their curls with nervous fluttering fingers, set them on the porch with injunctions not to stir and ran up to her own room to put on some adornment. the carriage drove up. mary met laurence at the door, and after his usual warm greeting stood a moment in the hall while he took off his coat and brought in his bags. suddenly piercing shrieks sounded from the shrubbery. both parents rushed out, to find the boys, just dragged out of a mud-puddle, daubed from head to foot and undergoing corporal punishment at the hands of nora, whose angry shouts vied with their screams. mary seized the children, ordered nora away and received a rude answer; whereupon laurence spoke sternly to nora; and she turned white, trembled and fled to her room. passing her door later mary could hear her wild sobbing. she could hear too, while dressing the boys anew, that laurence went in and spoke to nora; could hear the firm curt tones of his voice. presently he came into the nursery, and she said: "i really think i can't keep nora. i can't have scenes like this." "no, i've told her so," said laurence, frowning. "i've told her that she can't speak to you like that, and that if she can't control herself she'll have to go." he looked disturbed and distressed, and mary said no more at the time. nora stayed in her room, and mary gave the boys their supper and put them to bed. they were angelically good. as she was hearing their prayers, laurence came in, looked at the two little kneeling figures and at mary, with a touched and tender smile. prayers over, the boys wanted to romp with their father, whom they adored, who was always gay and playful with them, a radiant visitor bringing gifts. he played with them until dinner-time, tucked them into their cribs, and went downstairs with his arm around mary, whistling boyishly. nora did not appear to serve the dinner, but her absence was hardly noticed. laurence had much to tell of his week away. he had won his case, and was jubilant. it was one of the few cases he took which would mean a big fee--a will contest, involving a large estate. he had taken it because the personality of the defendants appealed to him, and he knew and disliked the man who was contesting the will. laurence held that a man had a right to leave his money as he pleased, and to disinherit a son who had offended him. he felt that he had been defending the just cause, and the elation of his victory was without blemish. "i shall charge them ten thousand--they're willing to pay more than that. so you see, mary, you needn't worry about the price of carpets," he laughed. after dinner he lounged in an easy-chair in the library, relaxed, tired but still talkative, smoking his big black cigar and watching with bright and contented eyes mary at her sewing. he was always happy at returning home, the first hours at least were bright and cloudless. and mary was always glad to have him come back. she missed him deeply when he was away. he often brought disturbance, but he brought too something that she needed. life without him had a duller surface, a slower current, though it might be more peaceful. he had forgotten the unpleasant incident of his arrival, but mary had not. she thought of the children and presently laid down her work and said that she must see if they were covered properly--the night had turned cold. she went upstairs, with her firm slow step. a light was burning in the nursery. as she entered she saw nora kneeling by one of the cribs, her face bowed, hidden. nora raised her head and turned toward the door a look that startled mary. what did that mean--that radiant face, eyes gleaming with tenderness, mouth half-opened and smiling? in a flash it changed. nora dropped her eyes, all the light went out of her. she got up, smoothed the coverlet over the sleeping child. and mary with a glance at the other crib, went out of the room without speaking. she returned to the library, took up her work again, listened to laurence, responded to him, smiling tranquilly on him; after a time moved to sit beside him at his behest, and answered his caress. but all the time there was a puzzled question in her mind, something obscure, hauntingly unpleasant. something that in a sinister way disturbed even the current of her blood, made her heart beat heavily. it was a kind of fear, a vague terror of--she knew not what exactly, but something there, close to her, that she loathed and shrank from. she had never had a moment of jealousy or suspicion of laurence. nothing of that sort had existed for her, it had never entered her world for an instant. now she hardly recognized it, except as a formless shadow of evil. deceit, treachery--could she phrase such things, even to herself? but the shadow remained. it poisoned her sleep, it was there at her waking.... in spite of herself, not admitting it to herself, she suspected--she watched. xi a wild november night. the wind tore furiously across the prairie, sweeping the rain in slanting sheets. it was growing colder; rain became sleet; before morning it would be snow. it was nearly midnight when mary shut the door behind her and gathering her shawl over her light dress, rushed out into the storm. she was not sure she had been seen, but she ran, fearful of being overtaken. the icy rain drove in her face, on her uncovered head, soaked her dress under the flapping shawl. she had not far to go, but she was drenched from head to foot before she reached hilary's house. she met no one in the street, it was not a night to be abroad. the trees tossed wildly overhead, letting go their last yellow leaves, the street-lights flickered dimly in the gale. there was a light in hilary's study. she opened the house-door and walked into his room without knocking. he was writing at his table, and sprang up as she entered, with a startled exclamation. she held out her hands to him, dropping her wet shawl, clutched his arm, clung to him, unable to speak. for the first time hilary held her in his arms, her head with dishevelled streaming hair lay on his shoulder. she would have fallen if he had not held her. he thought she had fainted. half-lifting her, he put her on the sofa, where she sank limp, and knelt beside her, putting back the wet strands of hair from her face. her eyes were shut, but her eyelids flickered, her lips moved. "mary, for heaven's sake, can't you tell me what has happened?" she heard him, nodded faintly, groped for his hand and clutched it as though to save herself from sinking. he waited while she fought to get back her hold on herself. for the first time in her life she had nearly lost consciousness, and she was terrified; it was like a black wave rearing over her head, threatening to engulf her. that feeling passed, slowly, hilary's grasp sustained her, lifted her out of the dark flood.... she drew a long sobbing breath and opened her eyes. "hilary...." she had never called him so before. "yes, i'm here." "i came to you.... i came.... there was nobody else...." "yes, mary, you're cold, you're shivering.... lie there a minute while i stir up the fire." "yes, but don't go away!" "no, i'm not going." reluctantly she let go his hand. he shook down the coals of the stove, put on some sticks of wood, brought coverlets to put over her. "mary, you're wet through.... don't you want me to speak to mrs. lewis, get you some dry clothes?" "no, no--no! i'll be warm in a minute...." she sat up, gathered her loose hair together, trying to wind it into a knot. "look here, mary, i have a warm dressing-gown. take off your wet dress and put it on--go into my room there. and take off your shoes--good heavens, you've only got thin slippers! here, i'll get you my slippers.... i'll bring the things, you can change here." "no, i'm all right now. i'll go in there." she stood up and moved without faltering. when she came out, wrapped in the grey gown, her hair smoothed back and rolled into a heavy knot, she had regained something of her usual manner. but she was deadly pale and her eyes looked dull and dazed, as though she had received a heavy blow. she sat down before the fire. hilary sat near her, and holding his hand tightly in both hers, she told him in broken sentences what she had discovered. "you must tell me what to do.... i shall never go back to him." hilary was silent. "what shall i do?" she repeated, looking imploringly at him. "but if you have made up your mind already--" he hesitated. "not to go back? oh, yes.... but where shall i go?" "why, i should think--to your parents. where else could you go?" now she was silent, and an expression of profound dislike and unwillingness made her face sullen. she dropped hilary's hand and sat looking at the fire. then suddenly she began to weep violently. * * * * * it was long before she could control herself again. then she was quiet, crouched before the fire, staring at it with a look of despair. indeed the foundations of her life seemed to have crumbled under her. she had a lost, helpless feeling. something had been violently wrenched away from her--a support that she had thought secure. she had never thought that laurence could fail her, she had been sure of him. but he had deceived, betrayed her confidence. he had wounded her pride in him and in herself, to the death. she hated his sin, she despised him for it. what she had seen filled her with loathing. never would she forgive him. but now--what could she do? how make her life over again? take her children and go back to her parents, as hilary suggested? a woman separated from her husband--what a humiliating position for her! a public confession of failure! how could she go to her parents and tell them that she had made a mistake, that their opposition to her marriage was justified? and the comments of her little world, how could she bear those, she who had always stood so proudly above criticism? no matter what the reason for the separation, a woman who left her husband was always criticized. and she did not want to give her reason--not to any one, not even to her parents. she wanted nobody to know. rather would she bury the events of this night in darkness.... she looked at hilary, who sat by her in silence. if he had uttered a word of pity or condolence, she would have regretted the impulse that brought her to him. but he met her look gravely; then glanced at the kettle he had set on the stove, which was now beginning to steam. "i shall make you some coffee--you look exhausted," he said. "oh, don't bother--i don't care for it," she protested dully. "no bother--i often make it when i'm up late. i have everything here." he fetched the coffee-pot, poured on the boiling water, set it back on the stove. a pleasant aroma filled the room. he brought a tray, with a cup, and sugar, and crackers, and mary took it with a murmur. the coffee was good--she drank two cups of it and felt revived. "won't you have some?" she said, with a faint smile. "i haven't another cup--but i'll get a glass." they drank together. it was warm before the fire, sitting there, hearing the wind roar and the rain beat against the windows. "i'd like to stay here," said mary dreamily. "to stay ...?" "yes--tonight. can i stay? it must be late." hilary looked at his watch. "nearly three o'clock ... of course you must stay, you can't go out in the rain. you can lie down on the sofa here--or take my bed. you ought to sleep." "no, no, i don't want to sleep.... but i mustn't keep you up all night. you go to bed, hilary, and i'll stay here by the fire. please." "well, after a while.... but mrs. lewis gets up early and i want to see her--i'll have to tell her you're here--" mary's face darkened. for an instant she had lost the feeling of what had happened, now it swept back upon her. the morning was coming--how was she to face it? laurence would know of her absence, perhaps knew it now. he might go to her parents, he might come here to fetch her. she must decide something. "don't you think i ought to leave him?" she asked, looking at hilary. "i don't know. do you mean--divorce him?" he replied with an effort. "divorce! no!" mary exclaimed with a look of horror. "_you_ don't believe in divorce!" "i don't believe in it," said hilary in a low voice. "nor in separation." "i know--i know you don't. but...." "you know what i believe. that marriage is a sacrament ... that it can't be broken or annulled...." "but if _one_ has broken it--" "one may sin against it--but another's sin does not--does not justify--" hilary got up, putting down his glass with a shaking hand, and walked to the window. "i know. i believe as you do," said mary darkly. "but ... how can i go back there?" over the pallor of her face swept a flaming colour, her eyes flashed with rage. "in my own house!" she cried hoarsely. she set her teeth, clenched her hand. hilary, with his back to her, did not see her face, but he heard her tone. "you have your children, you have your--duty," he said in a trembling voice. "just because it is hard, you can't--forsake it." "no," said mary blankly. "but ... i can't see ... i have been dutiful ... but now--i can't be the same. i can never be the same! what can i do?" "not the same ... but perhaps ... better," said hilary from the window. "better?" she cried in a low tone of astonishment. "better--yes.... when one near to us fails ... must we not feel _we_ have failed, too?... can we stand aside, and condemn?... are we not ... our brother's keeper?" after these faltering yet firm words there was silence for a time. then mary said in a hard tone: "i can't see where i have failed.... i have tried to do my duty, as i saw it.... i can't feel responsible for _this_ ... and i can never forgive it." "only love can forgive." "no, that's why i can't forgive!... i did love him, and he deceived me, insulted my love--i will never forgive him!" "it's pride that speaks--not love." "you know nothing about it! you _can't_ know!" "i _do_ know, mary." hilary turned and faced her. "how can you say that? you know that i loved you for many years, that i loved you as any man loves a woman, that i wanted you for my own ... i can tell you now, because it has passed. it has changed. but i suffered what one can suffer from that feeling--and from jealousy. yes, i _do_ know.... and i know too that you have never loved any one." "you are mistaken." her tone was proud and angry. but then all of a sudden she softened. she looked up at him and said with simplicity: "i love you, hilary. you are the best person i've ever known. you're like my brother ... only you're far, far above me. i always used to feel that way about you, and now i feel it more than ever. and i love you for it.... but there's another kind of love ... when you're bound to a person, and they hurt you, you _can't_ love them just the same and forgive them--you can't, hilary! because your faith has been destroyed, and what bound you to the person is broken, and it can never be the same.... even if i haven't always been perfect, i didn't break my faith, but _he_ has broken it, and it's gone--gone forever!" and she began to weep again, passionately. there was no pride about her now. she cried out her suffering and loss, with heartbroken sobs. "i know i haven't always been good, i've been hard sometimes and took my own way and wouldn't give in--but i wouldn't have done what he has done.... i wouldn't have deceived him or hurt him as he has hurt me.... i wouldn't have broken our marriage, but he has done it.... it shows that he didn't care for it, it didn't mean much to him.... i thought he loved me, but because i wasn't everything he wanted, he took another woman ... there, in the same house with me.... and he doesn't love her either, i know he doesn't, he sinned from weakness, low temptation--oh, i wouldn't have believed it of him. i knew in some ways he was worldly, but i always thought he was honest and sincere, i was proud of him ... but now...." when she grew quiet again, and raised her tear-blurred face, it was to see a dim light outside the windows--the stormy dawn. "oh, poor hilary!" she cried. "i've kept you up all night--you haven't slept a wink!" "that's nothing," he answered gently. "i often have sleepless nights." xii then, forgetting him, she stared at the dim light of the window, her eyes wide open and fixed, her lips parted with long shuddering sighs. slowly her breathing grew quieter. hilary watched her face. "mary," he said in low voice. she started, turning her blank unseeing eyes upon him. "be careful what you do now.... you are hardening your heart.... judge not, that you be not judged.... when pain comes to us, it is a symptom, a sign that something is wrong in our life. we must look through the pain to what caused it, and set it right. we must do it humbly, not setting ourselves up above the sinner. if another has sinned against us, let us see why. are we free of blame for that sin? if we had been all that we should have been, would this have happened? let us try to understand.... they that have eyes to see, let them see...." there was no response in those blank eyes, no sign that she had heard. in her intense preoccupation she simply stared at him instead of at the window. mary was making up her mind. something in her heard and registered hilary's words; but they did not enter into the question that was absorbing her. this was a purely practical question. she had to decide what she was going to do _now_. and those well-known phrases uttered in hilary's deep urgent voice as though they were new--they to all appearance passed by her like the idle wind. she could see already what she was going to do. she was not going to make a scandal, nor have any one talking about her or pitying her. enough, that she had complained to hilary!... this thing should be as if it never had been, so far as her outward life went--no one should know. she would not "leave" her husband. but the sinner would not go unpunished.... she knew well how to punish him. she knew how to make him suffer.... now, resolved, she rose to her feet. "the baby! he always wakes about five--if i'm not there he'll be frightened. i must go back at once." hilary looked piercingly at her. "you're going back then?" "yes, i'm going back. you told me to, didn't you?" her tone and look were cool, faintly mocking. "it's snowing hard," said hilary. he put out the lamp--a grey light filled the room. "no matter--it's only a little way." "i'll get a carriage for you--" "no--i'd rather go back as i came." "but you can't--you haven't any dry clothes--" "no matter--it's only for a moment." she went quickly into the bedroom, and came back in her limp white dress and slippers. she took the heavy india shawl and drew it over her head. its damp folds completely covered her. only her face was visible, white, composed, with a curious sinister light in it. she put her hand out of the folds to hilary. with that gesture he felt her put him away. he knew he was included in her unforgivingness, he had become a part of something she wanted to banish. she would hate him for knowing.... "hilary," she said, "i want you to promise me something. promise never to speak of this--not to any one else, i know you wouldn't--but not to me. never speak of it to me again." he dropped her hand, stood looking at her, and slowly his face became as inflexible as her own. "you shut me out, then?... i count for nothing with you? you reject what you came here for--my help, my ... counsel...." "no one can help me. you can't understand." "you came to me, not for help or counsel. you came for sympathy, thinking i would stand with you against your husband. you counted on my feeling for you--you have always counted on it, though you would never admit it to yourself--" "i don't know why i came.... but it was no use." "no. because you won't let it be. you'll go your own way ... repay evil for evil. i can see it in your face. i always knew you had it in you.... oh, mary, has it all gone for nothing--all that you said you believed in for so many years? was it all on the surface--the first time life comes hard to you will you throw it all away?... no, i won't let you, i've cared too much for you--" "what you say is no use, hilary. you might as well promise." "of course not.... you know i won't." "then good-bye." she looked at him indifferently and turned away. noiselessly she left the house. she hoped that she might return unseen to her home, and rejoiced that no one was apt to be out so early. the snow fell thickly, blindingly, and covered her footsteps. the air was sweet, less cold than in the night, the wind had gone down. each branch and twig was ridged with snow; it lay in a broad unbroken sheet over all surfaces, and seemed to give out light in the dim dawn. as she approached the house, she wondered how she was to get in; the street-door locked with a catch and she had no key. but as she went up on the steps she heard the baby crying, and barely noticed that the door opened to her touch; some one had turned the catch back.... she ran upstairs. laurence was in the room, dressed, holding the child, trying to quiet it. she threw off her shawl, put out her arms for the boy, gathered him to her breast. his cries ceased. a flash of surprise and relief had lit laurence's face at her entrance, but now he stood, looking pale and gloomy. "how long has he been crying?" she asked. "i don't know--not very long." still holding the child, she tried to light a spirit-lamp to heat some milk; laurence silently helped her. when she had laid the baby on the bed, with his bottle, she said: "you know i went out?" "yes, and i know where you went, too!" laurence's voice trembled, and his lips; she had noticed when he was lighting the lamp how his hands shook. his face showed deep lines that made him look ten years older. but mary said with icy calmness: "you didn't expect me to stay here, did you?" "i know where you went," he repeated, his eyes dully flaming. "you ran to him, to--" she was changing her dress for a warm wrapper, but suddenly she turned on him. "is that woman in the house?" "no--she's gone." "how is she gone--where?" "what does it matter to you?... she went to the station, if you want to know. she meant to take the first train out." "she can't go like that--like a thief in the night!... you are responsible toward her, laurence." "don't worry about my responsibility. i'll take care of it." "yes, i suppose you will." his harassed desperate eyes rested on mary, searching, piercing. "and you," he said thickly, "are responsible to me." "for what?" "for this whole thing--it's your fault." "is it indeed?" "it is!... and your action tonight proves it. flying out of the house--to your lover." mary was seated with her back to him, changing her wet shoes and stockings. she laughed--ironical laughter, deep with scorn. "yes, laugh! i know it's true!... oh, i don't know what your actions have been, how can i know?... but i know your feeling, i know it hasn't been with me, but with some one else. you married me with that feeling in your heart--you did me a great wrong. i couldn't stand it.... for what i've done that's wrong, by god, you're responsible!" mary put on her slippers and stood up, tying the cord of the dressing-gown round her waist. she looked at him with cutting contempt. "i don't care what you think.... but if i were a man i wouldn't try to shift my responsibility for my own sins to some one else." "will you take your own responsibility? do you see that you've been wrong toward me?" "no. i see that you're trying to throw the wrong on me to save yourself. perhaps you want me to ask your forgiveness?" "yes, by god, i do." she looked at him, under her long lids, with a blue icy gleam. silence fell--charged throbbing silence; all the bitterness of those spoken words, all their venom, distilled in it. words that sting and burn like fire--that leave ineffaceable scars.... laurence waited a moment, then with a look of rage and anguish at her as she stood with averted face, he went out of the room, and she heard him leave the house. she was standing by the window, she saw him pass, his hat pulled down over his eyes, his coat flapping open. he disappeared in the veil of snow. a sharp pang shot through her. but she stood motionless. on the bed the baby lay sucking at his bottle, holding it lovingly with his frail hands, making gurgling contented sounds. and now she heard the other children in the nursery, she must attend to them, there was no one else now to do it. she was busy with the children for some hours. then, leaving them all together in the nursery, she went into the big bedroom which had been laurence's as well as hers, and set about removing all his clothes and other belongings into the smaller room at the back of the house where he sometimes slept. this room she arranged carefully, with her accustomed neatness, putting everything in convenient order, seeing that the lamp was filled and a fire laid ready for lighting. in going and coming she had to pass the closed door of nora's room. at last she stopped at this door, hesitated a moment, then flung it open. the room was swept and empty of all personal belongings--only there lingered a faint stale scent--nora had been given to cheap perfumes. a look of disgust contracted mary's pale face. she took out the key, locked the door on the outside, opened a window in the hall and flung the key far out into the snow. she went once more into the neighbouring room and took from the table something she suddenly recollected to have seen lying there among laurence's papers. it was a little leather case, containing a daguerreotype of herself, done at the age of sixteen. she had given it to laurence when they were betrothed, and he had carried it through the four years of the war. the case was worn and shabby. she opened it and looked at the picture--a charming picture it was. the graceful dress, with its full skirt, and frilled fichu covering the girlish shoulders, the pure oval face framed in banded hair.... laurence had loved it. mary took it into her room, and with tears running down her cheeks, she seized the fire-tongs, smashed the picture to pieces, and threw the whole thing into the waste-basket. part three i lounging in an elegant attitude of ease against the stone balustrade, a tall youth of seventeen was smoking a cigarette in an amber holder, and languidly regarding the scene before him. there was not much to excite his interest. passing vehicles were hidden from view by a thick screen of maple trees and shrubs. on the broad lawn some younger boys were playing croquet--he glanced at them with lofty scorn. a gardener was clipping the evergreen hedge which divided the lawn from the flower-garden. he was attended by a black puppy, which sometimes made a dash at the rolling croquet-balls and was driven away by shouts and brandished mallets. an iron fence with sharp pickets surrounded the lawn on three sides. tall iron gates, with lamps at the sides, stood open expectant. the two iron deer on either side of the driveway also stood in an expectant attitude, their heads raised and nostrils dilated. early frosts had touched with yellow and red the leaves of the maples. with every gust of the fresh breeze the leaves fell, littering the neatly trimmed bright green grass. the sun was low in a deep cloudless blue sky, the air brisk and crisp. prairie mists and thick heat had been broken by this first breath of autumn. an open carriage, drawn by a handsome pair of grey horses and driven by a coachman in a bottle-green coat, turned in through the iron gates. the boys stopped their play to wave a greeting to the lady in mauve draperies, who lifted her white-gloved hand in reply. the youth on the steps hastily threw away his cigarette and concealed the holder, as he went down to assist his mother from the carriage. she laid her hand on his with a smile and stepped out with a rich rustle of silken skirts. he took her furred wrap and books and card case; and they mounted the long curving flight of stone steps together. they were of the same height, and there was a strong resemblance between them, though the boy was much darker in colouring; with chestnut hair and dark grey eyes. his face was less delicately shaped, heavier, but had the same self-contained look; the eyes, under heavy lids, looked slumbering and secret. mary had grown more slender; her tall figure was girlish in line. her auburn hair was less bright in colour, but as thick as ever, without a touch of grey. she wore it in the same fashion, parted and drawn down over her forehead, which now showed faint horizontal lines, the only mark of age in her calm face. her handsome dress followed the fashion but a distance, with fewer frills and more amplitude. her beauty had stood the test of time; the slight hollows under her high cheek-bones, her ivory pallor, only emphasized the fine modelling of her face. "there's a telegram," said jim. he took it from a table in the hall. mary opened and read it, standing at the foot of the stairs. "from your father. he won't be back tonight--detained on business." a look of relief crossed jim's face. "well--it must be dinner-time," he said. in fact the tall clock on the landing began to strike the hour of six. "i'll be right down," said mary. "call the boys in." when she entered the dining-room she found her three sons seated and the soup on the table, in its silver tureen. she ladled it out, and a middle-aged waitress in black dress and white apron distributed the plates. a discussion between the two elder boys had ceased on mary's entrance; both now sat in silence, looking sulkily at their plates. the waitress left the room. "well, what's the trouble now?" mary enquired with a touch of irony. "i don't want timothy to ride my horse, that's what!" declared jim, in his slow heavy voice. "he doesn't know how to ride. last time he nearly lamed--" "no such thing--the old horse cast a shoe, that's all," interrupted timothy angrily, glaring at his brother. "it isn't your horse any more than it's mine, anyway--" "it is. father gave it to me--" "he said i was to learn to ride on it--" "he didn't say you were to take it when i want it, and lame it--" "i didn't lame it, confound you!" "timothy!" mary spoke sharply. the black-haired ruddy timothy glanced at her resentfully. "that will do, now. i won't have any such language here--or any quarrelling either." silence ensued. timothy sent one flaming look across the table at jim, who responded by a slight superior smile. jim was self-controlled and knew how to seem reasonable in his desires; while timothy generally put himself impetuously in the wrong. the maternal decision was almost certain to be given on the side of jim, and both boys knew this. timothy bent his black brows, smarting under a familiar sense of injustice. but jim's certainty of triumph was tempered by a shade of caution; timothy, if their disputes came to a fight, had more than a chance to beat him. timothy never knew when he was beaten. at the head of the table, opposite mary, stood laurence's vacant chair--a stately carved armchair, like hers. a cover was laid for him, as always; for his presence was never certain, always possible. at the right of his place sat the youngest of the family, a boy of fourteen, blond and pale. his large grave blue eyes rested now on jim's face, now on timothy's, now sought his mother's, with a troubled wistful look. his face had a quivering sensitiveness; yet with its broad open brow and square chin, it had strength too. the setting sun struck into the room between the heavy looped curtains of plush and lace, cast a red light over its dark walls and carpet, its shining mahogany, glittered on silver and crystal. in the centre of the table covered with heavy white damask stood a massive silver arrangement holding bottles of oil and vinegar, salt, pepper and spices, and serving also for decoration. crystal decanters of sherry and claret were placed on either side. the soup being removed, mary carved roast-beef and dispensed vegetables with a liberal hand. the continued silence did not disturb her; it was usual at meals, unless laurence or a guest were present. she pursued her own thoughts, occasionally glancing with calm pride at her offspring. they were all handsome boys. timothy was very like laurence, jim was like her. but the youngest, john, was unaccountable, he did not resemble either of his parents, or his brothers. he was like a stranger in the family; in mind and character too he was strange to them all. yet with an unchildlike, almost uncanny sympathy, he seemed to know them better than they knew one another. long illness--he had never grown strong--had perhaps given this delicacy to his mind as it had to his body. yet he seemed built for strength too. his shoulders were broad, his large head nobly poised. his hands, with broad palms and long sensitive fingers, curiously united strength and delicacy. he alone felt the silence. the others, absorbed in themselves, took it as a matter of course. but he, depressed by it, sighed, hardly touched the beef and heavy pudding, and more than once looked at his father's empty chair regretfully. mary's eye at length fell upon jim in the act of filling his claret-glass for the third time. she frowned. "i've told you that i don't want you to drink more than one glass of wine at meals," she said. "oh, this light wine--father doesn't mind," said jim easily. "he doesn't want you to _drink_. and i won't have it. i won't have wine on the table at all if you can't do as i wish." jim shrugged his shoulders. "oh, well, let's not quarrel about it," he murmured, and pushed away the wine-glass. his tone was amiable, he even smiled at her. but mary knew that jim was not so easily managed as that. he would seem always to yield to her wishes, would never openly oppose her, but he managed almost always to do as he pleased. he had an unsounded depth of quiet obstinacy. and he was secretive too, never explained himself. timothy was much more frank, and more violent, hence was constantly getting into hot water and usually was in a state of revolt. mary's rules were strict and not elastic to the needs and impulses of growing youth. she had felt strongly the duty of implanting good principles in her boys, and of repressing the ebullitions of the old adam. while they were very young she had succeeded in teaching them to tell the truth, to respect other people's property rights, and to conform a good deal to her standards of behaviour. but as they grew out of childhood, she lost touch with them, gradually, unconsciously. she looked after their health, their schools; they found their amusements for themselves. withdrawn in growing isolation, in a dumb struggle with growing unhappiness, her spirit had no youth, no buoyancy, to keep pace with theirs. while in infancy they depended completely upon her and she could suffice to all their wants, they had given her contentment. now it was no longer a simple relation; she tried to banish or ignore its growing complexities; but they made her uneasy. she had a feeling that her duty was not done, but she did not know how to do it; her rule of life was too simple, too rigid, to meet its problems. john's childhood had lasted longer than the others; his ill health had made him longer dependent on her physical care. but here a rival affection had taken john's love and interest away from her.... when john was ten he had scarlet fever, and laurence insisted on nursing him, devoted himself day and night to the boy; and through the long convalescence, spent with him all the time he could wrest from his business. from that time, john had depended on his father in a way that, mary felt acutely, he never had on her; with a feeling that grew as he grew. with passionate rejecting jealousy she stood apart; felt herself superseded; would not, could not, make an effort to recover her hold. john had been all hers; she would not share his love, though he made many timid efforts to draw her in. she felt her loss the more bitterly that he was the most beautiful of her children; he was, she knew, the flower of them all. there was something in him that hurt her by its beauty; the same thing that she had felt in her youth, sometimes in music, sometimes in a human expression. something that called to her spirit, an appeal that she could not meet, that made her restless. something that she had missed in life, had never been able to grasp, to realize. she did not always feel this. sometimes she had a surface contentment, a pride merely in being the mother of three fine lads and in the outward show of authority; in her worldly dignity too. her position, as the wife of a man of distinction and power, commanded public respect. and then, she had made a place for herself in the life of the town. she was an intellectual leader among the women; president of their literary society; a moving force in the work of the church and in charity. so long as proper deference was paid to her, she could be counted upon for faithful, even arduous work. but she would not suffer any rivals; would engage in no contest for power; and haughtily withdrew before opposition to her will. whereupon, the value of her influence and activity being almost a tradition, any sister who might have dared approach the throne would be suppressed. * * * * * the meal being over, the family promptly dispersed. that is, the two elder boys vanished, to continue their disagreement about the horse. mary walked absently into the library, having in mind the composition of a paper on the greek dramatists for the literary club. she stood for a moment by one of the long windows, looking out on the lake. the scene had changed, in these ten years. instead of rough pastures and the loneliness of the prairie, she saw now green lawns sloping down to the dull-blue water; dotted on its banks were modern houses sheltered by clumps of trees; and a little fleet of pleasure-boats rode on its surface. the clear golden light of evening lay over all; the branches of the trees waved and the water rippled in the fresh breeze. merry voices rose from the lake; some one in a boat was singing. a faint stir beside her made mary turn her head. john stood there, his footstep had made no noise on the thick carpet. "it's such a beautiful evening. don't you want to come out with me on the lake, mother?" he asked in his rather nervous fluttering voice. "i'd like to--but i have some work to do," she said quickly. she seldom went out in the boat. she hated inactivity and mere contemplation of any scene, however lovely; indeed, the lovelier it was, the more painful. but now she saw john's wistful and disappointed look. "won't any of the boys go with you?" she asked gently. "no, i don't think so, they've gone out to the stable.... did father say when he'd be home?" he asked, hesitatingly. "no, he never does." with this sharp answer, mary walked away toward her desk. but then she stopped and with an effort said: "i will go with you, john, if you want." "no, never mind--i thought you might like it, it's such a nice evening--but you're busy--" "no, i have time enough, i'll just get my cloak." but now his sensitive face showed distress, and he protested: "i'd rather not--really. i know you don't like the boat so very much, only i thought.... i'll go myself." he moved toward the door. "perhaps timothy would like to go--" "no, he won't--but no matter, i rather like to drift around, alone, and look at the water." "shall i play to you a little, first?" asked mary. his face lighted up. "why, yes--if you have time--" she led the way across the hall, where the lights had just been lit and gleamed on the dark-red walls and the bronze statues of mercury and the venus of milo. the grand piano stood in one of the parlours: its glossy lid was seldom raised. john drew a chair up beside it and listened with a rapt face while mary played his favorite, the "grand sonata" of beethoven, the only one she knew by heart. she made many mistakes, her fingers were stiff from lack of practice; but still she played conscientiously, with a feeling, a respect for the music. john sat facing the window and the fading golden light. she glanced at him. his face had a look of unearthly radiance and joy that shot a sharp pain through her. with difficulty she continued. at the last notes her head sank, bent over the keyboard, and she sat in silence. he drew a long breath. "thank you--that's wonderful, i love it," he said. "i wish i could play it better," said mary huskily. "i must practise." "you play it beautifully. thank you, mother," he repeated softly. then, hesitating, looking at her, he got up. "i'll go out now and row a while." she nodded, and he went. ii she sat at her desk, looking over her notes on Æschylus, now and then writing a few words on a large sheet of paper. then she would stop and look fixedly before her, trying to concentrate her thoughts. it was ten o'clock, the two younger boys were in bed. but jim was off somewhere. and he had taken the black horse, laurence's own horse, that the boys were forbidden to touch--a big powerful brute, hard to control. lately jim had often been out at night. she did not know where he went, and he would not tell. he would say easily, "oh, i just went for a ride, there's nothing to do in this dead place." but she suspected that he found something to do; he might be getting into bad ways. she thought he smoked, in spite of her prohibition; certainly he showed a taste for drink; there were other vices, too. her lips were compressed bitterly as she thought, such tendencies were inherited. perhaps jim couldn't help himself.... the big house was silent as the tomb. on the desk burned a shaded lamp, the rest of the room was in darkness. it was rather cold, the fires had not been lighted yet. the house with its thick walls of brick was almost always chilly unless the furnaces were going. she drew her black wrap closer round her shoulders, and bent over her notes. then she heard the door-bell faintly sounding. after a moment there was a knock and anna came in, the middle-aged woman who waited on the table and the door. "mrs. carlin--there's somebody here that wants to see you. he asked for judge carlin, and says he'll wait to see him." "wait? but he may not be home for days! who is it?" asked mary impatiently. "an old--an old gentleman. he didn't give his name. he says he'd like to see you," said anna neutrally. "where is he? what does he want?" "he didn't say. he's in the hall." mary rose and went out, stately in the black mantle that wrapped her from head to foot, its collar of black fur framing her face. the stranger stood, holding his hat in his hand, contemplating the bronze statue of mercury. he was a small grey-haired man, in a shabby but neat dark suit. some client of laurence's, she thought. she spoke to him. "good evening. did you want to see judge carlin?" he turned and looked at her. his thin smooth-shaven face showed a rather shy, pleasant smile. "yes--i'm laurence's father," he said, in a gentle laughing tone. mary stared at him. "i don't wonder you're surprised.... i was passing through here, and thought i'd like to see you all," the old man said, without the slightest embarrassment. "but i hear laurence isn't at home." "no--but he may be--tomorrow, or almost any time," stammered mary, at a loss. "well, then, i'll come again. i may be in town a day or so." "but--why, you must stay here, of course," protested mary blankly. "oh, i couldn't think of discommoding you--" "discommoding? why, of course not. come right in. i'll get a room ready for you at once." "please don't let me give any trouble," he pleaded, smiling. "i can stay at the hotel quite well." "hotel? of course not," she said, bewildered. what a queer old man, to drop from the skies like this--and so perfectly at his ease about it! was he laurence's father or an impostor? was it right to take him in? he did not look as if he had money enough to stay at the hotel. certainly she couldn't turn laurence's father out! "come in," she repeated with an effort, turning toward the library doors, then stopping. "wouldn't you like some supper?" "no, thank you, i dined at the hotel." "is your baggage there? i'll send for it." "no baggage. i haven't any," he said, with his whimsical smile. "i travel light." in consternation mary led the way into the library. no baggage! he must be a vagabond. to disappear for twenty-five years, and come back like this, as if it were yesterday! it was certainly not a respectable proceeding. he hadn't even an overcoat. nothing but the worn felt hat, which he had still carried in his hand as he followed her--as if he were a casual visitor, come to stay half an hour.... she felt the chill of the big dimly-lit room, and went toward the chimney-place. "there's a fire all ready here--" "let me light it," he said. nimbly he laid down his hat, knelt on the rug, and in a moment had the fire going. the kindling blazed up, the dry wood caught. a more cheerful light brightened the dusky room. the fire-place was broad and deep, it held three-foot logs. soon there was a glorious fire. they sat down before it, in armchairs facing one another. the old man spread his hands to the blaze with enjoyment. his gaze rested on mary with admiration, then wandered round the room. "you have a fine place here," he said cheerfully. "how long have you lived here?" "ten years, laurence built the house." she was scrutinizing him with covert glances, trying to find some resemblance to laurence. "yes, so i heard.... laurence has certainly done well, remarkably well. i always thought he would--he was a smart boy," said this strange parent calmly. no, he wasn't at all like laurence, there was no resemblance in his spare light frame, his long clear-cut face to ... yet there was something familiar in his look. what was it? something in the way his thick grey hair grew over his forehead, his eyebrows.... why, yes, he looked like jim--or was it timothy? she had a sudden conviction, anyhow, that he was what he assumed to be. with the assurance that this was a member of the family (however unworthy) the duty of hospitality became manifest. again she urged him to have something to eat; he declined, but with a certain reservation of manner which led her to say, though unwillingly: "perhaps you will have a glass of wine?" "thank you--if it doesn't trouble you too much--wine, or a little whiskey--whatever is most convenient." comprehending what he wanted, she brought from the dining-room a silver tray, with decanters of whiskey and water, a glass and some biscuits. the old man poured himself a modest drink, a third of a glass of whiskey with a little water, and bowed to her. "i drink your good health.... yes, laurence is a fortunate man." "he has been very successful," she said gravely. "all the heart could desire--position, wealth, a fine family," he continued musingly. "i'm glad to find him so well off.... circumstances have prevented me from knowing anything of it until today, when i reached town." circumstances! mary gazed at him in mute astonishment. with an absent air he filled his glass again and gazing at the fire went on, in a tone of meditative detachment: "i have been a wanderer for the last quarter of a century--a rolling stone. much of the time i've been out on the coast--california and so on--i went out there in fifty-five.... but i've seen the whole country--a fine big country it is. i never liked to stay long in one place, i'll soon be moving on. but passing through chicago, i thought i'd like to see what remained of my family.... great changes--i didn't know till i reached here and enquired, that they were all gone, except laurence.... things change quickly, in this country. chicago has grown to an immense city, since i saw it last--and this town too, has become very flourishing. i shouldn't have known it.... and all over the west, cities springing up, there is hardly a frontier any more, the old days are gone, the rough pioneer life. the whole country, almost, is settled, civilized.... yes, a great country, a great people." he basked in the warmth and drank his whiskey with gentle enjoyment, gazing into the brilliant coals as though seeing there the whole vast panorama that had passed before his eyes. mary listened to him and looked at him with a kind of fascinated surprise. he talked like a visitor from the moon--so aloof, contemplative, as if he had no concern in all this.... an old man who had deserted his family, run away, never had known whether they were alive or dead, nor cared, apparently. disgraceful! a disreputable old man!... yet there he sat, perfectly at his ease, with no shadow of guilt, remorse, or regret on his placid countenance. his grey eyes were clear and bright. his face was wise and experienced, but hardly at all wrinkled, it had a queer look of youth. his clothes were almost threadbare, but they were clean,--his boots cracked on the side, but well polished. his hands were those of a working-man, broad and stubby; but they showed no traces now of hard work, the fingernails were clean and carefully trimmed. he smiled at her. "you are laurence's wife--but i don't know your name," he said with a twinkle of amusement, but courteously. in spite of her disapproval, she could not but smile at him as she answered. "mary--a beautiful name, i always liked it. and you are dr. lowell's daughter--i remember you as a slip of a girl, with wonderful flowing hair.... and i remember your parents too. are they living?" "my mother died two years ago," said mary. "ah, that was a loss, a great loss--i remember her, a strong woman, impressive.... and your father--he goes on with his work?" "oh, yes," mary answered with astonishment. of course he went on with his work, why shouldn't he?... but it came to her with a shock that her father was really an old man, that people thought of him as old. "i don't know what this town would do without father," she said quickly. "people depend on him--" she gazed pointedly and with a certain defiance at old mr. carlin, who waved any possible comparison aside with a smile and a word of hearty commendation of dr. lowell; and went on to enquire about other old residents of the town, showing an accurate memory. a third time he refilled his glass, and that emptied the decanter. the whiskey had not the least visible effect on him. his hand was as steady, his eye and speech as clear and unmoved, as mary's own. she heard the clock strike eleven, then the half hour, but still he chatted on, and she was aware that she was entertained by him. yes, he was an amusing, though a scandalous old man; and conducted himself with propriety, even grace, though all the time drinking whiskey as if it were water. at length he spoke of his grandchildren. among other information he had acquired this, that they were three in number and all boys. now he politely asked their names. mary repeated them. "timothy?" he questioned with surprise. "yes, we named him after you," said mary gravely. "after me!" for the first time she saw a flicker of emotion in his face. he set down his glass, and looked at her with eyes troubled by that gleam of feeling, almost distress. "why did you do that?" he asked abruptly. "why, james was named after my father, you see," mary explained. "so it was only right that the second boy should be named after you. it's a matter of family feeling, it always has been so in my family. our youngest boy is named for my grandfather." "family feeling," he repeated, mechanically. "named after me.... so there's another timothy carlin! i never expected it. well, i hope--" he stopped short, and after a moment took up his glass and drained it. "i appreciate your remembering me, though i didn't expect it in the least. i--i am touched by it. i should like to see the boys, and especially my--namesake." his voice was a little uneven. "you will see them tomorrow.... but now, it's late, you must be tired. shall i show you to your room?" he followed in silence. putting out the lights as she went, she led the way through the lofty entrance-hall, up the thickly-carpeted stairs, into the best spare-room, ready as always for a guest, since laurence often brought one unexpected. mary lighted the room, and the old man stood gazing round with a deprecating smile. it was a big room, with high ceiling, furnished rather elaborately with carved black walnut, enormous, heavy pieces. "it's much too grand for me," he said, humorously. "i shall rattle around here like a dried kernel in a shell.... however, i thank you for your hospitality." "isn't there something i can get for you, something you need?" "no, thank you, my dear, i don't need anything," said the old man, with his former manner of gentle cool composure. iii the following day laurence returned on the mid-afternoon train, but stopped at his office, sending on a friend he had brought with him in a hack with the valises. this was horace lavery, a chicago lawyer, rather a frequent visitor at the house. mary was in the garden when the hack drove up, and came round to see if it were laurence. she gave lavery a stately, somewhat cool greeting. he was a man of middle age, florid and rather stout, gay and talkative. always a little dashed at first by mary's manner, he would speedily recover himself and amuse himself in his own way. now, a little embarrassed, he said, after dismissing the hackman: "well, here i am again. laurence stopped down town, he'll be home by seven.... can i go upstairs and brush off, it was rather a dusty ride." "yes, but not the usual room, we have another visitor--the one next to it." "and shall i find you here when i come down?" "i'm working in the garden." "perhaps i can help?" "if you do, you'll get yourself all dusty again." "oh, i don't mind," he said effusively. "so long as it's in your service." mary laughed and turned away. she always laughed at lavery's ponderous gallantry. but under the sentimental surface that he presented to her there was another man, of whom she caught occasional glimpses that interested her. at present, however, she was vexed at his coming. she preferred to see laurence alone, to break to him the news of his parent's reappearance. and what would lavery, with his glossy freshness of apparel and man-of-the-world air, think of a shabby parent, suddenly produced? she didn't care, though, what lavery thought, except that it might vex laurence. she wished she had telegraphed him. she might send down to the office ... but no, he would be immersed in work, and only the more upset by it. she went slowly back into the garden, a favourite spot with her; it had been laid out years ago by her father, and he often came to help her with it. dr. lowell had enjoyed having a good deal of money to spend on a garden. it was enclosed by a brick wall covered with creepers on two sides, the house on the third side, the other open, overlooking the lake. there were gravel-walks, white wooden benches and trellises, and in the centre, a sun-dial. the flower-beds had been touched by the frost; but still blooming were verbenas and many-coloured asters. the dead leaves had been raked up and smouldered here and there in blackened heaps, sending out a sweet pungent smoke. mary, bare-headed, in a long black cloak, was down on her knees digging up bulbs when lavery approached, freshly groomed and enveloped in a delicate scent of florida-water. "let me do that," he urged, bending over her. "what? in those immaculate clothes? you don't mean it." "i do--i'll sacrifice the clothes. please get up and let me dig the onions." "onions! these are very rare bulbs, of a chinese lily--they have to be handled with great care and i always do it myself. so you may as well sit down there and smoke your cigar. some people are made to be ornamental, you know, and others to be useful." "and some are both," said lavery, looking down on her heavy rippling hair. "and again, others are neither." he seated himself rather sulkily on the bench near by. "of course i know i'm not handsome," he observed. "so that was rather a nasty dig of yours about being 'ornamental.' but you made one mistake. i _am_ useful." "are you? for what?" enquired mary, carefully separating bulbs. "i always thought you just a bright butterfly." "you never thought about me at all," he declared with emphasis. "but i have thought a good deal about you." he took out a cigar and a pearl-handled knife, cut the end of the cigar neatly, and lit it with a match from a gold box. then clasping his broad white hands about his knee, he contemplated mary's grave profile. she seemed absorbed in her work and did not look up at him, nor betray by the flicker of an eyelash any interest in what he thought. still less did she enquire into it. the silence lasted until he broke it, petulantly. "mrs. carlin, why do you dislike me?" "i don't dislike you--at least i think not." "you think not! don't you know whether you do or not?... you strike me as a person who would know her own mind!" "yes--but i'm not very quick about making up my mind. i don't feel i know you at all well." "you've known me for two years.... how long does it take you to make up your mind?" "well, that depends--longer now than it used to. i don't feel that i know very much about anybody. i used to be more sure about things." she lifted the last of the bulbs into the basket, and rose to her feet. "won't you sit here and talk to me a little?... i almost never have a chance to talk to you alone--that's why we don't know one another better." she looked at him and smiled faintly, but the shadow of sadness and weariness did not lift from her face. "i have some things to see to in the house--and then i must dress--" "but it's hardly five now." "yes." she sat down on the bench, brushing the dust off her black cloak. "i like," said lavery discontentedly, "to be friendly with people. i don't like to be held off at arm's length and looked at as if i were a queer beetle or something--or not looked at, that's even worse!" "do you think i do that?" mary enquired. "yes, you do! you treat me as if i were hardly a human being!" "oh, how absurd!... you're a different kind of human being, that's all, you belong to a different world." "how a different world? i'm laurence's friend, why can't i be yours?" a sudden sternness, a definite recoil, in her expression, warned him off this ground. "how could you be my friend? there is nothing in common between you and me," she said coldly. "now, how do you know there isn't? you say yourself you don't know me!... but i think you've made up your mind that you don't want to ... you think i'm frivolous and ridiculous, because i manage to enjoy life, don't you now? a middle-aged butterfly, a mere sensualist--isn't that it?" "well--something like that," mary admitted. "but it oughtn't to matter to you what i think.... i told you i don't understand people very well, the older i get the less i understand them, and i can't make friends." this quiet statement had an air of finality. he was silent, looking at her thoughtfully, with a keen shrewdness, a questioning puzzled gaze. "well, friends or not, i admire you very much," he said abruptly. "i hate to have you think me such a poor creature." "i imagine it won't disturb you very much, if i do. you wouldn't care much for any woman's opinion, you like to amuse yourself with women but you don't take them seriously, you look down on them. you think they're all alike and that a few compliments and pretty speeches are all they want or can understand. you like to take them in, and then laugh at them, it amuses you.... and men too--you like to play with people, try experiments. you're more cool-headed and sharp than most people, you think almost every one is a fool, in some way or other, and you like to find out how--turn them inside out. that's how you enjoy life." "well, by jove!" lavery stared at her. "so you _have_ given me some attention, after all--i wouldn't have guessed it! now, do you know, you're right about some things, but that isn't the whole story--" mary stood up and took her basket. "no, i suppose not, but i must go in now." reluctantly he rose, and walked with her to the door. "you're a severe judge--you won't even let the criminal speak in his own defence," he said with some feeling. "'give every man his deserts and who should 'scape hanging?' don't you think you might show a little mercy?" "i believe in justice," said mary, with a sudden hardening of her face. "that's what we all get--not mercy." the bitterness of her tone remained with him after she had gone.... he told himself that he would make her talk yet, he would find out what was the trouble in this household, the shadow that hung over it. he had tried to find out from laurence, but in vain; even when he was drunk, laurence wouldn't talk about his wife. * * * * * mary was dressed and listening for laurence long before he came. her father-in-law had disappeared for the whole afternoon, and had not yet returned; he had told her that he was going for a long walk, and john had accompanied him. mary perceived that the old man was very tactful. she had seen it in his meeting with his grandsons, the manner in which he at once took a certain place with them. he did not assert himself in the least nor stress the relationship; he treated them not like children, but with the courteous interest due to new acquaintance, without familiarity. the two elder boys rather hung back from him; but john had at once been friendly; they were all in some way impressed by him. it was dark, the lamps had been lighted, when laurence came. lavery was strolling about the lawn and met him; and they came upstairs together and went into laurence's room, laughing. mary waited impatiently till finally lavery went to dress; then she knocked at laurence's door and entered. he was in his dressing-room, splashing vigorously, and answered with surprise when she spoke to him. in a moment he came out, wrapped in a loose robe, his thick black hair and beard wet and rough. "laurence, something strange has happened. some one is here--you haven't heard?--your father has come." a look of apprehension on his face quickly gave place to astonishment as she ended. "my father!... what the deuce!" he looked dismayed; then as she went on to describe the new arrival, incredulous. "i don't believe it's my father. he wouldn't turn up like this after twenty-five years without a word!... i've thought for a long time he was dead." "well, he isn't--it's your father, sure enough." laurence, with a blank look, towelled his head and neck. "jesus christ!" he ejaculated. he went and stared into the mirror, rubbing his hair till it stood up wildly all over his head. there were threads of grey all through it, but the beard that covered his mouth and was cut square below his chin was intensely black, and so were his arched brows, beneath which the narrow eyes showed still their vivid blue. his broad shoulders, the joining of the massive neck, were strong, unbowed. "what did you do with him?" he asked abruptly. "put him in the best bedroom and gave him your special whiskey," said mary. "the deuce you did!... killed the fatted calf, eh?... well, where is he now?" "he went to walk with john--john took a great fancy to him." "he did?" laurence's face changed subtly, relaxed. "well, that's something.... but, say--it's awkward about lavery being here. i wish i'd known." "i might have telegraphed, but i didn't know where you were," said mary. "you can always reach me at the hotel," he said sharply. she moved toward the door. "i wish to the deuce lavery wasn't here," he muttered. "i wouldn't care about that." there was an edge in mary's tone, but with an effort she eliminated that touch of criticism. "your father can take care of himself--he's quite as much a gentleman as lavery." "no, is he really?" laurence turned round, a hairbrush in either hand, and gazed at her. "he's presentable, really?... i shouldn't have expected it." "he isn't very well dressed," said mary quietly. "but you needn't be at all ashamed of him. he's--there's something about him--well, i can't describe it, but he has much better manners than mr. lavery." "oh, you always have a knife up your sleeve for poor old horace," said laurence, turning back again to the mirror and brushing vigorously. "i'll be down in ten minutes--but i'd rather see him alone first, you know. do you suppose he's come back?" "i'll see." in the mirror laurence's eyes dwelt on her tall figure and white face shadowy in the background. he said slowly with an undertone of pain: "you look very beautiful tonight." iv where laurence sat was the head of the table; he dominated all by his vivid colour, his intense physical vitality, and he kept the talk going easily. he and lavery were in evening dress, rather dandified, with soft plaited shirt-bosoms and diamond studs. old mr. carlin, sitting between timothy and john, appeared perfectly at ease in his well-brushed suit. his bright grey eyes contemplated the scene and the company with an aloof and philosophic interest. mary, in her usual dress for the evening, of plain black velvet, cut square at the neck, and with long close-fitting sleeves, was beautiful, as laurence had said and lavery's long gaze recognized. she wore no ornaments except a pair of heavy earrings of dull gold filagree. the light from the big cut-glass chandelier over the table fell unshaded upon her, bringing out the pale copper colour of her rippling hair and the whiteness of her skin. it emphasized too the hollows in her cheeks and at her temples, the lines of the forehead and of the neck below the ear. her face, as in her youth, was like a mask; but now it was a mask of sorrow. calm and unmoved in expression, it was yet an abstract of sad experience. the years had left a more complex mark on laurence. there were deeper furrows in his brow and running down from the nostrils to bury themselves in his black beard. a passionate expressiveness, a restless irritability, spoke in his voice, his gestures, his constant flow of talk. "carlin's temper" was a proverb by now. a racial inheritance came out strongly in him. he was "the black irish"; dangerous at times. but there was another side to this temperament. often when he smiled, and always when he looked at the boy who sat beside him, there was a deep sweetness in his eyes, a deep tenderness. john's place was always beside his father; he hung on laurence's words and looks with hushed eagerness. and laurence, keenly conscious of the sensitive boy, was careful what he said, instinctively suppressed anything that might shock or hurt a young idealistic spirit; and never drank more than a glass or two of wine, in his presence. the wine was always on the dinner-table, however. it was laurence's idea that the boys had better get used to seeing it, and to taking a little now and then. mary never touched it, and hated the sight of it; but she had long since ceased to oppose laurence in any detail of life. the house was managed as he wished, though he was away more than half the time. now there were three kinds of wine on the table--sherry, claret and port. laurence was proud of his wine-cellar, down in the deep foundations of the house. lavery drank delicately. he had guided laurence's choice of the claret, and confined himself to that. he much preferred to remain perfectly sober; especially when other people were drunk; but in any case he disliked the least blurring of the fine edge of sensation and perception. he liked to watch the play of human feeling, and to guess what was going on below the surface; and for this one must be alert and cool. he was immensely curious, for example, about the human situation under his eyes. old mr. carlin had suddenly come in for a share of this interest. lavery studied him across the table, and addressed frequent remarks to him, with amenity. he discovered that the old man, in point of quick wit, suavity and coolness, was by no means his inferior, although the elder had, from the beginning of the dinner, applied very steadily to each decanter in turn. * * * * * after the coffee mary rose, as was her custom, leaving the men at the table. the three boys followed her; jim with evident reluctance. his manly dignity was hurt at being classed with women and children; but he was quite aware that his company would not be longer desired in the room, where heavy drinking and free talk were apt to be the order of the evening. lavery sprang up to open the door for mary, and she passed out with a slight bow, the boys waiting till the edge of her long velvet train had ebbed over the threshold. timothy and john went upstairs to the billiard-room on the top floor; and mary, slipping her hand through jim's arm, led him into the parlour where the piano stood. she wanted to ask him about his excursion of the night before--he had been out till three o'clock--but more than that she wanted him to stay with her a little while. but jim was restive, wouldn't sit down. he feared an inquisition, and also he wanted to get away to the stable and smoke. mary, both irritated and hurt by his unwillingness, spoke more sharply than she had intended. "where were you all last night?" "i went out for a long ride," said jim sulkily. "and were you riding from eight o'clock till three?" "no--i stopped a while to see a friend." "what friend?" "oh, somebody you don't know--a fellow." controlling himself, he answered more gently; his dark eyes met hers imperturbably. "well, you oughtn't to stay out all night!" "i didn't," said jim reasonably. "and a fellow has to do something in this dead place." "you shouldn't have taken your father's horse either, without permission." "why, mother, he was simply spoiling for exercise--you know he doesn't get ridden half enough." "i don't like you to ride him, he's dangerous--" "oh, i can manage him, all right, don't you worry!" jim smiled cheerfully. "but i've got to run out now and see to the pony--he's a bit lame still--" she let him go, turning away from him and walking to the end of the long room. yes, he wanted to escape--he had his own life now, was beginning to be a man and to take his secret way, like the rest of them. her mouth curved bitterly. she did not believe jim, about the friend--she suspected something else, and she recoiled jealously, miserably.... yes, her son too--he was like the rest.... she stood by the open window, looking out blindly on the garden. the night was mild, it was moonlight, greenish, like a glowworm's light. the long lace curtains waved inward in the soft breeze. there were sounds of life astir all about. she heard a burst of laughter from the dining-room; then the faint click of the billiard-balls and a shout from timothy. then, on the lake, some one began to sing schubert's boat-song. a clear soprano trilled out joyously the song of love and youth.... a piercing sense of loneliness, of life passing by her, leaving her, stabbed to her very heart. she gave a long, shuddering sigh.... youth, love--they had passed by. like the song growing fainter, receding into distance. and the bitter thing was, one did not realize them till they were gone. the sweetness of life--all it was, might have been--one did not feel it till it had slipped away.... gone, lost--then, in loneliness you felt it.... some one came into the room. she turned, and at sight of her face, lavery's gay apology dropped half-spoken. he came and stood beside her at the window. "i hate music," she said abruptly. "some one was singing out there. it makes one sad.... it makes one remember all the things--" "i don't like it myself," said lavery, when she stopped as abruptly. "unless it's an opera--with gay dresses, lights, all that--then it distracts you." "that's trying to shut it out, the sadness of life. like making merry in a room, shut in, with a storm outside." "well, you know, that's the sensible thing to do. you _have_ to shut it out." "but supposing you _can't_?" he met the misery of her eyes, her voice, with a gravity that he seldom showed to any one. "we all have to go through that phase," he said curtly. "a kind of despair. it comes--and passes, generally." "does it? does it pass?" "i think it does.... you see, it's natural. it comes to us at the end of youth--it's the end of some things--then we have to take stock, see what we've spent, what we've got left to go on with--" "and supposing we've spent everything?" "well, that isn't likely--though it may look so. most of us go through a kind of bankruptcy. the hopes and ambitions of youth are gone--our dreams are gone, as a rule. we face what we've actually done, what we're really capable of--it doesn't correspond to what we believed we could do, what we thought we were. the reality is hard, and we despair.... but then, we get our second wind, so to speak, and go on, somehow." "do we? but why? why go on--" "well, most of us by that time have certain ties, responsibilities, we're necessary, or think we are--" "but if we _don't_ think we are? if we're not needed?" her lips quivered, her tone was hard and desperate. "well, then--there may be some work we're interested in. or if not that, there's a good deal of pleasure to be got out of life, you know, if one understands how to do it." "pleasure?" "yes, surely.... youth doesn't appreciate the good things of life, it's too eager, too intent on its own purposes.... the real pleasures of the mind and the senses come later--they're the consolation for what we were speaking of." "no, no! that's no consolation! it's impossible to live that way!" "you want to keep your youth," he said. "i think you're suffering from youth unlived." "youth unlived!" she repeated, in a low voice. "i didn't have it ... it went by me somehow--" "yes, and now you want it." "i don't want anything!" "that's what we say when we can't get what we want," observed lavery. "but then, we take what we can get." "no, i hate that!" she burst out. "that resignation, creeping into old age! no, i can't live that way. that's being beaten!" "well, most of us _are_ beaten," lavery said philosophically, showing his brilliant teeth in a smile. "but then, as i said, there are consolations--" "no, there's no consolation for that." she moved, sat down on one of the long sofas, looking straight before her with a fixed absent gaze. lavery dropped into a chair beside her, contemplative, admiring. emotion was becoming to her. it called a faint colour to her cheeks and lips, gave light to her still grey eyes. in some ways she looked strangely young. the lines of her figure were wonderfully girlish.... but also she looked as though she had lived ... not happily, though. he judged a sympathetic silence best at the moment, though there were a lot of things he wanted to say. he would have liked to preach his own gospel of enjoyment, he thought he could be rather eloquent on that theme. but still more he wanted _her_ to talk, so he was quiet, glancing now and then about the big room, whose furniture had too much gilt to suit him. his own taste ran to very quiet though rich effects, and he thought the house "rococo" and out of date. still, in a way, the gilding and light stuffs and long mirrors made a good setting for her tall figure in its sombre dress and her tragic face.... she sat there, looking into space, apparently forgetting that a pleasant confidant was at her elbow. she hadn't a touch of the ordinary agreeable coquetry, he reflected--didn't seem to realize that people of their age could still be agreeable to one another. rather barbarous ... yes, both carlin and his wife were a little uncivilized. they would fit better into a former, doubtless more heroic age, than into the present time. there was a slightly rough-hewn pioneer quality about them. but, perhaps from that very thing, they were both interesting, decidedly so. and he could wait indefinitely for the interest to develop. his calm pulses never hurried now for anything. his thought reverted to laurence and to the old gentleman whom he had left drinking whiskey. a queer fish, laurence's father--he had never known laurence _had_ a father. a black sheep probably. laurence was plainly nervous about him. it was the tactful thing to leave them together--even if there hadn't been mrs. carlin alone in here, needing somebody to talk to. laurence neglected her, that was quite evident, and she felt it bitterly.... he wondered, with narrowed gaze, how much she knew about laurence's life. he could tell her a good deal more than she knew, probably--but, naturally, he wouldn't. v the constraint that laurence had felt from the moment of meeting his long lost parent--for their parting rose up before him, the memory of a blow--had vanished. the old man had brushed it away, as soon as they were alone, by a quiet net statement. "you mustn't think, laurence, that i've come back to fasten myself on you. i shall stay here only a day or so. i have my own life, and i don't need anything from you." "that isn't what i was thinking of--" "i know, but this is what i want to say, it would be ridiculous for me to act as if i had any claim on you, after everything. i don't feel any, don't expect anything. naturally you couldn't have any affection for me, i wouldn't have any place here, even if i wanted it. and i don't need any money. i just wanted you to understand it." "of course you have a claim--" "no, no, i gave all that up a long time ago, cut off that sort of thing, by my own will, you know. i wasn't made for family life. couldn't stand it.... of course i know you have a grudge against me, and quite right. i didn't do my duty by my family, that's a fact. should never have had a family." they were sitting before a fire in the library. the old man had refused the cigar laurence offered, and was smoking a short black pipe. "i suppose we all feel that way at times," said laurence moodily. "yes, but most struggle along with it. i did, for a good many years, not very well, though. it was against the grain. i got caught in the wheel of things, it was grinding me to pieces." "the wheel of things," laurence repeated absently. "yes, and of course through a woman. they get us into it. your mother was a good woman, i've nothing to say against her. i fell in love with her, that wasn't her fault, nor mine either.... but 'twas she led me to the priest, and then over to this country. she was of better family than me, you see, her father was a squire; and she had a great ambition to get on in the world and be genteel. when she saw i couldn't do it, she got bitter to me. oh, it was all natural, she wanted her children to be well off, educated. you can remember how we lived, nobody could blame your mother, i didn't myself, but she made it hell to me. i wanted to be my own master and have time to think.... so i cut loose from it." laurence nodded brusquely, but frowned, gazing at the neat, gentle-voiced old man. "'twas wrong, of course," old timothy went on reflectively. "from the usual point of view. but i can't say i'm sorry i did it. i've had time to look about me and to learn some things. i always had a thirst for learning--books and ideas--" "yes, no doubt! but perhaps you don't know how my mother lived!" said laurence bitingly. "i couldn't have bettered it," the old man replied tranquilly. "i couldn't really, laurence. the drink had got hold of me, i'd have gone from bad to worse. i couldn't help it ... 'twas because my life was miserable, i was only a dumb brute, like an ox, just living to work, feed and sleep. 'twas no life for a man." "it wasn't a life for my mother, either, was it?" "no, but women can stand it better than we can, they don't like it but it doesn't kill their souls.... i'd have drunk myself to death in a few years. 'tis they get us into it anyway--they're bound to the wheel, and they draw us in. they think of food and clothing and being respectable. a man has got other things to think of--he can't spend his life feeding a lot of hungry mouths.... nine we had, but they mostly died when babies, the better for them." the old man leaned forward to shake the ashes out of his pipe, and smiling, he added: "of course i don't expect you to think anything but ill of me. you always took your mother's part, and 'twas right.... and now you've got a family of your own and done well by them, and you've got up in the world--you'll feel accordingly and look down on me, naturally." "i don't look down--!" "oh, maybe not because of the money and the fine house, i don't mean that. but you're in the big machine, i'm not. you're a success, i've been a failure, from a social point of view--" "success?" said laurence. sunk deep in the big armchair, his head bent forward, he stared at the fire from under his bent brows. "surely. you're a big man here, laurence, i found out--you've made a fine name for yourself. you've got wealth too, a real lady and a beautiful one for a wife, three fine boys--and this house you live in, why, it's a palace." there was a faint veiled irony in the old man's voice. "your mother would have been proud to see you, laurence." "but you're not, eh?" laurence smiled aggressively. "you've got something else in your mind." "well--yes ... i don't care much for all this. i find a man needs very little to live, and all the rest is waste, so i think." "you've become a philosopher," growled laurence. "yes," the old man chuckled. "long ago i took to the road. since then i've never owned anything nor had any care for the morrow. i travel like the birds and pick up my living as i go." * * * * * laurence made no comment but continued to gaze into the fire, sunk deep in reverie. he looked very tired; his whole big frame relaxed, his eyelids drooped. but he was thinking--or rather, whole scenes from the past were flashing by him, things long forgotten, it seemed.... after a rather long silence he said dreamily: "you know pat was killed at shiloh, i suppose?" "i heard he was killed, yes--that is, i didn't know it till i got back here." "and you didn't know my mother was dead, either--or what had become of me?" "no, larry, no--how could i?" the old man filled his pipe again from a bag of tobacco that he carried in his pocket. "well, you _are_ an old bird," said laurence sardonically. "family isn't the only thing," was old timothy's calm response. "'tisn't even the main thing." "oh, what is, in your opinion?" "why, a man's work--his ideas." "work? i thought you didn't work." "i don't work for a boss, or for a society that only wants to exploit me, and i haven't these many years. i've gone hungry rather, lived with the lowest and _off_ them too, rather than that. once i got out of that hell, i wouldn't go back into it, sooner starve.... but i work for what i'm interested in." "and what's that?" "the big change that's coming, larry. the day when there'll be real freedom for every man." the old man paused, then said abruptly: "you're your mother's son. it's her blood in you that's made you go the way you have.... on my side we go another way. far back my people were all rebels. hardly a man of 'em died in their beds.... there's a bigger war coming in this country, laurence, than the one you fought in. there you were on the right side of the fence, but now you're not--you've gone over." "gone over? gone over to what?" "to the rich, to the capitalists, to the whole rotten system. you're a pillar of it now." laurence opened his eyes, looked interested. "do you think so, dad?" he enquired, using for the first time the familiar address of long ago. "sure i think so!" a pugnacious spark lit the old man's eye, his philosophic calm wavered. "i'd been better pleased, larry, if you'd stuck by your own class. it's men like you we need--you could have been a leader! but it's the old story, so soon as a man of ours shows the ability, the other side gets him--he goes after the fleshpots, and he's lost to us!" "there are no classes in this country, you're thinking of the old world, dad," said laurence tolerantly. "there's always two classes--them that have and them that want!" declared the old man curtly. "you're for a class-war, then?" "i'm for it!... not for myself, thank god the day's long past, if it ever was, when i wanted anything for myself. but i belong to the knights of labour and i've travelled the country over, helping to organize here and there. i see the big fight coming. this country's changed. the rich get richer and the poor poorer. the big fortunes are piling up. you'll see ... you'll see." "you're a true irishman, dad, always spoiling for a fight--always against the powers that be." "and you come of the same stock, but you've gone back on it! maybe you've sold yourself to the powers that be!" "no," said laurence coolly. "no man can say that of me. look over my record, if you like to take the trouble. ask what my reputation is.... you'll find i've stood for the poor and oppressed as much as you, or maybe more--i've fought many a poor man's case against a rich corporation, and won it too." "then how did you get all this?" the old man waved his hand, clasping the stubby black pipe, and fixed a shrewd sparkling glance on his son. laurence laughed abruptly. "partly by inheritance, by investments, speculation sometimes, not by bribery or corruption!... but it seems rather funny to me that you should drop down on me this way, all of a sudden, and accuse me! yes, by george, it's funny! life is certainly amusing, at times." "you mean i haven't any right to call you to account," said the old man placidly. "but i don't do it because you're my son--but because you're a strong man that was born of us and ought to have stayed with us." "us? you mean i ought to have been a day-labourer?... you're a fanatic, dad.... if you were so anxious to have me go the right way, why didn't you stay and train me up?" "it was weakness, i know, but, as i told you, i couldn't stand your mother, god rest her soul.... but of course i didn't see as much then as i do now. i've picked up some education, i've studied marx and the internationalists...." "and you're for revolution. i see. but it won't come, not in this country, not anyway in your lifetime or mine, and then only slowly, by degrees.... oh, i've looked into those things as well as you. social questions interest me. i see the battle of opposing forces, and i'm on your side too, on the side of the advance, as i see it. _but_--it won't come by a sudden blow--not here. little by little, as a man's frame changes. this country's built on the english model, little as you may like it, slow to change but yet changing.... and that's where i come in. don't you see the cause needs a friend at court? you can batter away on the outside as much as you like, but you need somebody inside!" "maybe.... that wasn't what made you want to get inside, though, was it, larry?" said the old man cynically. "oh, i don't know.... i don't know why i wanted to." laurence stood up, stretching his arms with a look of nervous fatigue. "i promised the boys a game of billiards--come on up, will you?" "all right, all right." laurence stood a moment with his back to the fire, looking about the room. its length on two sides was filled nearly to the ceiling with books. there was judge baxter's private library in its stately bindings, and many of his law-books, huge bound volumes of reports, "commonplace" books filled with his neat crabbed writing, ponderous commentaries in calf. laurence had done a good deal of work in this room.... "i wanted to count for something," he said absently. "who doesn't?" "yes, but for what--that's the point! what's all this good for, that you've got? loot!" "i wanted," said laurence, deep in his own thoughts and oblivious of this condemnation, "i wanted--human happiness, more than anything. for myself, yes--and for other people.... i wanted life to be more interesting, richer than it was, with more pleasure in it.... why not? why can't it be?... i tried, here in this town--" "oh, i know!" broke in the old man impatiently. "public improvements and all that. suppose they _have_ got cement sidewalks and lots of trees? suppose ye _did_ give 'em a library? i know they say you've done a lot for the town ... but you want to be a big man, the patron, the boss, and give it to 'em out of charity! that's the same old story, it doesn't interest me. give the people justice, they won't want charity!" "justice!" murmured laurence with an abstracted smile. "well, their rights, then, if you like it better. i don't mean the kind of justice that you deal them out, sitting up on your high seat!" "i deal them out the best i can find," said laurence gently. "the law gets re-made rather slowly, you know.... but i'll admit to you that i don't sleep well, the night after i've sentenced a man." "i never thought to see that--you, larry carlin, sentencing people to prison!" "no, i don't sleep well," said laurence vaguely. he rubbed his hand over his eyes and shrugged his shoulders with a look of weariness. "well, shall we go up?" he said shortly. "i'm mighty sorry, though, that you don't approve of me." "yes, yes, i understand!" the old man laughed, and suddenly resumed his former manner, his placidity, with an ease that indicated long practice in adapting himself to shifting scenes and moods. "you're not responsible to me, god knows.... to each his own life, and i'm not to be the judge of yours!... anyhow, larry," he added as they went toward the door, "you got what you wanted." "oh, yes--yes, i got it,--in many ways." "and now you've got it--you wouldn't say now, as many do, that it's vanity and vexation of spirit?" "oh, of course!" laurence laughed abruptly. "still, when you go after a thing it's better to get it.... then you can see what it's worth." vi the billiard-room, on a suggestion from the architect, taken up with amusement by laurence, had been made to resemble a european café. it had a low ceiling, red-plush benches round the panelled walls, long mirrors, and small tables in the corners; there was even a miniature bar. laurence, with his coat off, moved quickly round the green table, leaning half-way across it sometimes to make a difficult shot, managing his cue deftly and surely. the two younger boys followed his motions eagerly. john, who was playing his first real game, had a flush of excitement in his cheeks; his big blue eyes shone, he bit his lips nervously and his hands trembled; he laughed gaily when he made an awkward play. timothy hung at his elbow, jeering and waiting anxiously for his turn. in the doorway lounged jim maintaining a slightly supercilious attitude. mary and lavery were sitting on one of the plush benches; and the senior carlin, standing at a little distance, contemplated the group round the table with interest. the men were smoking, the air was a little hazy. with the bright lights reflected in the mirrors, the click of the balls, quick movements and laughing comments of the players, the others watching, all seemed drawn together for the moment in an atmosphere of pleasure. laurence's face had brightened, his eyes smiled. when john had made his last play, a terrible fumble, and thrown down his cue angrily, he put his arm round the boy's shoulders and shook him with tender roughness. "be a good sport! you've got to lose before you win, you young monkey!" john frowned, stamped his feet, and wrenched away, yet his eyes too smiled, and he hurried to fetch the chalk demanded by timothy. then when timothy blundered john murmured a consoling word, little attended to, and when timothy made a good stroke he applauded vigorously. now and then he glanced happily at his mother, watching for her smile, or spoke to jim, who only dropped his eyelids in answer; or went and stood beside his grandfather for a moment. he showed a quick consciousness of every one in the room, as though with infinitely delicate feelers touching them all. his physical motions were awkward, with the rapid growth of adolescence his arms and legs were somewhat out of control. he jostled timothy at a critical point and received an impatient rebuff. dashed by this, he stood apart for a while; and his face had its wistful, listening look, as if he sought among them all the human echo of some harmony heard far off. * * * * * after timothy, it was jim's turn. jim had some pretensions to skill, but bore a smashing defeat with good grace, and complimented his father in an off-hand manly fashion, on which they shook hands with a cordiality rare between them. jim as a rule irritated laurence, either by obvious faults, laziness or extravagance, or else by silence and lack of response, a standing difference of temperament. but tonight laurence looked at him affectionately, noting with pleasure his dark good looks, his lithe youth. jim was almost a man--next year he would be going to college, if he could manage to pass the examinations.... so time passes.... * * * * * laurence was aware of a dark whirl of thoughts, half-formed, somewhere at the back of his mind; and of a weight pressing on the nape of his neck. for some time he had slept little and had been conscious of an increasing fatigue, something that piled up day by day, and made increasing effort necessary to get through each day's activity. he would have to work tonight. downstairs he had the papers of an important case in which he had reserved decision.... and then there were a lot of business matters to be gone over with lavery.... but he was reluctant to leave this bright room, to break up the family gathering. it was rare that they were all together like this; mary very seldom came up to the billiard-room. the occasion seemed to him significant, and searching for the reason, he wondered if his father's strange presence had anything to do with it, or with his own unusual mood. perhaps so. perhaps it was this that had, as it seemed, thrown him back into the past, had curiously removed him to a distance so that this present scene had a kind of unreality.... it was like a scene on the stage which he was watching as it were through a reversed glass, so that the figures of the actors, his own included, appeared very tiny and as if at an immense distance. he watched himself going through the motions of the game, talking, laughing, and the others moving about. it seemed that some drama was moving to an obscure but deeply significant climax, but what was it all about? at times he came to the surface of consciousness with what seemed like a crash, the lights and sounds smote his senses as if magnified, the actors became life-size or even bigger, and he waited for them or for himself to say or do some unheard-of thing.... all through he was conscious of an effort in himself to appear as usual, not to do anything extraordinary, not to lose touch with these human beings round him, all of whom seemed invested with some strange charm, newly felt, as though a hidden beauty in them had suddenly come into view.... at one moment he wondered if he were ill, or going to be; and put his hand on the back of his neck, where the dull pain pressed heavily. from across the room he saw john's eyes fixed on him earnestly; and smiled at him. the shadow of trouble in another person would trouble john. strange boy! he was like a harp so delicately strung that a breath of air would stir it. what would happen to him in this world of harsh and jarring contacts?... the other two, he thought, would shoulder their way through well enough. they were strong normal boys with a good supply of egotism. the stock was sound.... he realized that he was looking at them all as though on the eve of departure, a farewell before a long journey.... the room swam in a dazzle of light. with an immense effort he pulled himself together, vanquished the momentary faintness, gave no other sign than a pallor, a rapid blinking of his eyes.... he found himself standing beside his father, before one of the long mirrors, and replying to some remark half-heard. his vision cleared, he looked at the two figures in the glass, curiously. would any one have taken those two for father and son? no. in the first place, the elder looked absurdly young, with his smooth-shaven unwrinkled face and wiry figure. and then, he looked like a foreigner; the irish was unmistakable. old timothy had never taken root in american soil, but floated like thistledown above it, for forty years.... and the other one there, the black-bearded one--with age the irish came out in him too, unmistakably.... but he was an american, born here, with no dim shadow of allegiance elsewhere. a son of the soil, he had fought for its nationality--there was the sign, the old sabre-cut, a faint white line across his cheek. and those old american ideals, of liberty, equality--he had believed in them passionately, felt them a living current in his blood, would have given his life for them. he still believed in them--and surely nothing in his life had given the lie to that belief? the old man there had questioned, doubted him, on the score of this material luxury, this big house he had built--which, for that matter, was as unsubstantial as a soap-bubble, he could almost feel it dissolving under him.... why, that only proved the equality of opportunity here for every man, he had started empty-handed. here in this country the stream of fortune ran swift, capricious.... men were all like gold-washers on the banks of a river, today the current would wash the golden grains one way, tomorrow another.... why, tomorrow this bubble of a house that he had amused himself blowing into shape, might vanish, and he be left empty-handed.... what matter? it was all unreal, anyway, all a dream, what he had tried to build.... it seemed to him that he had been saying some of these things to his father, but he was not sure, there was a humming sound in his ears.... again there was a flash of clear sight. john was there beside him, now there were three figures reflected in the mirror. "three generations!" said laurence. he spoke in his natural tone, the haggard pallor of his face changed suddenly; he felt that john had noticed it, was watching him. "look, father, can you see any likeness among us three?" he asked. the boy stood between them, straight as a young sapling, the radiance of his blond head like a beam of sunlight, a bow of promise across a cloud. "no--no," said the old man thoughtfully. "i see it now in you and me, larry--there's the same blood. but i don't see it in the boy." "john isn't like any of us, anyhow," said laurence, with the tender tones that he always had for this child. "he makes us look like a couple of scarred old logs, doesn't he?" "ah, youth--that's the pure gold," said the old man softly. the boy smiled, deprecating, shrinking a little from their gentle scrutiny. "it isn't that alone, there's something else, that's unaccountable," laurence pondered, as if speaking to himself. "it's the mother, perhaps--he's more like her. that's a different strain," said the old man. laurence turned and looked across the room. mary had risen, was still talking to lavery, but she was looking straight at them, at the group before the mirror. "mary, come here a minute," called laurence. she came, with her slow stately step, and laurence put out his hand and drew her to his side. "what is it?" she asked, with a faint tremulousness in her voice. the old man, standing a step apart, and looking at the other three, replied. "we were thinking of the likeness.... yes, it's more on your side--yet i don't know--" "mary and i are different enough, eh?" said laurence with a slight laugh. "that might account for almost anything. she's pure english, you see--english puritan.... it was two enemy races mating when we married, eh, father?" "that makes the american, maybe," said the old man, still curiously intent on the boy. but john, embarrassed by this prolonged attention, now broke away and left them. "he's not like either of us," said laurence abruptly, watching the boy's retreating figure. "that is, only a little. he's like a flower, sprung from heaven knows where." glancing again at the mirror he saw the quick response in mary's face. in the mirror their eyes met with a deep flash of sympathy. yes, this was something they both felt deeply and in common--the strange beauty of this child who had, nevertheless, sprung from _them_, from their two lives, however marred and futile.... their union had at least produced this thing of beauty.... they looked at one another with a deep sad gaze. laurence, with a sharpened vision, saw something in mary's face new to him. the physical change must have come slowly--mary had not been ill for a long time, that sharpening of the contours that gave her beauty its new delicacy was perhaps only age. but what he saw was not physical. he saw suddenly that she was grieving, suffering, he did not know why; it gave him a quick throb of pain. he would have put his arm around her, but that she moved away sharply. at the same moment he felt again the clouding of his sight, the dizziness.... but, abruptly alleging that he must get to work, he was able to leave the room with only a slight unsteadiness of gait, which, he knew, might easily be attributed to another cause. vii mary watched him go; and thought exactly what he had guessed she would. she said it was time for the boys to go to bed. they all went downstairs. in her own room she lit her reading-lamp, but instead of undressing she stood for a time looking out the window on the lake. then, when the house was quiet, she turned slowly, reluctantly, to her door, and stopping more than once she descended to the ground floor. the hall was dimly lit. the library door was shut; she heard the rustle of papers and the thud of a book falling. she opened the door noiselessly. there was laurence, with a wet towel round his head, working at his desk.... and there was lavery, in a deep chair beside him, looking over some papers. she retreated without a word, but the closing of the door betrayed her. it was lavery who came out and found her, wrapped in her long coat, undoing the chain of the front door. he picked up a coat and joined her, not doubting that she wished him to do so. "laurence oughtn't to work tonight," she said sharply. "he isn't fit to work." "well, i guess he has to--some papers he has to go over.... and he always says he works best at night," drawled lavery. "fact is, though, he's not looking well--complains of headache the last few days. perhaps he ought to ease off a little--rest, if possible." "rest!" mary said with a short laugh. "i never knew him to rest." "no, that's so--he seems geared up to a certain speed.... but after all we have to relax a bit as we get older. the machine won't stand the speed. and laurence burns the candle at both ends." they were walking down a path toward the lake. mary did not ask what he meant. but he insisted. "i don't mind a man drinking anything in reason. but i think laurence is getting to depend too much on it--he has to key himself up to his work. that wonderful natural energy seems to be failing him." still she was silent, and lavery turned to her. "why don't you do something about it?" he asked abruptly. "nothing that any one could say would make any difference to laurence," said mary coldly. "he has always done exactly as he chose, and he always will." "oh, has he?" murmured lavery. "it strikes me he would be more apt to do what you wanted him to." mary laughed. "what i wanted!" she turned angrily on lavery. "you know that isn't true!" at the same time she was amazed at herself--speaking like this, of laurence and herself, to a stranger. and the reckless other self over-ruled this protest--it could speak to this man and it would. "you know i never interfere in laurence's life. he lives as he chooses." "he lives the way he has to, i guess," said lavery meditatively, "i don't know that there's much choice about it." "has to!" ejaculated mary with contempt. "i should think you would be ashamed to say that." they had approached the border of the lake, the breeze blew sweet and chill. mary sat down on a bench, and lavery, buttoning his coat, sat beside her. he knew he should catch cold, perhaps have an attack of lumbago, but no matter! "now why should i be ashamed?" he asked, puzzled. "why, because--that's no way for a man to talk.... we don't have to do what we don't choose to." "oh, don't we?" he murmured again. and after a moment, "suppose there's a clash between two wills, two people--one has to go down, doesn't he, one has to submit, can't get what he wants, has to take what he doesn't want? how about that?" "i'm not talking about what we want, of course we don't always get what we want. i'm talking about the way we live, whether we do what we know we ought to do or not--and i say we don't have to live and do what we know is wrong. i say a man ought to die rather than do that!" "well, what _is_ wrong?" enquired lavery mildly. "now i'll tell you what i think.... i think the most important thing for a man is his work, his output. if he's got work that he believes in and loves, he's got the best thing on earth. and anything's right for him that helps him to do that work. and anything's wrong, for him, that prevents him from doing it. for that's what he's _for_, that's his reason for living, what he creates, that's why he's different from every other human being, so he can do just that thing.... as for any other right and wrong, i don't believe in 'em. we don't get right and wrong handed to us, we have to make them as we go along." "well, i am surprised, to hear you feel that way about work," said mary, showing her claws. "you think i don't work?... well, perhaps you wouldn't recognize it.... i admit the law isn't my work, as it's laurence's, in the creative sense. he's been able to stick to that and do what he was meant to do--but he's had to pay for it. that's what the drink means, and--other things that you don't like, perhaps." he paused a moment, he didn't want to seem malicious, but he went on: "laurence is a strong man. he's taken what he could get, to help him do his work, and i say he was right. but it wasn't what he wanted. he didn't want drink and other women, not seriously. it was trouble with you that made him turn to them." she sat marble-still, not an eyelash moving. lavery added: "i ought to say, he never said a word about that. it's my own observation, that's all." again he was silent, watching her still profile, barely visible; guessing at the tumult within her, the rage of offended pride. (if she was determined to dislike him, he would give her something to dislike him for.) he decided that it was time for her to speak now. but mary was struck dumb. her outleap of rage against lavery recoiled upon herself.... she deserved it, for talking to him in any sort of confidence, for breaking her reserve, compromising her personal dignity--of course he had taken advantage of this. she strove to re-establish her contempt of him. he should not see that she had felt his treacherous attack. it was some moments before she could say, coolly: "if you think laurence has done right, why did you ask me to 'do something about it'?" he lost the thread of the discourse for a moment, in irritation. "why, i meant--i meant--that he had done the best he could, in the circumstances.... but it seems to me he's under a heavy strain--in fact, perhaps in danger of breaking down under it. i wonder if you couldn't ease it, somehow." it was only partly a game. there was a sincere feeling in lavery too. he admired--even though unwillingly--the more gifted man. yes, and he had reluctant admiration for mary too. "you don't know anything about it," she said. "no, perhaps i don't," he admitted. "i can't see that it's your business, at all." "well, i suppose it isn't--unless on account of friendship." "i don't believe in friendship." "what do you believe in?" he asked. "i don't believe in anything." the words came out with violence. she was resisting the impulse to speak out, and yet she was speaking. "i used to have faith--but now i haven't anything." "oh, yes, you have," he said. "you have faith--everything shows it." "how? what?" "well, what you just said, that a man ought to die rather than do what is wrong--there's faith, in the ideal of what a man is, what he ought to be.... and then you live without compromise, you don't forgive--that's faith." "how do you know that--that i don't forgive?" "well, i can guess that you didn't." "and you think that's good--not to forgive?" "i didn't say it was good. it depends on how it works out. i said it showed faith. it means you have a standard and you can't condone an offence against it--at any cost." "yes, but it might be only--that i couldn't forgive an offence against _me_.... it might be only--pride. you see how i mean, that i've lost faith. i don't feel sure of anything." "you've lost faith in yourself, you mean, but--" "oh, not only in myself--in everything else!" "and you used to feel sure?" "oh, yes--i _knew_!" "and how was it, that you ceased to be sure?" "i think--people disappointed me--people i believed in--" "but you believe in something that isn't people, don't you--some rule of right and wrong that is above human life--" "i did--yes, i was very religious--i believed in a rule and measured people by it--" "and when they didn't measure up to it, you--" "yes, i--didn't forgive. even now i despise people, for all sorts of reasons--can't help it.... but now i think i was wrong. i don't think i was religious at all--because, you see, it didn't stand the test--i lost it--" "and when was that--that you lost it?" "i don't know. it seems as if it had been going on for a long time, dying.... i used to think that happiness didn't count, that we ought not to think of it. but now i think that was when i was really happy. it isn't so easy to live without it, really, for many years--it isn't so easy!" she had lost all feeling of the personality of lavery. it was like speaking out to the night-wind and the starlight. she had spoken the last sentences in a rush, passionately, and in her voice was the tremor of a sob. but she compressed her lips sharply, and sat silent. lavery took her hand, and her fingers closed on his desperately.... all she cared for just then was not to cry. "well, it's true, we can't live without it," muttered lavery. "you see, we lose faith in ourselves, without it--we feel we've been wrong, and we _have_ been wrong--that's the sign.... then if we can't get it back we take to dope--like me." she heard what he said, but she did not answer. she was absorbed in the relief of her emotion, her confession, and the strange feeling of kinship with him, with this person she--didn't like. for she did not like him any better than before, only it didn't seem to matter now. what mattered was not to be entirely alone. she was comforted, and keeping hold of his hand, she grew calmer, and breathed a deep sigh. then she noticed that lavery was shivering. "why, you'll catch your death of cold," she said, and got up. they walked back silently to the house. in the hall he put out his hand to her again and said anxiously: "look here now, you won't hate me more for this, will you? that wouldn't be fair." "no!" she said with energy, smiling. "not now.... i would, not long ago--but now i wouldn't be so mean as that." "well, that's good," he said wanly. viii the next day, toward sunset, mary was walking in to see her father. she went often at the time when he would be home for his solitary supper. the carlin place was no longer out of town. past it stretched the paved street, with wide sidewalks and gas-lamps at frequent intervals. the maple trees now overarched it, a thinning cloud of pale yellow or red, and the leaves lay in thick drifts in the gutters and along the walks. they rustled under mary's feet as she went holding up her long violet-coloured dress. she wore a mantle to match the dress, and a small bonnet made of violets and lace, tied under her chin with black velvet ribbons. she walked at a good pace; there was a spring in her step, and unusual colour in her cheeks. she breathed in deeply the cool crisp air, she saw with pleasure the vivid colours of the leaves, the bright western sky: it was long since she had felt this pleasure in the world. it had zest to her; and she could not imagine why. all that had happened to her consciousness was that she had transgressed her own code; had forgotten her dignity and actually discussed her own most private affairs and feelings, with a stranger. but now she had a strange sense of freedom, of companionship in some impersonal way. she did not think more of lavery because of it. he had gone to the city with laurence that morning, and she did not seem to care whether she ever saw him again or not. but if she saw him certainly she would talk to him again. she was less a prisoner now; some barrier had been pierced, and she looked out on the world. as she drew near the house, she saw a once familiar figure, a slim black-coated figure, pushing a small baby-carriage. it was hilary. he had married a buxom efficient widow, three years before; and in the carriage was his eighteen-months' old daughter, a small, very lively baby, with bright blue eyes. mary stopped and held out her hand to hilary, with a friendly warmth that she had not shown him for many years. she asked after his wife, bent to speak to the baby, who bounced up and down and fixed upon her eyes sparkling with energy. hilary's eyes too were upon her, in surprise. he had changed very little in ten years. his face was quieter, perhaps, less drawn. the wife took care of him, fed and clothed him properly. no one now thought that he would go into a decline. but his eyes showed the same ardour and intensity of life. he worked harder than ever, for his church had grown, and incidentally had become factious. hilary had to meet opposition within the fold to his idea of the preaching of the gospel; the time would come when he would be forced to leave this church too, and go forth. mary knew this, though she rarely went to church now. she smiled inwardly as she recalled how she had felt about his marriage; disenchantment, almost disgust, though she had long before that ceased her intimacy with him. her idea of him, as celibate, she now felt to have been merely romantic. hilary was a man like other men. no, after all, he was better than most, he was more of a man. she smiled at him quite radiantly and said she was coming soon to see his wife. "how well you are looking," he said as she started on, still with that surprised gaze at her. "it must be this wonderful weather--it makes one feel so alive!" she called back, laughing at the white lie. in this mood she could tell all kinds of lies, without conscience! it was like a renewal of youth, no, it was a youth she had never had, rather mischievous, irresponsible. in this mood she wouldn't care what she did. now why? she shook her head and gave it up--couldn't say why. she opened the gate of the old place, and noticed that a hinge was loose; and that the pickets needed painting. the grass was long too in the front yard. she stopped a moment looking at it and at the low frame house. that too needed a coat of paint--why, it was shabby, it was all going to seed. her brow wrinkled as she wondered why she hadn't noticed this before--how long had it been this way? her father had been used always to keep the place trim and neat. was he getting too old to look after it, or to care? she felt a pang.... she must send down a gardener to fix up the yard. she opened the creaking front door and entered the narrow hall. the familiar odour met her--old wallpaper, old furniture, a slight closeness, a faint smell of cooking. but she liked it--it was home. she went into the sitting-room, where the housekeeper was setting the table for dr. lowell's supper. "oh, mrs. hansen, isn't father home yet?" she asked. "yes, mrs. carlin, he has just come. out to the stable yet." the rosy-faced swedish woman, in crisp calico dress and white apron, went out into the kitchen. she came by the day to "do for" dr. lowell, and he lived alone in the old house. mary glanced critically at the table, wrinkled her nose, and sat down in the rocker by the window, where streaks of gold and red glimmered, making a rosy light within. nothing had been changed in this room, or for that matter in the house since her mother's death. in fact, she couldn't remember when it had not looked just this way. the brown carpet was a little more worn, perhaps, the brown and gilt wallpaper a little more faded. there was dust on the furniture that would not have been there in her mother's time. but the old clock ticked to the same dreamy tune on the shelf, coals glowed in the open stove, the cat stretched itself and yawned in the armchair, the glass of cream stood as always by her father's plate. in this house it always seemed afternoon, verging on evening.... yes, and there, in the grass under the window, the sound always associated with home--the faint wiry chirping of the crickets.... short bright autumn days--long cold nights drawing on--was that why they were so plaintive? she heard her father come into the kitchen, and then the splashing of water. washing up in the kitchen--lazy father! probably he even kept a comb out there, behind the looking-glass! men get shiftless, living by themselves. or perhaps he was just too tired to go upstairs. yes, when he came in, she saw his thin hair had been freshly combed--and he did look very tired. and alas, how old he looked! why hadn't she noticed that he was getting old? he was delighted to see her, still more when she got up and kissed him with uncommon warmth. "well, now, this is nice! can't you have supper with me?" he asked happily, lifting the cat out of his chair and sitting down. mary drew up a chair opposite him and put her elbows on the table. "i can't eat, because there's the family dinner, you know, but i'll sit with you anyway. what have you got?" mrs. hansen put the supper on the table and retired behind a closed door. "cream-toast--dried beef--soda-biscuits--well, i don't call that a solid meal after a good day's work! that's an old lady's supper. why don't you have a steak, father, something substantial?" "can't, my dear," he said smiling. "too heavy for me--can't eat much meat. this is just what i like." he tucked the napkin under his thin beard, still auburn more than grey, and began to eat. mary took a biscuit and broke it open. "it's light," she conceded. "i guess she's a good enough cook." "oh, she's first-rate--i live in clover," smiled dr. lowell. "well, hardly that--" "oh, yes.... but say, how splendid you look, mary! been to some grand blowout?" "no, i made some calls. do you like this bonnet?" "it's fine--what there is of it. dress too--there's plenty of that. why have that long tail on it?" "well, it's the fashion," said mary indulgently. "you look very nice indeed. better than you have all summer." "well, father, i can't say as much for you. you look tired out." "i am, at night. but i get up like a lark in the morning." "you work too hard. you ought to have a man to drive you now, and an assistant--and only go out on great occasions, when you get a big fee, you know!" a faint uneasiness showed in dr. lowell's face. "now don't you go trying to take away my work. that's the quick way to break a man up.... i'm going to die in harness," he declared. "well, i'm afraid you will," and mary's lips quivered. he was quick to notice and to soothe her. "don't you worry. there's a lot of work in the old man yet. i'm not seventy. and i don't go out much at night any more, you know, or in very bad weather--unless it's life or death.... oh, they have to consider me now!" "well, it's time they did. you never considered yourself." there was unwonted emotion in her face and voice. he was touched, and surprised. "i should think you'd be proud of me," he said lightly. "all these smart young doctors in town--but they don't get _my_ practice unless i want to give it to 'em.... people sending for me from all over the county--pay my expenses and anything i want to ask. _they_ don't think i'm too old to work." "i _am_ proud of you. i never said you were too old. i think you're a great man." he laughed. "i wasn't fishing to that extent." "well, i want you to know that i admire you. i think you've had the most successful life i know about." "sounds like my obituary," he commented. but mary was groping for something she wanted to say, something newly felt. looking at his small bent figure, his face, so gentle yet with something hard and firm in its calmness, suddenly she seemed to see him, his long laborious life, in a flash of light. "i think you're beautiful," she said solemnly. it was a strange word, and dr. lowell was visibly abashed. he fidgeted, made a feeble joke, and then looked sharply at mary's unwonted colour and bright eyes. "what's the matter? you're not going to--sure you feel perfectly well, mary?" "why, yes.... but laurence isn't. i wish you'd drop in and see him. he'll be home tomorrow night. suppose you come to dinner and take a look at him." "what ails him?" "he complains of headaches lately and he looks--well, you'll see. keeps right on working, though. you'll come? the boys always want to see you too, you know." "well, they do. they drop in here quite often--especially jim. i think maybe we might make a doctor of jim." "you do?" mary's eyes opened wide. "has he shown any interest that way? he never said a word to me about it." "yes, we've talked it over. he _is_ interested. he takes to science. has a good mind, that boy--kind of slow, but thorough. likes to get to the bottom of things. he could work hard if he was interested." "well!" mary pondered this. then she said, "i've been worried about him--he runs around at night and won't tell me where he goes." "i know where he goes," said dr. lowell placidly. "you do? he tells you?" "oh, jim and i are great friends. he's all right, mary.... but you must realize--jim's almost a man, and he's a strapping healthy fellow--you can't hold too tight a rein on him, if you do he'll kick over the traces." mary frowned, looked sullen. "i think i ought to know what he's doing." "well, i'd just as soon tell you, but you'd very likely make a row and it would be bad for jim.... use your imagination, mary." she pushed back her chair, rose and walked to the window. dr. lowell cast a shrewd glance at her and took a piece of custard pie. "i think you ought to be proud of your output, mary--you ought to be a proud and happy woman." "what, father?" "those three boys--fine fellows, all of them. what more d'ye want? and you haven't spoiled them by petting. they think a lot of you. and you haven't nagged them--not very much." mary turned around. "then you think--really--?" "oh, yes, you've done well.... one thing more you might do--but i doubt if you could--let them feel that they could tell you anything, whatever they do. they might not tell you, wouldn't probably, but if they felt they could, without you being horrified, it would be better for them.... but of course you can only do that if you feel that what they want or need is a lot more important than what they do.... sometimes i think, mary, that you care more for what people do than for what they are.... think it over." dr. lowell folded his napkin and put it in its ring, got up and took out his pipe, filled it from a leather bag and lit it. an acrid smoke issued from the old meerschaum as he sank into an easy-chair by the fire. mary hated that pipe, but now though she coughed in the smoke she didn't notice it. she had stood absorbed in some difficult and displeasing thought--but turning and looking at her father she saw how bent and shrivelled he looked in the big chair. "father, aren't you awfully lonely here in the evenings?" she asked suddenly. "no, no--i've got lots of reading to do, journals and new books--i try to keep up with my profession, you know. no, i'm never lonely." "i should think you'd miss mother a lot." "i do--yes, i miss her.... but it's quieter this way." "father! the things you say!" "why shouldn't i say them.... your mother and i got on very well indeed, and if i ever see her again i guess we'll get on just as well." "if you do! why, don't you think you will?" "i don't know, my dear, i couldn't tell you." he puffed meditatively at his pipe. "and i don't think anybody else can tell you either." "i don't see how you can bear to see so many people die if that's the way you feel, if you think there's nothing more!" cried mary. "i keep them from dying, if i can--that's my job.... i don't say there's nothing more. but i say we haven't begun to learn about this world--there's enough here to keep us busy for all the time we've got--we're just ignorant. life ... it's mystery on mystery.... we can settle what death is when we get to it." "you're not afraid of death?" she asked absently. "no, child, no ... sometimes i feel i'd like a long rest ... or a new set of feelings, ideas ... or something. there's only one thing i'm afraid of, i confess--to live on when i'm no use any more and have to be taken care of." he made a wry face. "don't see how i could stand that. i hope i die with my boots on." "well, don't you do it yet awhile." mary bent down and kissed the top of his head. "we need you. i'll think over what you said--about the boys--and then i guess i'd like to talk to you again about it.... i must go now. you'll come tomorrow night?" "yes, i'll come." on her way to the door she turned. "i declare! i forgot to ask you if you'd seen old mr. carlin." "yes, john fetched him in here yesterday. we had quite a chat." "did you ever hear of such a thing--walking in like that and telling me 'i'm laurence's father!' cool as a cucumber! i never saw such an old man!" "how did laurence take it?" "well, there never was any love lost between them, you know--he was taken aback at first, but they seemed to get on well enough." "and he's gone?" "the old gentleman? yes--went to chicago today. he said he'd drop in and see us again some time!" she laughed quite gaily as she went out. it had occurred to her to see if the garden at the back of the house was neglected too, so she went round that way. yes, the grass-borders were unkempt, the only flowers were straggling marigolds and asters; dahlias blackened by frost drooped forlornly. no wonder, he hadn't strength now to keep it up. but she thought back and seemed to see that from the time of her mother's death the garden had been running down. "i guess he misses her more than he thinks," she reflected. she stood looking into the orchard, where among almost bare boughs a few red apples still clung. she felt a desire to go on into the pasture and look at the deep still pool there, which she had not seen for long. she remembered the look of it well--how as a child it had fascinated and frightened her, even haunting her dreams.... but the pasture was trampled by cows, and in this dress and these thin shoes.... she turned to go home, wrapping her mantle round her. the wind was rising, blowing out of a bank of cloud that now covered the western sky. a few sunset embers glimmered there low down. in the wind sweeping over the prairie there was a low booming sound and when the gusts rose higher an ominous whistle. a storm was coming, out of those immense, endless stretches to the west. ix all night long the wind roared round the house, dashing gusts of sleety rain against the western windows. at times even the thick walls shook. the lake rose into waves that pounded on the shore. mary tried to read herself to sleep but in vain. at last she put out her light, and thoughts, images, questions, raced through her mind as she lay in darkness. a happy woman ... proud and happy, she ought to be. but what had she to be proud of.... men were more fortunate, they had their work, could really achieve something, could take anything they wanted.... laurence took what he wanted, to help him do his work, and i say he was right.... laurence went his own way, apart from her.... of course apart, she had driven him away. no, he had begun it before that. but she hadn't done her duty by him, it was her duty to forgive.... no, she didn't believe in forgiveness, didn't believe in duty. it wouldn't have worked any better. he would have gone his own way anyhow. and now the boys were beginning too.... use your imagination, mary.... she didn't want to use her imagination, she was afraid of it. yes, afraid.... all sorts of things that she had shut out in the dark, wouldn't look at, and now they were horrible to her.... why should one have to look at the dark side of life, the animal side?... but suppose that was really life, suppose we were just animals and nothing more--all the rest words. that might very well be.... her father had spent his life taking care of the physical body, he didn't believe in anything else, didn't look forward.... life ... it's mystery on mystery ... we're just ignorant.... what was it then that made him so calm and strong, not afraid of anything? she had thought that this was what religion did for you, but he had never had any religion, yet he had always been like this, since she could remember him. hilary had it too, that same strength, and with him perhaps it was religion.... but she didn't believe in religion, heaven was empty, god had melted away completely, she didn't believe in him. she tossed restlessly, the tumult without echoing the storm within. it seemed that the wind was driving through her head, her thoughts were like whirling leaves.... why should she be proud of her sons? they were not hers, they were laurence's as much as hers, perhaps more; they were distinct individuals, did not belong to her, she had almost no part in them. and she had not trained them in the way they should go ... how could she, when since the early days she had ceased to believe in any definite way? they had just grown up themselves.... you haven't nagged them, not very much.... was that what her father thought of moral teaching? they had learned not to lie or steal, of course. but as they grew to be men they would begin again. jim had already begun. he lied to her, and apparently told the truth to his grandfather.... let them feel that they could tell you anything--they wouldn't tell you probably.... no, they would have their lives apart, and she would be alone still--in her youth she had never felt lonely, but now.... lavery knew what loneliness was, that was why she had talked to him. he had known how she was feeling before she spoke, otherwise she would never have spoken. he was worldly wise, but that was all, or nearly all--it wasn't much. his consolations--what use were they? soft living, books, music, little adventures.... she would rather jump into the lake than live like that. why not?... nobody would miss her very much. the boys at first, it would be a shock, of course. and laurence would have to find somebody to run the house. her father would miss her, and it would be a town-scandal, a mystery.... why on earth.... a woman with everything to live for.... temporary insanity.... and then, prying and prowling gossip. why not? well, of course she would never do it. life was too strong in her--physical life. she would have to be inconceivably miserable before she could seek death. she was afraid of death, now that beyond it lay the void. and it was still good to live, in some ways. even today she had known pleasure, more than for a long time. something had lifted her up. this was the reaction.... if only she could sleep! if the wind would stop howling like a lost soul round the house! why was it that she had lost the faith that in her girlhood had made her so strong and secure?... she had said to lavery it was because people had disappointed her. but was that a reason for losing her faith in god? wasn't there something above and beyond this human life, so often petty and sordid, these weak human beings--something fixed, sure, always good and beautiful, a refuge?... no, there was nothing, or if there was, she could not find it. when she had thought she loved god, it was only that she loved people--hilary in one way, laurence in another--and believed in them. and then at one stroke she had lost both of them. they had been cut away from her--or was it that she had done it, cut them away, repelled and denied them both? if a man loves not his brother whom he hath seen, how shall he love god whom he hath not seen?... then she had lost all that remained to her, the joy in her children, her content with herself, and that feeling of rightness.... from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.... now she would be glad to go away from everybody, even the children.... * * * * * toward morning she slept, and woke unwillingly at a knock on her door. "breakfast's ready--aren't you coming down?" it was jim. she said sleepily, "oh, i'm tired, hardly slept all night. i guess i won't get up." jim looked aggrieved. "it's rotten when you don't come down," he said. then, turning away he enquired sulkily, "well, shall i bring up your breakfast?" how vigorous and vivid his young figure looked, in the grey morning light--his brown glowing colour, how pleasant to see! "yes--no, i'll get up," she said. still he lingered. "well, if you're very tired--i'll bring it up if you want me to." "no, i say i'll get up. run along." "i'd just as soon bring it up--" "run along!" she laughed as he shut the door, and sprang up, to see if she could make it in ten minutes. it was rather more than that, but she got down to find the three boys at the breakfast-table; and jim rose and pulled out her chair for her, a mark of special favour. a bright fire crackled in the chimney, the silver coffee-urn hissed cheerfully in the middle of the table; the room was warm and pleasant, with the rain beating against the windows. the boys all smiled at her, and jim, showing his big white teeth, passed his cup for more coffee. one cup was his allowance, but she filled it up. "what a night!" she said. "did you hear the wind? i couldn't sleep--could you?" they had all slept like tops, hadn't noticed any wind, that is, only john had noticed it. "i like storms," he said. "i like a big storm, but it doesn't keep me awake. i'd like to be out on the lake in a big wind." "yes, you would," murmured timothy sceptically. "ma, i wish you'd make tim brush his hair," drawled the eldest. "look at it." "i have brushed it--it won't lie down, that's all. it's a cowlick or something." "yes, or something! you need a hair-cut." "yes, i guess you do," said mary, looking at timothy's thick disorderly black mop. "you can go after school and get one." jim picked up the silver hand-bell and rang it loudly. "what's that for?" "pancakes. i told hilda to make some and she's late as usual. it's half-past eight now." the waitress brought in a big platter of cakes, and they vanished quickly, with no comment except, "pass the butter.... maple-syrup, please--i'll take a couple more, mother." then the three said, "please excuse me," and bolted for the door. in the hall arose the usual hubbub. "that's my coat you've got.... where's my cap?... confound it, who took my rubbers?..." mary went out to say, "all your rubbers are on the shelf in the coat-closet," to make sure that nobody rushed off without his rubbers, to hear their shouted good-byes. the door banged behind them. she smiled and went back to her coffee and the newspaper. cold bath and coffee made her feel fresh, full of energy, in spite of a bad night. the world always looked more cheerful in the morning, especially when the boys were about--they were so full of life, all of them, they were nice even when they squabbled. yes, if one could always be young, things wouldn't be so bad. life might be rather pleasant if you didn't look into it too much. she finished her coffee and went into the big clean drab-coloured kitchen to interview the cook about the day's meals and write lists for the grocer and butcher. she ordered a good dinner--laurence would be home, her father was coming, there might be other guests, for laurence often brought some one. the cook stood by the table, rolling her hands in her apron and looking rather sullen, and when mary rose for her usual quick inspection of pantries and ice-box, hilda said: "mrs. carlin, i think i be leaving the end of the month." "why?" asked mary sharply. "oh--i think i be leaving." "is it the work--the wages?" "no--no, i like the place, but ... i think i be leaving." mary gazed at her, and finally said, "i know what it is--you've been quarrelling with anna." the cook made no answer, but continued to look sullen. "now, hilda," said mary firmly, "you've been with me a year; in that time i've had three waitresses, and you've quarrelled with every one of them. i like anna and i'm not going to let her go. i like you too, but you're hard to get along with. if you want to leave at the end of the month you can. i don't want to hear what you've been fighting about. i advise you to think it over, and remember you'll always quarrel, wherever you go, that's the way you're made. let me know in a week." she went her rounds, praised the good order she found, and departed sighing. another raw cook to train, probably! it took just about a year to break them in, and then.... anna was doing the dining-room as she passed through and looked suspiciously bottled-up, but mary gave her no chance to complain. of course they would fight, those two--any two would, they hadn't enough else to occupy their minds. she wished she could get along with one servant, but in this big house it was impossible, it was hard work for two. the house felt cold--she must send for the furnace-man and have him start the fires. she went back to tell anna to tell the gardener to go for mike at once. then she wrapped a mantle about her and went into the parlours, two big connecting rooms. they were glacially cold. it had occurred to her this morning that the house was gloomy. she didn't know why she hadn't noticed it before. nothing had been changed since they had lived in the house, ten years. perhaps that was the trouble. she had not been interested enough to want to change anything; had accepted it all, as laurence and the decorators presented it, with indifference. she had never been interested in house-furnishings; if laurence liked this, it was enough. but it took an enormous amount of work to keep all these heavy carpets and curtains clean, and all this light furniture. and in spite of perpetual cleaning there was always a musty smell when the windows were shut, as now. she frowned, looking critically about her. the heavy cut-lace curtains covering the windows had turned yellow with age. the thick silk draperies over these inner curtains showed streaks where the sun had faded them. the figured satin upholstery of the carved and fretted couches and chairs was rather faded too.... all this expensive stuff--and now, after only ten years, it had to be replaced! and the bric-a-brac on the gilt tables and the mantelpieces,--the gilt clocks and all that fragile porcelain that took such a lot of dusting--there was not a single thing that she had selected, or liked. but when it came to replacing all this, her mind was a blank. only she would like something quieter, not gilt stuff, satin, or little figures of shepherdesses, animals, boys riding on goats, and so on.... probably she would just have to get another decorator. how cold it all looked in this grey light, reflected in the two long mirrors at either end and the oblong mirrors over the mantelpieces! the boys liked this house. she had discovered just lately how much they liked it. its size--the big rooms--it was still the biggest house in town. they had a lordly feeling about it. they were secretly proud of their position, as sons of the town's most eminent citizen, and of this house, as the symbol of his superiority.... well, if they liked it, there was no harm in making it a little more cheerful. she crossed the hall into the library, where she usually read or wrote or received her visitors, for laurence was never at home during the day. there was a roaring big fire in the grate. this room was all right. a library should be rather sombre, with big plain pieces of furniture, the walls covered with books. it had the look of being used, lived in; and its red hangings had kept their deep colour. yes, this would do--besides, laurence probably wouldn't want it changed. it was the only place in the house that seemed to belong to him. she went over to her table, where she had left her unfinished paper on Æschylus. her lips curled in a derisive smile. Æschylus! what did those women care about greek tragedies?... they brought their knitting or fancy-work, sat and listened or didn't listen, while somebody lectured to them. they felt they were getting culture, keeping up with the times--or rather, it was the thing to belong to the literary society, they didn't dare not to belong.... before mary had taken the presidency, they had had readings from the novels of the day; some lady who had travelled would read a paper on the yosemite valley; or there would be a written debate on the respective merits of dickens and thackeray. oral discussion was unknown, the ladies had no practice in public speaking.... well, she had made them work, anyway. she had made an elaborate program for the study of greek civilization, and all this past year had driven or coaxed them through it. she had bought a list of books on greece for the library; and insisted on the ladies reading and reporting on them. at the meetings she asked questions, stooped to flatter them a little and tried to make them talk. it was hard work. they didn't really want to get anything for themselves, preferred to be spoon-fed. there were not more than two women in town who had any intellectual interests, and she was the only one who knew even a little greek. why bother them? they had their own absorbing interests--family, houses, friends, church. most of them worked pretty hard at home too. she had done it for her own amusement and occupation, or out of vanity, to make them feel her superiority. they were afraid of her, and she had liked that. she had not one real friend among them.... better resign, and let them have a good time. she sat down, throwing off her cloak, and began to look over her manuscript. it represented a good deal of work. she had consulted many authorities, and read the plays, with greek text and translation side by side. there were the books piled on the table, full of little slips of paper with her notes. she had been conscientious, thorough, giving the best work she could do. no doubt to impress them with her scholarship. she smiled again sardonically as she listened to that inner impish voice that had been her companion now for a long time, commenting on everything she did, sneering.... anna brought in a telegram. she took it, knowing in a flash what it was. yes. "sorry cannot get out tonight important case needs all my attention for several days will wire when i can get away laurence." yes, the usual thing. only this message was longer than usual, he had wasted several words. she crumpled up the paper and threw it into the fire.... she had intended to talk to him tonight about doing over the house. then there was her father coming to see him. well, he couldn't be ill if he was staying away indefinitely. he was just--busy.... she would send word to her father not to come, it was bad weather, a steady driving rain that threatened to last all day. she took up her pen and looked at the page before her--sat a long time looking at it. in spite of the glowing fire her hands grew cold, too cramped finally to hold the pen, and she dropped it. why should she care? all that was over long ago--buried. only sometimes it seemed that nothing ever could be buried securely. it was as if the long grown-over ground should stir, and something that had been buried too soon, still alive.... x two days passed, without word from laurence. he seldom stayed away as long as this without sending some message, except when he was on circuit. the third day, as mary was driving back from the meeting where she had read her paper on Æschylus, she saw jim on the street; he threw up his hand, came running and jumped into the carriage. "i was coming for you, mr. lavery's at the house--father's ill--he wants you to go to the city. they think it's typhoid." he leaned forward and told the coachman to drive faster. "you can get the six-thirty in if you hurry." he could tell her no more in answer to her questions. he looked very sober. as they turned in through the gates he said, "don't you think i'd better go with you? you'll want somebody besides that fellow." "i don't know--wait," said mary sharply. lavery was at the steps, came forward; but jim sprang out and gave his hand to mary. lavery looked pale and worried. "you'll just have the time to pack a bag.... the doctor isn't positive yet, but looks like typhoid--he's got a high fever." the coachman was told to wait and they all hurried into the house. "how long has he been ill?" demanded mary. "well, since we went in, but--" "why didn't some one let me know?" "he didn't want me to.... now you better get ready. i'll talk to you on the train." he turned away, perhaps to avoid further questions. why had he come for her instead of telegraphing?... but she was already on her way upstairs, followed by the three boys and anna. they stood about in her room and tried to help while she got out her leather bag and put the necessary things in it. she changed her silk dress for one of dark cloth, tied her bonnet with shaking fingers; it was hard for her to hurry. jim went down and brought her a glass of sherry and some crackers. "you'll miss your dinner, better drink this," he urged. she drank the wine and smiled faintly at him. "can't i go with you?" he asked again. "maybe you'll need me." "i'll see--but now i want you to look after things here. you'll have to be the man of the house." a pang shot through her at those words, she frowned and snapped her bag shut. she was ready. john, who had not uttered a word, took her hand as they went downstairs. his fingers were cold and trembling. "don't you worry," she said sharply. "i don't believe it's serious. i'll telegraph jim tomorrow. now you all be good, get your lessons, go to bed on time--and, jim, you better go tell your grandfather--" they all swarmed after her to the carriage. the cook came too, calling: "we get along all right, mrs. carlin, don't worry about us--we do everything we can, anna and me--" the three boys kissed her, jim the last, putting a manly arm around her; she thought how grave and strong his young face looked. lavery stepped into the carriage, the coachman whipped up his horses; they just made the train. * * * * * after a few questions and brief answers mary sat silent, staring blankly out of the window, during the hour's journey. she found that laurence had not sent for her, lavery had come on his own responsibility. the doctor had only this afternoon made the diagnosis of typhoid--he was a smart young man, the best in the city, lavery thought. and lavery had taken the tiresome journey instead of telegraphing because he had to explain that laurence was not at a hotel or hospital, but staying at a friend's house, from which it was thought best not to move him. laurence had some rooms at this house, it seemed, and--in fact generally stayed there when he was in the city. mary did not know the name or address--she addressed laurence when necessary at the palmer hotel. but she guessed whose house it was that she was going to. he must be very ill. otherwise lavery would hardly be taking her there.... when he had made his halting explanation she had listened, said gravely, "yes, i see. you did quite right," and then turned away. * * * * * there was a long drive over the rough cobble-stones, through streets at first brightly lighted, then almost dark. they approached the lake shore. the carriage stopped before a dimly lighted house standing by itself, but not far from a block of houses of similar size. lavery helped mary out and while he was paying the driver she took her bag and walked up to the narrow porch. the door opened above; a woman's figure appeared against the light in the hall. the gas-light had a red-glass shade and cast a rosy glow down on the thin woman in a tight-fitting black silk dress who stood aside to admit the visitor. red hair, twisted in a thick rough coil on top of her head ... eyes inflamed with tears and now opened wide ... mary recognized nora. she bent her head with an inarticulate murmur. nora simply looked at her. then lavery came in and shut the door. "this way," he said, starting up the narrow stairs. mary followed. he glanced down at nora, and asked, "any change since i left? has the doctor been?" she shook her head but did not speak, seemed unable to speak. on the landing, lit by a dim gas-jet, opened two large connecting rooms. the one into which lavery led the way was in some disorder. a big table with a student-lamp and sheaves of papers was pushed into a corner, easy-chairs littered with cigar-ashes stood in the middle of the floor; on a stand with decanters and glasses lay laurence's gold repeater. the door into the farther room opened noiselessly and a young woman in a light dress and white apron came out. "the nurse, miss macdonald," said lavery in a low tone. "mrs. carlin. how is he?" "about the same. dr. sayre will be in between eight and nine. he's very restless." as mary went toward the other room she added: "i'm afraid he won't know you." on a wide bed, high-topped with its impending weight of carving, dark as a catafalque, laurence lay tossing, his hands grasping at the coverlet, his head rolling on the pillow. his eyes were half-open and he was murmuring faint hurried words. sitting beside him, touching his burning hands and forehead, bending over him, mary could hear no word clearly, only an inarticulate murmur of distress. he did not notice her presence nor give any sign when she spoke to him, urgently called his name. his face was dully flushed, his black hair rumpled wildly, his eyes glassy under the half-shut lids. he tossed away from her, moaning heavily. a dark-greenish shade had been pinned over the gas-globe; in this light he looked ghastly. the nurse came in and stood at the foot of the bed. after a few moments mary got up and beckoned her to the window. "how long has he been like this?" "since i came this morning--only a little more restless toward night." "he looks terribly ill." "the doctor ought to be here very soon," said the nurse non-committally. mary turned away, stopped a moment at the bedside, then went back into the study. lavery was there, sunk in a deep leather chair, smoking. mary turned to close the connecting door and he got up, holding his cigar in his fingers. she walked up to him, her face deathly pale, and clutched his arm. "laurence is going to die!... i want to telegraph for my father!" "he isn't going to die!" cried lavery angrily. "i didn't think you'd lose your head like this, first thing, or i wouldn't have gone for you." but when he felt her hand shake, saw her whole body trembling, he softened somewhat. "look here, you're too scared. have you ever seen anybody very sick before?" "no ... no...." she muttered. "my mother ... but not like this.... he's so strong...." "well, he's sick, but we're going to pull him through.... now look here, are you going to help or not? when i went for you i said to myself, that woman's got good nerve, she'll be a help. but if you're going to be scared to death, first look at him--" "no--i'll be all right--just a minute--he's never been sick before...." "well, i know, but you're going to pull yourself together.... and you come downstairs and eat a bit with me before the doctor gets here. you haven't had dinner and neither have i.... i told them to have something. about telegraphing your father, we'd better wait till you can speak to sayre about it--that's etiquette and it won't hinder anything. i don't believe he could get a train in tonight, could he?" "eleven-thirty." "well, it would be too bad to keep him up all night, if not necessary. you wait and see sayre.... and now come down, you'll feel better when you've got some food." she followed him down into the small brightly-lit dining-room, sat opposite him at the table, took soup, wine and coffee. she was aware of a black figure moving round the table, bringing dishes in and taking them out.... then suddenly, with an almost audible click of the machinery, her mind began to work in its usual way. her vision cleared, she saw lavery opposite drinking coffee and re-lighting his cigar. she looked round the room--solid oak furniture, reddish carpet and curtains, silver on the sideboard and rows of bright-coloured wine-glasses, green and red, a fine damask cloth on the table.... a noise of wheels and hoofs in the street. lavery got up. as he went out one door, nora came in the other, and stopped short. in a quick glance, mary took in her whole appearance. xi the girl mary remembered had changed, more than the ten years accounted for. there was nothing left of her youth. her body was painfully thin, a mere wisp, and the tight-fitting black dress emphasized each sharp angle. there were great hollows in her face under the high cheek-bones and in her neck, round which she wore a white lace collar fastened by a large cameo brooch. earrings to match the brooch, too heavy for her face, brought out her dead pallor. her brown eyes were dimmed and slightly bloodshot from weeping. but her hair kept its vivid colour and luxuriance. seeing mary alone, she had stopped--stood there, looking sullen, biting her lips. they gazed at one another. mary was conscious of a remote astonishment that nora should look so angry.... voices sounded in the hall. "there's the doctor," said mary hurriedly, getting up. "nora, how long has--has he been ill exactly, do you know?" "since he came here thursday afternoon--he was sick then but he wouldn't let me send for a doctor--i wanted to--" her voice died away, again she had that sullen defensive look. "i know. it isn't your fault--i'm sure you did everything you could," mary said quickly in a neutral tone, and went out into the hall. she felt extremely uncomfortable in nora's presence, but there was no time to think about that now. * * * * * sayre was a young thickset man, with cool dark eyes, full of energy. after seeing the patient, he sat down in the study and talked with mary. finding her calm and alert, he explained the treatment he proposed to give, a new method--plenty of air and food, and cold baths. he cordially assented to calling dr. lowell, whom he had met professionally. he thought they would need another nurse, as the patient must be watched day and night. mary eagerly asked if she could not take the night-duty, but he shook his head; he preferred a trained person, and it would take two of them to handle the baths. but she could be on hand--when her husband was conscious he would want her there. he was curt and grave and used no soothing phrases. mary did not ask what he thought of the outcome; she could tell from his manner what he thought. he went away, saying that he would send for the night-nurse and would return himself about midnight. she might telegraph to dr. lowell if she wished. * * * * * lavery had gone back to finish his dinner. when he came up mary was in the sickroom. the nurse had to give some medicine; twice a restless movement of the patient had spilt it. mary slipped her arm under laurence's head and held him still while the medicine was given. she smoothed back his tumbled hair and laid her cool hand on his forehead. for a moment he was quieter; the low muttering ceased, his eyelids closed. she was on her knees by the bedside; and holding him so, close to her, suddenly she felt stabbed to the heart, she could not breathe for the pain.... then lavery came in. laurence began again that murmuring and tossed away from her. presently she got up and went out. she sank into one of the deep chairs in the study, leaned back and closed her eyes till she could control the nervous trembling that shook her. lavery, lighting one of his thick black cigars, came and sat down near her. he moved stiffly and a half-stifled groan escaped him. she looked at his face, pale and puffy with bluish shadows under the eyes. "you're tired out." "well, i'm tired--i was up last night a good deal," he admitted. "you must go home now and rest, there's nothing more to do here. the doctor's sending another nurse and he'll be in again himself.... you've been very good." "oh," he said brusquely, "i guess it will be all right." "well, it may be a long illness, you know--weeks. now--i want to ask you--" she frowned and gazed at him haughtily. "here we all are, you see--the two nurses and me, and there'll be special cooking, and--well, how will she manage? it's her house, i suppose. i don't see how we can all--" "nothing else to be done. she has a servant, i know, and you could hire another one if you want. but she'll want to do something herself, she,--oh, well, hang it, she's devoted to laurence." "i suppose so.... you know her, don't you, pretty well?" "oh, yes, i've been here a good deal. laurence has always had his rooms here ever since i've known him--it's quieter, you see, and--well, mary, i guess you knew about it, didn't you?" "i did, and i didn't," said mary clearly. "long ago i did." "well, yes--he never said much to me, only that it was an old--affair. of course i could see how it was--more a responsibility, to him, than--" "oh, i understand, you needn't worry, so far as i'm concerned," said mary, coldly. "i just want laurence to get well, and everybody will have to do the best they can. it's--well, i can't talk to her tonight, she's so upset, but i don't want her to feel that i've just walked in and taken possession--after all, it's her house. she looks so--afraid, and angry at me too--i can't help it, she ought to know i have to be here. but i don't want to make it harder for her than--oh, well, i'll have to talk to her. it doesn't matter very much anyway, what she feels or what i feel. it doesn't seem very important." "no, it doesn't," said lavery absently. they sat in silence for awhile. he pulled at his cigar, and brooded with half-shut eyes. mary lay back in the big chair, relaxed ... and a feeling of the unreality of all about her made it seem that some bridge between her and the world had dropped suddenly.... there was only a tremendous vacancy, stillness, emptiness, pressed upon her.... then into the void came a hoarse choking cry from the sick man. she started up. xii by next day the routine of life in these new circumstances was arranged. mary had a couch in the study, the two nurses having their rooms upstairs; she watched her chance to be useful in the sickroom. dr. lowell had come in, and concurred in the young doctor's diagnosis and proposed method of treatment. alone with mary, he said: "sayre is all right. now it's a question of care--and of course, if laurence has the vitality to pull through. i think he has. you can keep an eye on the nurses--the best will stand watching--careless, forget things--" "yes." "and you'll see there's plenty of good food--nourishing soups, eggs and milk, meat jellies--" "yes." then she said. "you know, for some years past laurence has been drinking pretty steadily--a good deal. do you think--?" dr. lowell shook his head. "doesn't make a bit of difference." "then you think he may--" "i don't know a thing about it, mary, that's the truth--and it generally is the truth. i think he has an even chance.... i suppose you have no idea where he may have picked this up? so far as i know, we haven't a case in town." "no--he's always moving about, you know--he was in springfield last week--" "yes. well, i'll come in, say tomorrow evening, and stay overnight. suit you? got to get my train now." he looked at her gravely, kissed her cheek, and departed. mary was used to that look from him. it was the only commentary he had ever made on the course of her married life; and she had made no confidences to him. now in this crisis, she knew what his perfectly cool unemotional manner meant: things were so serious that there was no use making a fuss. when the balance hung between life and death one had to be ready for either. no time for tears--a smile was a more natural thing--one could smile, long after tears were all wept away. she was conscious of a definite irritation against nora, because nora's eyes were perpetually reddened and she always seemed on the point of crying. even when discussing the preparation of soups, arranging for extra service, expenses, all the details of a household in state of siege, nora had difficulty in controlling herself. nerves! mary wondered if her father had seen nora, recognized her. she thought it probable, otherwise he would have asked how laurence came to be at this house. he had asked no questions. she recalled the violence with which nora had rejected her offer to get another servant. "we don't need anybody else, we can get along all right." then under her breath, "too many people here now!" that sullen muttering of words meant to be heard had been an old habit of nora's when her temper was roused. but this time she added hurriedly. "i'll do the cooking myself, i want to do it. you just tell me what you want and i'll get it--night or day, it's all the same to me." she had spoken with intensity, looking away from mary, her cheeks had flushed hotly. for a moment she looked like the passionate girl of long ago. not once had she addressed mary by name; she did not want to call her "mrs. carlin." mary without thinking had called her nora; she did not like that, perhaps.... mary shrugged her shoulders with an ironical smile. after her father had gone, she remained sitting in her chair in the study, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes fixed on the smouldering fire in the grate.... her thoughts moved fast, flashing back through the years, turning a vivid light into dark corners, throwing out like sparks a crowd of scenes and images, covering a lifetime almost.... she was looking at herself, her life and actions, for the first time, as though they belonged to some one else. it seemed that a process, now suddenly completed, had been going on for a long time--a process of breaking, one by one, innumerable tiny threads that bound her to the self which she no longer felt to be hers.... or rather, it was hers, that self, but it no longer represented her, contained her, it was not all of her. she could stand apart from it and criticize it without feeling. she looked back to the time when she had been all one self, completely contained in a firm shell: when she had been sure she was right, and all other persons, when they differed, wrong. she saw an unbending pride, pride that had outlasted even her self-righteousness--pride that held fast to the form long after the substance of feeling had gone.... never had she been able to admit that she was wrong, even after she had seen it clearly. was it the feeling of wrong that had caused her unhappiness--or was it only as unhappiness grew upon her that she had begun to feel wrong? was it because of this wrong that she had lost her religion--or was it that her religion was a false shell, and only after breaking through it had she been able to see such light as this? it seemed that all she had been, that self she had loved and taken pride in, had suffered a slow disintegration.... all that she could now feel as surely hers, was the aloof merciless intelligence that sat in judgment; and something else, that was suffering deeply, dumbly.... there was a dark chaos, into which she could hardly bear to look. instinct, emotion, long denied, suppressed, was struggling passionately there for expression. this dark depth of feeling was common to the self she had rejected and to what she now was--it spread far out beyond either, it was limitless. it was a flood of pain, swelling to overwhelm her ... it was terror and grief, common to all the world, from which till now she had walled herself apart.... only for a moment could she bear that.... she had to keep calm, keep her head clear--she was on guard. and she could do it, her nerve was good. if laurence should die--go out perhaps without a word to her--then the flood would break over her. but till then she could hold it back. * * * * * could a wrong done ever be atoned for? would recognition that she had done it, a sincere wish to atone for it, be of any use?... yes, to that self in which she no longer felt any interest. it would be good for herself to repent--but she did not care now about being good or right. she would like to make up for what she had done. and that was no doubt impossible. by her own actions she had helped to fix the form of nora's life, and of laurence's. in a real sense then atonement was impossible, repentance was useless. one's acts were irrevocable. all she could do was to recognize her responsibility and pay that part of the price that was assessed against her; perhaps this would be, to see that others had paid far more heavily than she. * * * * * how differently that old self of hers would have looked upon this situation. there would have been two sinners and one righteous person judging them. the same house would hardly have held nora and that other woman, who would have drawn aside her skirts lest she should touch pitch and be defiled.... she remembered hilary's attitude about sin, and her own condemnation of it ... and reflected vaguely that she had lost her hatred for sin along with her religion. now everything was mixed up together, she hardly knew black from white.... only she regretted--yes, bitterly regretted--long empty years.... her wrongs, and revenge, and hatred, clasped close and cherished, had eaten all the good out of life and she had starved.... xiii a week passed. she watched laurence's struggle, saw his strong body wasting away day by day, saw him weakening under the incessant fever. there had been no gleam of recognition for her; he was delirious or lay in a stupor. she tried to follow his wanderings in that strange borderland where the physical struggle was transmuted into fantasies reflecting his past life. broken phrases told her he was fighting old battles over again.... he was contesting a field of war, leading his men into action; he shouted hoarse words of command, then cried out--he was down but the men must go on, take that position on the ridge.... then he saw his brother fall, but he couldn't stop, must go on, on ... through the icy water, up that slope where the bullets sang.... a soldier's funeral. he beat time to the dead march and the last bugle-call.... or it was a courtroom scene. he was fighting hard for somebody's life, he pleaded passionately in low murmurs. the man hadn't meant to do wrong, gentlemen of the jury, he had meant well, only somehow things were against him and he had got into trouble.... your honour, before you pronounce sentence, i ask to be heard.... then he was in a storm, the snow blinded him, he was freezing, couldn't go on ... or in a desert, lost, crying for water. always the struggle of mind and body against odds, it seemed, a desperate losing battle.... mary would watch this, always calm, cool, alert for anything she could do to relieve or supplement the nurses. when she gave way it was after she had locked herself into a room alone, and then it was not an emotional breakdown but a drop into nothingness. she would lie with her eyes shut, feeling nothing, caring for nothing. somewhere there was a dumb sense of injury, of injustice--but even this seemed not to matter, since there was no one to complain to.... things were like this. as the days went by, all outside the sickroom became more shadowy to her. even jim coming in to see her, grown suddenly a man in this trouble, stalwart and serious; her father's visits, the young doctor, horace lavery, her daily consultations with nora--her mind, aloof and critical, received and registered all the detail of life, dealt with it, but it had the thin quality of shadow. the reality was there with laurence. sometimes he murmured her name, spoke to her; not recognizing her there beside him, but seeing her far in the past--tenderly. there seemed no harshness in his memory of her, no pain from those battles they had gone through or the long estrangement. his tone was appealing, it had a child-like pathetic demand. he wanted her to do something about this that was bothering him. * * * * * then came a day when the fever broke. instead of going up toward night it went down. the patient slept quietly a good deal of the night, and woke in the dawn, conscious. mary too had slept soundly that night for the first time; waking she saw the beaming face of the nurse. "you can go in, he's quite himself.... but don't let him talk, he's too weak." he lay there, too weak indeed even to put out his hand toward her, but his eyes welcomed her. how young those eyes looked, vividly blue in his wasted face! the outline of his face under the black beard was that of his youth and his body was slender as in youth. he smiled at her faintly. she knelt beside him and kissed him lightly with deep tenderness, and whispered that he mustn't try to talk, thank god he was better, but he must be very quiet and get back his strength, everything was all right. his eyes smiled at her, rested on her face with the old warmth of youthful love. he whispered her name. the nurse came in with some soup, and mary fed him like a child, with deep solicitude, with delight. his eyes closed, he must sleep again; but when she moved he stirred to keep her there. she nodded and drew a chair to the bedside and sat motionless long after he slept. * * * * * in the early afternoon, when laurence had waked and was again sleeping, with the fever still down, horace lavery insisted upon taking mary out for an airing. when she objected, he took her by the arm and led her to a mirror. "don't you think you need a change?" he enquired severely. she smiled at the pallid face in the glass, looking certainly ten years older in this fortnight, with deep lines in it, the hair carelessly pushed back. "you've got to keep up your strength, you know, and you haven't poked your nose outdoors since you came," horace stated. "it's a lovely day. i'll get a carriage." "well," agreed mary. "i feel like celebrating. but only an hour--laurence might wake and want me there." the whole atmosphere of the house was changed--a subdued rejoicing had filled it as the black shadow lifted. nora even for the first time smiled at mary coming downstairs in her long black cloak and bonnet. and mary smiled back radiantly and clasped nora's rather limp hand. nora, by way of celebrating too, perhaps, had put on a lavender silk dress, more striking than becoming in contrast to her red hair, now neatly arranged. she had a visitor, at whom mary just glanced in passing--a stout woman in black satin, with a large feathered bonnet and diamond earrings. mary of course would never have thought of wearing diamond earrings on the street. she possessed a very handsome pair--she and laurence always gave one another handsome presents on christmas--but she had hollow gold balls made to fit over the diamonds for the street or in travelling.... nora's visitor certainly looked vulgar ... and that dress nora was wearing was a terrible colour, though it was very rich silk. nora looked like a witch in it, with her thin face and carroty hair.... had nora also, perhaps, a pair of diamond earrings?... mary, with a high colour in her cheeks, swept haughtily out of the house. * * * * * the victoria drove slowly down the cobbled street, mary and lavery sitting side by side. with an effort she turned her attention toward her silent escort, and observed that he was attired in a frock-coat, light grey trousers and a silk hat. "you're all dressed up!" she said with faint gaiety. "yes--usher at a wedding at five o'clock--up to today i didn't think i could do it--but now i don't mind. why, today i'd hardly mind getting married myself!" his smoothly-shaven face showed signs of the days of stress which, after forty, man nor woman can encounter with impunity. there was a tremor of the muscles round his mouth as he said abruptly: "i don't know why i got tied up this way with you and laurence. awful mistake--and dead against my principles. why, it spoils life, that's what it does. and it ain't that i'm so fond of you two either--that is, i don't think i am." he smiled uncertainly. "old fool," he muttered. mary laid her hand on his arm. "don't do that, damn it," he said, drawing out a scented handkerchief. "can't you see i'm about to cry?" "well, do, then," said mary. "at my time of life a nervous strain like this is no joke," he retorted peevishly. "i tell you i'm going to cut your acquaintance. i can't afford it." "well, do." he scowled. "at forty-five a man has a right to think of himself--consider his little comforts and so on. he can't afford emotions, they're simply ruinous.... and i might have known you and laurence would let me in for them. you're that kind. i suspected it all along." it was a warm misty day of indian summer. the carriage turned into the drive on the shore of the lake. there trees were shedding softly their last golden leaves. the lake was a deep cloudy blue, lapping in ripples on the sand. "i think i'd like to walk a ways," said mary suddenly. "it seems years since i stepped foot on the ground." she left her wrap in the carriage, which followed them slowly as they strolled along the shore, and halted when they sat down after a time on a bench facing the water. they were silent, relaxed and weary, each immersed in a separate stream of thought; but conscious too of companionship. when lavery spoke finally it was as though he were thinking aloud. "i believe we are not meant to go through such emotional strain--i mean, human beings simply aren't constructed for it," he meditated. "i think we've gone off on a tangent, a wrong turning. we've overdeveloped our emotions, and nature penalizes us every time for it. when you consider it, the physical world being what it is, really hostile to us, so that we have to be always on guard, and with all our care we're liable to an accident any minute--why, it's not reasonable for us to care so much for life or death--our own or other people's. is it now? we put a wrong emphasis there, i'm sure." mary remained silent, and he went on: "of course, you may say that what we think is our highest development is all, in a way, against nature.... nature works for the mass, for the average, she wants quantity, not quality--she's inclined, when she sees a head rising above the mass to hit it.... what does nature do for the finer, more sensitive human beings? she knocks them, every chance she gets. suppose we develop altruistic feelings, a disinterested love for some other human being, we get hit through it, every time. no, ma'am, it doesn't pay! this world is constructed for people with tough shells--all others pass at their own risk.... and i think maybe we'd do better by the world, and other people, and ourselves, if we recognized that--if we had a real philosophy of toughness, instead of what we've mistakenly developed.... the philosophy of tenderness is the fashion, of course--people profess it, are actually ashamed not to--and a few practise it. but what good is it? it doesn't fit the facts, that's all, doesn't work. since we're flung out defenceless into a world that doesn't care a hang about us as individuals, we ought to grow a tough shell as quick as we can, and stay in it if we want to survive. the only philosophical solution is not to have personal feelings.... you must either not admit them at all, but live like a crab in your shell--or else you must transcend them. mystics say this can be done--i've never tried it myself. they say you can merge your own individuality in the mass, so that you are simply a part of what is going on, and don't feel personal loss or pain much.... what say about that?" he turned to mary, and saw that she had not been listening. she was staring at the blue shimmering water--and suddenly she flushed deeply, painfully, and looked distressed. "what's the matter?" asked lavery sharply. "what's bothering you now?" "it's about nora--" "nora? what about her?" "well, i just thought that i might have asked her to go up and see laurence for a minute, now he's better.... she hasn't been near the room since i came.... and i took it that way, as if she had no business there...." lavery looked sideways at her, discomfited. "well, you couldn't have too many people running in--he isn't fit for it," he muttered. "no, but i do feel badly about her.... you see, it goes back years. she was in our house, took care of the boys when they were little. she really loved them--and i guess she'd always been fond of laurence, she knew him before i did. but i didn't notice it until ... well, i discovered it suddenly and ... she was turned out of the house practically.... i didn't concern myself about how she lived after that...." "so that was the trouble," said lavery, looking curiously at her. "i never knew that--i mean, that she was concerned in it.... and you were awfully angry?" mary frowned. "i don't know what i was.... it did something to me--i never got over it--couldn't." "i suppose you were very much in love with laurence then." "i don't know whether i was or not, that wasn't the way i thought about it.... i didn't think about it much anyway--i never liked thinking about my feelings ... or talking about them." "you don't mind talking a little this way, do you?" "no, not now--it seems so long ago, and then--i'm hardly the same person i was then." "and so you turned her out.... but you didn't want to leave laurence?" mary was silent for some moments. "perhaps i did, perhaps not.... i didn't leave him, in one way, and in another i did. it couldn't be the same." "oh, no ... but still in the course of time you might have forgiven him." "it wasn't that.... i don't believe there's such a thing as forgiveness. we forget, that's all." "and you didn't forget.... i wonder if you loved laurence." "i don't know. he always said i didn't.... but he's had his life anyway." "no doubt. and you've had yours." mary shrugged her shoulders. "oh, yes." he waited, watching her curiously, and after a moment she broke out: "i know this--the only times i've ever felt afraid--real fear--it was on account of laurence--when he was in danger." "you didn't exactly want him, then, but you didn't want to lose him either?... you wanted him in some way." "oh ... that's enough about that.... but i was talking about nora. i can see she thinks she'll be thrown out again. any how she just hates me." "well, naturally." "but i tell you, i'm sorry for what i did. i'd like her to know it. but i can't say anything to her. it seems, everything i could say would sound--patronizing, or forgiving, or--wrong, anyway." "of course. you're in possession, you see. she knows it, and that she hasn't got any real hold. you can't get around that. i don't see what you can do about it." "but, you see, she really gave up her life--first to my children, and then.... she would have married and had children of her own." "no doubt. she might yet. but not while laurence is around. it's a real passion on her side." "well--that's my doing. i mean, that it lasted as long as it did. it was because i acted the way i did that he didn't break with her then." "he'd have been glad to, many times since, i guess. she is as jealous as the devil, and makes scenes about any shadow of a woman. naturally--she knows she hasn't got much of a hold on him, only he feels responsible.... i don't really see, mary, why you should have made such a fuss about her.... it isn't as if he'd ever been in love with her.... why couldn't you let him have his humble handmaiden ... or at any rate, not upset the whole apple-cart on account of it?" "oh, i know, you have no morality--hardly any man has. anyhow it has nothing to do with that.... i want to know what to do now." "well, i don't see what you can do." they had spoken in calm neutral tones and now were silent again. lavery watched mary; her face was intent, slightly frowning, baffled. he reflected that she had a concrete sort of mind, abstract questions, problems of character or conduct, did not interest her, she wanted to "do something." and really now, what could she do about this situation? "you see," he said slowly, "things are changed now. your being there--right there in the house--don't you see? i think, when he gets well, laurence will want to break away for good and all from there. of course she'd be looked after, materially, that's only right. and she'd probably have a chance to settle in life, it would be better, in the long run, for her.... i'm sort of taking it for granted," he added gravely, "that you want laurence back." mary's face was an expressionless mask; lowered eyelids hid her eyes. "i guess you want him back, and you don't want any other woman round. i sort of think you're human, after all." "i'm afraid to say," she murmured. "what? how?" "i'm afraid.... it seems, i mustn't want anything now, i mustn't count on anything.... i must try to do right, to make up what i can, in any case, whether laurence--" suddenly she turned and cowered against lavery, hiding her face on his shoulder, clutching his arm. "i'm afraid--i'm afraid!" he sat silent and nodded his head slightly, looking blank, then became cheerful, expostulated: "oh, i know we're not out of the woods yet--but, i say, you're not going to pieces, are you, the first good day we've had, and me with a wedding on my hands?... i say, this is unreasonable.... poor girl, you're tired out, i know ... but what d'ye suppose the coachman thinks?" "as if i cared!" but she sat up and straightened her bonnet. "we'd better go back now." the sun was almost too warm on their bench.... and the water ... what a blue, soft and cloudy, a heavenly colour.... the softness and warmth of summer shed for a day over bare boughs and falling leaves.... xiv they drove back rapidly. in the hall, mary found nora waiting for her. nora, with flashing eyes and bright red spots on her cheek-bones, came up to her and said: "there's a woman in there.... she wouldn't go away!" "where? a woman? what woman?" "in the parlour. i don't know who she is.... she wants to see him." "wants to see ...?" "i told her she couldn't, but she wouldn't go away. you better tell her!" lavery had come in and gone on upstairs. with a severe look at nora, mary opened the parlour door and went in. a woman who had been standing at the window turned to meet her. a woman, tall as herself, young and slender--dressed in plain black but richly dressed. a faint perfume was shaken out as she moved, from her silken clothes. "mrs. carlin?... i've been waiting.... i wanted to know just how he is.... i'm a friend, i've been very anxious." a hat with a drooping lace veil partly hid her face. she was striking, if not beautiful--a long narrow face, with intense dark eyes under straight brows, thick hair of a dark auburn colour. her look was as direct and wilful as her words. "he is better today--conscious for the first time, but very weak," said mary evenly, with her stateliest manner. "could i see him?... oh, i don't mean to speak to him, i know that wouldn't do.... but just to look at him for a minute?" the request was uttered politely enough, but like a command. "no. if he saw you it would disturb him perhaps. i can't risk it," said mary calmly. "you needn't. if he's awake i won't ask it. but if he isn't, it won't hurt him if i just stand at the door for a minute.... that's all i want, and i won't come again.... won't you see? please!" the woman was breathing quickly, her voice was agitated, and those dark eyes burned.... well, she was straightforward enough, anyway, no excuses, no beating about the bush. here was a woman who would know what she wanted and wouldn't have any weak scruples about getting it.... refuse her?... well, after all, why? perhaps she too had a right to be there.... "come up with me.... i'll see how he is.... but you won't...." "oh, he shan't know i'm here, depend on me." mary led the way out into the hall and up the stairs. she saw nora standing at the back of the hall, her face convulsed with anger.... at the head of the stairs was lavery. "still sleeping--that's fine," he whispered. then as he saw the woman behind mary on the stairs, utter amazement showed in his face. he stepped back, bowed, and she acknowledged his recognition by a slight bend of her head. "come in this way," said mary. the visitor followed her into the study, and then, when mary beckoned to her, to the door of the sickroom. she moved slowly, shrinkingly; clasping her hands over her breast, fixing her dark eyes on laurence's face, just dimly visible. a look of terror came into those eyes, her lips parted, but without a sound.... in a few moments she moved noiselessly back. hastily she dropped the veil over her face, turned to mary, said in a choked voice, "thank you," bowed as she passed.... in a moment she was down the stairs and out of the house. * * * * * then the doctor came and went, much encouraged. and then mary went down to her solitary supper. nora came in to wait upon her, still incongruously attired in the lavender gown, but pale and lowering. "nora, have you been in to see laurence?" asked mary gently. nora shook her head sharply. "you'd like to see him tomorrow, wouldn't you, if he keeps as well as today?" "he hasn't asked to see me, i guess," said nora coldly. "no, he hasn't asked for anybody, he's too weak to talk. but i'm sure he'd like to see you," mary said, still studiously kind. "when he asks for me, i'll go," nora flashed out. her whole face was ablaze, her eyes flamed. "and you shouldn't have let that woman up there--she's always after him, she writes to him, there's packs of letters from her--" "how do you know?" "oh, i didn't open the letters ... but i know!... what right has she to come here and want to see him?" "well, i don't know.... she seemed very fond of him," said mary calmly. nora rushed out of the room. * * * * * and then mary repented her malice. that poor thing, it was a shame to torment her.... and how foolish to have made a fuss, as lavery said, about nora.... that other woman, that was the dangerous one, nora was harmless, poor creature.... and heaven knows how many more there are.... yes, laurence had had his life.... sometime perhaps she too would be angry about this, but not now.... now she would prefer to be kind, even to nora. but perhaps nora's instinct was right, and lavery's. it might be useless for her to try to approach nora, or to try to be reasonable. it might only make things worse. nora was willing to do her best practically--that was all that could be asked of her. her personal feelings were her own affair. but mary was obstinate. that feeling of deep injury, of bitterness, of hate perhaps which she had seen in nora toward herself--how could she consent to have that remain, if there was anything she could do to soften it? she was willing to do anything possible, willing to admit that she had been unjust. her pride, from the moment she felt herself in the wrong, was on the side of admitting it, practically forced her to do it.... but why was it that she seemed to say or do just the wrong thing, why was it so hard for her to approach people, even when she wished them well--what stupidity in her made her offend? was it deeper than that? was it after all that she perhaps _didn't_ feel kindly to nora, _didn't_ wish her well?... this incident tonight seemed to show it. she had had a chance to annoy nora and she had done it.... was she still bound then by the limitations of that old self, which she saw so clearly? were one's faults and weaknesses inherent, not to be got rid of, even if one condemned them? apparently.... no, one thing was different, her will. she willed to be different from what she had been--she would force that old self of hers to be different, at least to act in another way. and nora should feel it too. * * * * * "nora!" she called clearly. she waited a few minutes, then got up to go in search. but nora came in through the pantry-door and shut it behind her; leaning against it she looked at mary with defiant eyes. "don't look at me like that. i'm not going to do anything against you. do you think i want to hurt you? don't you see?" "it's no matter whether you do or not," nora said in a hard tone. "i want to tell you that i think i was wrong--long ago. i wasn't fair to you. i--" "it's no matter now," nora broke in again. "yes, it is. i want to say--" "i don't want you to say anything!... i guess you were fair enough, you treated me all right. anybody would have...." she stopped and her lowering gaze shifted. "well, i just want to say that i feel i owe you a good deal. i realized it afterwards. the children.... i knew you'd really loved them--" nora shrank at that and bit her lip. "it's no use talking, i don't want to talk about it," she cried. "i've been a bad woman, and that's all there is to it." "no! i never thought you were bad--not even then. i don't think i blamed _you_." "oh, i guess i was to blame," muttered nora, "i knew it, all right." "i want you to know that i don't blame you and that i don't think you're bad." "i don't see that that's got anything to do with it. i guess i know if i'm bad or not.... i know that i can't go to confession, and i believe i'll go to hell ... and i don't care much if i do.... and i know what happened on account of me too." now it was mary who changed colour, lost her composure. "that--my fault more than yours--" she stammered. and nora grew more composed. there was even a strange air of dignity about her as she said after a moment: "i don't want you to think about what's past, mrs. carlin. it won't do any good. i've done what i knew was wicked and--i don't know if i'm sorry or not. so you see i don't want you to forgive me, even if you wanted to. i don't ask anybody's forgiveness, because what difference would it make? it wouldn't change anything." abruptly she retreated into the pantry and closed the door. mary, with shaking hands, poured herself a cup of strong coffee and drank it black. well, that was over. and nora was right, it was no use talking and nothing she could do would make any difference. she went slowly upstairs, thinking that she felt more respect and liking for nora than ever before--felt it now perhaps for the first time. but it would be impossible to make nora feel that--if she tried she would strike the wrong note somehow, she was made like that--clumsy--yes, and worse than that, with impulses to hurt, that came so suddenly she couldn't resist. she shrugged her shoulders. best to drop it all. she had other things to think about anyway.... * * * * * laurence was lying quiet, his eyes open. she sat down beside him and took his hand. the light was dimmed, but she could see the glimmer of a smile on his face. his fingers closed round hers with a faint pressure. his eyes met hers, with a strange look, as if from a great distance. "you feel a little better, don't you?" she said bending down. "yes," he answered, faintly. "don't make him talk," warned the nurse, "tomorrow will be time enough." "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow," said laurence's faint far-away voice. "lighting fools the way to dusty death." "hush, you mustn't talk!" gasped mary. again came that glimmer, like the reflection of a smile, on his face. and all the while that strange look in his eyes. she clasped his inert hand, thin and shrunken. how these weeks of illness had wasted his strong body, withered him to a shadow. man's flesh is grass--it is cut down and cast into the oven.... man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. he cometh up as a flower.... but laurence was better, surely better, they all said so.... hardly any fever.... but his strength was gone--eaten up by that burning fire.... was he drifting away, calm, without pain, like this, had he gone too far to come back? surely he was far away, that was what his look meant.... untroubled ... indifferent ... he didn't care, it seemed. he wasn't interested. just looking on, a mere spectator, no emotion, perhaps a slight amusement.... his eyes closed, he was breathing evenly and quietly. strange to see him like this, his restless and passionate spirit stilled, so drawn away, so detached; it was not mere physical weakness, it was as though he were ceasing to be identified with this weakened body, deliberately withdrawing from it. _this_ was not laurence.... it was laurence who had looked at her in that first return to consciousness, with eyes of love ... and then with that remote and passionless look, as though he had already said good-bye.... the wasted years.... years that she had wasted ... when he had lived his life, near her but apart, when she had held him away--for what?... he had loved life, had been so intensely living. now it seemed he didn't care. he would make no effort to live--he was tired. they might try all they could to keep him. he would slip away, perhaps, through their fingers, with that glimmer of a smile at them.... she would be punished. it was just. she had no reason to feel injured, to complain. as she had sowed, she would reap.... a mortal chill was at her heart. * * * * * that night she could not sleep. the strong coffee she had taken keyed her up; her heart beat nervously, a stream of restless thoughts rushed through her brain. at intervals she would get up and look into the sickroom. the night-nurse would be moving about, or sitting in the large chair at the foot of the bed; all seemed quiet. toward morning mary fell into a doze; troubled, uneasy, with the feeling that some one was calling her, she must rouse herself. she woke suddenly in the dawn, and heard a low moaning in the next room. she sprang up and went in. the nurse said: "i was just going to call you. i have to go down and get some ice. there's a little more fever. will you see he doesn't get uncovered? keep the blankets that way over his chest." there was a dull flush again on his face, his hands were moving restlessly, and he kept up that low moan of distress. mary kept the blankets over him, careful not to touch him, for her hands were icy cold. the nurse came back with the cracked ice and filled a rubber bag which she bound on his head. "when did you notice this change?" "about an hour ago he began to get restless." "i'd better call dr. sayre." "not before seven o'clock, it wouldn't be any use. they won't wake him unless it's absolutely necessary. and this may not be anything serious--there's often a slight relapse. don't worry, mrs. carlin. yesterday was too good to last, that's all. we must expect ups and downs." "but he's so weak...." "oh, i've seen them pull through, lots weaker than he is--he's got a good strong physique.... now don't stand around, it's too cold. you better go and get dressed, if you want to be up." with a shivering look at laurence's dark face and half-open eyes, she went, dressed herself quickly, shook her long hair out of its braid and twisted it up roughly. she put on her bonnet and cloak. then she started downstairs, careful to make no noise. she intended to get the doctor. the gas-light in the hall was burning, turned down to a point of light. as she fumbled with the chain on the door, nora came into the hall, wrapped in a pink dressing-gown, her hair flowing thick over her shoulders. "what is it? i heard the nurse come down. where are you going?" "to get the doctor. laurence is worse." "don't you go, this time of night--i'll go!" "no," said mary, slipping the chain. "wait, i'll go with you--" "no, i can't wait." "is he--very bad?" a sob. "i don't know--the fever's up again." she opened the door. but nora suddenly clutched her arm. "don't you give up! mrs. carlin, don't look like that, don't give him up! surely he can't be taken, god wouldn't take him away--" "he's too weak ... he hasn't got strength to--" "don't say that, how do you know? did you pray for him? i did--he got better--" "let me go! i must go, nora!" "pray for him! pray for him!" mary wrenched her arm away and swung the door wide. then suddenly she bent and kissed nora's cheek, wet with tears. then she was out in the dim grey dawn, hurrying along the empty street. a cold wind was blowing now from the lake, the air was thick with fog. pray? was it prayer--this voiceless cry of anguish from her heart toward the unknown? she could cry, o god, don't take him from me, her lips uttered the words as she ran. but who would hear?... far, far beyond reach or understanding, the force that moved this world of beauty and terror, that made these poor human beings going their ways in darkness, sinning and suffering they knew not why. cold ... harsh ... bleak was human fate, like this dim steely light, this cutting wind, this stony street....